The first time I knew Aaron Swartz was when I brushed Zhihu one day, a question about genius. For us, people like Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci are considered incomparable geniuses, because their achievements and brains are so much beyond ours that they can only bow down and bow their knees. Rarely do we worship the geniuses who silently change the world and the way we live, because we don't know who they are, or even need to know. Just lay in bed and enjoy their makeover.
Aaron Swartz was a genius, but what he did in the beginning was just programming that thousands of programmers do. He helped build RSS and CC, founded Reddit, and became a millionaire at a young age. But he wasn't satisfied with that.
Aaron Swartz is an idealist. Very pure, he has a strong sense of morality, and believes that all human intellectual heritage should be shared free of charge. It was a great ideal and the beginning of his tragic end.
He entered MIT and used the most direct physical contact method to download a large number of academic journal articles from JSTOR, and then he was phishing for law enforcement and faced serious criminal charges. The reason for doing this is very simple. He does not understand human knowledge, and it is slowly beginning to be collected, monopolized, and paid for by several major commercial companies. This is simply incomprehensible. Isn't knowledge the heritage of all mankind, which can be shared by all?
In an episode of "Wonderful Flowers", it was argued that there are also masters in the folk, why should they give up the road of self-salvation? This view cannot stand in the ancient imperial examination era, because the vast majority of talents have been absorbed into the government system through the examination channel, and basically there will be no scattered beads. But in today's Internet age, everyone can create miracles. And this economic monopoly on knowledge is likely to close the door to folk miracles.
Jack Andraka from Baltimore, after reading the free academic paper of JSTOR promoted by Aaron Swartz, proposed a method to detect pancreatic cancer in advance, and then successfully entered a famous school to continue related research. Without this access to reading, the person who can solve the problem may never find the answer.
That's what Aaron Swartz did. He wanted knowledge to be freely shared forever, and he wanted knowledge to be a human right.
In the face of accusations of the government and its nefarious laws, he did not back down, but instead pushed for reform of internet laws through other channels. The government gave him two paths, pleading guilty and resisting the heavy punishment, and to an idealist, the intimidation was nothing short of insulting. He chose to hang himself, and his death brought huge feedback from the Internet, like a thunderbolt, which awakened the fear of power among countless netizens, and also awakened their souls fighting for rights.
The follow-up impact of this event may spread for decades, hundreds of years, and even the extinction of the Internet and human beings. I regret the loss of this genius, but what deeply frightens me is the manipulators of this world: smart people.
They may be Bill Gates, they may be politicians, they may be you and me. They are intelligent, and relative to idealistic geniuses, they are sophisticated and tactful. They have ideals, but are not so keen. They know how to integrate into the group, they know how to manipulate power, and they kill geniuses and opponents outside the group one by one, in order to exude a rotten copper stench.
They used to be dream-chasing teenagers who had great ideals to change the world, and they fought and dealt with the world. But gradually, they slowly retreated, hiding behind the shadows of safety, defying the world in various gestures.
They churned the world into a quagmire and tried to drag everyone into it. They began to be wary of idealists and geniuses, who could allow geniuses to operate within the norms and institutions they devised, and when they crossed the line, killing would come.
If you fight with the dragon for too long, you will become a dragon yourself; if you stare at the abyss for too long, the abyss will stare back.
Maybe that's why Aaron Swartz is called the "Son of the Internet". He never gave up on his ideals, and he never gave up on his struggle. Idealists and geniuses are so rare that they appear to be all the more brilliant.
History has washed away thousands of sands and waves, and only one sigh remains.
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