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Comment by 2dfs | Hacker News Reader

I think youre misreading it entirely, doesnt surprise me given that you're a VC.

Here's one of the posts on that thread: "I mean one thing is to use AI or even ChatGPT as a product, and another is being aware of how billionaires treat the rest of the people

As for Sam, he also has pretty controversial views for how this whole thing will pan out and how he doesn't give a shit about the consequences it might have for the rest of us. Also more recently, the whole Pentagon contract thing"

People can both use LLMs whilst having a distasteful view of the leaders of the industry.

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> whilst having a distasteful view of the leaders of the industry

I have a tremendously distasteful view of a lot of Silicon Valley leadership. Doesn’t mean I want them to suffer at the hands of vigilante justice.

Why not?

> Why not?

I don't wish violent ends on anyone. I'm not open to sacrificing that part of myself in a rich, historically-free society that retains peaceful means of power transfer.

Should we just let these terribly evil people who are responsible for thousands of deaths roam freely free of consequence then? It's not like they're breaking any laws in their evil acts, so we can't hope for our legal system to prosecute them, in fact we can count on it to protect them. Zuckerberg played a major role in the Rohingya genocide.

Sam Altman disagrees with you about violence being bad, he just signed a deal with the same DoD that killed a bunch of innocent schoolgirls in Iran.

The US can be counted on to protect these people, just like it protected Kissinger, rather than ever prosecuting them.

The US has even threatened to invade the Hague if it were to ever try prosecuting for the warcrimes they do execute.

There isn't a justice system we can rely on anymore.

That healthcare CEO would still be alive and completely consequence-free if Luigi hadn't killed him.

> Should we just let these terribly evil people who are responsible for thousands of deaths roam freely free of consequence then?

No.

> It's not like they're breaking any laws

Then it’s not categorically evil. If it is, change the laws. Anywhere.

> he just signed a deal with the same DoD that killed a bunch of innocent schoolgirls in Iran

Yup, not okay with the precedent that anyone affiliated with our military deserves summary execution. Because then someone will justify the same for anyone affiliated with Greenpeace or the Sierra Club or who shops at Target.

> That healthcare CEO would still be alive and completely consequence-free if Luigi hadn't killed him

Was a middle-managing CEO within a subsidiary. The actual billionaires are doing fitness—they don’t walk the streets of Manhattan. United has changed zero policies and thus zero patient lives have been changed. Well done. Glad Mr. McDonald’s got his ab pics out for his moment of celebrity.

> Then it’s not categorically evil.

I disagree.

> If it is, change the laws. Anywhere.

Tell me who I should vote for this next election cycle to do that.

> Yup, not okay with the precedent that anyone affiliated with our military deserves summary execution. Because then someone will justify the same for anyone affiliated with Greenpeace or the Sierra Club or who shops at Target.

I think it's a false equivalency to draw a line between an organization that kills children and an organization that campaigns for the protection of the environment.

> Was a middle-managing CEO within a subsidiary. The actual billionaires are doing fitness—they don’t walk the streets of Manhattan. United has changed zero policies and thus zero patient lives have been changed. Well done. Glad Mr. McDonald’s got his ab pics out for his moment of celebrity.

Sure.

> Why not?

"An old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb"

- Chinua Achebe Things Fall Apart

Interesting idiom that I haven't heard before!

The elites after the French Revolution were not only mostly the same as before, they escaped with so much money and wealth that it’s actually debated if they increased their wealth share through the chaos [1].

Vigilante justice usually starts by aiming for the top (or a minority group, if conducted from the top). But it's inherently anarchic, and eventually attacks anyone vulnerable in striking distance. I have Indian and central European heritage. My dry bones are knowing the cost of violence and value of peace, and degree to which even those who initially embrace violence tended to wind up regretting the offramp they previously precluded.

[1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/650023

> The elites after the French Revolution were not only mostly the same as before, they escaped with so much money and wealth that it’s actually debated if they increased their wealth share through the chaos

You sound like you're trying to convince me: I am not pro-violence, but I have cracked open a history book and the same thing happens over, and over again when the masses don't get what they deserve from an out-of-touch ruling class. I briefly braved life in a very unequal society - no one is safe there. Telling a person who hopelessly feel like they have nothing to shun crime and violence while they walk the same streets as the very rich is not as effective as you think it is.

> But it's inherently anarchic, and eventually attacks anyone vulnerable in striking distance.

Here's the brief, recent timeline on anti-elite radicalization:

-2008 the Great recession resulted in corporates get government bail-outs, while regular people got foreclosed, no one went to prison. Even getting a McJob is difficult.

- 2014/2015 K-shaped economic recovery in progress. Populist politicians decide to harness the still-angry "burn it all down" demography to turn out the vote. This is what was behind the Bernie bro to Trump-voter pipeline, "drain the swamp" and all that

- 2020-2022: Covid shutdowns. Businesses get bail outs again via loan forgiveness. High inflation. Cops chill outside during active shooting in Uvalde. Layoffs begin.

- 2024: Brian Thompson gets shot; elites get shocked by public support expressed for the shooter, but don't introspect on whether they are out of touch, instead, executive protection budgets go up - problem solved! Layoffs continue.

- 2025: DOGE cuts, SV CxOs and VC class goes completely mask-off, cuts to "entitlements" proposed, ACA subsidies killed. The who's who of elites show up in the Epstein files: not a single charge is filed. AI promises to kill jobs and companies embrace it, layoffs continue. Swamp is still not drained, crypto scams go mainstream.

- 2026: (we are here) 2 citizens killed by ICE while protesting. War with Iran. Layoffs continue, now naming AI as the cause. Inflation spiking.

With all this, would you be surprised that some folk may feel the scale is thumbed against them? Elites in every generation or 2 seem to need to relearn the same lesson: keeping their end of the social contract is really fucking important, in whatever form it takes in their age: giving alms, noblesse oblige, workers rights, the New Deal, etc.

Cuba is next.

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