Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident • Hacker News Board

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#841

Post by tptacek » Sat, Apr 11, 2026, 6:18 PM UTC

rl3 wrote: post #631

dang wrote: post #575

I don't think I've ever seen a thread this bad on Hacker News*. The number of commenters justifying violence, or saying they "don't condone violence" and then doing exactly that, is sickening and makes me want to find something else to do with my life—something as far away from this as I can get. I feel ashamed of this community. * Edit: It would have been clearer to say "I've never seen a mob dynamic this bad on Hac…

I imagine you knew Sam personally when he was President of YC. Most people don't, instead going off what they read in the press. Recent press is often less than flattering, given how contentious AI in general is as of late. Consider for some it's already hit home in the form of job loss, which for most people can easily be catastrophic. Or maybe they've a giant datacenter in their back yard suddenly, and now their ai…

You're being nice about it but I think you're inadvertently expressing literally the sentiment Dan was referring to.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#842

Post by tptacek » Sat, Apr 11, 2026, 6:19 PM UTC

raffael_de wrote: post #644

dang wrote: post #575

I don't think I've ever seen a thread this bad on Hacker News*. The number of commenters justifying violence, or saying they "don't condone violence" and then doing exactly that, is sickening and makes me want to find something else to do with my life—something as far away from this as I can get. I feel ashamed of this community. * Edit: It would have been clearer to say "I've never seen a mob dynamic this bad on Hac…

Wouldn't it maybe be a great idea to just ban anything that's not actually about science and technology from this board? This will have the indirect effect of people leaving it who are here for political trench fights? Plus the good old flame wars about technology x versus y are pretty harmless in comparison. (And no, just because Sam Altman is CEO of tech company doesn't make this news tech news.)

HN isn't a "science and technology" site.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#843

Post by MiguelX413 » Sat, Apr 11, 2026, 6:21 PM UTC

rdl wrote: post #466

My theory is a lot of the anti-AI sentiment is specifically US geopolitical adversaries (pick one or more: China, Russia, Iran, ...) who want a bad outcome for the US (AI as potential AGI; AI as one of the few successful economic sectors of the US; general desire to cause societal disruption or collapse and AI as convenient target). Probably >95% of the really bad stuff (the micron fab disruption, attacks on AI datac…

If a good outcome for the US is OpenAI technology being used by the US military to kill Middle Eastern children, I want a bad outcome for the US too. (Proudly born and raised in California)

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#844

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Apr 11, 2026, 6:23 PM UTC

jmull wrote: post #370

rustystump wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting you say not vs never. It seems this kid thought it was a time where violence was needed. The question i always ask in these situations is about what the line would be that would justify violence? Things like healthcare, crime, existential ai, have very grey lines as it isnt obvious when one needs to flip the table. How broken must a system be?

Violence is an extreme failure state. If your goal is to improve the system then you always want to move away from it. Probably a reasonable justification would be self-defense, committing violence to stop worse violence. (Preemptive violence is not self-defense.)

[deleted]

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#845

Post by MiguelX413 » Sat, Apr 11, 2026, 6:23 PM UTC

jmull wrote: post #370

rustystump wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting you say not vs never. It seems this kid thought it was a time where violence was needed. The question i always ask in these situations is about what the line would be that would justify violence? Things like healthcare, crime, existential ai, have very grey lines as it isnt obvious when one needs to flip the table. How broken must a system be?

Violence is an extreme failure state. If your goal is to improve the system then you always want to move away from it. Probably a reasonable justification would be self-defense, committing violence to stop worse violence. (Preemptive violence is not self-defense.)

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Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#846

Post by bdangubic » Sat, Apr 11, 2026, 6:23 PM UTC

flovec wrote: post #837

I see quite a lot of "violence is never justified" sentiment throughout the comments. I ask as a "thought experiment" - why? At least from my understanding, the history of America is riddled with working class uprisings that resulted in the use of force (violence) attempting to make their lives less insufferable. If your government has failed you because it is a plutocracy enriching itself off of enacted hardships (t…

First, not sure where you live that you believe general strikes will result in the use of force against? certainly not in most civilized societies, no? Second, while US history has provided examples where use of force might have been necessary to bring about the change same history does not have (m)any examples where such violence wasn’t preceded with long attempts at bringing about needed changes without violence. also, violence against human beings is different from setting shit on fire, if violence against human beings is justifyable (regardless of how vile the said person/people are in your and even some majority opinion) who is to say that someone tomorrow might decide that same violence is justifyable against you or even worse - someone in your family?! think of it this way - if your claim is that violence is justifyable - who makes the determination for such justification?

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#847

Post by d4v3 » Sat, Apr 11, 2026, 6:25 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #575

I don't think I've ever seen a thread this bad on Hacker News*. The number of commenters justifying violence, or saying they "don't condone violence" and then doing exactly that, is sickening and makes me want to find something else to do with my life—something as far away from this as I can get. I feel ashamed of this community. * Edit: It would have been clearer to say "I've never seen a mob dynamic this bad on Hac…

Unfortunately, political violence seems to be en-vogue these days. I even hear people in "real life" casually discussing their support for it. What can we do? I think the only thing we can do is push back on it, even though it doesn't seem fair. What's a favourable alternative? You do a great job here giving individual feedback, which I know some people listen to and take in. I hope it's some kind of comfort to know that you can change people's minds, or at least give them some pause. In today's algorithm-driven world, pushing back seems more important now than any time I can think of. We need cool, level-heads running things.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#848

Post by dehrmann » Sat, Apr 11, 2026, 6:34 PM UTC

johnbarron wrote: post #807

dang wrote: post #575

I don't think I've ever seen a thread this bad on Hacker News*. The number of commenters justifying violence, or saying they "don't condone violence" and then doing exactly that, is sickening and makes me want to find something else to do with my life—something as far away from this as I can get. I feel ashamed of this community. * Edit: It would have been clearer to say "I've never seen a mob dynamic this bad on Hac…

Maybe its opportune to talk about editorial consistency, because your statement here is a fascinating case study in selective moral clarity. When posts surface about Gaza, documented by the UN, by Médecins Sans Frontières, by the Lancet, by journalists who were subsequently killed while reporting or now in Lebanon, they vanish from the front page with remarkable efficiency... The reasons, which I have collected like…

> Is violence HN worthy when it is directed upward on the org chart?

Generally, world news and politics are not supposed to be submitted unless there's a tech industry connection. The exception seems to be world-changing news, and there's a light touch on YC-affiliated news for conflict of interest reasons.

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#849

Post by Razengan » Sat, Apr 11, 2026, 6:39 PM UTC

trinsic2 wrote: post #733

confiq wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he has done nothing to begin to justify violence No One does! I also found news hard to believe but it is true: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czx91rdxpyeo I'm not a big fan of Sam Altman, but violence like this is not a solution; it has the actually opposite effect as it probably did with Trump.

Actions have consequences. There will always be people in the world that get pushed beyond the limits they can endure. It reminds of that CEO that got gunned down by someone that was being affected by the company profiting off of making a business of denying health insurance claims on technicalities. I don't support this and yet I know for every harm people in these corrupt institutions are involved in, the universe…

So how often are arms manufacturers and leaders starting wars gunned down?

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#850

Post by odshoifsdhfs » Sat, Apr 11, 2026, 6:43 PM UTC

etempleton wrote: post #422

It is fair to be critical of Sam and other tech leaders regarding AI, but he has done nothing to begin to justify violence or even the threat of violence against him or his family.

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