Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued • Hacker News Board

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#471

Post by inteleng » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 6:37 PM UTC

kadenshep wrote: post #387

perilunar wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon Musk replied to the BBC report here: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1016684366083190785 Direct quotes from one of the dive team leads: "please keep working on the capsule" and "it is absolutely worth continuing with the development".

So the guy actually in charge of the entire thing is somehow wrong, but Elon personally emailed exactly 1 person in charge of 1 team who said "keep working on it", which definitely justifies the entire surrounding PR bonanza and Musk personally showing up to the dive site to do... what exactly? It'd odd that Musk's attempts to discredit the guy in charge of the entire of the operation is somehow not worth pointing ou…

A bunch of posts on Twitter constitutes a "PR bonanza" to you? The media rehashing those tweets into ad-monetizable "articles" isn't Musk's doing, you know.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#472

Post by tgb » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 6:37 PM UTC

_ea1k wrote: post #469

tgb wrote: post #31

Why wasn't the death of Saman Gunan more widely publicized? I barely heard about it - in the NYT article on this it's a single sentence 2/3rds of the way through the article. I'd have thought that the concept of someone sacrificing themselves for the recovery of 12 children would have been a major story. The Guardian's liveblog (or whatever this is) doesn't mention it in the first couple pages, nor do the responses o…

I tend to agree with you and I think you are being downvoted unfairly. The man was a hero for doing what he did and there should be more attention given to what he did and its impact on the outcome.

It's okay about the downvotes. Completely bizarre though: my comment was originally at +12 and got down to -2! HN is just inscrutable at times. I feel like the initial upvotes show that I was not alone in thinking his story is surprisingly neglected (in this round of coverage).

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#473

Post by merpnderp » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 6:52 PM UTC

ohyes wrote: post #459

merpnderp wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India and China were not doing fine when Europeans came and subjugated them. Slavery in a feudalistic society isn't some rosey funland that the Europeans ruined. Life sucked all over the world, for 99.999% of people, who lived in nearly eternal bone crushing poverty. And how is freely trading your labor and goods for other's labor and goods an immoral system? I would call capitalism the most moral system we've ever d…

But you're saying capitalism is what has made things better. The Europeans subjugated and killed people in the name of capitalism. Cultures were extinguished (we're talking genocide). You offer no evidence that capitalism made things better other than it being somewhat correlated with improvements of the last few dozen years. It could just as easily be the spread of liberalism or globalism. You can't really say as th…

Saying the Europeans subjugated and killed people in the name of capitalism is one heck of a claim. Mostly they did it in the name of their country and king or whatever excuse. But they certainly didn't say: "I'm enslaving you and stealing your capital in the name of a free market system which believes every person is the owner and price arbitrar of their own labor," which is so outlandish a claim as to require extremely compelling documentation to the contrary.

If anything, Adam Smith's most famous work on free trade was a critical moral point in ending English slavery, which dovetailed nicely in with reformed Christian beliefs against slavery.

And free trade capitalism is just a tool, but a tool so powerful it lifts billions out of poverty even when they're ruled by totalitarian governments. Or would you argue that the US's efforts to reform Chinese communism were more effective than it's efforts in engaging in free trade, in helping alleviate the suffering tens of millions? We should all support freedom and democracy, but lets not kid ourself about the power of free trade markets to improve people's lives faster than simply advocating for the vote and free speech.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#474

Post by jonbarker » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 6:58 PM UTC

sillyquiet wrote: post #88

rusk wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but not for nothing - he was instrumental in saving 13 lives

just this. It's trite to say it, and I'm sure it's cold comfort to his family, but we all die, and this person went out saving lives, young lives with lots of years to save, and in service to others. His death is somber and sad, but not tragic.

With all due respect lets all be wary of the 'cult of sacrifice' which often takes hold when someone dies to save someone else. Any time someone dies to save someone else, I suggest the appropriate reaction is that we should simply regret among ourselves that we didn't develop a technological solution to the problem before the problem presented itself, not engage in hero worship (please don't read this as diminishing what this person did, it was a sacrifice, and those kids owe it to him to live good lives now).

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#475

Post by sumeno » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 6:59 PM UTC

joshmaker wrote: post #33

ryanmercer wrote: post #3

Awesome! I love how the global diving community came together to rescue them, it's unfortunate that Petty Officer Saman Gunan died after doing a run of oxygen tanks to the caves though. I even liked how Musk came out of left field "grab that tube, we're making a rescue pod!" and then hopped on a plane with it when it was tested and ready. While it didn't really matter I like that sort of thinking outside of the box a…

Call me cynical, but I couldn't help but notice Musk seemed to be going about his effort with the maximum amount of tweeting and publicity possible.

Why is this comment flagged? I thought the exact same thing, it was all a publicity stunt rather than a legitimate humanitarian effort.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#476

Post by sumeno » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 7:02 PM UTC

bmmayer1 wrote: post #6

ryanmercer wrote: post #3

Awesome! I love how the global diving community came together to rescue them, it's unfortunate that Petty Officer Saman Gunan died after doing a run of oxygen tanks to the caves though. I even liked how Musk came out of left field "grab that tube, we're making a rescue pod!" and then hopped on a plane with it when it was tested and ready. While it didn't really matter I like that sort of thinking outside of the box a…

Musk had no business being involved. Really, 'inventing' a MVP prototype of a submarine which he 'tested' in a swimming pool and then intended to test for real on live children, when an existing rescue effort underway was working? This was egoism at its finest, taking public credit for 'helping' with a rescue he wasn't invited or asked to help with. And the media ate it up hook, line and sinker.

Why are the comments critical of Musk being flagged?

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#477

Post by INTPenis » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 7:10 PM UTC

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #15

Can anyone explain how the heck they found the children in the first place? Seriously, I can't wrap my head around it. The kids were stranded 2.5 miles inside the cave. All anyone knew was that the kids didn't return form their hike. How does that lead to "Hey, let's dive into the cave and maybe we'll find live children"? I guess they were expecting the worst, but still.

It was a ritual for those kids to go into the cave. We're talking about 12 sets of parents and associates that knew this.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#478

Post by kazinator » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 7:17 PM UTC

snackbugs wrote: post #465

kazinator wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't evoke; it denotes. Like "rain" refers to "water falling from the sky". Not a moral stance whatsoever. The word for non-murderous concentration camps is "internment".

Not only is that historically incorrect, but it's also a confession of a tolerance for detaining a specific population on ideological, non-criminal pretenses. "It's different when we do it."

Is that so? So by this amazing reasoning, we should refer to both types of camps using the same term. Since the correct term is evidently "extermination camps" (see surrounding thread), that's what they should be called.

"Historically incorrect" is just a way of saying "presently correct". For instance "sensibility" is not a historically correct way of referring to a rational disposition. Historically, it meant what we today call "sensitivity".

Fuck historically correct; I live today, not in history.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#479

Post by watwut » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 7:21 PM UTC

sillyquiet wrote: post #88

rusk wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but not for nothing - he was instrumental in saving 13 lives

just this. It's trite to say it, and I'm sure it's cold comfort to his family, but we all die, and this person went out saving lives, young lives with lots of years to save, and in service to others. His death is somber and sad, but not tragic.

It is tragic. Tragic for him, his familly, his friends and collegues. Tragic for saved boys too, actually, I am sure they would be happier if no one died.

His dead is bad news not good news. Everybody would be better off if this man survived. Him dying while trying to save others does not make it less tragic.

Let's not minimize his death by saying (as sibling comment did) that his dead somehow matters less or is less important because he was rescuer and thus different. His life had same value.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#480

Post by watwut » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 7:30 PM UTC

bdz wrote: post #213

"If a man gets lost in the mountains, hundreds will search and often two or three searchers are killed. But the next time somebody gets lost, just as many volunteers turn out. Poor arithmetic, but very human. It runs through all our folklore, all human religions, all our literature—a racial conviction that when one human needs rescue, others should not count the price. Weakness? It might be the unique strength that w…

Reality check is that armies do the math and do leave people behind. Rescuers do risk bith lives and life time injuries, but won't go into action that is likely to kill more of them then the amount of saved people.

That book is fiction, fun to read but still made up.