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The Darker Side of Aaron Swartz | The New Yorker

newyorker.com · 11,244 words · saved by 30 readers

Swartz was brilliant and beloved. But the people who knew the gifted programmer best saw another side.

Save this story Save this story “This, I suppose, is the actual problem,” Swartz wrote, long before his suicide. “I feel my existence is an imposition on the planet.” Illustration by Michael Gillette HE COULD NOT deal with people talking about him. It’s taken me some time since he died to get used to talking about him because I was under such strict instructions not to. But he fucked up something really major. He made a really dumb, bad decision. And it’s my right now to ignore all the other things that I thought were dumb, too. Maybe if I hadn’t felt I couldn’t talk about him to other people

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