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An unknown assassin has attempted to kill President Trump at the White House Correspondents Dinner tonight. One person is dead. President Trump is unharmed. The disposition of the assassin is unknown.
Here's a clip. I think I hear shooting sounds at 0:40 and then they react a few seconds later. Dunno how close the shooter actually got, seems like they must've got him further away from Trump?
https://x.com/WomanDefiner/status/2048203588841750754
One can only imagine how toxic fake shooter narratives are going to be this time... I don't like Trump much but how hard is it to believe that people sincerely want to shoot him dead and will even sacrifice their lives to do so? Or that if the Trump campaign somehow faked their own assassination attempts that wouldn't immediately leak, like so much else that they do?
Edit: Apparently the assassin made the world's shittest-looking steam game too and people are shitposting in the reviews:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/945530/Bohrdom/
I'm a huge critic of the "small number of people did something bad so everyone tangentially related is responsible or guilty" sort of arguments, but I do at least appreciate that the conspiracy theories formed after bad events are logically consistent with that. After all if you do truly believe in the concept then you're forced to deny that anyone tangentially related to you could do bad or else you're admitting that you are bad.
So of course then people have to go with "This Trump shooting was staged" or "the people who beat up cops and planted bombs during Jan 6th were secret fed antifa" or whatever because it can't simply be "oh that guy was nuts, but I'm not that guy so it doesn't impact me or my beliefs". Not that false flag attempts don't exist at all, but the question really should be, so what?
What does it matter if the guy who shot a police station was actually a boogaloo boy false flagging instead of a BLM protestor? No one is accountable for his actions except for him. To me it didn't make BLM look bad beforehand and it didn't make right wing groups look bad afterwards just cause this individual sucks. I appreciate the consistency but it's still really stupid.
I'm a critic of "My movement is only the good people, and the bad ones are unrelated." Sorry, but if you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas. Your stance would give zero consequences for extremism.
As an example, imagine that there was a gas attack on a public place. The police arrest the perpetrators, and discover that they were all members of the California Chemistry Club. Shortly thereafter, there's another gas attack and the perpetrators are also members of the CCC. And again, and again, and again. It's weird that it keeps happening, but it's not like the Club has any relation to the attacks. No one is accountable for the the perpetrators' actions except themselves. Under your framing, people couldn't even think that the organization might be promoting or benefiting from those actions, because only a small number of their members are carrying out attacks.
If Boogaloo Boys are shooting up police stations, then it's evidence that they're a violent group and should be (formally or informally) punished for that. The alternative is playing whack-a-mole after the fact.
Take half a second and think about this with your brain. "My movement is only good people and bad ones are unrelated" is the conclusion someone would have if they also believe "small number of people did something bad so everyone tangentially related is responsible or guilty"". You're not arguing against me, you're agreeing with me in pointing out the flaws of this logic.
Actually my stance gives full consequences for bad things to the people who do bad things, instead of trying to absolve them. As Reagan once said
Ok in your own framing only a small number did it, so why haven't most other members done anything bad? Maybe the club is so big there are niche insider clubs inside of it that they can't control. Like how the "rationalists" had the niche cult of "zizians" who murdered people. But would you blame someone like Scott Alexander or Yudkowsky for those murders? Do you blame the EA community? Would you blame them for the attempted assassination of Sam Altman? That Yud can claim all he wants that he doesn't want houses firebombed, but his anti AI rhetoric lead to this so he's guilty too.
I don't, I say "wow those individuals who did something bad are bad individuals, I blame them for their own choices and not society". But your logic says Yud is a threat.
And as a member of TheMotte, a rationalist adjacent site, do you accept responsibility for how the fleas you apparently laid down with tried to firebomb Sam Altman's house? I'm going to assume no and that you agree with my argument of "that guy is just that guy, he's not me" once you're being asked to account for bad people of "your group". I'll believe you are sincere in your "personal responsibility for other people being bad" stance when I see you apply it to yourself and accept personal responsibility for bad people existing in your own groups.
If they later give Ziz et al the EA equivalent of a tenured university position, or platform people that say (paraphrasing) "yeah I wouldn't do it personally but it's a good thing," so on and so forth, yes, they should be blamed.
Not enough liberals hate Angela Davis and the Weathermen, either, or express disapproval of universities not treating them like the evil pieces of shit they all are.
Actually yes I think the guy that has suggested air strikes on data centers deserves some responsibility there.
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I don’t like Yud much so it doesn’t really count but I would lay some blame for anti-AI violence at his door. He’s stoked panic and sky-falling doomerism about it for more than a decade, on the basis of no meaningful knowledge or experience whatsoever, not pausing for even a second when his ideas about how AI would materialise (alien optimisers, FOOM) turned out to be completely wrong. He has consistently advocated for maximally violent approaches to preventing AI, objecting to individual efforts only on the grounds of pragmatism.
In fact, I would say he’s one of the worse people to do this kind of thought experiment on.
Where's the consistency in calling for data centers to be bombed (presumably with employees) but declaring firebombing CEOs responsible for repurposing the entire global economy toward AI data center buildup to be a step too far? If data centers are valid military targets, then surely data center builders would be too.
Individual criminals cannot consistently enforce a world-wide treaty regulating AI development, making violence they commit useless and counterproductive. Only laws adopted and enforced by the most powerful countries in the world can do that. If you kill Altman or blow up a datacenter then you are arrested and they continue with a different CEO or a different datacenter, if you slaughter every OpenAI employee then Anthropic does it, if you somehow personally hunt down and kill everyone in the U.S. who knows what a "transformer" is then China does it. Here is the post he wrote on the subject following the attempted firebombing:
Eliezer Yudkowsky: Only Law Can Prevent Extinction
That sounds like more of an argument of practicality then. Then it's a matter of whether it's easier to reach a democratic mandate in all major countries then autocratic buy-in from Russia and China vs. a small contingent of fanatic extremists of say 5% in each country leading in AI (which there's only really two) to throttle AGI until say leaders globally can be replaced by a younger generation which subscribes to threat models of extermination by AI. And even that's on the presumption that the violence is in fact counterproductive and you don't end up with a Shinzo Abe's assassin's type of case where the murder is the catalyst for political reform. Suppose Sam Altman burns to popular applause and leaders finally recognize just how unpopular AI is.
Though, I think the whole hypothetical is farcical since in reality, the only threat posed by AI seems to be wasting everyone's time and money, and flooding the internet with slop.
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If that's the case then it would be fair to specifically criticize him as being pro violence then. Although it does make another good point, you don't really know others too well anyway. I don't know if Yud did or did not advocate that, and while I can look it up now I, and pretty much no one else, does that to every person we meet and know.
A lot of these political violence cases always have the same thing, people in their life didn't expect it. People aren't mind readers, and they assume general good of each other. I don't assume my coworker goes home and plans out how to kill the mayor, even if that coworker spent hours ranting about how he dislikes the mayors new plans for a local bridge or something. (This is not a real life coworker I've had, just an example). And if I find out he stabbed the mayor, I'd be really shocked. Hopefully no one would be stupid enough to blame me for working with him just because I didn't predict that.
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What? Maybe if they're a hypocrite.
Simple example: A large group contains a small number of baddies. Does it affect their reputation? I say: Yes, they are one group and share a reputation. You say: No, the large group's reputation is not impacted by the bad individuals.
How are those identical?
Guilt doesn't diffuse to nothing, it multiplies. A hitman can't get off from a murder charge because he was just doing a job. Instead both the hitman and the purchaser are guilty.
Similarly, the rioters throwing molotovs, the protesters giving them cover, and the pundits encouraging them all carry blame for the damage in the BLM riots.
They split from the group, CFAR kicked them out, they had the cops called on them, and had (at least one) callout post against them. This is the appropriate reaction. They weren't members in good standing, so the blame is very heavily dampened.
He does claim that he doesn't want houses (or data centers) firebombed. Repeatedly and consistently, both before and after the fact(s). Again, this is as it should be.
Yes, a shadow of a shadow of a shadow of a shadow of the responsibility falls on me. I don't really worry about it, because at that far of a remove it's just the cost of being alive in society.
I'm not writing an autobiography for you, so I guess you'll never believe me. Darn.
Big Yud is a bit incoherent. If he is right, then he should be calling for firebombing. Either he doesn’t really believe his expressed certainty or he rejects utilitarian thinking.
In one of his interviews, his primary complaint was that individual lone-wolf acts of violence are not sufficient to stop AI development and would have a tendency to sway public opinion in the opposite direction, as these things do. But his opposition is only because of ineffectiveness. He's very publicly in favor of an international alliance of USA, EU, Russia, and China firebombing rogue data centers.
Airstriking. He chose his language deliberately so it doesn't get confused with a call for individual action.
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"At what p(doom) do you saw your own leg off?"
Why are you so certain that firebombing is the most effective strategy available? It doesn't have a great history, to say the least.
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Ok I think you misunderstand me or vice versa.
If a person believes
A: Some bad people in a group reflects poorly on a group
Then that person not wanting their own group to look bad is incentivized to do
B: Claim that any and all bad people in their group aren't really their group, and are actually secretly a disliked group.
These two ideas go in hand and hand. A belief in collective responsibility leads to denial of someone in your own collective ever doing any wrong. A Scotsman who believes in collective responsibility will have to say "That murderer isn't a real Scotsman!" because admitting he is a Scotsman = Scotsmen are murderers in that logic.
Whereas if I was a Scotsman, I could say "that murderer is a scotsman too, but he's not me, so I'm not responsible".
So what? If collective responsibility is resolved by saying "I don't support that" or not doing the thing in question, then collective responsibility doesn't make sense to begin with. Besides they didn't do [insert imaginary way to control other people that collective punishment theory assumes exists] to stop the violence.
Sure you can kick them out of a specific rationalist group, but you can't kick them out of "rationalist".
As I've wrote elsewhere, this is incredibly easy and simple to dismiss by anyone motivated to put down the anti AI movement that this is just plausible deniability of stochastic terrorism. I could argue that no one could seriously say "this will end humanity" and not expect the possibility of violence as a result. After all, if you saw a mad scientist about to press the nuke everyone button would you not shoot him? I could post on Twitter a satirical remark like "Guys don't kill the people ending humanity wink wink, I don't endorse violence wink wink" implying that he's just covering his ass.
I as a pretty major pro tech pro AI optimist would be able to do this quite easily, if I wasn't principled in my "don't blame people for other's actions" stance and my disagreement in the very concept of stochastic terrorism.
I'm not asking you to, but I will say I've never really seen a person go "I believe in collective responsibility, someone in an adjacent group of mine did something bad, I am responsible". Maybe people like that exist, maybe you're the exception, but I've never seen it. It's always blatant hypocrisy or no true scotsmanning.
You're missing a step: They have to claim that they're a bad group, then actually kick them out so that they aren't a part of the larger group anymore. Cut them off from funding, stop inviting them to events, denounce them, etc.
You have to bite the bullet and accept it, otherwise you're a hypocrite. I'd say "It's a tragedy that brings shame on us all". Now, if the murderer was a recently-deported immigrant, I could say that the murderer isn't a scotsman because he isn't.
It's resolved by actually not supporting it, and by opposing it. Simply saying something might not be enough.
Yeah, "The left as a whole" has a lot less control than "Democrats", and that causes less responsibility to fall on the broad movement than the specific organization. In the absence of new evidence, I'd draw less of a connection to the Left for this assassin than I do to the Democrats for Sam Brinton.
Yeah, motivated reasoning can get you pretty much any result you'd like. If someone's dedicated to being wrong, I certainly can't stop them.
I've never seen it cash out like that, but the general theme isn't uncommon in my experience. It's usually more like "I won't join that group because I would be supporting their bad actions" or "I regret joining that group...". People don't share their personal failings very openly.
I'll give one personal story, with all the serial numbers filed off. I was playing sports with an aggressive teammate, and he injured an opponent. I felt bad, the coach felt bad, my teammates felt bad. We accepted collective responsibility, the coach pulled him from the rest of the match, and all of us increased our focus on sportsmanship and fair play in the next few practices and the rest of the season.
We could've partially dealt with our responsibilities by kicking him out of the team, but it turned out to be unnecessary.
Sure you can cut them out of the things you control, but you can't stop them from making their own groups and get people who don't even know about the controversy. And wait this ignores something important, most of these people don't show obvious signs beforehand. You can't kick someone out for something like murder before they murder obviously, this isn't Minority Report.
And if there was some reliable way to know, then why aren't we blaming their family, friends, teachers, coworkers, and other people in their life who should be even more aware?
What bullet am I biting by acknowledging that some other scotsman could be be criminal?
Why does it bring shame on every Scotsman?
Then it's not collective responsibility if you allow all the people who aren't responsible and don't actively support bad things to dodge blame! You agree with me then to not blame others.
Yes exactly, and all what I've given is motivated reasoning I've seen people engaged in! For example, the "you're just lying about your opposition and covering it up" thing I could accuse of Yud can be seen here in the replies to Mamdani
That might be true, but it's generally related to their own personal experiences feeling uncomfortable and not the actual thing in question "I'm responsible for what someone else did". I doubt you'll find many examples of someone pleading guilty as an accomplice to murder cause just because they were in a shared group.
Yes, this dynamic changes in particular highly organized situations where you actually can kick people in a meaningful way.
The example I typically give is of police. A bad city A cop not getting fired is the responsibility of their city A police chief, but it's not the responsibility of a city B police chief, because the latter can't meaningfully do anything. He can say "we are against bad cops in city B", but he can't remove city A cop. Responsibility comes from actual ability to control others, and most of the time you don't actually have that at all.
If you're the head of the "Dog Lovers club" and kick someone out, they can just go make their own "Dog Likers" club. You can not remove them from representing themselves as a dog enthusiast, and newbies (and even many vet dog enthusiasts who don't pay attention) won't really know the difference so they can often gain influence no matter what you do. And that's if you even know ahead of time, which you probably won't (refer back to the first part of how we don't blame others close in their life).
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There is a difference between random one off attempts and repeated attempts.
There is also a difference with how people in the group react.
If I was part of a group whose members kept doing terrible things with support from a decent number of members, I would have to seriously question whether I’d want to be a member of that group. You wouldn’t?
Sure, but there's been multiple anti AI attacks.
How exactly do we determine this? Does Yudkowsky writing if anyone builds it, everyone dies and advocating for slowing down AI development count as some sort of implicit support for anti AI violence because he believes humanity will end? It's really easy to see how people might read it and conclude "well if they're destroying humanity, we need to do anything to stop them"
Should Yudkowsky be blamed for attempts on Sam Altman's life?
What's the actual base rate though? I'm part of many groups where members keep terrible things with support from a decent number of members.
I'm a human, tons of those are violent. I'm an American, tons of those are violent (the government is even literally bombing fishers in South America. I'm a capitalist, I bet there are other people who would call themselves capitalist that have done crime before. I'm a man, and I'm pretty sure men commit crimes. I live in a city with criminals in a state with criminals. Maybe my next door neighbor is a criminal! Maybe some of my coworkers are criminals, they could be selling pot on the side or something.
The default of basically every group that isn't "not criminal" is having some criminals in it. Like how cardiologists just keep doing messed up things.
But even increased rates don't really matter too much. If base crime was .5% of the population and cardiologist crime was 1% of the cardiologist population, so what? The overwhelming majority of cardiologists would still not be crime. Even if they were 5%, most would still be fine people! It'd be an interesting thing to consider what attracts 10x worse people to cardiology as a field, but I wouldn't blame any cardiologist for wanting to work their job. The same way I don't demand that all the priests step down cause a few kept molesting children, or that anti AI folk should shut up because a few people tried to kill Sam Altman or that insert other people I don't like are responsible just because a few of them were bad.
Arguably, the rat adjacent attacks on Altman qualify.
I think your other examples miss the point. It isn’t about finding a random connection between group A and bad thing B. It is about finding a direct connection, higher than the baseline, and tacit group approval. It was shocking how many people cheered Kirk’s death. It was shocking how many people were upset Trump survived the multiple attempts.
Now hold on, there's a difference between being happy someone is dead and actively supporting violence against them. Trump himself has cheered on the death of multiple people who he disliked, including the murder of Rob Reiner. Hell, Trump has even called for the death penalty against those Dem lawmakers like half a year ago which is one of the closest things you can get of support for violence while still not quite crossing the boundary.
Now maybe those are crass comments (I think they are), but I wouldn't interpret them as instructions to "go out and kill Democrats". Heck Trump once posted Obama's address leading to an armed man afterwards showing up casing the joint looking for a "good angle" to shoot. I could say that Trump caused this, but I could also just say that this guy was a nutjob who had a history of threatening Democrats, and consider that most people didn't try to kill Obama. This guy didn't do it because of Trump, he did it because he was a violent and hateful man.
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Look, if you're going around saying, and posting on social media, and giving press interviews about how "A is the most terrible threat to the entirety of humanity ever, we must and should do something about A, simply staying passive and not doing our utmost to fight A by any and every means possible is being complicit in A's crimes, the most extraordinary measures are legitimate given the threat A is", then you don't get to hold your hands up when somebody believes you and goes out and acts on that: "oh my, but I meant only 'vote for us in the next election', not 'A is literally Hitler and the army officers who tried to assassinate Hitler were heroes!'"
This is basically Yud's whole thing, that AI has the potential to be species ending. His book is literally called If anyone builds it, everyone dies. If there was a perfect archetypical example of such rhetoric, Yud would be it. He is literally saying everyone dies if AI is not stopped.
Is Yudkowsky responsible for the Sam Altman firebombing?
I don't like the guy but to be fair to him, he is not calling for heads on pikes, he is calling for "follow my One Weird Trick" to stop world-destroying AI.
The firebombing attempt wasn't even that great, it apparently set fire to a perimeter gate so I'm not sure if the bomber even got as far as the house, or if the bomb bounced off the house. This seems to have been the closest attempt and it didn't really work. I'm not saying it should have worked, just that any assassins are very amateur. Let's hope it all stays that way and nobody efficient decides to have a go.
This is incredibly easy and simple to dismiss by anyone motivated to put down the anti AI movement that this is just plausible deniability of stochastic terrorism. I could argue that no one could seriously say "this will end humanity" and not expect the possibility of violence as a result. After all, if you saw a mad scientist about to press the nuke everyone button would you not shoot him?
I as a pretty major pro tech pro AI optimist would be able to do this quite easily, if I wasn't principled in my "don't blame people for other's actions" stance and my disagreement in the very concept of stochastic terrorism.
Same selection effect for why most repeat criminals are idiots with bad plans and short tempers. Most assassins tend to be terrible at their assassination because being an assassin typically means something has broke in your mind somewhere.
Consider even the smartest assassinations we see haven't considered something like, wearing makeup to change their facial features or putting on a face mask! Imagine how much harder it would be to recognize and pin these famous photos of Tyler Robinson on him if he just put on some shapewear, makeup, and a realistic looking wig beforehand. You could add realistic scars, darken your complexion and mess with your body outline enough and still look real and not draw much attention. Buy a wig out of human hair and then style it so it's not recognizable as the way it's sold.
But even the smartest ones don't do that, because if they were thinking rationally they wouldn't be assassinating.
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I actually don't agree with that.
This is on the level of criticizing anti-abortion advocates for being insincere because they don't blow up abortion clinics anymore.
It is possible to believe someone or something is a great moral evil, to say so in the public square and to honestly believe that either morally or tactically it would be a mistake to do something norm-violating to stop that evil.
It is reasonable to believe “abortion is murder” and “bombing abortion centers creates collateral damage that is immoral.”
But saying “abortion is murder and we should do anything we can to stop it” sure sounds like a call for bombing abortion centers.
The pro-life movement is dominated by Catholics who apply just war theory to direct action. This is why the pro-life movement has little tolerance for pro-assassination rhetoric.
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And this is why the Brandenburg test is so important. It's very easy to recast fiery political speech as a call for violence.
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