this post was submitted on 11 May 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] riodoro1@lemmy.world 400 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (5 children)

donald trump gets 10 warnings for intimidating witnesses and indefinite trial postponement for hoarding and most likely leaking classified documents. Sweet sweet justice.

[–] octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 206 points 6 months ago (10 children)

People keep trying to convince me it's not evidence of two justice systems.

 

But it is.

[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 130 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

It's evidence that we live in corporatocracies masquerading as "democracies". The 0.1%, shielded by the liability protections of the corporations they own, and their armies of lobbyists — they finance our politics, choose who ends up on the ballot, and shadow write most of our legislation, policies, and regulations.

Trump is free because he is a part of that < 0.1%.

The Boeing execs who oversaw systemic fraud, lied to the FAA, and murdered 166 people still ARE FREE AND RICH. Why? Because they are the 0.1%.

The IPCC hosts fossil fuelled climate summits in fossil fuel exporting countries, inviting fossil fuel corporations and lobbyists to attend — at a scientific conference about how to solve the crisis they created and profited from! why? Because we live in corporatocracies.

[–] seaQueue@lemmy.world 49 points 6 months ago

The US is a kleptocracy, we're ruled by the people who have looted the public

[–] TotalFat@lemmy.world 27 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If any country's government spied on its own people as much as big business does in America, people would flip out. But in America, big business really is the government.

We are so fucked..

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[–] fossphi@lemm.ee 35 points 6 months ago (10 children)

I think this is a consequence of any (unregulated) capitalistic system in general. The system is founded on money, more money will give anyone more influence and power over the system

[–] seaQueue@lemmy.world 26 points 6 months ago

It's a consequence of our "growth at all costs" take on capitalism. Capitalism is only livable for the average person when it's kept in check by a strong government and corruption is vigorously prosecuted. We've decided that corruption just happens and there's nothing we can do about it, and so there are no disincentives to corrupting government.

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[–] deweydecibel@lemmy.world 29 points 6 months ago (2 children)

For the record, Aaron Swartz never actually went to trial, nor was he "sentenced" to anything.

Federal prosecutors came after him with overzealous charges in an effort to make him accept a plea deal (they do that a lot), which he rejected. It would have gone to court where the feds would have had to justify the charges they were bringing.

But that never happened because he killed himself.

We don't actually know how this all would have played out.

[–] riodoro1@lemmy.world 31 points 6 months ago

The comment in OPs post is misleading but he did nevertheless kill himself because of the justice system trying to prosecute him for accessing science most likely funded by public money in the first place.

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[–] grandma@sh.itjust.works 283 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Articles paid for by the public through grants btw

[–] Allero@lemmy.today 51 points 6 months ago (2 children)

With authors often paying for open access publications literally out of their very own money, not just grants.

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[–] deweydecibel@lemmy.world 223 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (4 children)

Look, the kid was a hero, but this is also patently false.

He was not sentenced to 35 years. The trial hadn't started. 35 years was the maximum possible sentence. He was given a plea deal for 6 months that he rejected.

We don't need to spin lies to make his story more tragic than it already is.

[–] GluWu@lemm.ee 169 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (24 children)

35 years max, plea for 1/2 that was rejected. He was going to get the book thrown at him to make an example. 5 years minimum but I wouldn't doubt 10-20.

The rapist traitor that headed a insurrection on Jan 6 2021 has never spent a day in jail and is still the frontrunner for president to be legally elected in 2024.

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[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 59 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

He committed the idealist's perennial sin: He thought that because the system is bullshit, it's okay not to play ball with it.

"Hey this is a bunch of crap. I can be guilty or innocent, and the right move is always to plead guilty even if I didn't do a damn thing wrong, because if I try to fight the case they're gonna tack on a ton of new charges and they almost always win and I might go away for most of my life."

"Preach."

"I'm gonna plead not guilty because I didn't do anything wrong."

"No no no no no that is not the way to reform the system no no no that is a bad mistake"

Aaron Swartz was a fuckin hero. Read his posthumous book, it is wonderful. But the same idealism and faith that led him to the good things he did in his painfully short time here, also led him not to understand how to engage with the US federal government and keep your skin.

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[–] Tb0n3@sh.itjust.works 17 points 6 months ago (1 children)

For bulk downloading science journals he had access to.

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[–] Bruhh@lemmy.world 162 points 6 months ago (2 children)

If I remember correctly, it wasn't even illegal since these scientific articles should have been public to begin with because they used public funds.

[–] SparrowRanjitScaur@lemmy.world 78 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

That may be so, but IIRC he was charged with breaking into MIT's networking room and illegally tapping into their network to get the articles:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2261840/Aaron-Swartz-MIT-surveillance-shot-ruined-tragic-Reddit-founders-life.html

[–] RGB3x3@lemmy.world 28 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Well that's definitely burying the lede from the OP.

It wasn't the sharing part they had a problem with, it was the B&E and hacking.

[–] refalo@programming.dev 63 points 6 months ago (1 children)

still... 35 years? obviously there is more missing information.

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[–] Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.de 33 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

It's not that clear cut and I would recommend listening to the Behind The Bastards episode about him:

Behind the Bastards: Part One: Christmas Hero Episode: Aaron Swartz

https://omny.fm/shows/behind-the-bastards/part-one-christmas-hero-episode-aaron-swartz

[–] Dkarma@lemmy.world 23 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

Most of these guys they just offer jobs to. This was needless. No wonder China is kicking our ass on the cyber front

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[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 19 points 6 months ago

That's still a hell of a sentence for a B&E

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[–] K0W4LSK1@lemmy.dbzer0.com 27 points 6 months ago (5 children)

That also may be so, but 35 years is fucked up for that. pretty sure child porn first time offenders is like 15 to 30 so hacking MIT for stuff that should have been free gets you more jail time then a first CP offence. OK thats fucked up

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[–] Omniraptor@lemm.ee 158 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Shout out to Alexandra elbakyan. She continues part of aaron's work by running sci-hub and libgen, but lives safely out of reach of the american criminal "justice" system 💔

[–] Hubi@lemmy.world 117 points 6 months ago (7 children)

He didn't even share them as far as I know, he just downloaded them. And the trial hadn't started yet when he committed suicide.

[–] deweydecibel@lemmy.world 29 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

He didn't get the chance to share them because he was caught downloading them, and his download requests were getting blocked.

And to be clear, he wasn't downloading from the Internet as one might download a car, he went into a restricted networking closet and connected directly to the switch, leaving a computer sitting there sending access requests. He had to keep going back to it to check on the progress, which is when they caught him.

And the trial hadn't started yet when he committed suicide.

Yeah, I agree with the sentiment of the post, but this is just wildly misleading. He was not sentenced to anything, he committed suicide before the trial.

He was given a plea deal for 6 months that he rejected, in an effort to make the feds justify the ludicrous charges they were pressing. Had it gone to trial, he certainly wouldn't have been found not guilty, but it's unlikely many of those charges would have stuck. It's extremely unlikely he would actually have served 35 years.

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[–] LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 108 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Oil CEOs pay fines for bringing about a global climate catastrophe. Fascist politicians are given slaps on the wrist for an attempted coup d'etat. Government officials openly commit gross violations of privacy and suffer no consequences.

But a guy hacks a university network and downloads a hoard of scientific articles that should have been freely accessible to begin with and he gets 35 years in prison. I'll admit I wasn't familiar with this case before I saw this picture. Which is kind of insane in and of itself.

[–] lemmeee@sh.itjust.works 33 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Remember Kim Dotcom? He had a file sharing website and the police raided his house with guns like he was a dangerous criminal. There is a video of it on YouTube.

[–] PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 20 points 6 months ago

Honestly I had forgotten about the whole MegaUpload stuff.

Given, Kim Dotcom had a long history of being a trash person before the MegaUpload raid; Trading in stolen credit card info, embezzlement, black-hat hacking, etc… But he definitely didn’t deserve to get swatted just because he hosted a site that was popular with media pirates. The police used his prior convictions as justification for their heavy-handed tactics. But the reality is that they likely would have gone in with SWAT even if he had a squeaky clean record beforehand.

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[–] charonn0@startrek.website 99 points 6 months ago (2 children)

That's not exactly what happened.

Aaron committed suicide before his case went to trial, and so he was never convicted let alone sentenced. 35 years was never even likely; had it gone to trial there's every reason to think he'd have been acquitted outright, or at worst given a slap on the wrist. Not that he should have even been charged, of course.

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 37 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Well now I’ve got two competing claims, and I can’t believe either one until I see the authoritative history on it

[–] thisisnotgoingwell@programming.dev 54 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

There's a documentary on YouTube called "The internet's own boy", if you want to learn more. Basically, he was offered a 6 month plea, but he would be a convicted felon, and basic logic/morality tells you that you shouldn't plead guilty to a crime that you didn't commit. However, the justice system is very imperfect, and often people plead guilty for reduced sentencing even if they're not guilty. He stood on principle until his legs gave out. they were already in millions spent in attorney fees. Not a shred of justice can be found in how Aaron's story ended.

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[–] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 74 points 6 months ago (9 children)

i would say jstor are cunts, but actually it's the US government that were being cunts here.

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[–] muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee 61 points 6 months ago (2 children)

He didn't transfer or share he only downloaded.

[–] Evrala@lemmy.world 17 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It's also likely that he was never intending to share them. One of the things he was looking to do is aquire a large dataset to analyze trends.

In other words, he was charged for entirely legit use.

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[–] fossphi@lemm.ee 52 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I highly recommend watching the documentary on him, Internet's own boy.

[–] Sagittarii@lemm.ee 47 points 6 months ago (4 children)

Reddit could've been so good with him at the helm...

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[–] PanArab@lemm.ee 32 points 6 months ago (2 children)

The most infuriating thing was and still is the fact that some people justify the sentence and blame him for killing himself.

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[–] Kalysta@lemm.ee 30 points 6 months ago

He’s probably rolling in his grave at the enshittification of reddit now too

[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 29 points 6 months ago

Judicially murdered by Carmen Ortiz.

[–] umbraroze@lemmy.world 21 points 6 months ago

The weirdest shit about this is that JSTOR apparently has a very expansive social media presence.

They have an official Tumblr account.

I had to follow it out of morbid curiosity.

[–] Legend@lemmy.sdf.org 16 points 6 months ago

They got the wrong reddit founder .

(not that I wish that on spez even tho he is bad I don't think he is that bad )

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