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Molotov cocktail is hurled at home of Sam Altman

nytimes.com

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Re: Molotov cocktail is hurled at home of Sam Altman

#411

Post by jlarocco »

strongpigeon wrote: post #36

It is a bit scary how people seem to genuinely be OK with violence (see this reddit thread [0]). Is just me or does it feel like the overall "temperature" has gone up. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1shugf8/firebomb_t...

I think we're going to see a lot more of it.

The job market's shit, it's nearly impossible for young people to buy houses or pay rent, well paying jobs are disappearing to AI, inflation is sky rocketing and people are getting desperate. But then we're told the economy's doing great and billionaires like Musk and Altman are rolling in money.

Re: Molotov cocktail is hurled at home of Sam Altman

#412

Post by scoofy »

throwway120385 wrote: post #386
yfw wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We gave up violence and made the state the authority but thats contingent on the social contract being upheld.

We did this in the late 1800's and early 1900's because the upper classes understood that they needed to be afraid of the masses. Prior to that political violence seems like it was the order of the day. The US has always had a pretty strong aristocracy, but the aristocrats were variously either moral people or they at least had enough of a sense of self-preservation that they wouldn't get too greedy.

One of the most interesting aspects of the policing power in the premodern era was the existence and split of a powerful church.

Religious institutions had some access to legitimate violence in a way that the state couldn’t control. Once authoritarianism gave way to more democratic governance, that effectively disappeared.

Re: Molotov cocktail is hurled at home of Sam Altman

#413

Post by cucumber3732842 »

hnthrowaway0315 wrote: post #180
strongpigeon wrote: post #36

It is a bit scary how people seem to genuinely be OK with violence (see this reddit thread [0]). Is just me or does it feel like the overall "temperature" has gone up. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1shugf8/firebomb_t...

I'm not saying that violence is legal -- which is definitely not. But it is part of the "packages" and totally depends on whether the one wants to use. Historically violence has been a very...effective tool. When people feel that law and order do not protect them, some eventually will go "the extra mile" (somehow managers always like this phrase). It's not something we can prevent. It is human nature. I guess super r…

> Historically violence has been a very...effective tool.

What to you mean historically? Violence backs every government decree from speeding tickets to the maximum water flow rate of urinals.

Overwhelming violence is something that people will go to amazing lengths and spend nearly all of their economic surplus to avoid.

Re: Molotov cocktail is hurled at home of Sam Altman

#414

Post by culi »

dan-robertson wrote: post #329
lazyasciiart wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, dropping bombs and threatening to end a civilization certainly made me think the temperature had gone up. I’m not sure I think a single attempted act against some guy is worth being worried by against that backdrop.

I think much the reaction to the Brian Thompson killing also seemed ok with the violence despite it happening before the events you describe, though I guess that could be an outlier.

I think more and more Americans have what C. Wright Mills called the "sociological imagination".

We pour tons of effort into punishing visceral, direct violence like a stabbing or shooting. But if white collar crime is being committed that leads to the death of hundreds of thousands of people, it's rare that anyone sees jail time. Maybe you could argue the decisions of Brian Thompson made only account for maybe 10% of why XYZ died but when you scale that out, you could easily argue this to be a form of white collar mass murder.

I think the younger generations are increasingly aware of this disparity in justice. If you find it hard to understand the celebration of violent vengeance but don't feel the same inability to understand the celebration of Jeffrey Doucet's retribution, then perhaps you are lacking the sociological imagination.

Re: Molotov cocktail is hurled at home of Sam Altman

#415

Post by tikkabhuna »

seanlinehan wrote: post #263
outside1234 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't condone it, but I understand the anger. The billionaire class has enabled armed masked police in our streets, endless layoffs, basically don't pay taxes at any reasonable percentage, and basically have rigged politics with Citizens United. Given that, I can see how people are resorting to 18th century French tactics.

The top 1% of income earners pay 40% of all the federal taxes collected. The top 25% pay 89% of taxes. Net of transfers, 60% of households receive more from government transfers than they pay in taxes. The idea that rich people don't pay taxes is just not correct. The entire system is basically rich people subsidizing everybody else through byzantine distributional systems.

Billionaires aren’t becoming billionaires from income. It’s increased stock valuations that create that level of wealth.

I constantly see posts focused on high earners already paying tons of tax. They do, but this should reinforce the point that the ultra wealthy should be paying more tax. People aren’t saying the guy on £500k should pay more, they’re saying the guy with £100m in assets should be.

Re: Molotov cocktail is hurled at home of Sam Altman

#416

Post by _aavaa_ »

kube-system wrote: post #276
tptacek wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I operate in at least one social circle that is heavily not-technical (local politics) and I do not see this at all.

My experience is somewhat in the middle -- I see educated non-technical people who are strongly against AI because they see it as polluting, "wasting water", and harmful to society. Although many use it anyway. I could totally believe uneducated or less well-adjusted people reacting in the above way, though.

Non-technical indeed. The wasting water or pollution argument is getting really tiring.

Re: Molotov cocktail is hurled at home of Sam Altman

#418

Post by Redoubts »

alexitosrv wrote: post #357
strongpigeon wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it's also scary because I don't think it works. People should demand a new deal and lobby for that. Throwing molotovs doesn't help with that.

Oh yeah!, I forgot that staying silent and complying quietly is way better!! In 1700s they should have used that instead of guillotines.

Yeah, probably? The french revolution sucked ass for everyone involved.

Re: Molotov cocktail is hurled at home of Sam Altman

#419

Post by jlarocco »

gattilorenz wrote: post #378
spaghetdefects wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Participating in the child sex trafficking ring, although Wexner's involvement goes far deeper.

The evidence being…

It blows my mind that people still think Epstein is just a big conspiracy theory and nothing happened.

Pam Bondi said Epstein's black book was on her desk ready to be released, and then a month later she said it didn't exist. She couldn't have been telling the truth both times.

The camera in Epstein's jail cell "failed" for the exact two minutes he was (supposedly) killing himself before magically starting to work again.

Congress told the DOJ to release unredacted documents, and they said "F** you" and released redacted (properly redacted, even) documents any way.

But you're asking a random guy on HN for evidence that there's a cover up and crimes going on. It's pretty clear the powers that be don't want the evidence released, or it would have been already.

Re: Molotov cocktail is hurled at home of Sam Altman

#420

Post by cucumber3732842 »

jltsiren wrote: post #340
mmooss wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is part of the "packages" and totally depends on whether the one wants to use. Could you explain what packages are and what depends on (what?)? > Historically violence has been a very...effective tool. This is dramatic sci-fi for anarchists of all political stripes. The critical reality to understand is that violence is the most ineffective tool, causing catastrophic harm for others and outcomes that the perpetr…

The critical reality to understand is that people have always used violence. If they don't believe that they live in a successful society, or if they believe that the success of the society is not distributed fairly (or in a way that benefits them), violence starts looking attractive. Enlightenment and industrialization created societies that were fairer, wealthier, and more free than anything before. They also creat…

>If they don't believe that they live in a successful society, or if they believe that the success of the society is not distributed fairly (or in a way that benefits them), violence starts looking attractive.

Especially when the answer to every "well why doesn't it work this way" you could possibly ask seems to come back to "state violence has put its thumb on the scale of society". The government or "the ruling order" or "the system" (whatever you want to call it kind of brought this on itself by taking so much crap under it's umbrella

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