Altman got Molotoved. Warehouses are burning. The ruling class brought this on itself — ad still won’t tap the release valve.
For years, we’ve been bearing witness to the rise in what some call neo-Kaczynskiism – a swell that’s going to crash harder and harder into the ultra-wealthy and their bottom lines. Last week, multiple attempts were made on OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s life. The 20-year-old from Spring, Texas who allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail at Altman’s home published a lengthy diatribe beforehand on his Substack arguing that artificial intelligence is a threat to human existence. Not 48 hours later, shots were fired at Altman’s same residence in San Francisco.
Ted Kaczynski – the “Unabomber” – authored a manifesto that offered a hauntingly accurate critique of industrial society before ultimately resorting to random acts of violence, murdering 3 people and injuring 23 others in a nationwide mail bombing campaign between 1978 and 1995 targeting those he believed were advancing modern technology and destroying the natural environment.
Neo-Kaczynskiism is an apt term for the rise in lone acts of violence and destruction we’ve been witnessing – including the 7 warehouse fires (and counting) that have cropped up across the country in the last week. Like Luigi Mangione, accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024 and currently held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, these seemingly random acts of violence don’t occur in a vacuum. They’re connected.
The targeting of billionaire tech oligarchs and millionaire health insurance CEOs, the employees setting their workplaces ablaze, the surge in individual acts of violence against the rich – it’s all a symptom of the economic regime we’re living under. And it’s going to escalate.