This is obviously true, but you're just inviting the rebuttals. Arguments that civil violence is unproductive are boring and obvious. Normal people have been acculturated to understand the point already. The only way to have an "interesting" conversation about this is to take the other side.

All of those arguments will be vile, as they have to be given the context.

I'm not criticizing you, and I guess I'm glad someone wrote this comment quickly. You're right. But I would caution people against reading too much into the countervailing sentiment here. It's not trolling, but it is something adjacent to it.

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afpx 14 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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

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14 hours ago | parent | next [-]

[deleted]

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lesuorac 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Except they only won because UK was too busy spending money on a way to stop the French.

Like 1812 when the Brits weren't busy with the French they easily came in and burnt the US capital as punishment for burning the Canadian one. It's not that the British army suddenly got a lot stronger; they just weren't busy fighting on two continents.

That said, civil disobedience is largely pointless. We're in a capitalistic society so money is the name of the game. Rosa Parks did shit-all; it was the boycott of the bus system for 9 months that made the buses cave.

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afpx 13 hours ago | parent [-]

I meant more that we wouldn't have the Bill of Rights if it wasn't for Patrick Henry.

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tptacek 12 hours ago | parent [-]

There is a super interesting and complicated discussion to have about the pragmatics and morality of concerted military action versus stochastic civil violence. Unfortunately, thread conditions on HN aren't conducive to it; the discussion will instantly devolve (via people joining in) to valence arguments about the cause of this or that campaign of violence. I genuinely think you'd need a moderation regime designed from the ground up to support a productive conversation about this topic, which, for good reasons, HN doesn't provide.

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afpx 12 hours ago | parent [-]

Honestly, it's not really that complicated. Americans (at least Pennsylvanians) born before, say 2000 were explicitly taught that violence is ok if it's against tyranny. Apparently, they stopped teaching that after 2010, so we're now in a post-natural-rights era.

I went to high school in Pennsylvania.

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tptacek 12 hours ago | parent [-]

We went to different high schools in the 1990s, because that isn't at all what I was taught.

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existencebox 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

While I typically avoid touching non-technical topics, I have the opportunity to chime in as another PA highschooler from the 90's, we absolutely were taught that, down to details in AP courses such as the impact of individuals like John Brown. While I'm not sure I'd have worded it precisely like the parent, the concept of "the four boxes of liberty" and the progression thereof was certainly understood and conveyed. (There was substantial study of the labor rights movements and conflicts/resistance therein as well)

	▲	tptacek 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I went to Jesuit high school in Chicago in the early 1990s. There's a lot more to say about all of this stuff and nothing wrong with what you just said, but to hash it out any further, we'd have to attempt a philosophical discussion about violence in a forum that (unavoidably, and to the consternation of its moderators) has reward circuits wired around hyping up action.

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kelipso 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants” has been a popular quote in the US for a long time.

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cucumber3732842 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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?

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tptacek 13 hours ago | parent [-]

Everybody who believes civil violence is a productive solution to any problems we have in 2026 is wrong. I don't see myself as having called anyone names; rather, I said that the point was so banal that the only conversation you're likely to see is from people who get dopamine hits from taking the edgy other side of the argument.

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lisdexan 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

>Everybody who believes civil violence is a productive solution to any problems we have in 2026 is wrong.

Hilarious joke, Mr. Fukuyama. You have masked goons running around, detaining and even killing people without probable cause. If the results of the 2026 midterms are not to the liking of the current POTUS, it isn't unthinkable that he would try to overturn them, even by force. Would you be hand-wringing on HN about how violence is always bad, then?

But I digress. Firebombing Sam Altman is very bad; there is a multitude of good points against it, from the moral to the pragmatic. "Violence is fundamentally evil" is just a lazy and evidently false argument that does you a disservice.

	▲	palmotea 13 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> Hilarious joke, Mr. Fukuyama. You have masked goons running around, detaining and even killing people without probable cause. If the results of the 2026 midterms are not to the liking of the current POTUS, it isn't unthinkable that he would try to overturn them, even by force. Would you be hand-wringing on HN about how violence is always bad, then? Also the official opposition is actually not really interested in representing many discontented people. It sticks to loser issues at are alienating to many except activist base (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/16/opinion/democrats-senate-...), and seems totally fine with not being competitive in many elections. And it continues to be that way in the dire political environment you describe.

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cucumber3732842 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You said they were "abnormal" and "trolls" but you dressed it up in the sort of snooty language that HN expects you to dress it up in.

Civil violence is the backstop of literally every societal system. While it would be better if the systems work, civil violence is what happens if they don't and tends to increase until they do.

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tptacek 12 hours ago | parent [-]

Our premises are too far apart for it to be productive to discuss this.

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asadotzler 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

[flagged]

	▲	tptacek 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'm walking away because there's nothing more to be said. The idea that there has to be a last word in all these threads that satisfies everybody, including random people who weren't even participating, is part of what makes these threads so awful. I'm not going to keep a slapfight going just to entertain you. Deal with it.

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G0lg0thvn 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]