We invented something called “democracy” to fix this, and then we allowed enough wealth to accumulate that the wealthy just bought it and nerfed it.

We went through a cycle like this once before in U.S. history, and the amount of violence it took to correct the overreach of organized money was not 0.

There are a LOT of stages between "resigning and doing nothing" and "deadly violence" that have some effect.

Demonstrations are a start, though they seem to be more useful for networking inside a group and forcing the press to pay attention to some matter. Decision makers can easily ignore them.

What's less easy to ignore are strikes, especially general strikes, as e.g. port workers in Italy threatened during the total blockade in the Gaza war.

Isn’t violence just “no I get to be one of the few not them”?

Even then I don’t they they get a lot of choice as far as results go.

If you talk to the average individual outside of California or NYC about AI, or even Waymos, they will get increasingly irate and start spouting off about “water usage” and everyone’s jobs getting taken away—as if RLHF contract work is not available to basically anyone with a college degree. I hate to say it but you cannot trust “the masses,” Marx never said mob rule, he said rule by the proletarian, the class which knows, on account of their labor, the best integration of the human organism into mechanical production. No, there is no concern for the “masses” living in pre-industrialized agrarian communities or those who have been mystified by reactionary ideas (like this so-called majority), he was referring to those whose existence was an exception, that which was free and not predictable, contingent in the operation of the economy. It is by their exceptional circumstance that radical social change is even possible, not because of any moral need to raise humanity out of its savage condition. The masses, without the right understanding, will just become a lynch mob and start burning everything in sight, as they tend to in most circumstances.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09797-z

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/10/ar...

Obligatory 'war is a continuation of politics by other means' Clausewitz -- the act of forcibly compelling others to adopt ones position doesn't have an inherent 'acceptable vs not-acceptable' line in method, other than that which we socially layer on top.

They're just speaking to a hypothetical person who thinks this will solve a problem. In no way does their post imply they'd be ok with it if it solved some problem.

A little wild to me that so many of the replies don't understand that.

Not gp, but if they were exceptionally large problems... Yeah.

If it did solve a problem, it's possible it would be legal.

Organize, petition your representative and vote.

The people saying it doesn’t work are the same people who can’t must the effort to even contact their representative.

I had a professor in college who was big on entrepreneurship. So he formed an organization, got others involved, went to Washington to lobby his rep. His rep said “let’s do it”, and sat him down with her staff to write a bill. That bill was brought to the floor for a vote and passed.

Until you’ve done that, dont complain the system doesn’t work.

The issue with politics today is the level of engagement of the average voter. Few people ever get involved, so the vacuum gets filled with whichever power-hungry mediocre person who puts some effort in.

> what are people without billions of dollars and without the ear of the president supposed to do to affect change in this modern, post-capitalist hellscape?

California has a referendum system. Get signatures for a policy and put it to the voters.

I read this comment as saying that you (100-k)% do not support violence against Sam Altman, for some positive real number k.

I recently saw a lecture by neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky [1] which discussed the complexities of human violence. We both condone and don't condone violence all the time, depending on social context. And furthers, our ways of expressing violence are varied (even down to tiny things like the silent treatment). We (along with other animals) have always used aggression to enforce social order and obtain social benefit.

Perhaps something to think about in a scenario like this. Personally I think it's interesting that some people are so quick to condone aggressive attacks on powerful people, yet have no comment on those powerful people committing lower levels of violence against the masses. It's all social context.

[1] https://youtu.be/GRYcSuyLiJk?si=HhnAUKelmR7igO9x

In high school the 90s, I learned about what the founding fathers said about violence. But, I guess that's too 18th century now.

You've basically just said anyone who doesn't hold the "approved" opinion is wrong and then you called them names. But you wrapped it in extra words so that it's less flagrant.

Did you ever think that maybe people do in fact believe what they say they believe?

Hitler survived 40 assassination attempts, BTW. I don't know what to make out of it. Non-professionals have low chance of success maybe?

> Hence the sci-fi sort of scenario of "you go back in time and kill Hitler, but when you return to your own time it turns out that Hitler dying just let mega-Hitler take power".

Sure, but keep in mind that Hitler is already pretty bad. So while yes, killing him might open the door to someone worse stepping in, it may also open the door to someone more level headed.

You know. In theory.

I think it's entirely fair for the average american to no longer trust the courts to provide justice against the rich, given your current political environment.

Or, if you truly believed AI was a threat and represented material harm and managed to get standing to bring a suit, you are looking at years and years and years of litigation.

They’re some combination of deranged, depressed and looking for a thrill. In most countries they fail to stab someone. Here they have guns.

Right now your comment is the 1st response for the 1st comment. Godwin's law speedrun I guess.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zizians

I believe it doesn't matter. You see, if you try applying this trick to different traits of a society, it would lead to conclusions like: it is impossible for us to build an environmentally conscious society because we come here by being environmentally unconscious. It is a historical determinism, and it just don't work. For example, Europe was mostly a constant war between states, but after WWII it managed to come to EU. No more wars between European countries. Or U.S. was a country of slavers and racists, and it managed to change itself. It is still not perfect, as I hear, but at least there are no more slavery or segregation, and racism is not accepted anymore.

The long gone history of a country is not a something that should be allowed to determine its modern narratives. You shouldn't forget your history, but there are limits you shouldn't cross. When I hear arguments going back for centuries, it is a red flag for me. It is most likely a propaganda.

Psychologists talk about two common failing of their clients. People often fixate over the past or they fixate over the future, while forgetting about the present. The healthy approach is to keep a good balance between the past, the future, and the present, with a strong accent on the present. The history determinism reminds me a lot of the over-fixation on the past, and propaganda actively tries to unsettle balances in people's minds and fixate them on anything but the present.

And sustains this "democracy"

This is the point.

You can't call yourself a democracy just because we can change the colour of the same bus every 3 to 4 years

The more we treat it like a democracy, the more democratic it is. The more we treat it like an oligarchy, the less democratic it is.

Some poor security guards are going to end up getting gunned down.

Maybe he can build a moat, and a well fortified structure on the inside, with a little draw bridge to let people in.

It's not good for this sort of disagree with a CEO stuff. Fighting Hitler is ok.

And they live in a country where the industry of violence is the largest slice of government budget.

I think it’s the opposite: many of these keyboard warriors advocating for violence in 2026 in America have no fucking clue what they’re advocating for, or how stupid they sound.

If you are getting bombed by the opposing country, is a ballot going to stop that?

We're not on first resort anymore, people are dying because they cannot afford living.

True, but at one point the calculus shift to justifying that risk. Basically when the beaten dogs outnumber the cruel humans by alot

I think it is simpler than that. For a lot of people he's the one who "created the AI"* so he is the reason they have been fired.

That's it, I don't think much of the rest has any weight outside internet forums like this one.

*I've seen people using copilot and calling it "chatgpt".

For me, he's an awful person for the smarminess in the pentagon deal (the DIC is too entwined with American industry to bemoan making any deal at all), the business model change, the behavior described in that recent article, the 180 on how he and OpenAI consider AI ethics, and the way he's gone about overpromising.

It'd be one thing if he was just promising more than he could actually deliver, but he went further, making promises of buying up unrealistically large chunks of the global RAM supply, causing everyone else to suffer, with no remorse.

There's also WorldCoin. I don't think a decent person would continue to push such an awful, untrustworthy system. This is a supposedly privacy-focused project that several countries are investigating for privacy violations and has been found to be in violation of privacy laws in some of them.

It's almost as if he goes out of his way to do as much harm to the world as he thinks he can get away with while maintaining the facade of just doing business. I don't think he's the antichrist, I think Peter Thiel is the closest to deserving that description.

“Everyone does this,” and iirc recently a few people went to jail for it. So what’s happening with Altman?

> Lobbying against regulations (I support)

one US mindset I can't wrap my mind around

The jacuzzi "parties" with VCs are more than questionable

- Callous disregard of lost jobs, disinformation, mental health issues / deaths, IP theft, environmental cost, skill atrophy

- Barely gave 1% of compute (on oldest chips) to safety team after promise of 20%

- Worked behind the scenes to try to land federal deal that gives mil no guardrails control and ability for mass surveillance

- Lied about China AI 'Marshall Plan' to get federal funding

- Tried to get MBS money ever after Jamal Kashoggi

While long, I'd recommend just reading the New Yorker article

Ilya Sutskever and Dario Amodei were high up at OpenAI before becoming competitors. They are just two of many people who have known Altman personally who have accused him of being a lying sociopath. I would not call that vague.

It is not just a question of morality. A sociopath with that amount of power can be a danger.

He fucked the RAM market. Not a biggie but I am salty.

It depends on what kind of violent attacks they are exactly. I believe that most of the population would either not care about people of the Altman and Zuckerberg wealth level getting killed or would be happy about it.

I think the general population is much more likely to feel joy about it than want a police crackdown.

If we're talking about attacks against average software engineers and obscure founders, fewer people would be happy about it, but a great number still would be. There is a lot of envy toward software engineers and founders.

Most of the population will be for that

I doubt it. It would further polarize your population and what you really want is to unite them. You could make a video documentation that contrasts all the known, massive corruption cases in your administration (and SV personae) with the equally massive decay in your infrastructure from roads to bridges to the closure of maternity wings in hospitals because they are no longer profitable. Make as little dialogue/narration as possible and quote dollar numbers as often as possible. Spread posts contrasting corruption/decay to every outlet/social media.

Most people don't understand technology and/or its second order effects. They do understand when they are being stolen from.

Whether most of the population will or will not be for that is an open question.

Victim blaming and pearl clutching is not a substantial justification for the status quo

Most of the population will be for that.

Most of the population will be for the violent attacks. Techbros went way too far in gleefully describing how they would destroy most people's careers while enriching themselves. Never bothered to think whether they should just because they could. Now the rooster is coming home to roost.

The best way for the attacks on AI executives to stop is to pass meaningful legislation that limits the use and scope of AI.

DAs can refuse to prosecute.

But even if the DA prosecutes, the jury can nullify the charges, which is a risk. What happens when a jury finds the accused not guilty?

The masses will only tolerate so much before the elite start dying. See all of human history.

Altman has made suggestions on how to fix this. I believe his main one is for AI to be subsidised so that it remains free for public use. The public could then use those free tokens to enrich themselves and offset any negative societal impacts.

He’s already rich, he doesn’t even own any stock in OpenAI, and the societal (and geopolitical) changes are coming from AI no matter what Sam Altman does. Should he just not talk about it?

When do you think that we will see the first successful strike on a CEO with a drone?

Police employ violence all the time and I think we who are okay/well off all agree that they solve our problems every day.

What us cushy engineers haven't realized yet is that the gradient for who are well off are sliding more and more towards one end. Sooner or later engineers will be on the wrong side of that gradient.

> French Revolution was pretty peaceful

The elites after the French Revolution were not only mostly the same as before, they escaped with so much money and wealth that it’s actually debated if they increased their wealth share through the chaos [1].

[1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/650023

Thank you for the heads up.

>[if] most of the population finds itself without money. there are other ways to live with very little money.

This is even more hideous than expressions of approval for individual violence. This is a dystopian acquiescence.

Do you expect people to wait by while billionaires pour trillions of dollars into replacing them? Evidence takes years to mount; present events are moving far faster than that. Your argument is the exact same as that of COVID denialists in 2019 -- that we don't know how bad it'll be yet, that there's so little evidence, that we shouldn't jump to hasty action before getting results in. Empiricism can only go so far.

If I knew someone was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars building a big laser pointed at my house, I would not wait for "quantified evidence" of its effect to take some sort of action. The only real debate is what kind of action.

> also, if the worst case scenario does happen and most of the population finds itself without money. there are other ways to live with very little money.

If you have so little attachment to your money, why hold on to it at all? Do not be upset that other people are operating on a slightly larger time horizon than you are, and are interested in their livelihood not just today, but three or five years from now.

I saw this all the time when ICE was doing their business in Minneapolis. That was only a few months ago and it doesn't take too long to dig and find some truly odious posts.

Well for one, nobody was killed here. But second of all, sure -- because Hacker News are not the class of people involved in drive-by gang shootings; to most of us they are essentially abstractions, barely more real than the trolley problem. If you went around asking people who knew a guy that was shot, you'd eventually find someone who said he had it coming -- he got involved with the wrong guys, he shot at one of them first, he did something he shouldn't have (a common thread: the livelihood of the people involved). This is obviously atrocious: nobody should go around shooting people on the streets. But we can recognize that both are playing with fire, and understand the violence in that context -- such that the solution to gang violence is not, "moralize at the gang members until they stop shooting eachother", but rather "improve socio-economic conditions until they stop wanting to". So yes, there are elements of HN's population that will cheer these events on. But this should not be surprising -- the ruling class is playing with fire.