To all those replying to edw519 - please stop witch-hunting. First prosecutor, then MIT, then.. edw519? Its possible any of these parties made a mistake.. now that they can look back and reflect. But, even after reflection its very possible that each party made the best decision they could with the information at hand. Maybe I'm lucky, but I find 99%+ of people I meet in this world are well intentioned, and if I invest the empathy cycles I almost always can see their point of view and understand why they made the decision that they did.
Does your sympathy towards aaronsw merit that you throw empathy out the window? No. Do you actually understand the complex set of events that occurred and how these events relate to one another and the rest of the world? No. Surely, a solution to prevent such a terrible scenario from re-occuring is far removed from personal attacks:
- if you don't like how district attorney works - get moving on changing the law
- don't think prosecutor did their job? point out their job description vs their actions to the proper authority
- don't like how MIT managed case? reach out to the MIT beaurocracy and work with them to improve their process
- don't like edw519 *most upvoted* post on the Sept article? suggest policy changes that could prevent such a comment from appearing on HN
- etc
When you start with the point of view that we are all reasonable, and well intentioned.. the problem then becomes about process and culture, and you can actually start making progress.
Does your sympathy towards aaronsw merit that you throw empathy out the window? No. Do you actually understand the complex set of events that occurred and how these events relate to one another and the rest of the world? No. Surely, a solution to prevent such a terrible scenario from re-occuring is far removed from personal attacks:
When you start with the point of view that we are all reasonable, and well intentioned.. the problem then becomes about process and culture, and you can actually start making progress.