As we don’t have a top level post about this already (nor on reddit) I thought why not make one. Archive.is

Extremely likely the guy was a lesswronger, or at least radicalized by that sort of thinking.

But not much else seems to be known as far as I can tell. Corbin also posted about the HN reactions in the stubsack.

And remember, no fed posting.

Edit: looks like his house also got shot. Archive (after the speculation in this thread, makes you wonder if this was a follow up false flag, as the bottle didn’t break last time).

  • blakestacey ( blakestacey@awful.systems ) 
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    6 months ago

    From what appears to be the guy’s Substack:

    East Asian people are on average more intelligent than Black people. Which is factual based on the vast majority of tests we have developed and observed over the decades.

    And:

    I am an advocate for ending mass migration and initiating mass deportations for illegal migrants in western countries. Not because I am a white supremacist (I am not white) or because I believe there is necessarily anything innately special about being white. I believe these things for three reasons. First, nations have the right to preserve their ethnic identity, and second low skill immigration saturates the job markets of these countries making jobs which could once earn a living wage become unlivable, increasing the amount of value draining people in society by both importing them and undercutting low skill natives. lastly, generally, whiteness in these countries is a decent correlative to some of the things I value.

    And:

    It is true that many of the features which white supremacist value have little to do with the genetic predisposition to European ancestry and instead have to do with higher IQ; which is relatively more common among whites than most other groups.

    So, a common-or-garden guy who is not left-wing or right-wing but a secret third thing that is also right-wing.

  • rook ( rook@awful.systems ) 
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    6 months ago

    Stolen shamelessly from a followers-only post, so I’m assuming that the originator would prefer me not to give them credit.

    alt-text

    An exponential graph, of the kind so beloved by techbros, in a vaguely ms-painty style with time as the x-axis and “number of arson attacks on sam altman’s mansion” as the y-axis, and showing a predicted “arson singularity” point in the near future.

  • So two thoughts:

    1. Per Saltman’s comments the improvised incendiary bounced off the side of the house rather than breaking and spreading the gas on the house proper. Apparently if you want the bottle to break the way you intend you gotta really just whang that thing because glass bottles are sturdier than you’d think.

    2. One thing I find ironic about his referencing the New Yorker article on him was that part of my takeaway from that article was how mundane he is, individually. Like, he’s a snake, but not in any way that isn’t pretty standard once you start getting that level of wealth and power. He credibly pretended to be a proper AI cultist for the critihype, and then as the rubber started hitting the road he pivoted towards the direction that gave him and the company more money, even if it meant sacrificing the values that it turns out a lot of other people really cared about (however dumb I might think they are). That’s shitty, but it’s shitty in the most boring way that so many things are in the rot economy, and it’s not like even if they had managed to kill Altman himself there wouldn’t be another bunch of enterprising sociopaths ready to move into the same position. That profile is one of the strongest pieces of evidence why even if you are a hardcore AI doom cultist you shouldn’t focus your ire on the man himself, because he’s just not that special.

  • lurker ( lurker@awful.systems ) 
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    6 months ago

    Wait, if im recalling right a former StopAI activist went on the run after threatening an OpenAI lab and causing it to shut down, it mentions the suspect has threatened an OpenAI lab before so could it be the same guy?? Edit: Just read D Gerard’s latest article, turns out it was a different guy. I do wonder what happened to that activist though