What Aaron Swartz did to himself was tragic, but he did decide to break the law. Something that is glossed over here.
YC-backed uBiome is basically Theranos-lite - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30899352 - April 2022 (173 comments)
SF poop-testing startup, once compared to Theranos, charged in $60M fraud scheme - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26531087 - March 2021 (380 comments)
UBiome Offices Searched by FBI - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19760449 - April 2019 (56 comments)
Many more: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
The interesting thing is why this (false) accusation appears now, years later. I don't recall people saying it at the time, which makes sense because it was obviously untrue.
Also, how is criticizing Aaron Swartz off topic? The other commenter brought it up. No one made him commit suicide but HN has a boner for this guy like he's a victim.
HN itself clearly hasn't shied away from critical coverage of that venture.
Your other argument shows a distinct lack of empathy and a certain disregard for facts of the matter.
So I wouldn't gloss over the specific law(s) he broke, so much as I would outright celebrate that he did so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerilla_Open_Access_Manifesto
> Through good times and rough ones, including the loss of Aaron Swartz (who I only knew of through HN), this has stayed a place for real conversation.
And the rest was just upbeat talk in general.
Unless the parent comment was edited, I don't understand why you responded:
> What Aaron Swartz did to himself was tragic, but he did decide to break the law. Something that is glossed over here.
By "here", I assume you mean "HN in general", but your comment comes off as loaded (e.g., "did to himself" sounds like a conscious attempt at asserting a framing), and the timing seems poor (i.e., that particular innocuous comment, on this particular day).
Aaron Swartz deserved, at worst, a slap on the wrist, not the kind of severe harassment in the name of the law which he got.