[dang]

> Not sure what world you have lived in for the past at least 10 years

The world I have lived in for longer than 10 years is HN. I'm gut-wrenchingly familiar with the worst things that people post here—probably more than anyone, simply because it's my job.

If you can dig up a single example of a thread this bad that we knew about and didn't do anything about, I'd be shocked, because it would go against everything I believe and feel. Perhaps you can, nonetheless? If so, let's see it.

Here's what I mean by "this bad", if you want to calibrate:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47727099

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47725722

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47725717

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47726427

The number of people who feel that anything at all is justified if it reinforces their feelings—particularly their angriest and most vicious feelings—is so large that it's clear that it is human nature in action, and that makes me yearn for a cool and heavy rock to crawl under, with moist earth to sink into.

[foxes]

Well I'm not saying they don't get moderated eventually .. but the thread in reference

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47659135

There was horrific racism on display right here. Perhaps it just seems part of the background noise to you .. but at the time, some of those posts felt just as bad as calls to violence or worse.

But to compose something more substantial .. its probably all to much to neatly tie up in a single reply to a thread.

[dang]

> Well I'm not saying they don't get moderated eventually

I'm going to interpret that as meaning that we do our job ok, just not instantenously—which would make sense, given that we're human and that would be humanly impossible.

> There was horrific racism on display right here

If there were any cases of that which we didn't do anything about, it would be because we didn't see them. I can't read everything that gets posted to Hacker News any more than you can; see "humanly impossible" above. But I'd like to see specific links.

> Perhaps it just seems part of the background noise to you

It does not "seem like part of the background noise" to me. What it "seems like" is wrenching my intenstines into an agonizing state on a regular basis and then driving a spike through them.

[UncleMeat]

But you are doing things about the bad comments in this thread too.

Why is "well we removed that stuff" a defense in other contexts but not here? In both cases the issue is this community writing stuff you deem objectionable.

[foxes]

Consider some more examples: trump or that other conservative figure getting shot. Or the ceo of the health company getting shot.

Both of those people condone(d), support, amplify and drive horrific violence.

A common liberal reaction to those incidents - "oh no violence isn't okay!!" - well where were you for all the other horrific things they did and said? Yes in some ideal world there perhaps wouldn't be violence - but I can understand people feeling like they had it coming. It's the boy who cried wolf. It's the bully getting their comeuppance. It can be hard to feel bad.

Sama also talks about wanting ai to be the future, its pushed everywhere and the feeling is its going to take peoples jobs and disrupt everything. But there's no discussion about how we are going to look after everyone in that future. Current capitalistic (american) society doesn't seem built for that ... that lack of care already exists for a lot of people too who are homeless, poor etc.

Being upset about samas front gate getting firebombed while they probably also had plenty of security .. well idk.

[brandon272]

> Both of those people condone(d), support, amplify and drive horrific violence.

This seems to be the point of contention. What constitutes "violence"?

A lot of people seem to define violence as a purely physical act: a missile strike during a war, a fist hitting a face, a molotov cocktail thrown over a property line.

What has become clear to me, especially when I saw the discourse around Luigi Mangione and the public opinion polling on it, is that a lot – a lot – of people define it much more broadly: a health insurance denial, a job lost as a result of some CEO's careless ambition, or mere words.

The problem with a very broad definition of violence is that it permits a pretty barbaric worldview. If I cut someone off in traffic, or if a careless administrative action on my part costs someone money that then puts them in a financial pickle that month, is that violence? Do I then deserve to be tracked and assaulted? What about the doctor who is complicit in the refused treatment because the insurance company won't pay a bill?

"I understand the insurance company isn't paying the bill but you are still going to treat me, and to not do so is a violent act."

The list goes on. Can society function if the default action at real or perceived injustice is to just kill?

[MiguelX413]

> The problem with a very broad definition of violence is that it permits a pretty barbaric worldview. If I cut someone off in traffic, or if a careless administrative action on my part costs someone money that then puts them in a financial pickle that month, is that violence? Do I then deserve to be tracked and assaulted? What about the doctor who is complicit in the refused treatment because the insurance company won't pay a bill?

That's resolved with proportionality.

Cut me off in traffic? No biggy

Cut me off from my healthcare when I have a terminal illness? Biggy

[brandon272]

My point is that proportionality and fault seem to be entirely subjective.

In an insurance denial, the insurance company does not treat you. The people who refuse to treat you are actually the doctors and nurses and hospital. They have the ability to treat you, but refuse to do so without economic compensation from the insurance company. Within the insurance company, there exists underwriters and individuals who work directly on the denial. Above that are layers of management, above that is a CEO, above that is a board of directors. Above that is an industry and regulatory environment and government.

If you can justify violence against an insurance company CEO, do you also justify violence against the board of directors, employees of the insurance company, the hospital, doctors and nurses who refuse to treat?

Similarly, Sam Altman is just one small component of the AI industry. He is nothing without the team of people he is leading and who have endorsed him (don't forget, Sam himself was fired and reinstated with part of the stated basis being that OpenAI employees were planning an exodus if he was not brought back), not to mention the board of directors he serves under and investors he is working for.

A lot of people will look at this argument and say that just because responsibility for harm is diffused throughout a system of people does not mean that no one is responsible and that accountability is impossible. I would tend to agree. But I would also suggest that just because no one in particular is fully responsible does not mean that one person should be singled out and targeted as arbitrarily responsibility for all harms.

[foxes]

Of course there are different levels of violence. One person inciting hate online is different to bombing a country back to the stone age, but they are both violent. No a traffic offense shouldn't get you assaulted.

But big ceo or president shouldn't necessarily be surprised about consequences to say it bluntly, and to tie it back to our original point, its funny its such an issue now to dang and others here.

Its like suddenly an issue when that violence is directed at someone who does have a lot of power rather than the other way around.

I feel you could argue denying health claims is violent, its intending to cause harm - there is a choice there.

[dang]

I missed this last night:

> Being upset about samas front gate

To write that, you must have missed what I was upset about. What upset me was the community response to the violence (which in physical terms was inconsequential, and certainly doesn't compare to the worst things going on in this world): piling on and egging each other into escalating rage towards the target of the violence, while obviously feeling good about it. In other words, a mob. I don't like mobs.

The mob dynamic is the same whether the target is a rich person who many people happen to dislike, or a much weaker person. The idea that "it's ok if the target is $so-and-so" is abhorrent—a self-deception that allows us to deny, excuse, and enjoy our share of the violence we all partake in as human beings, while projecting it onto (and into) other people whom we call bad and evil.

Even though I know that this is human nature it upsets me when it shows up in a community that I'm responsible for, and it was showing up badly in this thread when I first saw it last night.

[mindslight]

Have you not seen similar troll comments outright celebrating the actual deaths of ICE's victims, Iranians, Oct 7th victims, etc? I certainly have.

Hell, at the last protest I went to there were people driving by cavalierly playing "Bomb Iran" (written in 1980, and trotted back out every time the topic is back in the zeitgeist). It seems like the only real difference there is abstraction. Supporting violence is [unfortunately] deeply embedded in our culture.

Perhaps the popularity of this thread is causing you to preemptively seek out more terrible comments, rather than letting flagging do its thing?

Maybe try looping over popular divisive threads, and reading the flagged short comments that didn't get many upvotes. There is a lot of fucking hate in the world.

(and certainly a hat tip to you for making it your job to sort through it so we don't have to see much of it. But if this is hitting you differently (personally) than the usual flood does, perhaps you need to take a step back?)

[pillefitz]

I wouldn't hold it against anyone wishing my great grandfather shouldn't have existed for playing a minor role in Nazi Germany. Altman is in cahoots with a government that just a few days ago threatened to end a whole civilization. So no, I don't understand where you are coming from or why you're disgusted at the comments you linked.

[foxes]

It's kinda wild - It's now only publicly objectionable when its against an extremely privileged and powerful person??

Oh no !! /s

Meanwhile that same person implicitly condones violence - for example getting in bed with the US gov.

They don't need defending on HN.