Aaron Swartz "The Internet's Boy"

One of my good friends asked me to watch this movie called The Internet’s Boy. It was about the story of computer prodigy, Aaron Swartz. The movie took a look into Aaron's childhood and how he fell in love with computers. By his early teens, Aaron had mastered being a computer programmer. As an unknown teenager, he was the co-designer of tools like RSS and Markdown and of services like Reddit that shaped the evolution of the web. He was also the kid who wrote most of the code underpinning Creative Commons, an inspired system that uses copyright law to give ordinary people control over how digital creations can be used by others.

If you watch the Aaron Swartz in the 26 years, he was on this planet, you could see that toward the end of his life he became more and more interested in politics. Aaron was able to see capitalism for what it was. It was a system that made sure a small amount of people were wealthy and the rest of the world just had enough to survive.

Excerpt from Guardian.com Op Ed by John Naughton "Aaron Swartz stood up for freedom - and fairness - and was hounded to his death" 

“Aaron became most technological-gifted political activist in history. He was similarly exercised at the fruits of taypayer-funded scientific research being monetised by a few ruthless publishing firms which charge outrageous fees to access the resulting academic papers. His first foray into this field involved downloading a trove of medical research papers and then data-mining them to uncover hitherto-undetected links between pharmaceutical firms and the authors of articles in prestigious journals.

His downfall came when he turned his attention to JSTOR, a digital library of academic articles hidden behind a paywall. He devised a method of downloading large numbers of articles from JSTOR, using a computer hidden in a closet at MIT. He was arrested in January 2011 and pursued by federal prosecutors with a vindictive zeal, eventually being indicted on a raft of charges which carried a potential jail sentence of 35 years. Ground down by this, he hanged himself on 11 January 2013. News of his death left countless people saddened and enraged. What had made the Feds so vindictive? Sure, he had broken the law. But it wasn’t as if he’d hacked a bank. What came to mind was Alexander Pope’s rhetorical question: Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?. “The act was harmless” wrote Tim Wu, a law professor at Columbia. “There was no actual physical harm, nor actual economic harm. The leak was found and plugged; JSTOR suffered no actual economic loss. It did not press charges. Like a pie in the face, Swartz’s act was annoying to its victim but of no lasting consequence.”

One explanation for the vindictive prosecution puts it down to a politically ambitious federal attorney anxious to make a name for himself. But there is a darker, interpretation – that the authorities had noted how effective Swartz had become as an activist (he had, after all, mobilised the net community to stop the internet censorship legislation of theSOPA bill), and they were determined to make an example of him pour décourager les autres. Which, if true, would mean the Obama administration has taken a leaf out of theChinese book on internet control: people can say more or less what they like online; but the moment they look like mobilising people, then you come down on them like the ton of bricks that crushed Aaron Swartz.”

We all have dreams and aspirations, growing up I knew I wanted to become something big. My family wasn't poor but we were not rich either, so I always wanted to make it big to be able to take care of my  loved ones. When I was younger I said I wanted to abolish poverty. What I should have said is that I wanted to abolish extreme wealth. To me Aaron Swartz was the Internet’s Robin Hood, and the government killed him like they killed Dr. King and all the other great revolutionaries that existed. It's rare to see an individual that can't be controlled by money, fear or hate. It's rare to meet a person that wants to use their gifts to change the world because they know the world could be better. I am Aaron Swartz because I want to use my power to end poverty, help people empower themselves with knowledge and love. I want everybody to have access to the things they need to live a beautiful life. The people that control this world don't believe that they should share the wealth they stole from people. You have to understand that for the paradox to change we either have to do two things. We can start World War 3 and fight the states, fight every government they exist until we get what we won't. We would have to do the same thing the Lincoln did in the Civil War.

Or we can start loving ourselves, we can start taking accountability over our lives. We can treat every living person with love respect, and remember that we are all family. When I say all, I mean 7 billion human beings are family. If we started treating one another like that the world would automatically get better. We are the problem, we have been taught to hate and fear each other so we would never all connect. How else do you control 7 billion people? It's not money, it's not resources, it's lack of love and the will to fight for what you believe in. Some people think that they will be saved one day, that God will be waiting for them at a gate to let them in heaven. The irony about this part is think about like this, from the time you are born to the time you die, are you telling me that you only did good so that one day you could go to heaven? Or are you just doing good because your scared to go to hell? While we wait for paradise or an eternity in hell, look what's happening in the world. Depending on your perception and reality you might live in hell now. Look at how we treat one another, look at all the wars and pain that we are putting on each other. If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything. If we want this world to get better, then we are going to have to make major changes. Be honest, if you like the way the world is, you like that only one percent of the world controls the world’s wealth. You like that based on your skin color you can be killed by the police. Do you like that people are starving, don't have clean water? You like that schools prepare young kids to be slaves. You like that the food we are eating is killing us?

To me, it seems like we all excepted being inferior, seems like we all forgot that love is the only thing that can save us. We should all be willing to give our lives for a better world. You really think we were created to work and be controlled by people that don't recognize our greatness and do everything in their power to make sure things like slavery and oppression never go out of style. What happened to Aaron Swartz has been happening to people of color for 500 years. You have to understand something, the people that have extreme wealth don't care about us, we are just an energy source that they use for work and to decrease debt while they get richer by each passing day. Together we could change this world into the paradise I know it should be. It starts with what you do after you read this. I love you Aaron Swartz, thank you for giving your life for the greater good. I promise you didn't die in vain. I'm going to take off where you left off and my spirit won't rest to I wake up in Heaven and when that day happens I won't be dead.