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Show HN: Forty.News – Daily news, but on a 40-year delay

forty.news

41–50 of 191 posts

Re: Show HN: Forty.News – Daily news, but on a 40-year delay

#43

> For example, on Oct 7, 1985, Palestinian hijackers took over the cruise ship Achille Lauro. Reading this on a delay in 2025, the story unfolded over weeks: first they threw an American in a wheelchair overboard, then US fighter jets forced the escape plane to land, leading to a military standoff between US Navy SEALs and the Italian Air Force. Unbelievably, the US backed down, but the later diplomatic fallout led t…

News is often highly decontextualized, to our detriment. This site is a nice idea, because seeing echoes of today in old news is a starting point for adding a little bit of context back in. A lot of people live in a permanent rage-state induced by the simple good vs evil narratives that are so easy to spin when the context is obscured. These narratives break down when you start to piece together why events unfold the way they do.

Re: Show HN: Forty.News – Daily news, but on a 40-year delay

#46
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this is just my bubble, but the messaging I get is that Israel should stop murdering Palestinian civilians and not that Hamas is somehow righteous in their actions.

I think it varies. I've seen everything from people simply caring about the wellbeing of Palestinian civilians to rabid Hamas supporters and everything in between. I think it's easy to get stuck in an environment where you mostly see views that align with your own or are the complete opposite (with a corresponding dunk) and it's easy to get rage baited.

There’s a lot of ideological snap-to-grid.

Re: Show HN: Forty.News – Daily news, but on a 40-year delay

#47
post #41

I like doing this with my local paper but from a hundred+ years ago. It's funny to read that the electric street car opening day was delayed because they built the tracks at the wrong gauge for the street cars. Beaurocratic mismanagement in the 1890's.

That must be what inspired them to approach San Francisco's Central Subway in a similar fashion!

Re: Show HN: Forty.News – Daily news, but on a 40-year delay

#48
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny that this site's tagline is "Exactly 40 years back, these felt huge. See how they landed with time." but so many of these stories are still just as alarming. If anything it often feels like we should've cared more. At the very least done more

In a similar vein, I think even news from 40 years ago can teach us a lot. The players may be different, but the game is the same. Many of today’s wars and conflicts were already ongoing; big pharma, big food, oil companies, corruption in our institutions, manufactured coups… it all feels like nothing ever really changes.

I reckon that if there were a similar feed for the Roman Empire, the same would be true. The real issue is that human psychology hasn’t really changed in perhaps hundreds of thousands of years. The only thing that has is technology.

Re: Show HN: Forty.News – Daily news, but on a 40-year delay

#50
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny that this site's tagline is "Exactly 40 years back, these felt huge. See how they landed with time." but so many of these stories are still just as alarming. If anything it often feels like we should've cared more. At the very least done more

In a similar vein, I think even news from 40 years ago can teach us a lot. The players may be different, but the game is the same. Many of today’s wars and conflicts were already ongoing; big pharma, big food, oil companies, corruption in our institutions, manufactured coups… it all feels like nothing ever really changes.

Yup, on this site today, I see stories about the Reagan/Gorbochav talks. The "not an inch Westward" promise made to the USSR about NATO being repeatedly broken is directly relevant to today's invasion of Ukraine. And I also see stories about Lebanon fighting to end occupation by US and Israeli forces which is quite relevant to the other major conflict the US is tangled up in
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