Comment by edbaskerville
4 months ago
Can you give more details?
It wouldn't particularly surprise me if Sam Altman were racist, but I'm curious what the specific incident you observed was.
4 months ago
Can you give more details?
It wouldn't particularly surprise me if Sam Altman were racist, but I'm curious what the specific incident you observed was.
Yes, but first I want to be very clear on some things.
1. I could have hidden my identify behind a throwaway. I did not feel that would be appropriate when making this calim.
2. I am not looking for anything, literally at all. Any follow ups for blogs; anything that would benefit I will not answer.
3. This is NOT a new account, I am very easy to find; I am 6'1 140lbs
I was working for a company called NationBuilder and I had the opportunity to go on a work trip. Outside of a talk he had just given I was waiting for my ride and I looked over like...damn thats the speaker. I wanted to say Hi; he damn near flagged down the police. I apologized and just decided to move on.
Note: It was in Reno, and no I don't want to go into details; the others are not hard to find because I happened upon them via blog posts so i'm sure if someone with the accumen of RF wants to know, he will find.
I have heard similar stores from several people in the years since. I AM NOT CALLING THIS PERSON RACIST. I am saying; he is observably scared of black people and that is not someone I want making descions about how the world moves foward.
Maybe just Occam's Razor -- any time I've seen Sam talk in public he just seems to be a neurotic, anxious individual that would have a hard time interacting with people in any normal context. In a world of infinite variables it's hard to say that his aversion was due to your race -- there's really not much to go on here.
Why would you think Occam's Razor would not determine that racism is the reason? It's just as simple of an explanation as anxiety.
I'm not sure some people understand how "normal" racism is.
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Thank you for sharing this. I 100% believe it, and it lines up with my experience with other people who came from similar backgrounds as Sam Altman - i.e. white, rich, privileged, and attending elite universities.
I will disagree with one part - I do believe it is racism. Most will never admit it publicly, but if they think you're one of them, it often comes out rather quickly, especially when alcohol is involved.
It's sad to me that "racism" is such a divisive word to many, and is met with defensiveness rather than introspection and communication. Trying to not be racist takes work, and communication, and is a process, not a state.
I appreciate OP's sharing as well. Also, racism isn't peddled only by rich white elite university attendees, it reaches into all the corners.
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An extranordinary claim needs a bit more evidence than one datapoint where in his defense maybe he is scared of anyone he doesn't know trying to talk on the street.
Also mentioned was that more evidence is not hard to find
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Agreed, his two posts read really weirdly. He made a deliberately vague(?) initial post to get a response and I'm not sure how I feel about his story as you've said, if I was Sam Altman I'd be wary of anyone coming up to me too.
I wonder if this stems from Sam getting beat up by a black guy. From the article:
> When Altman was sixteen or seventeen, he said, he was out late in a predominantly gay neighborhood in St. Louis and was subjected to a brutal physical attack and homophobic slurs. Altman did not report the incident, and he was reluctant to give us more details on the record, saying that a fuller telling would “make me look like I’m manipulative or playing for sympathy.”
Another black guy here, and I have to say man, if you're going to accuse someone of being racist( which you clearly are you despite the lame ass disclaimer, if his feelings towards black people is influencing hiring at OAI how is he not racist?) why don't you actually say specifically what he did?
"He damn near flagged down the police" tells us nothing about what actually happened. Did he back away? Did he look panicked? Did he say something dismissive? Did he literally call for police or security? You give all these pointless details like where you work and your height, and retreat to vagueness when coming to the actual behavior you're indicting him for.
A rich gay Jewish kid from St.Louis being weary, or even scared of black people is quite believable, a public figure screaming for police because a black guy he was next to said hi just beggars belief, especially when layered in emotionally charged nonspecific language.
And you don't even have the balls to admit you clearly think the guy who calls the cops on black people for saying hi to him, is racist, which you clearly do.
Just to clarify, because I am not sure I am reading this correctly:
Your statement that he is terrified of black people is based on you (presumably a black person) running into him outside an event, and him reacting with fear/extreme caution when you approached him?
Not defending Sam, but if that is the case, then it's the kind of thing that Sam can hold up and say "Do you really think my critics are intellectually honest?"
Rock solid evidence is what brings people down. Stretched truths, assumptions, and careful half-truth wording, are all ammo the accused will use to strengthen their side.
Not defending Sam, but if that is the case, then it's the kind of thing that Sam can hold up and say "Do you really think my critics are intellectually honest?"
Why? It sounds like they were in an environment with many people and Sam reacted negatively to the black guy. It's not like the story was, "so I followed him down a deserted alley and he got scared, so he must be racist."
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Note: To all the downvotes; I did this publicly and not anon for a reason, if you will do the same I am more than willing to provide evidence for all of these claims as long as its done publicly and in the open.
PG said something along the lines of: "There should be no truth that is increasingly unpopular to speak."
If you don't believe what I shared is true, address that directly. But seeing my post sitting at 1 point and [flagged] after 2 hours is not OK. Just as DJT can't flag away his issues, you shouldn't be able to do so on HN.
One of the things I've loved most about HN is that it was real — grounded in observability, empirical evidence, not bias or feelings. I really hope that what happened to my post is not the beginning or a continuance of the end for that ethos.
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Thank you for sharing this.
It's disappointing to me that a completely factual personal experience can be relayed with zero spin – and yet some of the replies act as if it's 100% spin without any factual evidence. Some people seem to prefer to respond to an imaginary version of a conversation rather than the one that's actually happening in front of them.
What about your interaction makes you think he’s scared of black people, specifically?
Thank you for sharing this experience with us. Don't worry about the downvotes. That's just how it is here sometimes. I don't think it reflects the views of most readers.
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The irony in your comment is that you accuse the OP of interpreting the world based on his own warped view of it rather than what’s actually in front of him, yet you’re doing precisely that. The OP did not call Altman racist and made a point to draw the distinction. He also claims his is not the only example of this and is effectively encouraging an investigative journalist and the rest of HN to look into it and verify for ourselves.
Some degree of skepticism is healthy here. An online comment is not definitive proof, and it’s all too easy to pile accusations as part of a comment thread that’s already critical of someone. But the way you readily armchair psychoanalyze and dismiss the OP tells me you’re not engaging in an honest way.