I'm sorry he, his family and his community had to deal with this, no one should have to go through this kind of thing. I also think that he might've been able to reduce the odds of this happening by being a less awful human being.
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Molotov cocktail is hurled at home of Sam Altman
601–610 of 715 posts
Re: Molotov cocktail is hurled at home of Sam Altman
#602Earlier quoted context omitted.
From a POSIWID perspective, you are right. From a "we live in a civilized society" perspective, I can see why some people are outraged about his killing. Finally, looking at the balance sheet of his accomplishments, I can also see why the pitchfork crowd is cheering.
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It does seem to be nonsense, yes. The duck test makes more sense. In the duck test, you can't claim something is an eagle if it walks and quacks like a duck. In POSIWID, however, you can't claim you intended it to be an eagle.
Re: Molotov cocktail is hurled at home of Sam Altman
#603Earlier quoted context omitted.
What "white collar crime" was Brian Thompson guilty of? As I understand it, he was merely the CEO of an insurance company. Nobody likes how insurance companies do business, but that doesn't make it "crime".
He didn't say "white collar crime." He said "white collar mass murder." The implication here is that it is wrong even though it is not currently illegal .
Maybe the comment was edited as it definitely says crime now.
Re: Molotov cocktail is hurled at home of Sam Altman
#604Earlier quoted context omitted.
He didn't say "white collar crime." He said "white collar mass murder." The implication here is that it is wrong even though it is not currently illegal .
Maybe the comment was edited as it definitely says crime now.
> But if white collar crime is being [...] anyone sees jail time.
> Maybe [...] Brian Thompson [...] you could easily argue this to be a form of white collar mass murder.
Nope. Read it more carefully. It's two separate sentences.
Re: Molotov cocktail is hurled at home of Sam Altman
#605It 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...
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Re: Molotov cocktail is hurled at home of Sam Altman
#606Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
That's because Brian Thompson was functionally a serial killer.
The competitive incentives between insurance companies in the US have pretty unfortunate consequences, and it would probably be good for people if rules could be changed in a way that socialised costs more across ages, etc. But so long as insurance companies are expected to be profitable, this argument is pretty poor.
The bird’s eye view of a health insurance policy is that you have some amount in premiums coming in, some amount of administrative expenses, some amount of profit/loss, and the rest is claims going out. As a percentage of premiums, the profits and expenses are pretty tiny. The reason for claims being denied is making the numbers balance out so as to not have the insurance company risk going bankrupt (insurance regulators tend to want insurers to be only writing policies they expect to make money on on average as insurance companies going bankrupt is bad for other policyholders). If you have a policy where you pay more in premiums, you can expect to have more claims approved.
The big reason healthcare is so expensive is not so much the small profits made by insurance companies as the large costs from providers (some is profit, some is remuneration for well paid doctors, some is having more expensive facilities or equipment or treatments than necessary). You could imagine a world where the insurance company is more of an agent for the patient, trying to avoid providers overcharging to keep premiums down, but that’s not the world we live in. There don’t seem to be good competitive pressures to reduce the costs from the providers. If you compare this to places where people often pay out-of-pocket for healthcare, providers can be much more conscious of this, eg for dental work there can be a choice of having a tooth removed, and then various different qualities of filling that can cost different amounts.
Re: Molotov cocktail is hurled at home of Sam Altman
#607Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you mean by “or even Luigi”?
Luigi Mangione, the guy who shot an health insurance company CEOs in 2024
Surely that's a libellous thing to say, or is there no rule of law in the USA these days?
Luigi has been accused of the shooting, but there's discrepancies with the possibly illegal search of his backpack and the body cameras of the police were turned off for 11 minutes which raises suspicions of planted evidence.
Re: Molotov cocktail is hurled at home of Sam Altman
#608It 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...
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Re: Molotov cocktail is hurled at home of Sam Altman
#609Earlier quoted context omitted.
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% o…
I'm reminded of this recent Pew Research poll [1] about whether people believe their fellow citizens are moral. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2026/03/05/in-25-countr...
That's a stark difference between the U.S. and Canada!
Re: Molotov cocktail is hurled at home of Sam Altman
#610It 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...
Nowadays, it seems common for genocidal regimes to be supported by other countries, so it looks like abhorrent violence is just part of the world order.