Aaron Swartz’s Theory on How to Save the World
I don&#x27;t know anything about the guy other than having used Infogami (underrated) and followed early Reddit, but Swartz was always a brilliant but troubled guy. He was very intelligent but also just a kid, figuring things out in his own life while the tech world figured itself out. What happened to him was a tragedy, but Swartz engaged in illegal activity and found out his opponent was a lot more committed and effective than he anticipated. Unless he became Mandela in prison that wasn&#x27;t an effective strategy.<p><i>In his essay, Swartz strongly supported the Joker’s policy platform. Although the Joker presents himself to the world as a deranged and murderous clown, Swartz claimed that the Joker is actually “homo economicus,” a supremely rational actor, the character who best understands both the problems facing Gotham City and the best solutions to those problems. Batman might have had better gear and Harvey Dent might have had the public’s sympathy—but the Joker understood game theory, the best weapon of all.</i><p><i>Though the Joker’s methods—such as burning large piles of money and blowing up hospitals—might have been controversial, the logic behind them was sound. “And the crazy thing is that it works!” Swartz enthused. Not only did the Joker end up ridding the city of organized crime, he convinced Gotham’s residents to re-evaluate their world and their roles in it. “The movie concludes by emphasizing that Batman must become the villain,” Swartz wrote, “but as usual it never stops to notice that the Joker is actually the hero.”</i><p>This is absurd (at least how it is portrayed by the author). In Nolan&#x27;s movie the Joker is never portrayed as anything but a contradictory psycopath who engages in torture killings and according to his own words has no plans. He&#x27;s a &quot;dog chasing cars&quot;, even if that behavior was still rational. What solution did the Joker have again? The author closes with it, as though it&#x27;s profound, but it&#x27;s really just a screwed up view of justice that isn&#x27;t even supported by the movie.<p><i>In his working paper, Swartz described his new plan for the future of activism. Rather than form a political action group focused on one single issue or tactic, Swartz proposed that organizers should assemble groups of people supremely competent in certain relevant disciplines — investigators, activists, lawyers, lobbyists, policy experts, political strategists, journalists, and publicists — who could combine their efforts and advocate effectively for any issue, big or small. Swartz envisioned a flexible, intelligent, multifaceted task force that would learn from its mistakes and refine its tactics accordingly: a team of specialists that, cumulatively, worked as generalists.</i><p>From a practical standpoint, this is interesting, though it sounds ripe for abuse and mob justice. How different is it from Wikileaks or even Anonymous? Isn&#x27;t the problem with such a system is everyone always thinks they are the good guys?<p>Just please stop with the psychohistory and hagiography. Stop trying to say what Swartz was thinking (the author does this throughout). You don&#x27;t know.  If you want to compete with reality you have to be realistic. Stop using his persona to support vague notions of how the world works.