Comment by tptacek
6 days ago
These are message boards. The obvious sentiment, that firebombing attacks are awful (perhaps cut a little bit with "the perpetrator appears to be someone deeply in need of help) is boring. This is an availability bias issue: the only sentiments that actually spool out into threads are edgy. Once you learn to spot these effects, message boards make a lot more sense and are less jarring.
Another good thread to follow is the murdering of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42317604
It's an interesting exercise to compare these threads.
My own position on the matter is the not an edgy one: political violence of any kind, is never justified, but it does signal that something deep in society requires a change.
I'm of the view that it's violence of the non-political kind that is never justified*. Political violence can be legitimized, as an option of last resort. There's plenty of historical examples where groups of people were denied every avenue of redress until they turned violent. As an example, read up on the history of most labour unions.
* one exception being defense of life and limb.
I am european and not american, but since reddit is mostly used by americans I would say that from their prospective political violence is justified and encoded in the constitution. How would you explain the second emendment?
> A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State
Isn't really political. By my reading the clause also invalidates the entire amendement soon as the US aquired a standing army, but I'm not from the US so, who knows.
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> political violence of any kind, is never justified,
I'm genuinely curious about how you reconcile this with the world around you.
I completely disagree. Political violence is the universal check on every political system that keeps it from sucking too much.
The optimal amount of crazies getting off the porch at any one time is not zero much like the optimal amount of fraud is not zero.
Besides I think the sentiment would be very different if anyone actually got hurt.
"causing a fire to an exterior gate" doesn't lead me to believe there was any chance of real harm.
And the same applies to HN? Edgy messages make it to the top, and the reader should learn to react accordingly (in what way?)
Mostly just by not being emotionally destabilized by edgy comments, is all.
I think this is a little too optimistic:
- Go onto a Reddit thread about ICE, everyone in the comment threads says they don't like ICE. That's the obvious statement, not edgy.
- Go onto a Reddit thread about Trump, everyone says they don't like Trump. That's the obvious statement, not edgy.
Why would we think the Sam Altman thread is any different? I unfortunately think the Reddit thread might be the real deal, or at least a little more real than you are saying.