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David Attenborough at 99: 'I will not see how the story ends'

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Re: David Attenborough at 99: 'I will not see how the story ends'

#121

Post by tomhow »

closewith wrote: post #116
tomhow wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a breach of the guidelines (“please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community”), but it is also inaccurate. Most regular participants on HN are employees, not wannabe billionaires.

> Most regular participants on HN are employees, not wannabe billionaires. You can be both and it would be interesting to see the breakdown of aspirations. Certainly as the tide of public opinion has turned hard against tech and tech billionaires in the last 5 years, the dominant demographic on HN seems less and less aware of how out-of-touch they are with public opinion at large.

I read the comments here all day and it's pretty clear to me that overall opinion is weighted fairly strongly against tech billionaires and big tech company leaders on HN, as much or even more than it is among the broader population.

If you have a recent discussion thread or subthread that demonstrates that the “dominant demographic on HN seems less and less aware of how out-of-touch they are with public opinion”, I'd be interested to know about it so I can get an understanding of what you mean.

I suspect it's an assumption based on stereotypes about what kind of people would be interested in a Silicon Valley-based tech-focused discussion forum, but if it was ever accurate, and perhaps it was in the early days of YC/HN, it's not that way any more.

Re: David Attenborough at 99: 'I will not see how the story ends'

#122

Post by adastra22 »

slifin wrote: post #109
adastra22 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current top-10 billionaires on Forbes' list all got rich by creating value, though some like Larry Ellison certainly did both.

Remember Forbes list is a marketing device Do not treat it like the real list of world's richest people

Yes these numbers are peanuts compared to the Rothschilds and Saudis of the world. But the question was about self-made billionaires, which I believe everyone on that list is.

Re: David Attenborough at 99: 'I will not see how the story ends'

#123

Post by ninetyninenine »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #114
ninetyninenine wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying this because you actually don't understand a huge part of what I'm talking about: The tragedy of the commons. You didn't look it up, so your answer here is completely mistaken. MY entire ARGUMENT is based on that, and that is EXACTLY what theory Y is. It is the negative consequence of theory Y. You need to understand my argument before responding. Perhaps it's my fault for expecting most people to know…

I wrote out a whole response but decided not to bother replying to this post. I'm not an armchair expert and this kind of ad-hominem bullshit is not worth wasting my time on.

Your previous response and this one was just garbage. Just flippantly dismissed all of what I wrote and came up with a response that showed you wrote it without even understanding half of what I’m talking about. Additionally saying I’m just randomly applying a theory out of some arbitrary choice is just offensive. Did I not say this is academia? This is the study of anthropology? Don’t play this as if you have some moral high ground when your response was rude.

I’m not interested in your reply because I think it’s dishonest. You clearly didn’t know what was going on and now you’re just trying to defend a position. You’re not charitably exploring a concept or idea.

Re: David Attenborough at 99: 'I will not see how the story ends'

#124

Post by closewith »

tomhow wrote: post #121
closewith wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most regular participants on HN are employees, not wannabe billionaires. You can be both and it would be interesting to see the breakdown of aspirations. Certainly as the tide of public opinion has turned hard against tech and tech billionaires in the last 5 years, the dominant demographic on HN seems less and less aware of how out-of-touch they are with public opinion at large.

I read the comments here all day and it's pretty clear to me that overall opinion is weighted fairly strongly against tech billionaires and big tech company leaders on HN, as much or even more than it is among the broader population. If you have a recent discussion thread or subthread that demonstrates that the “dominant demographic on HN seems less and less aware of how out-of-touch they are with public opinion”, I'…

> I read the comments here all day and it's pretty clear to me that overall opinion is weighted fairly strongly against tech billionaires and big tech company leaders on HN, as much or even more than it is among the broader population.

I think you're out of touch with public opinion outside of your bubble.

> If you have a recent discussion thread or subthread that demonstrates that the "dominant demographic on HN seems less and less aware of how out-of-touch they are with public opinion", I'd be interested to know about it so I can get an understanding of what you mean.

This thread is a perfect example. While there is debate about the role and morality of billionaires, offline this phase has passed and now people are talking about how to overturn the economic order and the resulting impacts on billionaires, to put it politely.

> I suspect it's an assumption based on stereotypes about what kind of people would be interested in a Silicon Valley-based tech-focused discussion forum, but if it was ever accurate, and perhaps it was in the early days of YC/HN, it's not that way any more.

I suspect you are insulated demographically if you believe that's the case. I think many/most people's opinions of how to solve extreme wealth inequality would be banned here.

Re: David Attenborough at 99: 'I will not see how the story ends'

#125

Post by tomhow »

closewith wrote: post #124
tomhow wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the comments here all day and it's pretty clear to me that overall opinion is weighted fairly strongly against tech billionaires and big tech company leaders on HN, as much or even more than it is among the broader population. If you have a recent discussion thread or subthread that demonstrates that the “dominant demographic on HN seems less and less aware of how out-of-touch they are with public opinion”, I'…

> I read the comments here all day and it's pretty clear to me that overall opinion is weighted fairly strongly against tech billionaires and big tech company leaders on HN, as much or even more than it is among the broader population. I think you're out of touch with public opinion outside of your bubble. > If you have a recent discussion thread or subthread that demonstrates that the "dominant demographic on HN see…

Please don't make assumptions like that. I don't live in Silicon Valley or even the USA. Almost none of the people I associate with socially or in my family work in tech. Much of the work I've done in the past decade has been with farmers. Most people I know are concerned about the influence of the big tech companies and emerging technologies on society and about wealth inequality, as am I.

> I think many/most people's opinions of how to solve extreme wealth inequality would be banned here.

Nothing is banned here if it's expressed in a way that is within the guidelines. I gather what you're getting at is that outside the bubbles that you think I (and the stereotypical HN user) inhabit, there's more of a push to, as you put it "overturn the economic order". I see plenty of support for that on HN too, and nobody gets banned for saying it. But perhaps it doesn't get much visibility, because "overturning the economic order" is not really a new idea. The thing we don't see enough of are workable new ideas on how to build an economic system that gets the best outcomes for society and avoids the pitfalls that have befallen all the economic systems that have come before.

Which brings us back to the beginning of this discussion: the reason comments like that get downvoted is not because "everyone spending time here is a one-off genius, superior to others that deserves to be a billionaire", it's because comments like that are repetitive, generic tangents that stir up indignation but don't raise anything interesting or new to discuss.

Re: David Attenborough at 99: 'I will not see how the story ends'

#126

Post by hermitcrab »

pyrale wrote: post #112
toomuchtodo wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greenpeace used to drop boulders into the ocean to prevent bottom trawling circa 2021-2022. Unsure if they still do. Fairly straightforward to solve for if you’re willing to drop chunks of rock (granite, non reactive) or concrete in the ocean at the right spots. Bans are nice, destructive force against adversaries works better though. Hard to take the selfish out of the human, so you have to engineer systems accordin…

> Bans are nice, destructive force against adversaries works better though. The ocean is large, and the effort required to cover significant areas in boulders is ridiculously high.

Just the possibility of boulders that might destroy your very expensive dredge might be enough.

Re: David Attenborough at 99: 'I will not see how the story ends'

#127

Post by hermitcrab »

xingped wrote: post #60
noisy_boy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would be a great PR idea for a billionaire to buy a few old ships and use them to drop rocks over the most popular/vulnerable fishing grounds. What happened to rich people who were all not evil?

New money outcompeted old money in the economic ecosystem and new money doesn't have the same historical fear of the proletarian guillotine.

...yet.

Re: David Attenborough at 99: 'I will not see how the story ends'

#128

Post by hermitcrab »

ropable wrote: post #33
hermitcrab wrote: post #20

I watched David Attenborough's recent film 'Ocean' on a big screen. The footage of bottom trawling was really shocking. I don't understand how that has been allowed to continue in UK coastal waters, let alone to be subsidised in marine protected areas. Madness. It's like napalming a forest to get a few deer. Thankfully things may be changing: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-proposes-to-ex... Don't know…

I watched this film last night, and it was stunning and horrifying all at once. It really brings home the impact of industrial-scale trawling on the marine environment. It's literally like bulldozing a garden to harvest the fruit.

It is like bulldozing a garden full of lots of different fruits and then only taking the apples above a certain size.

Re: David Attenborough at 99: 'I will not see how the story ends'

#129

Post by noirscape »

somenameforme wrote: post #64
netsharc wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heck, faced with a rapidly spreading virus that can kill in 2 weeks (for the general public at a very low percentage, for our elderly neighbors a lot higher), a large majority of humans turned to angry denials and conspiracy theories to justify to themselves that "it's not that dangerous!". We are so fucking dead.

When somebody says something isn't that dangerous it always comes with an unstated post-text of 'for an average person of average health.' Each year the flu kills hundreds of thousands of people. As the population ages, and thus has more individuals in senescence where your body is basically just breaking down, that will increase into the millions. But yet it's still not unreasonable to say that the flu isn't that da…

The reality is that COVID caused lockdowns never had anything to do with the lethality rate. It had everything to do with hospital pressure - there's a limited number of ICU beds and COVID was the annoying combination of spreading easiliy and if it went bad, you'd occupy a bed in the ICU since you needed very active monitoring. If ICU capacity is exceeded, you get into the really ugly business of having to triage who can get necessary first aid. Governments and hospitals both would really do anything else than have to decide whether or not you leave the weak and elderly to die of diseases because you lack the space to handle them. (Not to mention the personnel shortage; a lot of other medical procedures got delayed because of ICU pressure. Even if they did have enough beds, that wouldn't necessarily translate to enough people to care for patients, and you'd end up having to triage non-COVID procedures too.)

That is what caused the lockdowns. It's also why after the first two vaccine waves, the pressure on hospitals was heavily relieved, leading to most countries lifting their lockdowns. Even just being vaccinated once gives you enough immunity against COVID to usually not need a hospital visit. The disadvantages of a lockdown even on just a healthcare level outweigh the benefits when you don't have a dangerous superspreader on your hands.

Mental problems were up massively during the lockdown period since humans are social creatures; physically there also were major spikes in seasonal diseases for the next year since they never stopped evolving, while we stopped getting them, meaning our bodies didn't have the time to adapt to them... So we got all the seasonal diseases thrown at us at once.

Re: David Attenborough at 99: 'I will not see how the story ends'

#130

Post by hermitcrab »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #29
hermitcrab wrote: post #20

I watched David Attenborough's recent film 'Ocean' on a big screen. The footage of bottom trawling was really shocking. I don't understand how that has been allowed to continue in UK coastal waters, let alone to be subsidised in marine protected areas. Madness. It's like napalming a forest to get a few deer. Thankfully things may be changing: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-proposes-to-ex... Don't know…

> subsidised in marine protected areas What do you mean?

"Bottom trawling in seas globally emits as much carbon as aviation, and in Europe costs society up to €11 billion annually while governments subsidize it with €1·3 billion."

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5...

"A wealth of studies also show that bottom trawling generates significant amounts of CO2 emissions and is fuelled by government subsidies."

https://www.bluemarinefoundation.com/2025/05/07/thebottomlin...

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