Noam Schieber at The New Republic:
Like too many other computer prodigies of his generation, Aaron Swartz was used long before he was invented. He hadn’t lived long enough to know that not every mistake he made would reverberate for all time or haunt him until the end of his days. In this, he was not so different from any other teenager who sweats the pop quiz he failed or the fender he banged up. What distinguished Swartz was that, from a young age, he was handed a fantastically powerful set of tools—“you can do magic,” he would exhort his fellow programmers—and told it was his destiny to create a more free and just society.
For Swartz and his fellow computer prodigies, this was a deeply isolating existence.
I find Schieber’s article from last year a welcome addition to much of the coverage of Swartz’s life and career.
Walker Sampson 