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Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

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But you are doing things about the bad comments in this thread too.

Why is "well we removed that stuff" a defense in other contexts but not here? In both cases the issue is this community writing stuff you deem objectionable.

Consider some more examples: trump or that other conservative figure getting shot. Or the ceo of the health company getting shot.

Both of those people condone(d), support, amplify and drive horrific violence.

A common liberal reaction to those incidents - "oh no violence isn't okay!!" - well where were you for all the other horrific things they did and said? Yes in some ideal world there perhaps wouldn't be violence - but I can understand people feeling like they had it coming. It's the boy who cried wolf. It's the bully getting their comeuppance. It can be hard to feel bad.

Sama also talks about wanting ai to be the future, its pushed everywhere and the feeling is its going to take peoples jobs and disrupt everything. But there's no discussion about how we are going to look after everyone in that future. Current capitalistic (american) society doesn't seem built for that ... that lack of care already exists for a lot of people too who are homeless, poor etc.

Being upset about samas front gate getting firebombed while they probably also had plenty of security .. well idk.

> Both of those people condone(d), support, amplify and drive horrific violence.

This seems to be the point of contention. What constitutes "violence"?

A lot of people seem to define violence as a purely physical act: a missile strike during a war, a fist hitting a face, a molotov cocktail thrown over a property line.

What has become clear to me, especially when I saw the discourse around Luigi Mangione and the public opinion polling on it, is that a lot – a lot – of people define it much more broadly: a health insurance denial, a job lost as a result of some CEO's careless ambition, or mere words.

The problem with a very broad definition of violence is that it permits a pretty barbaric worldview. If I cut someone off in traffic, or if a careless administrative action on my part costs someone money that then puts them in a financial pickle that month, is that violence? Do I then deserve to be tracked and assaulted? What about the doctor who is complicit in the refused treatment because the insurance company won't pay a bill?

"I understand the insurance company isn't paying the bill but you are still going to treat me, and to not do so is a violent act."

The list goes on. Can society function if the default action at real or perceived injustice is to just kill?

Of course there are different levels of violence. One person inciting hate online is different to bombing a country back to the stone age, but they are both violent. No a traffic offense shouldn't get you assaulted.

But big ceo or president shouldn't necessarily be surprised about consequences to say it bluntly, and to tie it back to our original point, its funny its such an issue now to dang and others here.

Its like suddenly an issue when that violence is directed at someone who does have a lot of power rather than the other way around.

I feel you could argue denying health claims is violent, its intending to cause harm - there is a choice there.

> The problem with a very broad definition of violence is that it permits a pretty barbaric worldview. If I cut someone off in traffic, or if a careless administrative action on my part costs someone money that then puts them in a financial pickle that month, is that violence? Do I then deserve to be tracked and assaulted? What about the doctor who is complicit in the refused treatment because the insurance company won't pay a bill?

That's resolved with proportionality.

Cut me off in traffic? No biggy

Cut me off from my healthcare when I have a terminal illness? Biggy

My point is that proportionality and fault seem to be entirely subjective.

In an insurance denial, the insurance company does not treat you. The people who refuse to treat you are actually the doctors and nurses and hospital. They have the ability to treat you, but refuse to do so without economic compensation from the insurance company. Within the insurance company, there exists underwriters and individuals who work directly on the denial. Above that are layers of management, above that is a CEO, above that is a board of directors. Above that is an industry and regulatory environment and government.

If you can justify violence against an insurance company CEO, do you also justify violence against the board of directors, employees of the insurance company, the hospital, doctors and nurses who refuse to treat?

Similarly, Sam Altman is just one small component of the AI industry. He is nothing without the team of people he is leading and who have endorsed him (don't forget, Sam himself was fired and reinstated with part of the stated basis being that OpenAI employees were planning an exodus if he was not brought back), not to mention the board of directors he serves under and investors he is working for.

A lot of people will look at this argument and say that just because responsibility for harm is diffused throughout a system of people does not mean that no one is responsible and that accountability is impossible. I would tend to agree. But I would also suggest that just because no one in particular is fully responsible does not mean that one person should be singled out and targeted as arbitrarily responsibility for all harms.

I missed this last night:

> Being upset about samas front gate

To write that, you must have missed what I was upset about. What upset me was the community response to the violence (which in physical terms was inconsequential, and certainly doesn't compare to the worst things going on in this world): piling on and egging each other into escalating rage towards the target of the violence, while obviously feeling good about it. In other words, a mob. I don't like mobs.

The mob dynamic is the same whether the target is a rich person who many people happen to dislike, or a much weaker person. The idea that "it's ok if the target is $so-and-so" is abhorrent—a self-deception that allows us to deny, excuse, and enjoy our share of the violence we all partake in as human beings, while projecting it onto (and into) other people whom we call bad and evil.

Even though I know that this is human nature it upsets me when it shows up in a community that I'm responsible for, and it was showing up badly in this thread when I first saw it last night.

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