> you have to be at least remotely a sympathetic figure to be a martyr

No you don’t. Terrorists and dictators are routinely martyred. You just need symbolic value. The actual person rarely represents their canonized form.

People can think of ML on a government level, but it has an inescapably international dimension as a kind of gunpowder-like discovery. Relatedly, if war becomes increasingly automated and cheap, then civilian targets will be seen as obvious.

As we discuss policy ideas to pump the breaks on a domestic level, I hope we balance that against the arms race that's happening around the world.