At a fundamental level, we seem to have lost our sense of what Democracy means.
The rules are "I can think you are crass, wrong, bigoted, geriatric, etc., but if a majority of my countrymen think otherwise, we accept we are not successful in the battle of ideas, and fight another battle of ideas in 4 years". Unless this is a lone, unstable individual, it is more evidence that our system needs more balance.
Truly sad that we've descended to this level
> Four sitting presidents have been killed: Abraham Lincoln (1865, by John Wilkes Booth), James A. Garfield (1881, by Charles J. Guiteau), William McKinley (1901, by Leon Czolgosz), and John F. Kennedy (1963, by Lee Harvey Oswald). Additionally, two presidents have been injured in attempted assassinations: former president Theodore Roosevelt (1912, by John Schrank) and Ronald Reagan (1981, by John Hinckley Jr.)
If anything we’ve been “overdue”.
Today that number is 7/45
So it went from 13% to 15%. Not only that, but firearms technology has advanced considerably. If anything, statistically speaking we've been incredibly lucky in the past 30 years
Firstly needs to learn how to engage in politics w/out a gun. Also needs to practice.
Meanwhile, next door in Australia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEY00iJv4CQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6KJM-MODME but we're just farmers.
Person aimed for the head, seems like he wasn't trained how to kill people.
Anyway, the person knew they would die seconds later, heavy breathing makes it is massively harder to aim when you are nervous, then it is easy to miss a moving head at 140 yards.
Hopefully I'm not giving useful tips to future assassins. :P
You know he wasn't that well trained when you see that he killed a bystander.
The general pop culture opinion cultivated by movies, shows, video games, etc. seem to mislead a lot of people towards the idea that guns are just a "point and shoot" type of deal at any range in any situation. When the reality is like any other hobby it takes many many hours of practice and lots of $$$ worth of ammo to get to the point where you can consistently place shots on target at decent ranges and even then that's in a controlled environment with a paper target that doesn't move, no pressure on you, you're probably not firing standing up without a support etc.
Mind you, that former sniper was also a Republican congressman so I would not be surprised if he was just using the opportunity to build the Trump Messiah narrative.
The real mistake was not going for center mass on someone over 70. A gut wound or lung or even a sizeable chunk from meaty tissue anywhere on the body could put down someone that age from blood loss. There's no achievements for head shots in real life.
I do not know what it would take to do that, but even if it needs AI it doesn't sound too far off.
<https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a37708762/...>
it is NOT hard. whats hard is from-the-hip shooting like you see in movies.
i dont mean to be (too) rude, but if you have problems hitting accurately at 25 meters with a rested rifle, you have some serious problems that you should probably get looked at (im thinking inability to hold steady etc)
In addition he knew that snipers and police were constantly watching roof tops, and if he poked his head out he may not have many seconds to actually raise his gun, aim and shoot.
I am not an expert, but I doubt you can compare your experience on the range to a kid full of adrenaline trying to take a shot at one of the most protected persons in the world. It's a completely different situation.
Hell, many commercial and surplus rifles you buy will straight up NEVER shoot 1 MOA on their own as is even assuming you've clamped them perfectly to a table with no human input for error due to their construction.
my rifle is a 3006 with a cut barrel, and it is extremely precise. There are a couple of guys at my local range that can consistently(aka generally 4 out of 5) put hole-in-hole (with slight enlarging)
Most people aren't buying a $3-4k optic (you mentioned Zeiss in your other post) + what I assume is a (at minimum) $1-2k precision rifle + a fancy rest + I'm guessing match grade ammo and having someone set it up for them the first time they go shooting.
Majority of new hobbyists are buying an off the shelf budget AR15 or surplus rifle around $300-600, using irons or cheap ($100-200 range) optics, and whatever box of factory grade cartridges the guy at the store shoved at them first when they asked for ammo for their rifle, and grabbing the wood block or small sand bag rests the range hands out for free when they shoot. I think that's more fair to judge initial progress/consistency off of a common real world scenario- it's what most new shooters will experience, either at home or in military service, most newcomers aren't instantly splurging on the nicest gear money can buy.
Most rifles straight up can't consistently (and I mean consistently, I don't mean like those guys online or at the range that will shoot 20 groups and cherry pick the 1 lucky group under 1 MOA when the rest are all 2-4 MOA and claim they shoot sub-MOA, or shoot a group of 5 and only mark 3) unless you specifically shopped around for one or made the necessary adjustments (new barrel, etc.) either and know that good ammo can make all the difference.
as for ammo, i Used the cheapest training ammo the store had (Sellier & Bellot fmj), which many people complain about not being super good, but works extremely well for me. I have noticed that some different boxes has a SLIGHT offset in where the hit is, but groupings are more or less equally good.
edit: I should note that the rifle manufacturer gives a 1MOA garantuee, but most are way better, and for about $1000 more they would take like 10 barrels and test, and give you the best of them. I choose NOT to pay the extra fee
I definitely feel that. My father in law is a bit of a precision nut, he has a Zeiss he let me use a few times, I don't know the exact model though. Very nice stuff, always found it hard to justify for myself, haha. Ammo prices nowadays are starting to make range days pricey enough where I look at the cost of nicer equipment and think, man, I can get this or get X more trips worth of ammo instead :)
also this is not superhuman, there are other guys at the range WAY better than me.
the caliber is 3006spr, with a cut barrel, nothing special. zeiss victory 2.8-20 56mm scope.
One ex-USMC commentator on Bloomberg said that the shot wouldn’t have been very difficult at that range. As to why he missed, maybe the shooter had to rush his shots since he was spotted. Maybe he was just a bad shot. It was explained that he wasn’t accepted into his high school shooting team.
This is what I remember hearing while doom-browsing YouTube, so take with a grain of salt.
Compared to other places (like ancient Greece that switched rulers twice a year).. I guess it's a risky job, but someone's gotta do it.
I guess my point is: if anyone thinks their grievances justifies violence, remember that the other side has grievances too.
We have free speech in the United States, so we are free to say things like “Biden is senile” or “Trump is anti-democratic.” But if we can’t exercise free speech and disagree without descending into violence, then it will be our downfall. Xi and Putin will be delighted. Maybe they’ll take over and we’ll have a system where saying the wrong thing gets you disappeared, strapped to a tiger chair, or thrown out of a window.
Shots have been fired at FDR, Truman, Kennedy(†), Ford, Reagan, Clinton, and yesterday.
Bombs or explosives have been placed or deployed against Hoover, Truman, Kennedy, GHW Bush, Clinton, GW Bush, and Obama.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presiden...>
Unsurprising for a man who styled himself a yeoman farmer but had slaves and children do all of his work for him.
Trump was never supported, much less elected, by a majority of Americans. He didn't even get the majority of votes in the election he won. The American political system was explicitly designed not to empower the will of the majority, because that would have been an existential threat to the status quo (slavery) at the time.
And while it might be nice to claim that we should be civil participants in a battle of ideas, it would be naive to ignore the effect of centuries of gun culture and polarizing neo-reactionary rhetoric on American politics. Regardless of what the founding fathers may have intended (and notwithstanding that they disagreed on many things) a lot of Americans believe political violence is a necessity and a virtue. They lecture people on the virtues of guns after every school shooting, and speak wistfully about "watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants."
America has been edging itself with talk of a "cold civil war" for years now. It's like a morbid game of chicken.
Election system that give weight to geography is generally done so to encourage cooperation where people otherwise would prefer going alone. Both EU and US have large historical reasons to unify low population regions with a lot of natural resources with high population regions. Same is true in Germany, Iceland, Sweden and so on, all with varied degrees of giving weight to geography.
This whole retelling of history exclusively through the lens of the slavery is getting super old. It is divisive, it’s a form of revisionist history, and it’s wrong.
Read about the Northwest Ordinance, the provisions in it banning slavery in the 1780s were ultimately adopted verbatim into the Thirteenth Amendment. Or the actions of the founders including John Adams who put their lives on the line to fight against slavery. And the numerous states that made it illegal at the time of the nation’s founding.
There’s a lot more to history than the over-simplified retelling about how the radical pace of social change in the 18th century wasn’t somehow fast enough for our 2024 sensibilities.
Within a few years of the drafting of the constitution, the reign of terror began.
The majority isn't always right.
Even if there had been instantaneous communication (and we’re talking a 2+ month communication lag), the framers were not influenced by the French Revolution at all.
When looked at in terms of actual writings from the time, the protection of property owners — including enslavers who claimed humans as property — was a key part of how the US Constitution was ultimately accepted.
I said within a few years of being drafted. That's accurate.
Instability was apparent before the blood actually began flowing.
Social Media has added a layer of deep disinformation & divisive ideological bubbles that are all largely going unchecked as well, where anyone can be anyone, and where it can be quite profitable for personalities to become incendiary... We're really not holding anyone, nor the bodies managing social media and news media accountable for their actions at all, which opens the doors to sensationalism, and even to embellishment on issues which are normally meant to be commonplace and handled professionally.
I think everyone has had fair warning that the rhetoric would lead to more drama, and the country has ignored it in a quest to line pockets. Politics are meant to be boring, and in order to serve Democracy, it simply can't ignore and even encroach on basic rights of others it represents. We have gone too far in political extremes, and this is the end result, slowly getting worse over time.
It's clear that we need to stop making personal servants celebrities, and to stop watching and pushing politics as if it's a TV drama or Football game, otherwise it's only going to get worse... That being said, there is a lot more organization and agendas involved in politics now than in the past.
Technology now is widely being used against everyone to achieve and monitor goals and progress in capturing profit... Sometimes as tech insiders, we have to be careful about what we implement and even say "no" as a response to being asked to do things that undermine people and the ethical balance of the world.
Profiting off of tech is not good if it makes the world we all live in deeply unstable. There's no castle, even in Maui, that anyone can build to survive political and economic collapse of the country nor the world. There is a better way to do all of this.
The assassination target promised loudly and repeatedly, it would not adhere to that. This a vote for him would be the last vote. Guy may as well have be another https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Elser if trump gets to power against the mummified establishment figure.
The rhetoric by both "left" and "right" platforms pitches a divided America, and a "battle for the soul of the nation." Battle against whom? My own countrymen? For what? For my vision for America? I was unsettled when I heard this (but maybe I'm just too sensitive.)
When you combine this kind of inflammatory speech with blanket group classifications like "liberals" or "MAGA" or "democrats" or whatever, you've now identified an enemy in this "battle", and as I've seen lately, can completely lose sight that these people are our countrymen too.
Well, if you call it a war enough times, sooner or later somebody will take you literally.
It makes my stomach turn that people - and I - can be susceptible to this, and furthermore that it's taken advantage of. Politicians are skilled hackers, too.
> Henley's own arrest in 1980 when he was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor and possession of marijuana, cocaine, and Quaaludes after a 16-year-old girl overdosed at his Los Angeles home
Unskilled and unaware of it categorization is a major component of the collective hallucination we've been taught to call reality.
That said: I do not disagree with you. This planet is out of control.
There are a substantial number of people on this forum who sincerely believe that if Trump is elected there will not be another election. If enough people sincerely believe that, one of them will eventually decide that it's worth it to sacrifice their own life to ensure the survival of democracy in America.
Trump regularly behaves completely irresponsibly and is a terrible loser, and Trump is definitely capable of (intentionally and otherwise) inciting violence, but if you compare the actions of the Democratic leadership to their rhetoric you can clearly see they don't believe the full extent of their own rhetoric about him.
They play up the apocalyptic fears for democracy itself because they know it's the only card they have left after nominating Biden. If they were serious about protecting democracy they'd have kicked him out last year when there was still time to build momentum for an electable candidate, rather than continuing to protect his ego. If they were serious about protecting democracy they would have tried harder to court the moderate voters (who are very courtable right now if anyone cared to try). If they were serious about protecting democracy they would have done anything other than focus exclusively on how terrible Trump is for the last four years, because they know that you don't beat a fire by fanning it. They would have deescalated, but instead they escalated, and they absolutely share responsibility for this.
I guess, for people whose world view is so malleable that they can look at an attempt to overthrow the government and say "Some people walked into a government building," it makes perfect sense to feel sorry for Trump being demonized by the Left.
Let me turn this around - why lie about such an easy-to-check fact? Even RFK has stopped pushing this, why do you continue when it's trivial to disprove?
As far as what was brought into the building I only see mention of a potential concealed carry handgun or two? The only person shot was a unarmed woman who apparently caused the capitol police to fear for their lives. If they had guns as you claimed then they forgot to use them?
Sort of sounds like they forgot the guns, make sense given so many of them were elderly.
I mean, why do you think guns were stashed close by? Just for fun? Do you do this as a hobby as well?
I expect many own firearms for hobby purposes.
I'm sure you are aware that I didn't ask whether you own weapons as a hobby. Since we're interacting in good faith and you're surely not attempting to derail the conversation with unrelated remarks, I'm interpreting your answer as affirmative.
If an "attempt" is so far flung from reality as to be impossible does it actually make it an attempt? If the mob had been half its size, or a quarter its size, or even one person, is that still an "attempt to overthrow the government"?
Even if they'd literally walked in with their guns blazing and killed every single politician they could find, while it'd cause a ton of chaos, the government would still have elections to replace those people killed and government would continue.
But in order to win people have to agree that the act is profoundly antidemocratic and a punishable offence.
It becomes more problematic when a sizable part of the population dismisses it as a non-issue. That very fact raises the level of concern several orders of magnitude. The more people dismiss the level of severity of an act of subversion the less faith you can have that the problem will just fix itself.
So yeah, it's not a big deal, provided that we all agree it is a big deal. Otherwise it becomes a big deal.
That is correct. Massacres of politicans are generally followed by military factions taking control of a country, also generally a military faction that participated in the massacre. Those are coups.
When we have massacre of politicians like the 2011 Norway attacks, we call it a domestic terrorism and throw the guilty into jail, and then everything goes mostly calmly back to normal. The risk that those actually succeed in changing the government of a democracy is thankfully very slim. Obviously they are still very horrible acts.
And yeah there would probably be some nation-wide violence in response and some laws passed that would push the limits of what the Supreme Court would allow.
It doesn't mean that people would follow the idiots who did the shooting.
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/01/02/jan-6-pol...
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-problem/
These conversations (this entire thread and all(!) others like it, with perhaps a few exceptional comments here and there) are like listening to my uneducated family members discussing AI at my last family reunion.
Noteworthy: they show no signs that they realize the predicament they are in.
Why are people like this?
How can there be no exceptions?
Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy...
The 22nd amendment is the only thing that gives me confidence, but it won't be for lack of trying on his part.
We’ve got a SCOTUS that says he can be King. Surely he won’t use it, because…
They're both wrong on that front and both need to stop and actually try to understand each other before we see more violence.
By the way, sorry that this comment is so long.
This level of violence isn't new. This has never been new. There's always been stuff like this. Yes, today's era of political polarization is bad, but the US seems to go through cycles of great polarization and regrettably frequent violence followed by fairly calm periods - at least by one metric (e.g, by 'civil wars' 1860-65 was the worst, but if you measured by violent labor strikes the late 1800s-early 1900s were). Thus you get the American Revolution, then a period of relative calm, then the years leading up to the Civil War and the Civil War itself. Then a period of relative quiet, followed by the much smaller strikes, which often turned violent, as well as pogroms against blacks. Then relative quiet, then Vietnam, Civil Rights, etc.
Summary of the data following: Proceeding in fifty-year intervals back from 2020-July 13,2024, ending at 1770-July 13, 1774, this era placed #2 in civil unrest, but #4 out of 6 - ie, below average - in a broader category, counting coups, massacres, civil unrest, rebellions, worker deaths due to labor disputes, and racial violence.
For a sense of the persistence of it, look at Wikipedia's page[1]. In fact, if anything, it seems to be slowing down; Wikipedia (thus far) lists 17 incidents from 2020-2024 (inclusive). Scrolling 50, 100, 150, 200, etc. years back shows the following:
50 years ago [1970-July 13,1974]: 28 (!)
100 years ago [1920-July 13,1924]: 9.
150 years ago [1870-July 13,1874]: 10. Again, possibly an underestimate.
200 years ago [1820-July 13,1824]: 0. This is almost certainly an underestimate, but it's how many Wikipedia lists.
250 years ago [1770-July 13, 1774]: 5[2]
So, we're the second-highest. However, Wikipedia also helpfully has lists of coup attempts, massacres, etc. So! [Note that this includes things that partially include that time period, e.g., the American Revolution, and larger things, e.g., the Black Panthers. This is from Wikipedia; you can edit it if you want. The version I'm using is accurate as of when I'm writing this]
Combined number of coups[3], massacres[4], civil unrest[1][2], rebellions[5], worker deaths "from labor disputes"[counts incidents, not individual deaths] [6], and racial violence[7] [may have some double counting], moving in 50 year intervals back from 2020-July 13,2024:
2020-July 13,2024: Coup attempts: 2, massacres: 3, civil unrest: 17, rebellions: 2, worker deaths: 0, racial violence: 1 [it lumps police brutality together; you're welcome to object]. Total: 25.
1970-July 13,1974: coups: 0, massacres: 1, civil unrest: 28, rebellions: 5, worker deaths: 0, racial violence: 15. Total: 49.
1920-July 13,1924: Coups: 0, Massacres: 6, Civil unrest: 9, rebellions: 1 [Coal Wars], worker deaths: 14, racial violence: 7 [doesn't count KKK as overarching thing]. Total: 37
1870-July 13,1874: Coups: 1 [state], Massacres: 3, Civil unrest: 10, rebellions: 0, worker deaths: 1, racial violence: 12, Total: 27
1820-July 13,1824: Coups: 0, Massacres: 0, Civil unrest: 0 [somehow], rebellions: 0, worker deaths: 0, racial violence: 1, not including slavery. Total: 1
1770-July 13,1774: Coups: 0, Massacres: 1, Civil unrest: 5, rebellions: 2 [includes American revolution], worker deaths: 0, racial violence: 0, not counting slavery. Total: 8.
So we come in at position #4 out of 6. A reasonable argument could be made that we're actually BELOW average currently.
[1] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unrest_in_the_United_States.
[2] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unrest_in_Colonial_North_America
[3] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coups_and_coup_attempts_by_country#United_States [this counts state-level attempts]
[4] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_the_United_States. Erratic about which mass shootings it includes.
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rebellions_in_the_Unit...
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_worker_deaths_in_Unite...
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_racial_violence_in_the_Un...
When is it ever not? A lot easier to believe than a bunch of handwavey "across the aisle" garbage
Journalists: We are Americans.
Soldier: What kind of American are you ???.
Too many guns ? Too much interference of the CIA ?
> At a fundamental level, we seem to have lost our sense of what Democracy means.
What means democracy ? Rich people buying politicians to promote laws which will make them richer ? A bunch of "citizens" sending other "citizens" to die "for their country" so some assholes can increase profits ?
Since 2016 about half the country has been fed a steady stream of rhetoric that seeks to define Trump as a literal - not figurative or metaphorical - existential threat to "our democracy". A Hitler 2.0 or worse, and the mark of Fascism finally coming to the United States.
If you take those arguments at face value, and really and truly believe they are true, then it is unsurprising that someone took a shot at "New Hitler". Because why wouldn't someone do that if it was true?
Of course it isn't true, and even the people who say this stuff don't believe it[1].
War on christmas? War on Christianity? Obama isn't even a real american so he is an illegitimate president? "They're coming for our children"? Christ that one regularly gets drag story time cleared out due to violent threats. How dare someone read a book to a child while wearing a dress.
Or maybe you forget the decades of bombing abortion clinics?
You know we USED to have violent hard left organizations like the Black Panthers and Weather Underground. Now the right has to wave vaguely at "auntie fa", a "group" as real as "anonymous".
We can’t know for sure who will become a monster when handed unfettered power, but we can take a pretty good guess. And there are few people in American politics who are as hateful, vindictive, and anti-democratic as Trump.
Painting an election by popular vote as a “battle of ideas” is falling into the all-too-common trap of thinking that we are rational agents. I can’t even begin to expand on how incorrect that is.
Even a little bit of candid consideration would uncover the truth of this. Political ads aren’t logical arguments. They’re emotional appeals. Hell, “he should be in charge because he’s most popular” is itself an ad populum argument. It’s nonsense to begin with.
We literally almost had civil war or at least a real insurrection today.
Lets go backwards.
Messaging from the democrat side has been that trump is a threat to democracy, he's a fascist nazi, etc etc. You've seen the vilification. Days prior Biden literally said to put Trump in the bullseye and 'elimination' is necessary. Biden has withdrawn all these ads.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-polarization-of-politic...
Political polarization is primarily derived from the democrat side.
Echo chambers are mostly democrat sided. Reddit for example having banned r/thedonald for example. Each side now lives separately and aren't talking to each other except to dunk on each other's dumbest candidates. John Stewart's fault.
The fix here has to come from the democrat side, end the identity politics, and start preaching unity, democracy, and everyone is on the same team. It does seem that they have shifted their messaging, but to change your messaging strategy 3 months before the election is rather election ending.
Say what? (Even the article you cite does not support your claim.)
> Echo chambers are mostly democrat sided.
Double what?
There is plenty of villification coming from Trump and the right. (Read his speeches.) There is plenty of violent rhetoric on the right. There is a big echo chamber on the right. If you don't see it, maybe you're in an echo chamber?
You're really going to say that, while Trump sends out campaign emails like this?
> BIDEN'S DAY OF RECKONING IS COMING
> He tried to publicly torture and humiliate me ... BUT HE FAILED.
> He tried to raid my home and take me out with deadly force... BUT HE FAILED.
> He tried to bury me with so many witch hunts that I'd be forced to quit... BUT HE FAILED.
> STAND WITH TRUMP
> 34 RIGGED FELONY CONVICTIONS calls for an unprecedented response.
> And if our response to his tyrannical regime isn't MASSIVE, Biden will move onto his next target: YOU!
> THEY WANT TO SENTENCE ME TO DEATH!
> You know they’d do it if they could, but Crooked Joe’s team of lowlifes and radical left thugs will settle for a LIFE SENTENCE. ...
> Remember, it’s not me they’re after…
> THEY’RE AFTER YOU - I’M JUST STANDING IN THEIR WAY!
> But with your support,
> I’ll NEVER give up.
> I’LL NEVER SURRENDER! ...
> Your support is the only thing standing between the Biden regime and their ultimate goal of DESTROYING AMERICA ONCE AND FOR ALL.
This sort of rhetoric is standard. Seems like everyone has just forgotten about it.
All of your examples are actions against him or completely reasonable things to say like "STAND WITH TRUMP"
> THEY WANT TO SENTENCE ME TO DEATH!
Not prophetic, the number of people who see Trump as a fascist threat that needs to be stopped is huge.
>This sort of rhetoric is standard. Seems like everyone has just forgotten about it.
The end of my post was the important one. The Biden team has changed their messaging. I guarantee the media will do the same. But this isn't the group im talking about who has to change.
Given your response here and I'm guessing you're average... so the democrats won't be. So what's the consequences?
You're going to take this position, whatever. But nothing said about Trump has been false. Democratic leaders shouldn't be apologizing for anything, but I'm sure they will.
What are your thoughts on Qanon and Pizzagate?
Echo chambers exist on both sides. It's human nature to align yourself with a tribe and denounce everything that goes against it. Most people just don't have the self awareness to notice when it's happening to them.
Someone should shoot "democracy" itself. It's 2024, why are we still driving a political system with training wheels that always takes us to places other than where 90%+ of people want to go?
Could it maybe be in part because we are immersed in pro-"democracy" propaganda from the day we are born, and are denied the educational curriculum (set by "democracy") that would give us the tools to think and engage in discourse at a level that would allow us to realize it, or at least consider the idea without everyone losing their cool?
Now, sticking with convention: has anyone any epistemically unsound memorized memes and catch phrases for me, to "prove" "democracy" is the ~best we can do, and that ideas like replacing it with a more sophisticated, non-deceptive implementation shan't be discussed among "the adults at the table"?
Inb4 "this isn't what HN is for".
Protip, fellow Humans: it is possible to think your way out of this simulation we are in, at least substantially (at which point you can rest, regroup, and plan for the next stage of ascent). And it isn't even very hard. It is little more than doing just what we Humans have proven ourselves excellent at, most of the time:
1. Identify a challenge.
2. Solve it.
Heck, this problem is actually mostly far more trivial[2] than things we do every day without thinking twice about it. It's mostly just not on our radar, and heavily psychologically protected territory[1]. But religion was this way once also, and science handed it an ass whooping, didn't it?
[1] Simple experiments can be run on social media or IRL to demonstrate this: specific prompts will produce highly predictable responses.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_language_model
[2] Irony noted lol