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?
But that is the kicker. As the sister comment said it matters a great deal what others do.
At some point a broken system enacts soft violence on people. So it isnt surprising people act out when they think survival is at stake. With healthcare, it really can be. But where is the line? When someone you know dies? 10 people?
Because of the valuations of Open AI and Anthropic, Sam Altman may be credited with one of the all-time most damaging brand decisions when he got in bed with Trump’s department of war crimes.
This should have been SO OBVIOUS. Attempts to paper over the damage with a $100 billion dollar round will crumble after the IPO. Poor decisions generate poor options, and the whole industry smells his desperation.
Decisions at the highest level are indistinguishable from responsibility. All Sam accomplished was showing the world he is structurally unfit for moral leadership.
>> Yeah, the words and narratives that Sam Altman promoted caused so much fear and uncertainty and anger that someone thought their only option was to attempt a horrific crime.
The problem with this inversion of your first statement (that violence is not the answer), which everyone justifying violence in this thread seems to forget, is that there is always someone who feels this way about anything.
The words and narratives of Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, caused so much fear and uncertainty and anger in some people that they thought their only option was to commit a horrific crime.
Someone responded to you below saying if you feel that peaceful revolution is impossible, then violent revolution is necessary. That person feels that they are on the side of justice. What they forget is that so does everyone else.
The reason revolutions rarely stop where a reasonable person would want them to stop, and instead continue into eating their own and counter-revolutions, is that once you say that it's understandable to take out a proponent of (X narrative), there's no end to the number of people who will justify violence in the same way against any other narrative as well.
We can all well think that Altman is opening Pandora's Box, but that doesn't justify opening it ourselves, or giving a pass to wannabe revolutionaries who would.
In retrospect, too, we can say that the assassination of Hitler had it succeeded would have been a good thing. We can say that the elimination of the ayatollah by the US was a good thing. What we cannot say is that an individual's perception gives them a right to commmit murder.
Despite all the high-minded talk, Americans have always been comfortable with violence, since before it was a country: pick a year and I can find 10+ extrajudicial violent incidences. A surprisingly large percentage of US presidents have had assassination attempts against them.
Seeing no changes after Sandy Hook made it abundantly clear to me that occasional violence - even on innocent child victims - is the price America is willing to pay for other freedoms.
Sociopath who rides high ego wave and drinks his own kool aid, acting highly amorally and then complaints that his actions have some (benign) consequences.
Why do we care what he thinks? Lets discuss his work if we have to, not emotional pondering and feeling victim.
I know people pretty reflexively downvote questioning this, but I question this. I think some people are afraid that even asking this moral question is somehow inciting violence.
I think it's quite believable that the possibility of force is actually essential to keeping institutions in-line. Certainly a lot of civil rights progress was a lot less peaceful than I was taught in school.
Violence is not the answer if and only if there are non-violent ways to achieve necessary goals.
We seem to go through a cycle where we set up systems that provide non-violent ways of resolving issues, then people get annoyed with the outcomes and break down those systems. They hope that it means they'll always get what they want, but what it actually does is make it so that violence is the only way for others to get what they want.
Like organized labor. We seem to be in a cycle where strong labor organization is seen as inefficient or harmful to business, and it's being suppressed. The people suppressing it seem to think that the end state will be low wages and desperate workers. They've forgotten that collective bargaining didn't spring up from nothing, it's the nicer alternative to descending on the boss's mansion with torches and pitchforks.
All that Civil Rights violence you mention was because those in power did not provide any non-violent way to achieve it. Suppressing votes and legalizing oppression only works up to a point. Eventually people will take by force what they've been denied by law.
Or as JFK said it better than I can: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
The corollary: when peaceful revolution has been made impossible, violent revolution is the answer.
> it's the nicer alternative to descending on the boss's mansion with torches and pitchforks.
And those bosses are hoping a combination of drones and altman’s AI will keep them safe the next time. Meanwhile we’ve got Altman selling his AI to the military with essentially no restrictions telling us we just need to patiently wait for all the good things it’s going to do for the common man.
Just keep grinding and waiting, he can’t tell you what the benefit will be for you but he promises it will be amazing!
That's certainly the implied threat when people show up with AR-15's in the Idaho statehouse. Yes it's legal. But what is the point? This is ruby red Idaho.
I've always said when peaceniks start to carry weapons, it's time to worry. Alex Pretti didn't pull his gun, but still got shot. At what point will some escalation tactic end up in a gun fight between the local police and ICE?
If your only measure is whether something is effective, then state and corporate violence will always be a lot more effective than individual acts of violence. You could even say that individual violence helps the state to commit violence, by providing justification and by removing the moral imperative to avoid violence.
I don’t like expanding the definitions of things like this. People have had a commonplace definition of violence for a long time. One that encompassed throwing Molotov cocktails and doesn’t include more intangible things like poverty or inequality or racism.
Academia doesn’t get to just assert that their broader definition is the real one.
But every "intangible" thing you mentioned was in fact maintained by very tangible violence that those in power decide legitimate. What happens if a poor man decides to squat a rich man's vacation home? What happens if a black woman living under segregation refuses to give up her bus seat for a white person? In both cases the police will be called, and i'm damn sure that the cops don't shy away from using violence if it gets the thing done.
That’s a very dismissive point of view to the seriousness of the situation. He had a Molotov cocktail thrown at his home in the immediate aftermath of an article that painted him in a negative light. The two may not be connected but seem to be.
Altman didn't create AI. That disruption is already coming no matter what. He's a fine enough steward of the tech. And what's this garbage about selling to the military? You pay taxes? You fund the military. Without security you can't protect your nation or your allies, and enemy nations would do as they please. Yet another citizen who benefits from a system while trying to attack it.
> That disruption is already coming no matter what.
[citation needed]. Depending on what you mean by "that disruption," I might even be willing to bet against it coming at all.
> He's a fine enough steward of the tech.
He's a manipulative con-man who is mediocre at everything except convincing investors to give him money. If the tech is truly as revolutionary as it's purported to be, he absolutely should not be a "steward of the tech."
> And what's this garbage about selling to the military? You pay taxes? You fund the military. Without security you can't protect your nation or your allies, and enemy nations would do as they please.
There is security, and there is bombing schools. Guess which one is Altman associating himself and the software he sells associating with?
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?
> what the line would be that would justify violence
It doesn’t matter where we think the line should be drawn, only where those much worse off draw it.
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.)
But that is the kicker. As the sister comment said it matters a great deal what others do.
At some point a broken system enacts soft violence on people. So it isnt surprising people act out when they think survival is at stake. With healthcare, it really can be. But where is the line? When someone you know dies? 10 people?
It is messy.
2 replies →
[flagged]
It is not complicated.
Because of the valuations of Open AI and Anthropic, Sam Altman may be credited with one of the all-time most damaging brand decisions when he got in bed with Trump’s department of war crimes.
This should have been SO OBVIOUS. Attempts to paper over the damage with a $100 billion dollar round will crumble after the IPO. Poor decisions generate poor options, and the whole industry smells his desperation.
Decisions at the highest level are indistinguishable from responsibility. All Sam accomplished was showing the world he is structurally unfit for moral leadership.
>> Yeah, the words and narratives that Sam Altman promoted caused so much fear and uncertainty and anger that someone thought their only option was to attempt a horrific crime.
The problem with this inversion of your first statement (that violence is not the answer), which everyone justifying violence in this thread seems to forget, is that there is always someone who feels this way about anything.
The words and narratives of Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, caused so much fear and uncertainty and anger in some people that they thought their only option was to commit a horrific crime.
Someone responded to you below saying if you feel that peaceful revolution is impossible, then violent revolution is necessary. That person feels that they are on the side of justice. What they forget is that so does everyone else.
The reason revolutions rarely stop where a reasonable person would want them to stop, and instead continue into eating their own and counter-revolutions, is that once you say that it's understandable to take out a proponent of (X narrative), there's no end to the number of people who will justify violence in the same way against any other narrative as well.
We can all well think that Altman is opening Pandora's Box, but that doesn't justify opening it ourselves, or giving a pass to wannabe revolutionaries who would.
In retrospect, too, we can say that the assassination of Hitler had it succeeded would have been a good thing. We can say that the elimination of the ayatollah by the US was a good thing. What we cannot say is that an individual's perception gives them a right to commmit murder.
> What they forget is that so does everyone else.
Despite all the high-minded talk, Americans have always been comfortable with violence, since before it was a country: pick a year and I can find 10+ extrajudicial violent incidences. A surprisingly large percentage of US presidents have had assassination attempts against them.
Seeing no changes after Sandy Hook made it abundantly clear to me that occasional violence - even on innocent child victims - is the price America is willing to pay for other freedoms.
[dead]
It’s about as thinly veiled as a fishnet.
Answer to what? Do you know the question?
"Violence like this is not the answer. However,"
Sociopath who rides high ego wave and drinks his own kool aid, acting highly amorally and then complaints that his actions have some (benign) consequences.
Why do we care what he thinks? Lets discuss his work if we have to, not emotional pondering and feeling victim.
Yes. Yes.
> Violence like this is not the answer.
I know people pretty reflexively downvote questioning this, but I question this. I think some people are afraid that even asking this moral question is somehow inciting violence.
I think it's quite believable that the possibility of force is actually essential to keeping institutions in-line. Certainly a lot of civil rights progress was a lot less peaceful than I was taught in school.
Violence is not the answer if and only if there are non-violent ways to achieve necessary goals.
We seem to go through a cycle where we set up systems that provide non-violent ways of resolving issues, then people get annoyed with the outcomes and break down those systems. They hope that it means they'll always get what they want, but what it actually does is make it so that violence is the only way for others to get what they want.
Like organized labor. We seem to be in a cycle where strong labor organization is seen as inefficient or harmful to business, and it's being suppressed. The people suppressing it seem to think that the end state will be low wages and desperate workers. They've forgotten that collective bargaining didn't spring up from nothing, it's the nicer alternative to descending on the boss's mansion with torches and pitchforks.
All that Civil Rights violence you mention was because those in power did not provide any non-violent way to achieve it. Suppressing votes and legalizing oppression only works up to a point. Eventually people will take by force what they've been denied by law.
Or as JFK said it better than I can: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
The corollary: when peaceful revolution has been made impossible, violent revolution is the answer.
> it's the nicer alternative to descending on the boss's mansion with torches and pitchforks.
And those bosses are hoping a combination of drones and altman’s AI will keep them safe the next time. Meanwhile we’ve got Altman selling his AI to the military with essentially no restrictions telling us we just need to patiently wait for all the good things it’s going to do for the common man.
Just keep grinding and waiting, he can’t tell you what the benefit will be for you but he promises it will be amazing!
An excellent illustration of the blind spot
[dead]
That's certainly the implied threat when people show up with AR-15's in the Idaho statehouse. Yes it's legal. But what is the point? This is ruby red Idaho.
I've always said when peaceniks start to carry weapons, it's time to worry. Alex Pretti didn't pull his gun, but still got shot. At what point will some escalation tactic end up in a gun fight between the local police and ICE?
[flagged]
[flagged]
Words and writings (law) only have power because of violence (the monopoly of it)
So yes, in essence, it seems like violence is the answer.
When (perceived) justice is gone, the monopoly crumbles because the system is not working.
And this perception can have many causes
If it wasn’t a good or at least workable answer, the state and corporations would be using it so much
If your only measure is whether something is effective, then state and corporate violence will always be a lot more effective than individual acts of violence. You could even say that individual violence helps the state to commit violence, by providing justification and by removing the moral imperative to avoid violence.
I don’t like expanding the definitions of things like this. People have had a commonplace definition of violence for a long time. One that encompassed throwing Molotov cocktails and doesn’t include more intangible things like poverty or inequality or racism.
Academia doesn’t get to just assert that their broader definition is the real one.
But every "intangible" thing you mentioned was in fact maintained by very tangible violence that those in power decide legitimate. What happens if a poor man decides to squat a rich man's vacation home? What happens if a black woman living under segregation refuses to give up her bus seat for a white person? In both cases the police will be called, and i'm damn sure that the cops don't shy away from using violence if it gets the thing done.
1 reply →
Think you missed an "n't" in "wouldn't" there.
> Violence like this is not the answer. However
Sigh
That’s a very dismissive point of view to the seriousness of the situation. He had a Molotov cocktail thrown at his home in the immediate aftermath of an article that painted him in a negative light. The two may not be connected but seem to be.
There have been articles depicting him in a negative light, for good reasons, for years.
[dead]
Altman didn't create AI. That disruption is already coming no matter what. He's a fine enough steward of the tech. And what's this garbage about selling to the military? You pay taxes? You fund the military. Without security you can't protect your nation or your allies, and enemy nations would do as they please. Yet another citizen who benefits from a system while trying to attack it.
> Altman didn't create AI.
No one said he did.
> That disruption is already coming no matter what.
[citation needed]. Depending on what you mean by "that disruption," I might even be willing to bet against it coming at all.
> He's a fine enough steward of the tech.
He's a manipulative con-man who is mediocre at everything except convincing investors to give him money. If the tech is truly as revolutionary as it's purported to be, he absolutely should not be a "steward of the tech."
> And what's this garbage about selling to the military? You pay taxes? You fund the military. Without security you can't protect your nation or your allies, and enemy nations would do as they please.
There is security, and there is bombing schools. Guess which one is Altman associating himself and the software he sells associating with?
> He's a fine enough steward of the tech.
Are you Sam Altman?
One of his ~10 burners