For that to make sense to me, I'd have to believe that Aaron died for his beliefs, or that his death caused others to take up his fight.
I don't believe either of these things are true.
Aaron died because he took his own life in the face of an overwhelming situation at the hands of a cruel system. Aaron's death did not further his cause. It was just a tragic combination of humans and inhuman actions.
Aaron was not a martyr. He was an idealistic but troubled good person who got ground up by forces he did not understand, and should never have had to learn.
It's a loss. His ideas and spirit live on in others, yes. But his death was not required or helpful, and he did not die for his cause. It was a senseless tragedy, but merely adjacent to his beliefs.
Do the work. Miss Aaron. Be inspired by him. But I don't believe he died in the service of something larger than himself. I think that take diminishes the real tragedy here, which is that humans like Aaron are sometimes victims of the systems that we create.
There already is an Aaron Swartz day on November 8th (date of his birthday). There are international hackathons organised in his memory: https://www.aaronswartzday.org/
