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 thing 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 fully intact.
GluWu@lemm.ee 1 month ago
35 yearsax, 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.
Dasus@lemmy.world 1 month ago
The front runner? Really?
I’m not being sarcastic. Im genuinely interested, but can’t be arsed to start going through polls because it’d mean going through the biases of the pollers.
LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 1 month ago
Really it’s too close to call but he does appear to have a slight edge if you had to pick a favorite.
projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/…/national/
TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 1 month ago
it’s not really.that close.whem you compare it to 2016/2020
Trump underpolls significantly,.by 5-8%, and did for both 2016 and 2020.
Bidens hasn’t led trump in polling in 500 days
Euphorazine@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Just remember polls gave Hillary almost a guaranteed win. For all intents and purposes, Trump is the front runner regardless of what any polling says
UnrepententProcrastinator@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
And the result were statistically within what they predicted. She did get the popular vote but lost in key states where the margins were small.
frezik@midwest.social 1 month ago
No, they did not. That’s not what happened.
Polling probably has taken a dive in accuracy since then, though. Uptake in cell phone use in younger generations has been lingering over the industry for a long time, and it’s finally caught up with them.
GluWu@lemm.ee 1 month ago
From the nearly all the polls I see, yes. But like you said, bias of pollers. I’ve seen a few that go more in depth to try and figure out the “responds to polls” bias, but I still only see biden ahead by a margin. With those small numbers of concentrated effort vs the wide reach general polls, trump is. It does not instill any level of confidence in me that the “general” polls don’t reflect the “general” voting bias. Even without all of this analysis, just a few million voting for trump is unbelievably concerning to not just the future of the US, but the world that this single country dominates. These fascists are campaigning on the cut your nose to spite your face philosophy.
TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Bro he’s been the front runner the entire time.
This is why people’s sycophantica for Biden are so problematic. !data_vizualisations@lemmy.world
charonn0@startrek.website 1 month ago
The rejected plea was for 6 months.
GluWu@lemm.ee 1 month ago
6 months is 1/2 of a year.
bronzle@lemm.ee 1 month ago
While that is true.
“1/2 that” would imply 1/2 of 35 years or 17.5 years.