Live data from Hacker News

A far-right extremist allegedly plotted to blow up Amazon data centers

wired.com

41–50 of 120 posts

Re: A far-right extremist allegedly plotted to blow up Amazon data centers

#41

I wonder, does such a person share a lot of characteristics of his mental state with someone who on the other side of the political spectrum, breaks into factory chicken farms to free birds, or who torches an entire dealership of SUVs to save the planet? Is there not something a little bit fascinating in realizing that regardless of the particular political belief driving them to do something, there must be something…

I recently got the book "High Conflict" - it goes into this question in some detail.

Re: A far-right extremist allegedly plotted to blow up Amazon data centers

#42

I wonder, does such a person share a lot of characteristics of his mental state with someone who on the other side of the political spectrum, breaks into factory chicken farms to free birds, or who torches an entire dealership of SUVs to save the planet? Is there not something a little bit fascinating in realizing that regardless of the particular political belief driving them to do something, there must be something…

I think there's crossover but I don't think those two groups are motivated by the same thing.

My observation is that far-right activists tend to feel that they're being deliberately stabbed in the back by the powers that be, rather than seeing themselves as collateral damage. They're also significantly more likely to be paranoid, and they perceive their targets as you would an invading army.

Far-left activism isn't like that. They don't perceive The Man as sadistic, they perceive him as disinterested. "Nobody cares about global warming" vs. "they're deliberately raising the temperature of the earth to hurt me." I also get the vibe far-left activists often engage in activism for fun. It's an exciting mission to break into the farm with your friends. They almost always do it in groups, whereas you're more likely to see jilted right-wingers plan solo attacks like this guy.

(I'm not trying to paint the far-left as better here. I think they're often quite dishonest about their motivations, whereas the far-right is extremely up-front, pied piper gurus aside. I think that's one of the reasons paranoid schizophrenics gravitate more toward the far right, although it helps that their narratives are more about conspiratorial persecution.)

The demographic distributions are also different. Almost all far-right activists are male, whereas vegan & climate activists are mixed.

Re: A far-right extremist allegedly plotted to blow up Amazon data centers

#43

Get ready for more of this. If Amazon hadn’t acquiesced to the left wing (eg. by taking down Parker) there would have been an equal likelihood that a left wing extremist would plot an attack. Even more so, if a would-be terrorist can see data centers as virtually zero-casualty targets. Not to mention state actors who will have an easier time „nudging“ domestic actors into „standing up for what’s right“ due to the low…

Not to trivialize any of the politics but to me the key takeaway is if my revenue relies on aws, I should seriously consider multi region.

Given enough time, there is bound to be a disaster at some point. If all my data is in one data center, ...

I don’t know enough about aws so I think I need to study this a little bit more.

Re: A far-right extremist allegedly plotted to blow up Amazon data centers

#44

I wonder, does such a person share a lot of characteristics of his mental state with someone who on the other side of the political spectrum, breaks into factory chicken farms to free birds, or who torches an entire dealership of SUVs to save the planet? Is there not something a little bit fascinating in realizing that regardless of the particular political belief driving them to do something, there must be something…

> I wonder, does such a person share a lot of characteristics of his mental state with someone who on the other side of the political spectrum This sounds like the "horseshoe theory": "In political science and popular discourse, the horseshoe theory asserts that the far-left and the far-right, rather than being at opposite and opposing ends of a linear political continuum, closely resemble one another, analogous to t…

moebius strip would describe this more accurately than a horse shoe

Re: A far-right extremist allegedly plotted to blow up Amazon data centers

#45

I sincerely hope this does not come across as provocative in the worst possible way, but what exactly defines this guy as Far-Right? I understand we're not given full context in this short article and that label is likely all too accurate, but it feels out of place as the rest of the writeup goes on to just describe him as a run-of-the-mill nutcase obsessed with the "big tech" boogeyman.

He posted on mymilitia.com, which you can read more about at https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/mymilitia-... and

>In public and private posts online, court documents say, Pendley claimed to have been at the Capitol on January 6, but not to have entered the building. He expressed disappointment that his fellow protesters weren’t more aggressive.

According to the government he called himself a "patriot" when describing how he would carry out an attack: https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txnd.346637... . His goal for the attack was to provoke a big government response that would wake people up about government overreach.

I guess it depends on your personal standard of evidence, but when someone hangs out on far-right message boards, drives to DC with an AR rifle in his car to attend a far-right protest, and plans a bomb attack on behalf of a popular far-right cause in order to show people that the government is too powerful, at some point you probably begin identifying the person as far-right.

Re: A far-right extremist allegedly plotted to blow up Amazon data centers

#46
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it would be a hugely wrong to say both ends of the spectrum think they're "outside" of the normal world. Their world has different rules and morals and thus they would be executing along those. In their world, you're the one who needs to ask if you're crazy agreeing living your life while agreeing to conditions X,Y, and Z. [amrchair psychology disclosure]

The willingness to use violence against people or property seems like it would be a further leap. Operating outside of the mainstream ideologies isn't necessarily a slippery slope. Reasonable people should be able to disagree without using violence.

Do you believe, by extension from this, that states are governed by unreasonable people, and that if they were reasonable war would never be necessary?

Re: A far-right extremist allegedly plotted to blow up Amazon data centers

#47
Motivations aside, I’m pretty sure an AWS data center is too big to take out with a car bomb or even a large truck bomb. If it’s like any other major commercial data enter I’ve been to, there are redundant, multi-tier systems for network, power and HVAC along with multiple path entry of electrical and network connections. There are also likely multiple zones (physically firewalled from each other) for fire suppression, so even if he triggered the sprinklers (or halon) it would likely only take 1/10 or so of their capacity offline (and not even that if it’s halon).

An attack like this is absolutely within their threat model too. Because it has been for pretty much every datacenter I’ve toured.

Re: A far-right extremist allegedly plotted to blow up Amazon data centers

#48

I wonder, does such a person share a lot of characteristics of his mental state with someone who on the other side of the political spectrum, breaks into factory chicken farms to free birds, or who torches an entire dealership of SUVs to save the planet? Is there not something a little bit fascinating in realizing that regardless of the particular political belief driving them to do something, there must be something…

I think it's just the conviction that the "problem" is very serious and the conclusion that an extreme measure is the only possible solution (due to reasoning based on incorrect or incomplete information).

I guess you could call that crazy, but it's more like stupid (due to lack of sufficient research/information) and impulsive (lack of second-guessing).

Anyone can fall for it imo, but for most people self-preservation overrides the will to sacrifice themselves (and others) for "the greater good". Which is what extremists are doing, believing their actions are right and the cost (incl. loss of lives) and self-sacrifice are necessary.

Re: A far-right extremist allegedly plotted to blow up Amazon data centers

#49

I wonder, does such a person share a lot of characteristics of his mental state with someone who on the other side of the political spectrum, breaks into factory chicken farms to free birds, or who torches an entire dealership of SUVs to save the planet? Is there not something a little bit fascinating in realizing that regardless of the particular political belief driving them to do something, there must be something…

Common traits might be (off the top of my head) low in conscientiousness (not bound by rules, formality, low in impulse control etc.), mental instability (e.g. anxiety), high in-group loyalty (related to religiousness, and a sense of purpose or destiny).

Other things might include mood/anxiety disorders and paranoia or just personality traits associated with them.

Re: A far-right extremist allegedly plotted to blow up Amazon data centers

#50
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or someone else making snarky comments like this in response. Let's not pretend that the problem of people being brainwashed into extreme beliefs and even acting on them inside the various echo chambers of the internet is limited to any particular demographic. It's one of the elephants in this increasingly digital room of ours that achingly needs addressing.

We need to be clear that domestic terrorism in the US is evenly split between pseudo-Islamic extremism and the far right. Terrorist action from the left currently counts for a tiny amount of this violence.

While the riots of last summer were not characterized as terrorism, they were instances of political violence resulting in massive property damage and multiple deaths.

https://www.google.com/search?q=fiery+but+mostly+peaceful

There's a palatable element of partisanship distorting the presentation of these issues. Instead of looking for equivalence or ranking which side is worse, perhaps we should blanketly condemn political violence.

Post reply on HN