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Comment by honeycrispy | Hacker News Reader

And just like that, HN became pro-2nd amendment.

For context for those outside the US, this is a play on a common saying "Guns don't kill people. People kill people."

It's commonly used in relation to the 2nd amendment which gives citizens the right to bear arms. It comes up when there are political debates relating to gun violence.

It's a statement of responsibility. Whether it's the government, gun makers', or citizens' responsibility to ensure responsible gun use.

It wouldn’t actually be _that_ surprising. Tech isn’t progressive or countercultural* anymore. And a lot of how people feel about gun rights/gun control stateside really comes down to whether people identify with the population they perceive as owning guns—are they my people or The Other? (I don’t mean to dismiss that there’s an entirely rationalist argument to be had around whether permitting gun ownership and to what extent is good or bad or multivariate for society; I just don’t think it’s the one most people have. And—I’m fairly sure _my own_ take is colored this way.)

* if you know of an industry that’s properly progressive and countercultural and could conceivably pay at least survival wages, sign me right up. I’m good at this one but it no longer fills my cup. I’m tired.

> if you know of an industry that’s properly progressive and countercultural and could conceivably pay at least survival wages

* Be a hallucinogenic therapy shaman.

* Start a cult.

* Work as one of those paid protesters that they always mention on Fox News

This seems like an odd take. I remember when a large portion of the people I'd speak with online were very pro 2a while also being countercultural. There was a strong individual liberties/responsibilities, anti-government, pro-decentralization and devolution of power, and dare I say libertarian streak. This isn't an attitude I'd associate with the modern definition of progressive.

The big tech era certainly diluted a lot of that but I don't think it ever went away. I haven't seen a huge resurgence in this either so it seems strange to believe that tech is becoming less progressive. From my vantage it is still very far away from where it was in the 80s and 90s. I can agree that it has become much, much less countercultural since it's basically 100% mainstream opinion now.

You're not wrong. We're talking about different eras--and it sounds like you may have been around a bit longer. The mostly libertarian/individualistic (I would dare say _left libertarian_, who seem now to be pretty much politically extinct) era was notable to me in the late 90s through about the mid-aughts. This transitioned into a more progressive culture somewhere in the 05-08 era -- and its rise and fall pretty well overlapped with Twitter's, as best I can tell.

I can't directly speak to The Culture Of The Internet before about '97.

The political, rather than legal, justification for unrestricted gun ownership in the US is that an armed citizenry is able to resist a tyrannical government.

Regardless of your opinion on that argument, I don't think it applies well as an argument against AI regulations.

I will say that LLMs are somewhat unlike guns in that they emit text.

Sure, but with a harness, said emitted text can run terminal commands and call APIs, which, with the right hardware or auth keys, can do just as much (if not more!) harm.

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