Hot take:

I assume the author wrote this with the expectation that much of the readsherp gasp, and react with "the natural horror all right thinking folk would have in response to violence of any kind."

Sorry, lol, no.

The appropriate question for "all right thinking" folk is very different: if argumentation has no impact and it's obvious that it shall have none—what other avenue do you expect opponents, who take the risks seriously, to take...?

That's not a rhetorical question.

To put it bluntly: the machinery of contemporary capitalism, especially as practiced by our industry, very clearly leaves no avenue.

How many days ago was Ronan Farrow here doing an AMA on his critique of Altman—whose connection to this specific community is I assume common knowledge...?

How many of you have carried, or worked beneath, the banner, move fast and break things...?

What message does that ethos convey, about their the extent to which "tech" is going respect community standards, regulation—the law?

And on the other edge: what does this ethos enshrine about how best to accomplish one's aims?

One of the bigger domestic stories this past week which has inflamed a certain side of Reddit, is the "disgruntled employee torches warehouse" one.

Consider also—and I'm deadly serious—the broader frame narrative we are all laboring within today: that the new contract of the capitalist class—including and perhaps especially those in "tech," e.g. in the Peter Thiel circles—seems very much to be, "social stability via surveillance and a police state, rather than through equity and discourse."

When code is law, the law is buggy.

When there is no recourse through the law, you get violence.

Telling to be down voted.

Hard truths are hard.

Cliché though it may be, with great power comes great responsibility.

Tech culture, as epitomized by the general readership of this site, have to great degree, if of course not uniformly, abdicated that responsibility;

and the general leadership of the industry and as epitomized by the culture Y Combinator has helped build, are much more uniform in this abdication.

There is neither political nor moral mystery here; there is just denialism, ignorance, and avoidance.

If you feel attacked by these accusations, as always it's a fine time to ask why.

What accommodations have you made...? What expedience have you allowed? What do you look away from or shy from reasoning through about the impact of the technologies you work on, the behavior of your employer?

That everyone is complicit is not a defense; it's an indictment.

The violence of present concern is a wholely natural and entirely predictable response to the diffused violence our industry and capitalism generally has performed against a humanity, not to mention to the biosphere.

Violence will continue, and if you think it is indefensible—provide then some alternative mechanism for steering resources and allocation of power.

We, collectively, constructed the tensions which are now resolving in exactly the manner one would expect, if only one were remotely familiar with history or indeed human nature.

Those in tech who declined to study or understand the humanities may be surprised to learn that the forces at work have well understood and inspected patterns. Ignorance is no excuse.