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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.
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.
I'd say a government official with the power to set in motion the process of executing somebody calling for them to be executed clearly does cross the boundary - it is, in non-clown cases, an order to start that process. When Trump does it he arguably isn't calling for violence because when Trump speaks in public it is presumed to be (especially by his supporters) a mindless bloviation intended to express emotions, not an attempt to communicate.
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