Historically, was it always so common for powerful or famous people to seem to purposefully garner hatred like he, and others, have been for the past decade? To speak in a petty, self-important, "trolling" manner, to a very broad audience? To embrace traits that are intrinsically negative? Or are we living in a rare time?

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adestefan 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

New England colonists had a habit of ransacking and burning down the houses of government officials throughout the 1760s and during the Revolutionary War. Got bad enough that most did not sleep in their government housing.

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techblueberry 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We are in a fact still in the tail end of a uniquely measured and peaceful time.

	▲	nozzlegear 13 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> in the tail end This implies you have knowledge of future events, which means you could make a lot of money grifting on Polymarket

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hahahacorn 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Can you explain the petty, self important, trolling manner? Which traits are intrinsically negative?

Genuine Q

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happytoexplain 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Of Altman, Trump et al, Elon, the Nvidia guy, etc? Or am I not understanding the question?

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hahahacorn 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Of Altman in this blog. Put another way I didn’t read those traits from this post and I’m curious what I’m missing.

	▲	bigyabai an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Altman's alleged sociopathic behavior is front-and-center, after the recent New Yorker piece: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/04/13/sam-altman-may... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47659135) His response here is a synthesis of 1) addressing the "incendiary article" 2) conflating it with a recent attack on himself and 3) joking about having "fewer explosions in fewer homes" at the end. As a reader it's hard to tell if he wants us to empathize with him or laugh at his misfortune. The self-depricating humor does not mix well with photos of his family and an (ostensibly) life-threatening situation. From the outside looking in, Altman is stressed and showing the same traits that people are accusing him of. He "brushed [...] aside" the article without ever thinking about addressing it, and now he's sitting down "in the middle of the night and pissed" like some Jobsian seraph, furiously condemning society at-large for not understanding his vision where AGI is the end-times. This is probably reassuring news for the market, but on an individual level I'm having a hard time believing in Altman's narrative. OpenAI is a Department of Defense contractor, it's hard to believe that Altman is capable of resisting coercion when they've already capitulated for peanuts. If Sam was a sociopath, it would probably be very easy for him to justify this with threats of AGI and promises about how much safer we are with him in control. Coincidentally exactly what he spends much of this article reiterating, but I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

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2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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