> Again, maybe I'm just more optimistic, but I think that on longer time frames, the sober elder statesmen/women will prevail and realize that violence is not an appropriate response to bytes transiting the wire that they wish weren't.

Your framing is off because this notion of fairness or morality isn't something they concern themselves with. They're using violence because if they didn't, they would be allowing other entities to gain wealth and power at their expense. I don't think it's much more complex than that.

See how differently these same bytes are treated in the hands of Aaron Swartz vs OpenAI. One threatened to empower humanity at the expense of reducing profits for a few rich men, so he got crucified for it. The other is hoping to make humans redundant, concentrate the distribution of wealth even further, and strengthen the US world dominance, so all of the right wheels get greased for them and they get a license to kill - figuratively and literally.