Inspired by Stephen Taylor’s post on U. S. political violence but not entirely satisfied with either its framing or analysis, I decided to do my own. The graph above is the outcome. I think that graphs provide a better understanding of trends than tables or written descriptions.

The definition of “right-wing” incidents are those motivated by “white supremacy, anti-abortion beliefs, involuntary celibacy (incels), and other right-wing ideologies” while “left-wing” incident are those motivated by “black nationalism, anti-police sentiment, communism, socialism, animal rights, environmentalism, anti-white ideologies, and other left-wing ideologies”.

I think that my dissatisfaction with that framing should be pretty obvious. Start with the fact that “right” and “left” as a means of characterizing political views is 200 years old now, stemming from seating in the post-revolutionary French legislature. Add that I find characterizing “black nationalism” as left while “white supremacy” is right is not only distasteful but, like a fan dancer’s fan, conceals as much as reveals. I’ve added a separate line for antisemitic violence. It’s certainly violence. Is it left violence or right? Sometimes left and sometimes right?

My sources are the ADL, CSIS, and Washington Post.

What I see is that incidents of political violence both “left” and “right” have quadrupled over the last 20 years while incidents of antisemitic violence have quadrupled in the last five years. That last began before Hamas’s 10/7 attack or Israel’s war against Gaza so they cannot be deemed causal. Whether “left”, “right”, or neither those are disturbing increases over relatively short periods. I don’t believe our society can tolerate a continuing trend of that sort.

I think that Marc Thiessen’s latest Washington Post column is worth considering:

The outpouring of hatred on the left has been shocking, with people taking sick joy in his death. For conservatives, the vile response to the killing of an activist who respectfully engaged those with whom he disagreed has been eye-opening: Many on the left don’t simply disagree; they support violence against those they disagree with.

That is not hyperbole. A YouGov poll conducted in the wake of Kirk’s killing asked Americans: “Do you generally consider it to be acceptable or unacceptable for a person to be happy about the death of a public figure they oppose?” Ninety-one percent of conservatives said it was “always or usually” not acceptable, as did 90 percent of those who are “very conservative.” But only 56 percent of those who are “very liberal” and 73 percent of liberals said celebrating the death of someone with whom they disagreed was unacceptable.

It gets worse. YouGov asked: “Do you think it is ever justified for citizens to resort to violence in order to achieve political goals?” Eighty-three percent of conservatives and 88 percent of those who are very conservative said political violence is never justified. That is, in my opinion, lower than it should be. But on the left? Only 68 percent of liberals, and 55 percent of those who are “very liberal,” said political violence was never justified. Seventeen percent of the former and 25 percent of the latter said it was sometimes justified — shockingly high numbers.

This poll is not an outlier. A survey from Rutgers University found that 56 percent of left-of-center respondents said the murder of President Donald Trump would be at least partially justified, while 50 percent said killing Elon Musk could be justified.

As I’ve been saying for some time, both Republicans and Democrats have serious problems but the problems are not symmetrical. In my opinion 10% of your supporters thinking that violence against your political opponents is bad. Anything approaching a majority thinking that violence against your political opponents as is the case with Democrats is not tolerable.

Mr. Thiessen continues:

These numbers should be a wake-up call. The acceptance, and even celebration, of political violence on the left is a serious problem for our democracy. And it is the responsibility of those on the left who don’t share that belief to take the lead in fighting this worrisome trend. To his credit, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) released a video in which he praised Charlie Kirk for engaging the other side, and declared that “every American, no matter what one’s political point-of-view may be, must condemn all forms of political violence.”

Many on the left like to condemn Trump’s rhetoric but conveniently overlook the dehumanizing rhetoric of their own leaders. President Joe Biden came to office promising to put his “whole soul” into “bringing America together.” Instead, he called Trump supporters “garbage,” declared that Republicans in Congress supported “Jim Crow 2.0” and compared them to racists and traitors such as Bull Connor and Jefferson Davis. Vice President Kamala Harris said she agreed Trump is a fascist and warned that his election would threaten our very democracy.

When politicians engage in this kind of rhetoric, they are saying that the other side is not simply wrong but evil. And when you declare someone is evil, that provides a justification for violence.

Such rhetoric from Democrats long predates Trump. During the 2016 campaign, Hillary Clinton compared Republicans to Nazis, saying they wanted to “round [illegal immigrants] up” and put them in “boxcars.” Four years earlier, a super PAC supporting President Barack Obama ran ads showing Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan pushing an old lady in a wheelchair over the side of a cliff. In 2008, Rep. John Lewis (D-Georgia) compared GOP presidential nominee John McCain to segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace. In 2000, the NAACP spent millions on ugly ads accusing George W. Bush of moral equivalence with white supremacists who brutally lynched James Byrd in 1998.

Many on the left will respond: What about Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol chanting “hang Mike Pence”? Fair enough. The Capitol riot was a disgrace. But what happened that day notwithstanding, support for political violence on the right is in the single digits. On the left, it is substantial.

The only solution I can come up with is for Democratic leaders to stand up and address their own supporters, with a simple message. Violence against those with whom we disagree is not justified. We don’t do that.

Will the (sort of NATO-like) mutual defense pact between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan announced recently make any difference? What are its implications?

I see it as a sort of “shot across the bow” to Iran. Maybe to Israel, too, if Saudi Arabia has anything to fear from Israel which seems kind of dubious to me. Does it have other implications?

The editors of the Washington Post are outraged at ABC’s network-wide preemption of Jimmy Kimmel’s late night program:

Enter FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who sees things differently. On Wednesday, he suggested on a podcast that ABC affiliates that air Kimmel might lose their FCC licenses. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.” Hours later, Kimmel’s show was suspended indefinitely.

This government coercion violates the First Amendment. The government can’t block speech because it’s politically offensive. Nor can it do an end run around that prohibition by enlisting third parties to do the dirty work. You might think the FCC is a wholesale exception to this rule, given that it regulates broadcast television. You’d be incorrect. “The FCC does not have a roving mandate to police speech in the name of the ‘public interest,’” noted an expert in 2019 — a fellow by the name of Brendan Carr.

The Trump administration didn’t invent the strategy of indirect censorship backed by regulatory threats. The Biden administration’s pressuring of social media companies to remove content was the subject of a lawsuit by state leaders in Missouri and Louisiana that reached the Supreme Court last year.

While the Biden administration used veiled threats against its corporate targets to maintain plausible deniability, Carr wielded the government’s coercive power openly. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way” doesn’t leave much ambiguity. Carr is pledging to keep targeting television offerings he doesn’t consider in the “public interest,” but who will decide what that is? Carr, of course. The late-night shows are already unfunny; imagine how bad they’ll be with bureaucrats dictating content.

It was none other than Charlie Kirk who in a 2024 Supreme Court brief blasted the Biden administration’s use of “mammoth companies” to engage in censorship that “the Government could not do directly.” Now, Kirk’s death is an occasion for the Trump administration to do just that. Conservatives cheering the creation of novel censorship methods by the regulatory state would do well to consider what it will mean for them the next time Republicans lose the presidency.

I agree with the editors that Mr. Carr spoke improperly, imprudently, and, possibly, illegally. He should not have threatened ABC.

However, I also think that the editors missed a few things in their timeline. Within hours of Mr. Kimmel’s comments Nexstar, a major ABC affiliate group, announced that it was permanently preempting Mr. Kimmel’s program over the remarks. Shortly thereafter the Sinclair Group, another major ABC affiliate group announced, that it was doing the same. Then came Mr. Carr’s remarks.

My take is a little different from the editors’. I think that late night broadcast talk shows are a dying form. They’re not making money and losing viewership. There no real way to profitability for them. Disney/ABC was looking for an excuse to cancel Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Mr. Kimmel gave them one.

I also think that the editors are complaining about the wrong things at the wrong time. Mr. Kirk touched on it in his comment, cited by the editors. The graver threat to freedom of speech and of the press is the ownership of media outlets by large, publicly-held companies. Like it or not they are creatures of the government to a significantly greater degree than small, closely private-held companies are. And consolidation in media outlets has greatly accelerated in the last 20 years.

The editors should have started complaining 40 years ago when deregulation under Ronald Reagan relaxed ownership limits. Or when the “supergroups” began to emerge at the opening of this century, using “sidecar agreements” (LMAs/JSAs) to skirt FCC rules. The editors should know that. The Washington Post is different from the New York Times in that it’s not owned by a publicly-held company.

Consider these countries:

One of those countries is quite different from the other four. Keep that in mind.

Noah Smith’s most recent post was motivated by the murder of Iryna Zarutska on a commuter train in Charlotte. Its title is “Good cities can’t exist without public order”.

After quoting several people claiming that incidents like that are why we can’t have good public transit in the United States, Mr. Smith observes:

These people are overstating their case, but when you get right down to it, they do have a point. America’s chronically high levels of violence and public disorder are one reason — certainly not the only reason, but one reason — that it’s so politically difficult to build dense housing and transit in this country.

For many years, I’ve been involved with the urbanist movement in America. I want to see my country build more dense city centers where people can walk and take the train instead of driving. That doesn’t mean I want to eliminate the suburbs; I just don’t want to have San Francisco and Chicago and Houston feel like suburbs. If we have dense cities and quiet suburbs, then every American will get to live in the type of place they want to live in. Currently, the only dense city we have is NYC.

But I think my fellow urbanists are often a bit naive about what it’ll take to get more dense, walkable city centers in America. They often act as if car culture is an autonomous meme that just happened to develop in America, and that real considerations like violent crime played no role in driving Americans — both white and nonwhite — out of urban cores in the 20th century.

He then proceeds to state his case that a) we have more violent crime, homicides in particular, than “other rich countries”; and b) that’s because we have fewer police officers per 100K population than “other rich countries”, e.g. France, Germany, etc.

I only have two observations. The first is that you cannot discuss homicides in the United States intelligently without bringing up race. Half of all homicides in the U. S. are blacks killing other blacks. Interracial homicides, like that of Ms. Zarutska, are terribly sad but quite rare.

As quoted by Mr. Smith the U. S. homicide rate per 100K population is 5.8 but 1.3 for France, .8 for Germany, etc. That sounds pretty bad. However, the white homicide rate in the U. S. per 100K population is 3.2. That’s not far from India’s or Canada’s.

My second observation is that the major difference between the United States and Japan, Mr. Smith’s favorite counter-example, is social cohesion. Japan is very homogeneous, highly cohesive, and generally consensus-based, almost a large extended family. The U. S. is, well, not.

My claim would be that (at least until rather recently) France, Germany, Italy, and the UK were largely ethnic states with high degrees of social cohesion. 20% of the people in the U. S. don’t speak English at home; 10% don’t speak English at all. In France 3% of the people don’t speak French at home. IMO that is due to modern France’s insistence on the French language and that builds social cohesion.

I would further claim that you cannot have the high level of social cohesion that Japan does in a country as large and diverse as the U. S.

Consequently, my retort to Mr. Smith would be that even if the United States had the large number of police officers he proposes we would still have more crime than “other rich countries” because we don’t have the social cohesion that they do. I would also stick out my tongue and assert that you can’t compare us with “other rich countries” because we aren’t much like them. We’re more like Brazil (and have a lower homicide rate).

Columnists Megan McArdle, Jim Geraghty and Shadi Hamid discuss “what to make of political violence today” at the Washington Post. I thought that some of their observations were worth noting. Here’s Megan’s preamble:

Last week’s fatal shooting of conservative media personality Charlie Kirk has sparked conversations about the escalation of partisan disagreement into political violence. The podcaster’s slaying follows a trend of targeted attacks on political figures in recent years, including the killing of a Minnesota Democratic lawmaker and her husband, and the attempted assassinations of Donald Trump.

What can be done, if anything, to curb political violence? I’m joined by my colleagues Jim Geraghty and Shadi Hamid to discuss.

From Megan and Jim Geraghty:

Megan: That’s a good point, Jim. Every time one of these events happens, the political incentive is to mine it for partisan advantage by suggesting that this is somehow emblematic of the other half of the country rather than the act of a violent fringe. We’ve seen that on the left, which often blames right-wing extremism or hateful rhetoric for the actions of deranged loners — and that’s what the White House is doing too, with Trumpian fervor.

Jim: Yup. Just about every Democratic lawmaker has said the right things after the assassination. Plenty of left-of-center folks I know were shocked and horrified. And yet at the same time, we’ve seen leftists posting the equivalent of touchdown dances celebrating Kirk’s death.

That’s why I think that, rather than making anodyne general public pronouncements, it is incumbent on Democratic leaders to address their supporters specifically and for Republican leaders to address their. Generalized statements against violence will always be interpreted as only applying to the other guy.

I think this exchange among Shadi, Jim, and Megan is worth repeating:

Shadi: My worry is that because Democrats are so feckless as an opposition party, more disgruntled young men (and women) will give up on the political process. When people give up on legitimate politics, they’re more likely to resort to extralegal means to express their grievances.

Jim: That’s right. Ten or 11 consecutive “the most important election of our lifetime”s has convinced some people that the other side of the aisle wants to bring about the apocalypse.

Megan: It’s also convinced a lot of people they need to bring about a preemptive apocalypse for the other side — it’s much more thrilling to imagine you’re in the French Resistance or standing with the Minutemen at Concord. Are we LARPing our way into a civil war?

I also think that Jim’s mistaken here:

Jim: I’m hoping those in the enraged minority have people who care about them. Concerned friends or family who are willing to listen but say: “Dude, this is crazy talk. You’re not making the world a better place by shooting somebody because you hate what they believe in.”

Maybe things are different on the East Coast but here in Chicago Lauri Dann’s parents stopped short of trying to get involuntary commitment for her despite their daughter’s violent tendencies and Robert Crimo’s parents actually assisted him in obtaining a firearm. In other words the “people who care about them” can be part of the problem.

The film actor, producer, director, and promoter of “indie” films Robert Redford has died. Variety’s obit by Steve Chagollan is pretty good:

Robert Redford, the leading man with the golden-boy looks who won an Oscar for directing “Ordinary People” and later became a godfather for independent film as founder of the Sundance Film Institute, died Tuesday in Utah. He was 89.

Cindi Berger, chief executive of the publicity firm Rogers & Cowan PMK, confirmed the news to Variety.

“Robert Redford passed away on September 16, 2025, at his home at Sundance in the mountains of Utah — the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved,” Berger said in a statement. “He will be missed greatly. The family requests privacy.”

After a litany of his film credits Mr. Chagollan gets to the meat of the obit:

In addition to Redford’s status as one of Hollywood’s most sought-after leading men through much of the ’70s and ’80s, the Sundance Film Institute and the festival that bears its name may be considered an equally significant legacy.

Redford belied expectations when he founded the organization in the mountains of Utah in 1981, still flush from winning the Oscar for directing “Ordinary People” (1980). The effort effectively put his own career on hold for at least three years.

What started out as a modest filmmakers lab became synonymous with the independent film revolution, while its namesake festival would morph into the most important film event in the U.S. for both burgeoning filmmakers and acquisition execs.

In a different piece in Variety Brent Lang is spot on:

“He was an artist who was trapped in this incredibly handsome body,” says Phil Alden Robinson, who directed Redford in 1992’s “Sneakers.” “It can be hard to be taken seriously when you’re that good-looking.”

Redford, who died Sept. 16 at the age of 89, didn’t allow himself to be defined by Hollywood. Instead, he subverted his squeaky-clean persona in films like “The Candidate,” “Downhill Racer” and “All the President’s Men,” which looked critically at the media, celebrity and politics. In the 1970s, when Redford was at his most bankable, he wasn’t interested in making populist crowd-pleasers. Instead, he wanted to hold a mirror up to America at a time when its institutions were crumbling.

and

Yet Redford hoped his greatest legacy wouldn’t be the movies he starred in or directed, but the film festival he established in the mountains of Utah. Sundance, which Redford founded in 1978, was intended to serve as a showcase for emerging artists.

“He helped so many new voices get their big break,” says John Sloss, the veteran agent and manager. “And it wasn’t just auteurs. Sundance was the launching pad for lots of Marvel and tentpole film directors.”

The list of filmmakers who had their first brush with success at Sundance is a who’s who of the most influential directors of the past five decades. From Ava DuVernay (“Middle of Nowhere”) to Steven Soderbergh (“Sex, Lies, and Videotape”), Quentin Tarantino (“Reservoir Dogs”) to Ryan Coogler (“Fruitvale Station”), so many distinguished careers trace their origins to Park City.

If there’s any actor of the second half of the 20th century for whom the monicker “matinee idol” would be appropriate, it would be Robert Redford. He was not really an actor’s actor. I suspect that in the years to come he will be most remembered for promoting new, fresh talent through the Sundance festival. And I think he would be proud of that.

Yesterday I was doing a little research into the detention of 475 South Korean nationals working at a Hyundai battery plant being built in Georgia a couple of weeks ago. I was a bit shocked to learn that even two weeks later it’s basically a “he said, she said”. Hyundai says the workers were specialized workers it needed to build the plant; the federal government (and union leaders) say the workers included bricklayers, plumbers, electricians, and pipefitters. I wasn’t able to find a breakdown of how many of the detained workers were doing what. The best I could find was that “a majority” of the workers were engineers and specialized workers with skills unavailable in the United States. That could mean anything from 238 of them to 474 of them. It could also mean that the reporters didn’t know but that’s what Hyundai spokespeople told them.

Just for context foreign companies have been abusing the U. S. visa system for 50 years (at least). I know this first hand. Fifty years ago I worked for a German company which routinely sent Germans here to work on L-1 visas who did things that people on L-1 visas shouldn’t be doing. I doubt that’s changed since then. Just a few years ago I worked for a (basically) South Asian outsourcing company that routinely used people on student, tourist, etc. visas in addition to people on H-1B visas that should never have been on H-1B visas. I worked for them for seven years. That company never gave a single individual a raise during that entire period.

My basic question is what has happened to reporting? There doesn’t appear to be much. Mostly rewriting of press releases.

Just today in the daily briefing I get from Time there was a headline “Colombia-U.S. Relations Fray Over Drug War” with the following lede:

Relations between the U.S. and Colombia—longtime security allies—have frayed after Trump said the Latin American country has failed to crack down on cocaine production.

Now I’m not a Trump fan; I think he’s a clumsy international negotiator at best. But there is more than one way to report a story. One way is the way above, that Trump is complaining that Colombia has not “cracked down” on cocaine production. Here’s another way. Based on UNODC data Colombia’s cocaine production has been growing rapidly over the last ten years:

If the U. S. is the primary customer for that coke, it looks like something worth complaining about to me.

Again, I don’t know what the truth of the matter is. I just recognize that the reporting is lacking.

This article at Futurism by Joe Wilkins caught my eye. Mr. Wilkins observes:

With so many wild predictions flying around about the future AI, it’s important to occasionally take a step back and check in on what came true — and what hasn’t come to pass.

Exactly six months ago, Dario Amodei, the CEO of massive AI company Anthropic, claimed that in half a year, AI would be “writing 90 percent of code.” And that was the worst-case scenario; in just three months, he predicted, we could hit a place where “essentially all” code is written by AI.

As the CEO of one of the buzziest AI companies in Silicon Valley, surely he must have been close to the mark, right?

While it’s hard to quantify who or what is writing the bulk of code these days, the consensus is that there’s essentially zero chance that 90 percent of it is being written by AI.

Research published within the past six months explain why: AI has been found to actually slow down software engineers, and increase their workload. Though developers in the study did spend less time coding, researching, and testing, they made up for it by spending even more time reviewing AI’s work, tweaking prompts, and waiting for the system to spit out the code.

Unfortunately, Mr. Wilkins does not actually answer the question that forms the title of this post: why was Dario Amodei wrong? Will none of his predictions come to pass?

I’ve been experimenting with large language model artificial intelligence (LLM AI) models for two years now. Based on my limited experience there are several inherent problems with their use.

The first is that applications created using AI aren’t designed. They’re just implemented. When features are added or bugs identified and reported, the applications are re-implemented with run-on effects. I’m seeing this in the software updates on my smartphone and tablet. They are being “improved” rapidly to the point of becoming unusable.

While that’s okay for simple tools only used occasionally, it can be disastrous for mission-critical applications or those that have financial aspects.

The second is that human beings just aren’t very good at explaining what they want and/or need. They leave things out. They include extraneous things. They may not recognize the run-on effects of a decision. It takes considerable skill and experience to explain things properly and completely and there are fewer people who can do those things than can grind out code.

The third is that there has been what might called “title inflation”. Seniors aren’t seniors any more. Forty years ago a senior developer had eight years or more of experience. Now five years is considered senior. It isn’t but that’s what businesses are saying these days. Also, as a past colleague of mine once observed, senior here in the U. S. and senior in another country are two different things.

Another is that you can’t rely on AI to test your applications for you. LLM AI models don’t understand anything. They just do what they’ve been trained to do (best case). The implication of that is that only human beings can determine whether something is suitable to task which in turn suggests that human beings need to do the testing. Good testing is harder than coding.

Sadly, none of this makes any difference. All that matters is that a senior developer plus 3 junior developers costs more than a junior prompt writer and a subscription to several AI models Note: there are no senior AI prompt writers because they haven’t been around long enough and such creatures may never exist because of the rapid pace at which they evolve. That’s all that will show up in the quarterly report and whatever President Trump says short term thinking is here to stay. Goosing stock value at the expense of long term risks to the enterprise is too easy a decision to make for modern managers.