> In April, another protester hurled a petrol bomb at the house of the company’s chief executive, Sam Altman.
"protester"
"protester"
You and I will disprove of their illegal methods, but that does not change who they are.
I wish I could say I was shocked by the dangerous radicalization you’re exhibiting, but it’s increasingly the norm.
A thing to keep in mind: when people feel they have no voice they inevitably will resort to violence for their political aims. It's just a fact that terrorism, in its broadest sense, will happen if powerless people don't see any other possible avenue for their political opinions to be taken into account.
> violence or the threat of violence used as a weapon of intimidation or coercion
> especially : violent or destructive acts (such as bombing) committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terror
Now, this could apply to, say, US actions in the Middle East, Iranian actions in the Middle East, MAGA riots, these protesters, the anti-Nazi Resistance and Yugoslav Partisans, pro-Nazi violence in pre-Anschluss Austria, the Suffragettes, etc etc.
Which one you cart out the scary label for is merely a reflection of your ideological biases. Amongst the same notes, the radicalization you see in others can be read as a reflection of what has already become normalized in your mind.
We may object to someone trying to get him to a state of incandescence as an act of unjustified violence, but Altman is definitely a member of the tech elite, something as close to aristocracy as we have in our times.
How the future will have written the current events, I cannot say.
Somebody who uses violence is not necessarily a protester at all.
The appropriateness of violence in the context of AI companies can be debated.
But invalidating violence as a means of protest entirely is naive and silly.
I agree. Also silly is thinking "Somebody who uses violence is not necessarily a protester at all." means that.
If they had just shown up with a sign, would we be talking about it? I suspect not.
I don’t give a shit about their cause. They lost me and anyone else that’s moderately sane when they firebombed someone’s home.
You should research the violent political environment of the Weimar Republic and how it directly paved the road for the NSDAP’s ascension to power.
The solution to violent radicalization is to shut it down, not to normalize political violence that undermines law and democracy.
Left wing is just starting to react.
Wouldn't the Trump right say they were a counter reaction to the radicalisation of the establishment left? Saying men are women, racial hiring quotas, record levels of immigration while respectable low to middle income manufacturing jobs offshored to China, the gleeful forcasting of America's "founding population/dominant culture" becoming a minority.
I studied history in a state that used to be part of the Nazi empire. I know how they rose to power. The key factor was von Papen, a weak conservative who enabled them, vaguely the equivalent of establishment Republicans today.
I can also tell you that the pre-Weimar warnings ring a bit hollow when we already have some post-Weimar circumstances, like far-right paramilitaries patrolling cities and shooting dissenters.
Political Violence has already undermined law and democracy. Right now, ICE goons are brutalizing a Latino family somewhere. Right now, a war with no democratic backing rages on - a war that has already seen a school bombed.
Why is it that one dude bombing a CEO's house is worthy of so much more condemnation than the above? That, to me, feels like a more interesting question to answer, because of what it says about the ruling ideology and how it's normalized its own violence.