The Boy Who Could Change the World

Zéro Janvier reviewed The Boy Who Could Change the World by Aaron Swartz

Review of 'The Boy Who Could Change the World' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

J’avais découvert la personnalité d’Aaron Swartz grâce au récit « Ce qu’il reste de nos rêves » de Flore Vasseur. Cela m’avait donné envie de lire ce livre qui regroupe des textes d’Aaron Swartz, principalement issus de son blog, mais pas seulement, regroupés en plusieurs thématiques : Free Culture, Computers, Politics, Media, Books & Culture, et Unschool.

Je n’ai pas été déçu : les textes d’Aaron Swartz permettent de découvrir un jeune homme cultivé, qui s’intéressait à de nombreux sujets, acceptait de remettre en cause ses croyances et s’interrogeait sur la marche du monde.

Une lecture passionnante et un livre bien construit.

haagen_daz reviewed The Boy Who Could Change the World by Aaron Swartz

Review of 'The Boy Who Could Change the World' on 'GoodReads'

3 stars

Some stuff feels dated, most of it was pretty interesting. It's definitely a shame that he didn't get to develop his thoughts more.

Here's some of what I got out of the book:
- a sense that other computer people care about good things without being total techno-utopians
- a lot of Swartz's influences seem like they'd be good reading - sometimes it feels like his thoughts are not quite as well-developed as whatever inspired them, if that makes sense
- the idea/distinction between measuring one's legacy by what the world would have been like without one's existence. This biases against competing to do the same Big Thing that lots of other people are trying to do, and instead trying to change the world in a way that only you would have. Not sure how much I agree with this but it's an interesting way to think about things. (Not …

Some stuff feels dated, most of it was pretty interesting. It's definitely a shame that he didn't get to develop his thoughts more.

Here's some of what I got out of the book:
- a sense that other computer people care about good things without being total techno-utopians
- a lot of Swartz's influences seem like they'd be good reading - sometimes it feels like his thoughts are not quite as well-developed as whatever inspired them, if that makes sense
- the idea/distinction between measuring one's legacy by what the world would have been like without one's existence. This biases against competing to do the same Big Thing that lots of other people are trying to do, and instead trying to change the world in a way that only you would have. Not sure how much I agree with this but it's an interesting way to think about things. (Not sure, even, if I want to have a Legacy.)

PromptedInkReads

rated it

March 22, 2017

Namakemono

rated it

Feb 26