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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 d

• deleted 7mo ago
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• foxes 7mo ago
  Not sure what world you have lived in for the past at least 10 years... HN (and ycombinator) has implicitly enabled, dogwhistled, or pretended to ignore all sorts of hateful and violent rhetoric. Sometimes it hides behind a veneer of "curious conversation" but other times its disgustingly blatant - last article I saw about sama was filled with horrific racism. I come here because there are sometimes good posts, but this stuff has been here the entire time. Now its your guy getting the hate you are acting like its the worst thing in the world? Frankly people calling out a post from a billionaire is a good thing. You would have to be terminally detached from reality to not see how all these festering issues - wealth inequality, injustice, cost of living, future employment etc etc - are starting to come to a head which would cause people to feel something - frustrated, angry, wrathful.
  • dang 7mo ago
    > Not sure what world you have lived in for the past at least 10 years The world I have lived in for longer than 10 years is HN. I'm gut-wrenchingly familiar with the worst things that people post here—probably more than anyone, simply because it's my job. If you can dig up a single example of a thread this bad that we knew about and didn't do anything about, I'd be shocked, because it would go against everything I believe and feel. Perhaps you can, nonetheless? If so, let's see it. Here's what I mean by "this bad", if you want to calibrate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47727099 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47727099 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47725722 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47725722 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47725717 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47725717 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47726427 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47726427 The number of people who feel that anything at all is justified if it reinforces their feelings—particularly their angriest and most vicious feelings—is so large that it's clear that it is human nature in action, and that makes me yearn for a cool and heavy rock to crawl under, with moist earth to sink into.
    • foxes 7mo ago
      Well I'm not saying they don't get moderated eventually .. but the thread in reference https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47659135 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47659135 There was horrific racism on display right here. Perhaps it just seems part of the background noise to you .. but at the time, some of those posts felt just as bad as calls to violence or worse. But to compose something more substantial .. its probably all to much to neatly tie up in a single reply to a thread.
      • dang 7mo ago
        > Well I'm not saying they don't get moderated eventually I'm going to interpret that as meaning that we do our job ok, just not instantenously—which would make sense, given that we're human and that would be humanly impossible. > There was horrific racism on display right here If there were any cases of that which we didn't do anything about, it would be because we didn't see them. I can't read everything that gets posted to Hacker News any more than you can; see "humanly impossible" above. But I'd like to see specific links. > Perhaps it just seems part of the background noise to you It does not "seem like part of the background noise" to me. What it "seems like" is wrenching my intenstines into an agonizing state on a regular basis and then driving a spike through them.
• deleted 7mo ago
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• johnfn 7mo ago
  Don't leave dang -- we need you now more than ever. :(
• lrvick 7mo ago
  I deeply hate Sam Altman, but after reading the flagged comments. Jesus. You do a tough job. Thank you.
• arjie 7mo ago
  The event itself is really bad and condemnable, but when threads like this show up they are usually a good thing because people rapidly demonstrate high coupling of tribal affiliation with viewpoint. This causes a lot of them to advertise through unhinged posts which is a good raw test for what they are like to communicate with. I usually go through and killfile a bunch of these commenters. Essentially, you want your bad participants to be easily visible to be so. I don't want them to be subtly sneaking their stuff in normal threads. I want to go look at one place and see all of the people I don't want to listen to. Therefore, here's a feature request: allow per-user killfiles. I currently have this through a Chrome extension but I'd love it to be native so that I don't have to use my own iOS app and so on.
  • stonecharioteer 7mo ago
    What's a killfile?
    • surgical_fire 7mo ago
      Like a personal blocklist, so you don't see certain commenters/threads/etc. Personally I don't see the value, but some people are less resilient (or more weak-willed) at seeing words they disagree with.
    • arjie 7mo ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_file https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_file a mechanism to increase signal to noise so that you don't have to waste time on low-value text Here are a few things I find boring: https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Overmod#My_Stuff https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Overmod#My_Stuff One of the things I really like is to have a high-ratio of good content to slop content and I think manually curating out slop authors is the way to go for that. You'll see that my lists include things that other people seem to really enjoy.
    • jjav 7mo ago
      [flagged]
• surgical_fire 7mo ago
  When violence is considered as an acceptable solution to systemic issues, it is an early sign that things are taking a very bad turn. I typically take jabs at the community here, but not this time. What you are seeing is a reflection of a wider, much more insidious problem. Trust in society is failing, and people are not seeing a civilized solution through the usual channels - such as politics. I think things will get a lot worse before they get better. Hopefully I'll be okay in my little corner of the world.
  • jiggawatts 7mo ago
    > Trust in society is failing Something that I've observed happening throughout history is that in some sense "too much civilisation" can be a bad thing long-term. I knew someone in the army talk about how some officers wouldn't survive the first week of a real war. Not because of enemy fire, but because given the opportunity, the men under their command would almost certainly take advantage of the "less civilised nature" of the battlefield to take out someone they despise enough to murder, but not quite enough to risk it in a civilian setting where the tolerance for unsanctioned lethal force is essentially zero. Something similar happens outside of militaries too, where truly horrible human beings[1] can cynically utilise the enforced peace of civilized countries to do incredibly evil but legal things. The Sacklers come to mind as a prime example. They knowingly and deliberately sold highly addictive drugs marketed with brazen lies and killed about a hundred thousand Americans by some estimates. They are above the law and totally immune to all consequence, personal or otherwise. No violence will ever be done to them! Anyone that tries will be severely punished, because that upsets the "order" of civilised society where the rich and powerful can massacre millions, but the plebs can't ever lift a finger against even one of their cartoonishly evil oppressors without severe personal consequence. "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." -- Francis M. Wilhoit [2] Sociopaths loooove civilised societies! They can mercilessly exploit people while basking in the protection of the law. As long as what they're doing is technically legal, they can get away with almost any amount of evil acts. This does take a while to build up! Norms, expectations, and the like keep the worst of the worst initially at bay, but these things slowly erode as more and more sociopaths take greater and greater advantage. (Cough-Trump-Cough) This, taken far enough, where the common people are stepped on hard enough by those they can't ever bring to justice can result in entire societies just... snapping in their rage. They just need the opportunity, a "push", or some enabling event. In the case of the "friendly fire incidents" taking out bad officers, its a war. In most societies it is starvation or total economic hopelessness. We all know what this leads to: the French revolution is the prime example, but many others exist throughout history. The failure of the United States is that its reigns of power have been completely and utterly captured by the increasingly corrupt elite, and there is nothing the common people can do about it. Frustration is growing, slowly, but surely. It's not quite at the boiling over point, not yet, and may take a century to get there, but given the direction things have been heading, it's just a matter of time until the people take their anger out in some direct manner. Trump might have started the first pebble rolling by causing an oil shock. And gas shock. And fertilizer shock. I'm sure a lot of hungry, cold people who can't even get a job because the AIs have replaced them -- and used their cooking gas for energy -- will be perfectly fine with this and won't ever do anything about it! That would be uncivilized! [1] Disclaimer: Sam Altman is no saint, but I don't think he's anywhere near the level that he'd deserve mob violence. [2] At some level the people commenting here that it's shocking and horrifying that anything violent ever happens to a billionaire CEO are betraying their right-wing leanings. Conversely, the people arguing that the elite shouldn't be above personal repercussions for their actions are strongly left leaning.
• rl3 7mo ago
  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 air and/or water isn't viable. That of course isn't justification, but it does partly inform why some people are that mad, and it's much easier for angry people to be callously indifferent. If you were to break down HN's zeitgeist, it's some percentage site-local, some percentage larger tech scene, and some percentage general public. Although you have outsized influence on the former, the latter items factor in heavily—sometimes overwhelmingly so. You can't really control that, and I don't feel it represents some sort of failure on behalf of the community nor moderation team. I see it not as mob mentality so much as as multiple sides personally involved for different reasons. Things tend to get pretty heated when that happens; not a good recipe. I'm sorry you had to deal with the aftermath. Your flurry of disappointed, exhausted-sounding comments reminded me of a service industry worker getting hit with a huge rush. There's a kind of PTSD that hangs around once the dust settles. So, thank you for your efforts in trying to keep the site civil. It clearly ain't easy sometimes.
  • tptacek 7mo ago
    You're being nice about it but I think you're inadvertently expressing literally the sentiment Dan was referring to.
    • happytoexplain 7mo ago
      I am not speaking for the parent, but my personal interpretation is that they are trying to add perspectives/thoughts, not denying what Dan said (i.e. it's not "inadvertent" in as few words).
      • tptacek 7mo ago
        By that I meant it didn't read like they were trying to push back on him.
• deleted 7mo ago
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• Capricorn2481 7mo ago
  The comments you've linked are gross, but I take exception with what you wrote here. > or saying they "don't condone violence" as a pretext to do exactly that Maybe I just don't know what comments you're referring to, but you seem to be lumping every other post critical of Sam in with the worst comments, saying they are condoning violence, and that is disingenuous. I mostly see people expressing they aren't surprised this happened given how Sam openly markets his tech as a dangerous and unpredictable product that only he can steward, and maybe even finding his response to be a bit opportunistic in a tone deaf way, which hardly rises to the level of condoning violence. I am willing to hear you out on this, but you're going to have to explain how this is different from any other thread on HN that you've moderated. Political violence, on a much bigger scale than this I may add, hits front page news, and you have more than normalized that as a discussion topic. Whether it's drone strikes, wars, or people being openly executed in the street, it seems the tragedy of human life is an open debate on HN, and you can bet a good 50% of this site will be writing comments exactly like the ones in this thread. And hell, I can't say one way or the other if threads like this are even worth allowing. But now a tech CEO with lots of security gets a Molotov thrown at his metal gate, and people make the same comments, and suddenly a line has been crossed? How are the comments in this thread any different than comments like this, which involved people who were actually killed [1][2]. I have seen hundreds of comments on this site dictate to me how I should feel about the lives of others. I am often sickened by them. That's before we talk about Sam's actual role in how he shapes our society. It's not "sickening" to feel the need to footnote a condemnation of what happened, it's completely expected. Again, maybe you're talking about worse comments than I'm seeing, but I feel frustrated as people have regularly brought you examples of escalating violent rhetoric on this site and been dismissed. Outside of people explicitly saying Sam deserved it, which I don't agree with, every other comment here reads like regular HN to me. If that saddens you, maybe there needs to be a different approach to moderation altogether. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46551716 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46551716 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47688076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47688076
  • pocksuppet 7mo ago
    The difference is that the victim is one of ours. When we kill millions of poor innocent babies in the Middle East, that's not violence, that's not political, that's just technology helping improve society. But when one single member of our political elite is physically threatened (not even killed, like those millions of children, not even suffering any injury himself, just some minor property damage with an implied threat), now that's something we have to rally against or we're violent uncivilized monkeys deserving of life in a jail cell.
• Chance-Device 7mo ago
  For what it’s worth Dan, you’re probably the best moderator I’ve ever encountered, and without you HN likely wouldn’t be worth visiting. As it is it’s one of the best places for online discourse. That’s directly because of you and your efforts. It’s not easy to be a cop, and that’s basically what you are around here, but thank you for doing it.
• raffael_de 7mo ago
  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.)
  • bob1029 7mo ago
    I think a proper OpenAI vs Anthropic flame war might actually do this community some good. Let's just have it out. Avoiding violation of the x vs y technology rule seems to have resulted in a lot of pent up energy. I don't see the harm at this point if dang is saying it's over.
    • raffael_de 7mo ago
      forgot that there is even such a policy. the differentiating feature of hn always was that comments and discussions are relatively thoughtful and civil. that's quickly getting lost.
      • e900542 7mo ago
        Respectably my opinion is different. As I am reading through these comments the differences seem to be like neighboring Canadian farmers that each think next door is getting more rain than they are.
  • foxes 7mo ago
    Tech and science are political .. they don't exist in some sort of vacuum. Further being "apolotical" means supporting the current status quo.
    • raffael_de 7mo ago
      I consider your stance highly toxic.
• UncleMeat 7mo ago
  [flagged]
• jrflowers 7mo ago
  >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. There are like 20 rules for commenting on this site. Pretty much all of them are versions of “have decorum”, and none of them are “do not advocate for violence”. It is not just tolerated but encouraged to post insane stuff here so long as it sounds highbrow enough (eg the “most charitable interpretation” rule. It is against the rules to call out stuff like advocating for violence if it’s written like Niles Crane wrote it). As far as I can tell this thread is not really exceptional in any way other than some of the ire is directed at somebody that used to work for YC.
  • dang 7mo ago
    I don't recognize what we actually do, or feel, in anything you've written here, and agree that it would all be pretty disgusting if it were true. "Be kind" isn't about decorum and certainly excludes violence. If you ignore the most important one, of course you'll end up with a distorted view. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > this thread is not really exceptional in any way It was different when I first saw it last night - it was, as I've explained in other comments, very much a mob. But I did a bunch of the usual moderation things that we do to try to dampen such dynamics. (The part where I also expressed feelings about it was different, and not so usual. I've done that a few times over the years, but mostly try to process it offline.) As for the implication that we only cared about how bad that thread was because of the specific individual involved, yes, that would also be pretty disgusting—but the fact is that I've done, and do, the same moderation on countless occasions, large and small, and it doesn't depend on who the target is. In fact it isn't about the target at all—it's about the commnuity, and the poisoning effect that such threads have on us ourselves.
    • jrflowers 7mo ago
      >"Be kind" isn't about decorum and certainly excludes violence. The guideline in full (at least as it’s presented on the page) >Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. Is meant to be read: “Do not advocate for violence. (decorum). (decorum); (decorum). (decorum)” ? I would be surprised to find out that I am the one user on this website to have read “be kind” in that context to be an ambiguous suggestion about conversation quality or whatever rather than a rule about what topics of discussion are flat-out banned. Given that virtually every other platform that facilitates user interactions has clearly-delineated guidelines about what is and is not ok to post about, eschewing that in favor of “be kind” sort of gives the impression that such guidelines here are unnecessary because people will… conduct themselves here… with, for lack of a better word, decorum. Seeing as kindness is left entirely up to each user to interpret and decorum is described in detail, it is unsurprising to me that this site gets a lot of polite or analytical-sounding reprehensible rhetoric. It is like if you made a rule that everybody has to have a prominent horn section, walking bass line, and off-beat rhythms with a calypso influence and then wondered why your second rule of “don’t be rude“ didn’t stop everybody from playing ska.
• 710dev 7mo ago
  [flagged]
• grafmax 7mo ago
  As I see it the underlying issue for many ITT is the hypocrisy of condemning violence against Altman while while looking the other way from his role as an oligarch and as a Defense contractor. This is a human being with an awful destructive effect on the world he shares with us. Such people don't deserve violence but expropriation.
  • senordevnyc 7mo ago
    I’m looking right at his role. What am I supposed to be seeing? Is he breaking the law? Or do you just think he deserves whatever’s coming and more because you don’t agree with his views or actions?
    • MiguelX413 7mo ago
      Following or breaking the law isn't a good metric anymore. It never was really, a lot of genocides were “legal”. Sometimes it turns into a question of which law too. The US regularly breaks international law, so why should we respect its rule of of law if it doesn't respect international rule of law? Kissinger died peacefully and free of consequence for his warcrimes. The US threatens to invade the Hague if it tries to prosecute Americans for their warcrimes. How could anyone possibly see US law as having any legitimacy anymore?
      • senordevnyc 7mo ago
        I one billion percent prefer a flawed democracy with the rule of law, however imperfect, to a world where some random HN user thinks they their personal beliefs give them the moral authority to burn a family alive. Only an utter fool would wish for that world.
        • MiguelX413 7mo ago
          How do you reconcile violence between democracies then? What happens when two democracies go to war? If it were WWII, I'd support the military violence of my government against the democratically-elected Hitler. Similarly, I think violence against the genocide-supporting US government and elite is permissible today even if it was “democratically-elected” (not that I think a choice between two Zionists counts as a real choice).
• consumer451 7mo ago
  It would be a huge loss and a real shame if you left permanently. I don't know how often you get to take a real vacation, somewhere away from the Internet and the USA, but this might be a good time to consider taking one?
  • deleted 7mo ago
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• thinkingemote 7mo ago
  Trying to help your perspective: It might be Gell-Mann? or something similar that you sometimes mention. We assume that users who have proficiencies in one area should have proficiencies in another, or we notice more when something we know and care about is deeply wrong. The reaction we feel to deep untruths is a sign of our care and passion in Truth. As you encourage, I would also like to be a little bit charitable and say that some users might be clever at programming or know about certain technology subjects but when it comes to real life and morality they are stuck in early edgy teenager mode, so we can still work and communicate with them on other topics. I try to flag these submissions because I know that many users are completely unable to discuss them in fruitful ways. Many of us are immature. At a societal level, the simplistic and edgy teenager morality is mostly expressed online so we being terminally online tend to notice it more. The morality might be most publicly seen in "silence is violence" which is a thought terminating cliche. Thinking is hard and changing one's mind is hard too, especially when people have these thoughts which literally stop them thinking. Psychologically, for many, expressing these juvenile, half baked, sloppy thoughts do not require much thought. They are cheap psychologically. It's like how being in a herd is actually comfortable and saves energy. It costs brain effort and potential hurt to ones self identity to change one's brain patterns. Most people choose to avoid even the thoughts that change is possible and not only wish to remain in Platos cave but to then keep their eyes closed to the shadows on the wall. Another charitable thought: these worrying ideas are not actually ideas but emotions. For some users they try to argue with these people with logic but they should really connect emotionally - try to help the people feel for others, the good and the moral. Easiest to do with personal first hand real stories and not abstract ideas. To break down otherness through charity.
• phs318u 7mo ago
  All communities eventually become a reflection of the society they are a part of. Even a willingly insular and sometimes wilfully ignorant one. Did you think this corner of the internet - your beautiful little garden - could survive unscathed while the rest of the world and the rest of your country slowly/quickly goes mad? The visitors to this little garden may spend a lot of time here trying not to let the outside world in - but the reality is we all live in that slowly rotting society, so don’t be surprised when the infection seeps in even here.
  • dang 7mo ago
    Yes indeed: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20immune%20macro%20trend&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... I said I was ashamed, not surprised. It isn't surprising, and the feeling comes with the job every day. The difference is that I said something about it this time; I occasionally do, as long as it isn't often. Maybe once a year or so.
    • phs318u 7mo ago
      Fair enough. You’re human too. Thank you for the job you do. As quixotic as t sometimes appears I value the effort and it’s a big part of why this forum has stayed cleaner than others. Please don’t be disheartened. Discussions like these prove the point of difference of HN to other fora. Vitriol is a relative rarity here. We should all keep striving to preserve that.
      • dang 7mo ago
        Appreciated!
• ninkendo 7mo ago
  Maybe it's time to pack it in? I don't just mean you, I mean that maybe this site has kinda run its course. The tech scene isn't the small, tight-knit thing it used to be. This site is now enormous. Discussion quality seems to have sort of "regressed to the mean"... the larger HN gets and the more people join the discussion, it starts to resemble the median social media site more and more. At some point it sorta loses its purpose. I'm still addicted to HN, but I've gone through times where I've set my password to a UUID and time-lock encrypted it to lock myself out, because posting here has gotten worse and worse and worse for my mental health (and there's no way to delete your account here... I've emailed you about it in the past and never got a response.) On some level I hate HN now. TBH if this site was gone tomorrow, I'd most definitely be better off for it in the long run, and I'm sure I'm not alone here. Thanks for all the work you've put in over the years though. This site has held out longer than most, and for a time, was one of the best places on the internet for discussion of any kind, let alone tech. It deserves a place in history for that alone.
  • johnfn 7mo ago
    If you want to delete your account you can just set your noprocrast to some absurdly large number like 99999999.
  • dang 7mo ago
    I don't think the "tech scene" was ever the small, tight-knit thing it used to be. I'm not sure whether HN comments have gotten worse in general - these things fluctuate a lot, over long stretches, and the fundamentals are more or less the same over time. Despite my emotional statement, I'm not really thinking of packing it in. HN obviously does more good than harm, even though it's popular for people to say the opposite (and even part of the game to say it).
• pixel_popping 7mo ago
  HN has literally turned into a political cesspool lately
  • drcongo 7mo ago
    The world has literally turned into a political cesspool lately. Possibly related.
• walls 7mo ago
  It's almost like all the work you've put into silencing any criticism of the current regime and associated oligarchs was for nothing!
• smoyer 7mo ago
  You make this corner of the world better dang!
• johnbarron 7mo ago
  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 trading cards at this point, include: "too political," "not related to tech," "flamebait," "this isn't the forum for this," "not intellectually curious," and my personal favorite, "this will only generate heat, not light." Entire hospital systems destroyed, aid workers killed in marked vehicles, tens of thousands of documented child casualties, and the curated editorial position is: not HN material. A Molotov cocktail lands on a billionaire CEO's porch. No injuries. Likely a disturbed individual, and according to some well researched reporting in the New Yorker, Altman's personal life has generated no shortage of intense grievances that have nothing to do with AI or tech. But here we are: front page, moderator editorial, existential crisis about the community's soul...!? So help me understand the framework. Is violence HN worthy when it is directed upward on the org chart? Is a zero casualty arson attempt on a mansion more deserving of community reflection than systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure, because one involves someone in YC Rolodex? You write that you've "never seen a thread this bad." I'd invite you to read the comments that appear in the eleven minutes before Gaza threads get flagged. They're remarkably similar in tone, just aimed at people who don't have Sam publicist. You say you want to "find something else to do with your life." Maybe that instinct is worth listening to. Since the AI boom, HN moderation has drifted from "intellectually curious forum" toward something closer to "curated narrative for the industry it covers." When a platform consistently decides that violence against tech executives is a moral emergency but violence enabled by tech companies' contracts is "off-topic," the person setting that editorial line is not a neutral steward, they're an editor with a viewpoint. And that's fine, but let's not dress it up as community values. So...In the spirit of consistency: I'd like to this post be flagged. It involves no technology. It's a criminal matter best left to law enforcement. The comment section is, by the moderator's own assessment, irredeemably toxic. It is generating heat, not light. It is too political. It is not intellectually curious. It will attract flamebait. In other words...it meets every single criterion routinely applied to kill discussions about violence that does not happen on somebody porch in Pacific Heights.
• hax0ron3 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  • deleted 7mo ago
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  • MiguelX413 7mo ago
    [flagged]
    • hax0ron3 7mo ago
      To be fair, my role in structural violence, while not to the level of Sam Altman, is also far from non-zero. And that's kind of what I'm trying to get at. I'm not saying that people should kill Sam Altman. I don't think I would kill him even if I was 100% sure I could get away with it. Killing is a very heavy thing, surely there are usually other ways to solve problems. But the idea that it's ok to advocate violence against certain people and not others, which I think is probably implicit in dang's thinking (I doubt he would be offended by calls to kill Putin, for example), should probably be made explicit. We can have a conversation about where the line is exactly.
• chrisfosterelli 7mo ago
  I have to believe that what we're seeing is a minority opinion that feels like their uniquely backwards logic justifying this is somehow worth sharing as if its new and insightful, while the vast majority of us think "holy crap, that's horrible" but aren't adding it because of course that's already been said and there just isn't any more nuance needed.
  • deleted 7mo ago
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  • MiguelX413 7mo ago
    [flagged]
    • senordevnyc 7mo ago
      “Structural violence” sounds like a religious concept, like original sin. Your beliefs are your own, but they don’t entitle you to murder someone, just like we don’t let fundamentalists murder gay folks, no matter what their religion tells them.
      • deleted 7mo ago
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      • deleted 7mo ago
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      • MiguelX413 7mo ago
        [flagged]
        • senordevnyc 7mo ago
          No, it’s bullshit people made up so they can justify taking their hatred and bitterness out on those they disagree with. It’s the logic of a coward and a small mind. If you lack the ethics to keep you from wanting to murder people you disagree with, just say so openly. You’re fooling no one.
• d4v3 7mo ago
  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.
  • MiguelX413 7mo ago
    [flagged]
    • d4v3 7mo ago
      If your answer to broken voting is violence, then you were probably just looking for an excuse, not a solution
      • MiguelX413 7mo ago
        What's your answer?
        • d4v3 7mo ago
          [dead]
• odshoifsdhfs 7mo ago
  So, OpenAI, Brockman, not sure about Altman directly, donated millions to Trump&Co, support and let use their technology to kill/harm millions of people, and now we are supposed to pretend to feel sorry for them? None of those news items, comments, news made you want to get away from this, but now that your YC buddy is the target and whatever else fuck is used to justify it? When ICE killed american citizens, school girls killed it was all 'we flagged this as flamewar and what now' but now because he is part of the cadre, NOW it is disgusting? I would laugh if this wasn't the fucking future we are at, just sucking to these assholes
  • dang 7mo ago
    You've misunderstood what I wrote and what I felt. I wasn't talking about the underlying story or the linked article, but about the community's response to it. Perhaps this explanation will help: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47734894 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47734894.
• salawat 7mo ago
  The community may very well feel ashamed of here, dang. I've been here in the good times, and to be frank, even before I made an account in 2017, I'd lurked for a long time. Recently, I've personally come to recognize an ethos nurtured here that it may very well be has overstayed it's welcome in a polite society. People aren't dumb. People see where the money flows. People see whose decisions things revolve around. People see the trajectory that seems to be set, and people are starting to realize that talking & reason aren't working for them any more. Reason, is by virtue of rationalization, in it's own way it's own worst enemy. With enough practice, anything can be intellectually justified. So where the little box of rationality ceases to be effective, life shifts to the irrational. Suddenly things start hitting different. You might be ashamed of all those here feeling the squeeze, but the squeezed don't even register the pinch thereof compared to what life is already throwing at them, in no small part because of your fellow Sam A. What you should note, and take away from all of this, is someone you know is building themselves into a Wickerman doused in gasoline through their actions. If you want something to change; you can try applying pressure to your first degree connection. Sometimes people just need a helping hand back onto the right path from someone unexpected. Or... You can keep telling a bunch of people with much bigger problems how ashamed you are that they are having an absolutely human response to the suffering of a man at the forefront of building a reasonably foreseeable suffering amplification machine within the context of a society that is organized around a social contract of exchanging capital for labor. I'm sure that shame you cast won't get "lost in the softmax" as the AI folks might say. No more skin off my nose either way. Though I'd feel much better seeing some genuine humanity injected into cutting edge tech circles, I'm aware of the incentives, and also cognizant that sometimes, you have to leave the incentivized path to stay on the Right one. That's a lesson it isn't in any one person's capacity to teach though. Sometimes... it takes a community to get the point across. Even then though, you can lead a horse to water...
• happytoexplain 7mo ago
  I wish we all felt so sickened by this.
• Froztnova 7mo ago
  It's been getting pretty bad around here lately. I had someone reply to a post I made in that Idiocracy thread a few days ago advocating for eugenics. Really really gross all around. People here think that they're much smarter than they actually are.
• deleted 7mo ago
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• Teever 7mo ago
  You're being completely melodramatic and hypocritical here likely because you have some sort of personal or business relationship with Altman. Be honest with yourself -- underneath your admonishments against people here is a personal policy that promotes and enables far worse things than a molotov cocktail or more against Sam Altman. People talk about war and advocate for war all the time here. Y Combinator itself funds arms companies, and surveillance companies. Altman himself is a defense contractor! How many climate change deaths is Sam Altman personally responsible for? I live in a country that America has threatened to annex. I live in a part of that country where America money is pouring in to fund a separatist movement to facilitate that annexation. My country is allied with another country that America has threatened to invade. I'm content to live my life and do my own thing with no intent to cause harm to others, and the goal of minimizing the harm I do cause but apparently that is a luxury I am not afforded in life. So what do I do? I just keep living my life the best I can and hoping something changes in the national dynamic in America. If that means Americans start squabbling and attacking their oligarchs instead of attacking me so be it. It's not the world I want to live in either, but it's better than a world where Americans are focused and united on attacking me. Have you ever shed a single tear for a Russian oligarch who 'falls out a window onto a pile of bullets?' I doubt it. That's how I feel about Altman. Just be honest Dang. We're all living in sin here. We're all entwined into an economic system that is built off of slavery and theft. "The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind."
• deleted 7mo ago
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