I said it at the time and I reiterate it now. Pat had the right strategy and was the right person for the job. His decision are justified. He could have played the politics better with the board and externally and that is why I think he got fired, but he laid the ground work for where they are now.
It is fair to be critical of Sam and other tech leaders regarding AI, but he has done nothing to begin to justify violence or even the threat of violence against him or his family.
If I torture 1 person that is bad. If I inflict a smaller suffering on millions of people, does it reach parity? Were the Sackler's actions that ruined so many lives, led young girls/boys into forced prostitution, led to so many ODs and suicides, something that ranked close to deserving violence? Or does the 'LLC/Corp' absorb all responsibility like some capitalist papal indulgence?
If the Sackler's actions are visible evil, where on the 'LLC/Corpo' scale does evil turn to 'acceptable business' and the choices made by management to inflict damage on many many people switch to 'acceptable business' where the perpetrators are disconnected from their actions/choices?
'LLC/Corporations' absolve management of liability/accountability in the government eyes, but you are making an assumption that then extends to absolving when it comes to actual morality. While you can try to sell 'articles of incorporation' count as modern indulgences freeing people from sin under the religion of capitalism I'm not sure all of society agrees. I think the concept that LLC/Incorporation is a blanket 'papal indulgence' absolving management of all accountability/moral behavior in our modern techno feudalist social structure is wearing thin for a lot of people. Clunky as hell language but it's a discuss that needs to be had, and better for all sooner rather than later.
Didn’t we just go through several weeks of hearing about OpenAI allowing its tech to be used for conducting warfare?
Not saying that justifies harming Altman but I am confused that he seems surprised he is now in physical danger? [Or chalks it up to just some single specific incendiary article rather than the companies actual actions?] If you involve yourself in the act of killing people then, yeah, you’re going to get blowback for that and some people are obviously going to want to hurt you
It is absolutely not ok for "some people to want to hurt" someone who is running a company that is vying for contracts from a democratically elected government's defense department.
It's also ok to protest that, to boycott it or to refuse to work for or with them for it. But escalating that to physical violence is not ok, and nor should people be "confused that he seems surprised he is now in physical danger"
(As an aside, from the statements I've heard so far it seems the person was more an anti-AI, anti-tech person than anti-war)
I completely agree with all your statements. But I think most people in America have moved on from even trying to operate in the political system we have - because it’s been completely subverted by bad actors on both sides of the supposed 2-party system they see it as pointless.
And as such they’ve either become completely irrational (most far left or far rightists), checked out (the rest of us), or fully mentally ill (people like this, or that Gracie Mansion wacko)
I don't think anyone is saying this is justified. But that doesn't mean it's not going to happen and I can understand why people would do this. ESP people that are pushed beyond the limits they can endure.
Right now we have a huge imbalance in the world and more situations like this are going to manifest as we slide further and further into authoritarianism.
Calling it “a democratically elected government's defense department” is extremely generous and not a good point even if the premise were true.
Hitler was democratically elected, who cares?
The premise doesn't make sense either because it's hardly a “defense department” either.
It's been more of a “kill civilians and destabilize other democratically elected governments in Latin America and the Middle East department” for the past half century. It's the same “defense department” that overthrew democratically-electdd Allende in Chile and installed a dictator, killed schoolgirls in Iran (I'm not including Iran in the list of democratic places though), bombed a wedding in Pakistan with a drone, and more. It's a massive “defense department” for a country that hasn't been attacked in ages.
The US is hardly a democracy either because a choice between genocide-supporters isn't a real choice, there was no real anti-Zionist candidate.
I do know that history actually, I was learning about the Baʿal Cycle last night actually, I'm a huge fan of linguistics and also learning about Semitic Religion. I was using them in the idiomatic sense in which they would usually be understood by the average reader.
I mean, I even went through the effort of expressing the pharyngeal consonant.
Address the spirit of my message rather than the letter please. I perhaps would've used a better expression if I could've thought about it first.
>It is absolutely not ok for "some people to want to hurt" someone who is running a company that is vying for contracts from a democratically elected government's defense department.
I'm getting increasingly creeped out by the mental distinction that people seem to make between "warfare" and other kind of violence, but this is the first time someone argued that explicitly.
But it is the same. Better and more stable for society than individual vigilantism? Yes, generally speaking it is. But still essentially the same thing, just done through a different process.
I’m falling into the Socratic hole [0], but in a modern civil society there is a justice system through which people seek recourse. This has all sorts of desirable effects for societies.
Please educate yourself on the basics or at least put more effort in before participating in conversations.
[0]: It’s easy to abuse the Socratic method and devolve a discussion into one of first principles. It’s extremely tiresome and a huge waste of everyone’s time.
I'm a big fan of the justice system. Can't have a functioning civilization without it. And yes, violence that is used by a democratic society following regulations is generally speaking better for society than arbitrary vigilantism motivated by personal beliefs is. But I'm not arguing that it would necessarily be good to kill Sam Altman. I'm just arguing that it's ok to find the idea of his death pleasing. I find the idea of killing all sorts of people pleasing without necessarily thinking that actually doing it would be good for society overall.
I've worked in the system for decade now. and I cannot agree. I feel nothing but regret, shame, and guilt most days. It's a cruel and vindictive system. Lady Justice carries a sword for a reason, and she loves to swing it.
I commonly refer to our system as the legal system for there is little justice.
I concur. I think the true issue is that no system can solve these types of problems. There will always be people who benefit more than others, and there will always be people who slip through the cracks.
I think our system is not the worst system available by any means. I just wish there was a bit more focus on impartiality and rehabilitation. I am not so sure why there is an obsession with punishment when data suggests it does not really deter people.
No can do, this justice system actually protects war criminals rather than prosecuting them. The US threatened the international justice system by threatening to invade the Hague when it attempted to prosecute American war criminals. It's contradictory to respect the American “justice system” whilest it actively disrespects other justice systems both in other countries and in international law.
I intentionally said “modern civil society” instead of the USA to avoid talking about specifics.
Whether the USA has a sufficiently functional justice system is another topic. My intuition is also that, in the presence of a disfunctional social system, fixing (or replacing) the system will usually lead to better outcomes than side stepping it. Not that I really want to talk about the minutia and challenges of fixing the USA’s justice system.
> Didn’t we just go through several weeks of hearing about OpenAI allowing its tech to be used for conducting warfare?
Unfortunately warfare is a thing. Why wouldn't you want the best technology used for your country when conducting warfare? Or do you just believe warfare would cease to exist if a country gave up any means of defense or offense?
You're allowed to authorize your technology to be used to kill people, but if you do so, you shouldn't be surprised when those people also try to kill you. America and Americans somehow keep forgetting that actions have consequences and the government can't always override the consequences.
I wouldn't want my country to use the best technology when conducting warfare because my country only conducts offensive warfare resulting in millions of innocent deaths in the Middle East, having a massive military budget that dwarfs most others combined whilst hardly ever being directly threatened.
What I am saying is if you involve yourself in violence (and directly profiting from violence) you should not be allowed to act shocked when that same violence turns up on your doorstep
I’m not indifferent to either of them, but if you equate American tech executives with agents of the Iranian nuclear programme then I don’t care what you have to say on any subject ever
You might be too young to remember it but they said the same thing about North Korea.
When they actually got a nuke all it meant was that the US stopped threatening them, halted practicing manoeuvres in preparation for attack and generally just left them well alone.
Iran has probably realized by now that if they dont get a nuke the US and Israel and will keep slaughtering their schoolchildren.
Sometimes we're the brutal savages who need to be stopped, impossible though that is for some people who have more of "racial loyalty" mindset to comprehend.
Pretty much everyone thinks that violence is ok against certain people. You probably do too. The disagreements are about who violence is ok to use against.
I didn't say that violence is never okay in any circumstance. What I'm objecting to is cowards who couch their support for violence in mealy-mouthed caveats: "of COURSE i don't condone violence BUT ackshuaaaaally when you think about it isn't it _understandable_ that someone should _expect_ this kind of reaction blah blah blah blah blah..."
Just say that you think Sam Altman deserves it. You'll disgust me but at least I'd respect your honesty.
If you work to inflict violence on others, you shouldn’t be surprised when it’s attempted to be inflicted back on you. I’m not saying it’s a just worldview, but it is pragmatic.
Holy shit how is this the first time I am hearing about this? This should not be my first time hearing about this.
> Suchir Balaji (November 21, 1998 – November 26, 2024) was an American artificial intelligence researcher who was found dead one month after accusing OpenAI, his former employer, of violating United States copyright law -Wikipedia
There was a Tacker Carlson interview with Sam Altman where Tacker probed him on Balaji's murder and Sam quickly got confused and disoriented. Make your own conclusions.
Saying he got confused and disoriented is and interesting conclusion to make of that interview. He was defensive from the onset and even went combative when Carlson continued down a specific line of questioning, which he allegedly did at the request of the victim's family.
I totally agree with your statement if we are talking about the average citizen starting to throw Molotovs at his house. If you’re afraid AI is taking your job, just do something else. It’s not the end of the world changing careers.
Plenty of work AI won’t be able to do, or allowed to do without a human assisting in some way that secures the human a good income and way of life.
So if this is done by an individual citizen, they need to be hunted down, arrested, and get the full force of the justice system to deter others from doing the same.
On the other hand, right now, Sam Altman is a valid military target for assassination in the US / Iran war.
OpenAI did snatch up the contract from Anthropic at the Pentagon, and their technology is in some capacity used to murder Iranian HVTs (High Value Targets). Altman is therefore technically a legal HVT for the Iranians.
If you say it’s valid and not a war crime for the US to assassinate former political Iranian figures and their families for aiding the new regime and therefore becoming enemy combatants in the eye of the US Military, it’s also valid to assassinate Altman and his family for doing the same to the other war party.
It’s a bit of a Schrödinger situation. He is technically a valid target in a current war, but not for the private citizen.
In both cases, though, I’d advocate that violence is neither a solution to solve the problem that AI might be creating for a lot of people in the future, nor should he be treated as an enemy combatant and his infant child and wife bombed to smitherens.
Diplomacy is key here, just like it would have been the better solution than going to war with Iran.
If you disagree with Altman, send him a letter, show up at his workplace, talk to the man, gather people who think the same of him you do, write letters to your voted representatives, make calls, vote politicians into office that are anti AI and who will go after him and regulate his company to shit. Bureaucrats can make Altman’s life more miserable than a thousand Molotovs ever could.
If you gather enough support, you can reach the same goal, taking his power over your life away, without any violence.
But are you really surprised people chose violence over the democracy toolbox in the US if they get told by the people in charge of their country that violence is indeed a good way to solve problems, that you should have a "warrior" spirit and everything is up for grabs, even sovereign countries like Greenland because you can outviolence any other nation on the planet?
Violence only creates more violence and as long as there is a president who chooses to put oil in the fire and pretends it’s ok to murder US citizens like Alex Pretti, you don’t really need to wonder if the average citizen starts murdering tech CEOs in the near future.
They just follow the Top-down approach to using violence as a tool the leadership lives by example.
> If you say it’s valid and not a war crime for the US to assassinate former political Iranian figures and their families for aiding the new regime and therefore becoming enemy combatants in the eye of the US Military, it’s also valid to assassinate Altman and his family for doing the same to the other war party.
Sam isn't a political leader, so this comparison is flawed. What the hell, are we really arguing about if assasinating a long-standing figure of this community here is valid? Seriously??
He is a leader and a political figure. This blogpost is political (as well as sharing a family photo, which is itself imbued with a political message in that context).
Engineer archetypes hate politics and refuse to think about it. For most engineering, there is negligible political dimension. But culturally-transformative technology is inherently political to the degree it's transformative. Altman recognises this.
He is working towards a social goal, and attracting support to achieve it. Yes, he is a political leader.
He's rich, connected at the highest levels, works with the US govt and specifically the military. Able to have a relatively high political influence (on the workforce at the very least). How is he not actively a political figure?
People on this forum applauded Charlie Kirk’s murder too. Unfortunately theres a number of people here who believe it’s okay to murder instead of argue with words. Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent
Indeed. I've seen much more outright support for the murders of Pretti, Good, and Taylor than people "applauding" Kirk's murder. Never mind the recent support for the mass murder of Iranians ("bomb them back to the stone age" etc). Unfortunately those incompetents who take refuge in violence are now in charge of our society.
(I suppose I'm getting the reply-less downvotes from people's cognitive dissonance getting triggered. Just because it's possible to frame a murder as being legally justified, does not absolve you of the fact that by adopting this justification you're still supporting a murder. In fact I'd point out that the most horrific atrocities in human history have been legally justified. Randomly-directed violence doesn't really scale up, whereas organized violence does)
I intentionally repeated the same word for consistency, and that was the word used by GP's comment. If you don't like the word, then feel free to mentally replace it with something else, perhaps "killing". Especially if that can help you engage with the substance of an argument.
I am not saying he should not be criticized or even held legally liable for actions. Merely that, you know, fire bombing peoples homes whose actions you disagree with is bad thing.
Sure, it's bad in a vacuum. I think people notice the decades long pattern (the Sacklers, etc) and just know that if some rich dude causes a million of people to lose jobs and live in poverty (or straight up die) nothing will happen to the dude.
Unfortunately, I don't see that happening any time soon, and more and more people feel the same. There's no faith left to be had in the justice system anymore after Epstein, Kissinger, etc.
We live in a system that threatens to invade the Hague to protect its war criminals, not a system that exists to prosecute evil-doërs.
if every business(man) who lobbies against regulations for their business is a fair game to go after violently (not just her/him but his family as well) there would be a bloodbath of epic proportions… one day, this might be you and your family too…
It already is our families. We don't have healthcare. We live in rentals that enrich others. We take rented scooters to work. We have no retirement funds or futures.
Live in slavery and be happy? Hold a sign no one reads? Own nothing? Feel no peace, have no medicine?
I don't condone it, but I understand it.
I believe there's still the possibility for us to fix things in peace, but I can see why others don't.
> We don't have healthcare. We live in rentals that enrich others. We take rented scooters to work. We have no retirement funds or futures. Live in slavery and be happy? Hold a sign no one reads? Own nothing? Feel no peace, have no medicine?
I hope so, because if instead of reflecting and trying to prevent whatever I created is used to hurt people, my option is to try to lobby/shield me from it, I hope the angry mob to come after me and put me my head on the stake, I will deserve it.
whatever you create will eventually hurt someone. legos have caused
more injuries (and choking deaths) than just about anything but we are not gonna go to lego investor’s house or current CEOs and try to burn his house down.
This analogy only works if the toddler buys their own lego and, while assembling it, the neighbour's toddler - whose parents can't afford to buy lego - chokes to death.
It is possible to build things that don't hurt people.
It is possible to reduce the harms of things that are likely to hurt people.
It is possible to not treat hurt as a foregone conclusion.
It is possible not to use this foregone conclusion to defend strangers who not only create things that actively harm people, but promote this harm as a good thing, without also providing the support to reduce or avoid those harms.
You'd consider that a fair comparison? I mean, it's not like the lego inventor is trying to shove legos down kids' throats against their will. These AI promoters on the other hand... are absolutely trying to thrust things against others and their wills, even promoting loss to what some deem a source of their well being (ie jobs). And while I don't know if the lego inventor knowingly & willingly deals with bad actors, I'm not so sure we can say the same for the AI promoters.
There is a difference between inventing a toy that has a chance of injuring someone, and, just for the sake of example, pushing cigarettes onto teens. Or opiates onto people in general.
I feel like Americans are tired of this shit being done to them with no negative consequences to the people who do this.
> In essence, he has threatened to kill millions of people.
“In essence” is doing enormous work here, and it will be basically impossible to have any kind of discussion if that work is considered acceptable.
This kind of word-twisting can be used to make pretty much anyone into a murderer, at which point “discussion” will come down to who the mob chooses to listen to.
But if you're trying to get people fired, then obviously the people you're threatening to fire will be pissed. That should be obvious. You and altman playing stupid does not change that, it just makes you look stupid.
The fact that "your health insurance is tied to employment" is a conscious choice you, Americans, made. You could have a different system. You chose this one.
But, once more, admitting and owning the consequences of your choices is completely foreign to the American mindset.
You could have AGI emerging tomorrow, telling you "make health insurance universal", and you would unplug it/lobotomize immediately for being "too woke" or "communist".
I mean, it would also be an option to fix the deficient public health of USA. For all the stupid manipulative stuff Altman says, the system precedes him, no?
This is not an argument or a rebuttal, and I don't think you're really understanding what I'm saying.
I'm not saying altman is actually a murderer or that AI is even bad for society as a whole.
I'm saying that what he is saying is directly threatening to a lot of people, and it should be obvious that some of those people will lash out.
Something being good for society can still be bad for you. If you're someone who altman is bragging about making redundant, then you might be mad at altman. It's very simple reasoning.
I simply don't understand how somebody able to enjoy modern comforts precisely because of innovations resulting in job eliminations will suddenly draw the line when AI might risk some jobs.
I never said that I'm drawing the line anywhere - I'm merely saying that Altman bragging about it is a REAL and OBVIOUS threat to the people he's trying to replace.
Whether that's good societally is a different question. Is it good FOR THOSE PEOPLE from their perspective? Of course it's not, and that should be painfully obvious to everyone here.
So then, why are we playing stupid and acting surprised when Altman is in danger? Everyone should have saw this coming.
Words can justify violence. A serious threat of violence is a reasonable basis for acting in self-defense. Another comment said the same about pre-emptive self-defense as if one should wait to be shot at even whilst a gun is pointed at them before shooting back.
By this incredibly specious logic, many of your comments here represent “threats” towards people who work in AI, or with the DoD, etc, in any capacity. I guess they’re now justified in trying to murder your children, right?
Actions have consequences. There will always be people in the world that get pushed beyond the limits they can endure. It reminds of that CEO that got gunned down by someone that was being affected by the company profiting off of making a business of denying health insurance claims on technicalities.
I don't support this and yet I know for every harm people in these corrupt institutions are involved in, the universe gives back your due.
If you want to stop the harm. Stop harming the world with your actions in what every way that needs to manifest for you.
Reading that BBC article, how the attacker got caught while shouting at an OpenAI building, it would seem likely that this attacker is confused or deranged. Not specifically someone with deliberate evil intent.
So the headline seems to be more "high profile person attacked by lunatic" than "OpenAI CEO attacked for being evil".
Justice isn't just about punishing the guilty. It is also about restoring the trust in our society when it has been damaged by criminals. Very few Americans I know have any faith in our justice system's ability to hold the wealthy accountable. As a result, we will see more and more violence as a natural consequence.
Sam Altman could use his considerable wealth to hold billionaires like himself accountable for crimes that they commit through lobbying or funding investigations. Seeing criminal billionaires face justice would go a long to reducing this kind of violence.
Is there anything anyone can do that justifies violence or threats of violence? No. Even if that person is a proven child molestater, a just society stands on just law.
But as far as political justification stands, he is as valid of a target for hostile nations just as Iranian nuclear scientists were (unless he has 0 involvment with USG). That's just the world we live in.
Use your tech for war in other nations, you give a justification for other nations to target you. Same goes for Lockheed Martin ceo etc, nothing specific against Sam. But saying nobody has no valid reason to target Sam like this is pretty stupid imo.
Yes. Why the fuck are we pretending they are not? Even his husband is a valid target as he knows who he goes to bed with and where the caviar comes from. (I will probably say his kid no because he has no responsibility/understanding of this)
Investors immediately lose confidence in the entire space. Anyone who doesn't have other revenue streams -- e.g. Google, Apple, Microsoft, X -- probably goes under or sells shortly thereafter. the aforementioned big tech companies pull back investment considerably because shareholders no longer want to see investment in AI because they see it as a waste of capital resources that could be spent on things that actually make money. They go for the simplest lowest cost implementations and largely abandon advancements. Billions if not trillions of dollars in data center plans and hardware purchases are cancelled causing significant pain in the hardware sector. Hardware manufactures try to pivot to the next thing, but it will be multi year slow process to pivot.
I think the way Sam Altman talked about AI. The framing of it. That they had to hold back the real version because it is just too powerful; they don't even know how it is working; it is already doing these incredible things that would change the world, but we can't / won't release it was all cleverly orchestrated.
I think the only logical conclusion is that many of these tech leaders are liars or have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. Maybe somewhere in between.
On here and else where there are people who see AI for what it is and are absolutely blown away by it and defend these people without realizing that they are regularly promising something much more to investors that can never be fulfilled. The idea that LLMs can ever reach any sense of true AGI is delusional.
Regardless of how bullish you are on AI, I think it is fair to say there has been an incredible over investment. AI is never going to do what some investors have imagined it will do based on some favorable and in some cases misleading best case scenarios demos.
I don't think the current approach lead to Gen AI in any practical sense and I don't think LLMs are reliable enough nor will they be reliable enough to implement cross system and provide decision making authority to. e.g. "hey, "AI, book me a flight to Miami for next Wednesday." You may be able to do something like this, but it would require as many steps as if you did it through the airline website and the chance of it booking an undesirable flight are high, versus just doing it yourself. I bring this up because this is always a demo. It was a demo during the voice assistant boom / craze and it was a demo with these LLM AI models. The problem is AI works 80-90 percent of the time for simple tasks and pretty much 50-50 for most complex tasks. That gap will close a bit more, but it needs to be 99.99% reliable to be trusted and anything much short of that means that it is effectively untrustworthy to do anything important.
Many demos have been proven to be faked or cherry picked to provide a scenario where the AI would succeed under those very specific prompts but any deviations would fail. Just do a search, Google, OpenAI, and many other have faked or exaggerated features and capabilities.
I can tell you investors think from the demos, some of which have been proven to be faked, that this leads to gen AI that can do anything, completely autonomously. That it will be able to do what it can do for basic coding and writing press releases for literally everything. And it can't and it wont. And what it can do it does very expensively. Look at driver less cars. One of the first big problems we have tried to solve with LLMs and machine learning and we still can't reliably trust cars to drive themselves without doing a lot of upfront work for a specific city. Don't get me wrong where we are with driver assists and robo taxis is incredible, but the investment has been far greater than the return and may always be. And once investors understand that fully. Once they realize that the technology IS incredible, but the economics will almost never work out. They are gone. Once they are gone Open AI, Anthropic, with their multi-billion dollar burn rate quickly need to cut costs and / or find a buyer. The only buyers who can afford it and run them will be Google, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft and they too will be looking to reduce costs and exposure when the bubble bursts, so they will focus on efficiency of models even at the cost of function and features.
The Middle East conflicts have all been follies because there is no real victory condition without completely seizing territory and claiming as your own. Not saying this would be a good or moral position, but half measures only, at best, kick the can down the road or, at worst, exacerbate the situation.
I was right for all but one. High frequencies give it away. I can tell the difference, but it was certainly close enough that I am not sure I care anymore.
When I was on antidepressants I noticed people were much more likely to approach me and start up a conversation. I think so might have been more at ease a confident an also more likely to smile and make eye contact with strangers myself. So I think self confidence and general openness play a big part too.
In my experience, people who are compulsive liars or those who are willing to make large or repeated deceptions for personal gain never change. It is as natural to them as breathing. Some of them I am quite convinced believe their lies, but the net result is the same.
I don't know Trevor Milton. I have never met him. Maybe he isn't a compulsive liar but just got in over his head and was trying to make it work. But I know I would never invest in something he is doing.
Isn't this also in line with recent proclamations by at least two venture capitalists that they do not reflect / introspect / dwell on consequences in any way?
No because you don't understand what Andreessen means by reflection / introspection.
He obviously thinks you should learn from your mistakes and that you must be an avid and quick learner.
But learning skills is not what introspection / dwelling is.
It's spending times on thoughts like "what should I be doing with my life". "I can't believe how much of a victim of the system I am".
And he specifically contrasted it against doing stuff.
Writing code >>> walks in the woods.
Obviously reflection is necessary to recognize mistakes of the past. What Andreessen was talking about that you should spent majority of your time acting not reflecting. Not that you should spent 0 time reflecting.
Did we not understand when he said introspection was something made up in the past few hundred years? I was aghast when he said it right in front of my copy of Meditations given how much these guys also obsess over the Roman Empire
There are those who would argue doing anything is better than doing nothing while you try to figure out what to do. I'm in a position where I know what my passions are and am sufficiently constrained by resources that I can't afford major mistakes; but if I were sufficiently wealthy and indifferent, throwing darts at a board with a couple of ideas on it and just doing whatever has a certain romance to it.
Don't do nothing while figuring out what to do. But you should still spend time thinking about what to do.
If you're wealthy time and personal energy are the most valuable, irreplaceable resources you now possess. Why squander them on fruitless, random pursuits if you could think strategically and do something that really matters?
I have followed Trevor for many years. And I think anybody who has done the same will tell you, lying is very very central to his inner core. He lies even when he has zero need to. He just cannot help himself. It satisfies some inner need.
I grew up with someone like this. And otherwise he was a nice likable person. And his lies were benign, but he lied almost any time you talked to him. Most people didn’t even notice, but once you did you couldn’t unsee it. A couple of times we both witnessed the same event and he would have a completely different recollection of events that favored him and I think he believed those lies himself. I think for some people it is some kind of defense mechanism.
The greatest failing of modernity is its refusal to accept an uncomfortable reality uncovered by biology and psychology: That certain strongly negative personality traits are built-in pathologies which nature tries out to explore what is possible. The neural pattern that is "Trevor Milton" is not him without those intensely compulsive lying behaviors.
The social taboos of cultures around the world are fighting a ceaseless battle to reign in these endemic outliers.
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