Aaron Swartz was born on November 08, 1986, and died at age 26 on January 26 2013 after 2 years of court proceedings. At age 13, he created RSS. At age 15, he created what would become reddit, and as people often forget, he also invented the markdown language which any user of VCS systems has used in the past.
Aaron was caught sharing paywalled scientific journals freely accessible to MIT alumni amongst the internet. For this, he was sentenced to a maximum fine in excess of £1,000,000 and fifty years in prison. His difficulty paying his attorneys, as well as MIT's unwillingness to help with his criminal proceedings, lead to his suicide by hanging.
Carmen Ortiz, the presiding judge over his case, faced multiple inquiries after the case, but was not removed from office and to this day continues to deny that Aaron was overcharged.
"Our beloved brother, son, friend, and partner Aaron Swartz hanged himself on Friday in his Brooklyn apartment. We are in shock, and have not yet come to terms with his passing. \[Aaron's death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach.](https://web.archive.org/web/20130112233941/https://rememberaaronsw.tumblr.com/post/40372208044/official-statement-from-the-family-and-partner-of-aaron)"
One of Aaron's favourite books was infinite jest, by David Foster Wallace, who also tragically passed 5 years prior to Aaron of hanging. "[Fiction's about what it is to be a fucking human](https://web.archive.org/web/20150520115701/https://isismagazine.org.uk/2015/03/the-isis-short-essay-competition-fictions-about-what-it-is-to-be-a-fucking-human-being-david-foster-wallace-is-it)" is a quote of his. I spent a long time looking for a fitting title and it just seemed to click for me. Maybe this is tenuous, but i have never thought that art, software and fiction were that far from each other. Aaron's work enabled the creation and sharing of all three through the often overlooked power of RSS.
Looking through old archives of Aaron's, one of the most memorable things I've found is a collection of notes from his memorial service, at which Tim Berners Lee delivered Aaron's eulogy in the Internet Archive headquarters. Each is it's own short story, which paints its own picture of how individuals deal with grief. [This is a link to the entire archived collection of notes left for him](https://archive.org/details/AaronSwartzSFMemorialHandouts/), below are the pages that resonated the most with me, but i implore you to read through the booklet yourself to find the ones which you like most.
I can only ruminate about the meanings behind the scrawlings on this note. So many conversations, experiences and in-jokes condensed into one A4 sheet of paper.
"Suicide is the tragic outcome of a treatable disease that attacks the part of the victim which otherwise would save them; the sense of hope that things will get better"
"Every time a rational altruist dies, the rest of us recieve a piece of his soul." - [Holden Karnofsky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holden_Karnofsky), [givewell.org](givewell.org)
This is a difficult to transcribe poem, the contrast is a little garish for my eyes but i will try to the best of my ability.
I wish i had talked to him just once. you are so lucky if you did.
Thanks, Aaron.
Ideas never really die.
Thank you for showing us how to care about something more than our paychecks. I just wish it hadn't come at such a great cost. You are, always will be, my inspiration. - Vivek
