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Sam Altman's home targeted in second attack

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Re: Sam Altman's home targeted in second attack

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This has been the historical cycle for as long as we have records of human history. Power begets power and greed. Eventually either everyone else reaches a breaking point and "eat the rich", or an external group takes advantage and eats everyone. Then we try again.

Agreed. Anyone who thinks democracy isn't punctuated by economically-redistributive violence hasn't been studying history.

Based in the simple fact that humans will not cede power/wealth willingly once they gain it.

Ergo, violence (either state or individual) to effect a new balance.

Which isn't to legitimize violence, but is to say that stripping away a population's ability to effect change by being violent, if enough of them choose, is more dystopian than some violence.

Fix the issue: don't complain about the symptoms.

Re: Sam Altman's home targeted in second attack

#312
post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it increasingly seems like there's no version of reality where doing anything will solve the problem, unless you're one of the special few people who can influence the world. The violence is a sign of that. Average people don't do things like these, but when they start feeling helpless, the most unstable people of that society that don't have anything to lose will start acting more erratically. If there's no pr…

There are a LOT of stages between "resigning and doing nothing" and "deadly violence" that have some effect. Demonstrations are a start, though they seem to be more useful for networking inside a group and forcing the press to pay attention to some matter. Decision makers can easily ignore them. What's less easy to ignore are strikes, especially general strikes, as e.g. port workers in Italy threatened during the tot…

Those only work as long as legislators have shame, or there is a significant faction that can use the provided legitimacy to redistribute power away from the elites towards the people. That's not the case at a national level in the US right now.

Re: Sam Altman's home targeted in second attack

#313
post #7

In case someone reading this is thinking similar thoughts: there's no version of reality where doing this will solve any problem. Don't.

This "violence never solved anything" mindset is in stark contrast with recorded history.

Obligatory 'war is a continuation of politics by other means' Clausewitz -- the act of forcibly compelling others to adopt ones position doesn't have an inherent 'acceptable vs not-acceptable' line in method, other than that which we socially layer on top.

Re: Sam Altman's home targeted in second attack

#314
post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have worked on electoral and initiative campaigns, and traveled thousands of miles to knock on doors. I’ve donated money. I’ve called my congresspeople. I’ve gone to and spoken at public meetings. I’ve protested, been tear gassed, beaten, and thrown in jail. I’ve been doing all of this continuously for about 20 years. I can tell you, from extensive experience going through the official channels, that the formal mec…

If you don’t have large support for your ideas then it shouldn’t be a surprise it’s hard. But that’s the intent of the system? Represent what most people want.

> Represent what most people [and capital] want[s]

Fixed.

Re: Sam Altman's home targeted in second attack

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't keep marginalizing people and expecting stability. People who shoot someone or throw bombs at someone even though that someone never did something against them, should be marginalized. In prison.

>People who shoot someone or throw bombs at someone even though that someone never did something against them I think the point is that there's going to be an increasingly large percentage of the populace who think that the AI bosses / billionaire class did indeed do something against them.

This has always been the case, hasn't it? There have always been groups of people who perceive technology change as a negative, or they are in fact negatively impacted.

But they didn't ask the rest of us if we're ok for them to murder someone on our behalf.

Personally I hope that AI will be a step change for the positive. I think it is inevitable that it will progress form here, in the darwinian sense, that someone else on this thread mentioned.

With that in mind, we should all be pushing for it to be used to our benefit, rather than detriment. And like almost all technological advances in the past, I think this can happen.

So if people are saying violence against Sam Altman is expected, then they're also saying violence against me is expected, because I am hopeful and vaguely supportive of the technology. That's quite scary.

Re: Sam Altman's home targeted in second attack

#316
post #7

In case someone reading this is thinking similar thoughts: there's no version of reality where doing this will solve any problem. Don't.

To me it increasingly seems like there's no version of reality where doing anything will solve the problem, unless you're one of the special few people who can influence the world. The violence is a sign of that. Average people don't do things like these, but when they start feeling helpless, the most unstable people of that society that don't have anything to lose will start acting more erratically. If there's no pr…

Isn’t violence just “no I get to be one of the few not them”?

Even then I don’t they they get a lot of choice as far as results go.

Re: Sam Altman's home targeted in second attack

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Both sides are not equivalent. The political right, in the U.S., has been significantly more violent than the political left for quite some time. And it’s not even close. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9335287/

Does it really matter who is more violent? The fact of the matter is both sides do have a nonzero amount of crazy/violent people and both sides could treat the other with more respect instead of furthering division. You will notice I never said that both sides have the same amount of violence (since I don't think that that's actually relevant), so you are responding to a point I never made to begin with.

Vending machines and guns both kill people, so we should expend equal effort addressing the problems with both. Do I have that right?

This obsession with just pretending the two sides are mirror images, who simply need respect each other more is just lazy thinking. Interrogate what the contemporary American right values and believes. It is deep seated resentment (urban elites!), hate (owning the libs), bigotry (mass deportations now!), all wrapped up in a victimhood (white replacement theory) / inferiority complex. It should surprise exactly no one that the statistics are what they are.

The left’s biggest problem is people find them annoying for suggesting others could be more empathetic or do better at being inclusive. These two camps are just nowhere near comparable.

To address an issue, you first must understand it. I very much believe what the right values informs why they’re violent. These values and beliefs need to be shamed into oblivion. Diversity is a strength! Expertise is valuable! People should have freedom to live their lives so long as they don’t harm others! People who believe otherwise should tremble with embarrassment to say so.

Re: Sam Altman's home targeted in second attack

#318

I am seeing information about the attacker that show he was being influenced by Rationalist thinkers - he posted about “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies” by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares. This information of course might be false, so take the words below with a grain of salt. I might be completely wrong. When an influential group in the Valley that has ties to many tech companies spends years speading rhetoric…

Yudkowsky followers already have killed at least six people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zizians

Re: Sam Altman's home targeted in second attack

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Both sides are not equivalent. The political right, in the U.S., has been significantly more violent than the political left for quite some time. And it’s not even close. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9335287/

> We included individuals whose public exposure occurred between 1948 and 2018. The times they are a-changin'.

Show some data!

Here’s a report on political terrorism up to 2025: https://www.csis.org/analysis/left-wing-terrorism-and-politi...

I encourage anyone reading to look at the charts. There’s a single clearly anomalous data point with significantly reduced violence for “right terrorists” and significantly high number for “left” in 2025. It is the only year in any chart where left violence exceeds (or even comes near to) right.

It’d be extremely silly to infer some trend from this one anomaly.

Re: Sam Altman's home targeted in second attack

#320

Altman needs to sell off that house and move to an anonymized address. I don’t see these attacks letting up any time soon. Two targeted attacks in three days is nuts.

Or he could move to a military base like several prominent administration officials.
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