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David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

bbc.com

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Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#91

Post by JimDabell »

Tagbert wrote: post #83
psvv wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In hindsight it maybe should have also been obvious from the language alone. "Richmond Hill" feels a bit like saying "Rich Hill Hill" which is basically like saying "Wealthy Desirable Area."

BTW there is a linguistic tradition of “hill hill”. When new immigrants come to an area and ask the locals what that hill is called, the locals say “big hill” in their language. The newcomers call it “bighill” hill in their language. I forget the examples but this has happened enough in England that there are places whose names are five hills deep (Brythonic -> Latin -> Saxon -> Norse -> Norman).

These are known as tautological place names: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_nam...

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#92

Post by why-el »

vr46 wrote: post #33

Top man, lives up on Richmond Hill and absolutely loves it - when asked about his travels and adventures and where he would choose to live, he replied, "I already live there" Fairly well-known locally is that my favourite bookshop, The Open Book in Richmond, stocks signed copies of all his books. They used to be signed directly on the page, but since he got to the mid-to-late nineties in age, tons of hardbacks are to…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond_Hill,_London

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#93

Post by nazgul17 »

deepsun wrote: post #85

Unpopular opinion: I don't understand why people are so fascinated with a man simply because of his voice narrating truly marvelous, artistic documentaries. I have way more respect for operators, who spent months in harsh conditions with a slim chance to film anything interesting.

Ahem did you know David wasn't always 100 years old, and that in the past he worked on the field?

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#94

Post by drunkan »

deepsun wrote: post #85

Unpopular opinion: I don't understand why people are so fascinated with a man simply because of his voice narrating truly marvelous, artistic documentaries. I have way more respect for operators, who spent months in harsh conditions with a slim chance to film anything interesting.

You clearly no nothing about him which is ok - if you read the adventures he put himself through when he was younger and older you would understand he was not just a narrator but someone who lived the field. If you are interested read one of the books on his life.

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#95

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

crispinb wrote: post #86
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Himalayan country of Bhutan has seen 6% of its population emigrate since 2020. People enjoy the preservation of nature, but they also enjoy having more and better stuff, and a healthy society can't just tell people the second impulse is wrong and they need to give it up.

"People" and their "wants" or "enjoyments" are manufactured by culture (which is in turn now dominated by corporate propaganda). They are not fixed by nature. Any examination of the range of 'wants' in human history will inevitably conclude that, beyond a few corporeal basics, they are endlessly plastic. This is hard to see from the centres of Empire (especially highly mediated ones) where local and highly propagandi…

I agree that agricultural societies are machines for creating large numbers of humans. That's why every agricultural society on the planet is working hard to grow and become wealthier. They're not infected by "corporate propaganda"; they know that subsistence farming sucks, and they want to join the rest of us in the post-agricultural future where food is so abundant nobody has to do it.

Bhutan historically pushed "Gross National Happiness" and such as part of a propaganda program to maintain their largely agricultural society against this pressure. Again, this absolutely did not work, and they're now setting up a proper capitalist center in Gelephu to try and convince young people that they don't need to leave the country to have a prosperous life. The precise details of what people want may vary from culture to culture, but there's very few where the average person would not like to have more and fancier stuff.

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#97

Post by ownlife »

dh2022 wrote: post #14
snorremd wrote: post #5

The sad thing is Attenborough has lived to see the destruction of nature he loved so much. His constant warnings have gone mostly unheard. In some ways I think excellent nature programming like his own Nature is doing a disservice by making it seem like there's lots of wild nature left. I wish humans would come together to re-wild more of the earth. Restoring wild nature and cutting emissions is the only way to reall…

Every Nature documentary that ends with David Attenborough saying "there is still time to revert this destruction of natural habitat" makes me want to turn of the TV. I understand David's motivation (instill some catalyst for change) but I am with that other David - David Suzuki. As per David Suzuki: it is shit, it will get shittier, responsible people should act accordingly [0]: > [0] https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sunday…

You want to the documentary to end with David Attenborough saying that it is too late to revert the destruction of natural habitat?

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#98

Post by dr_girlfriend »

deepsun wrote: post #85

Unpopular opinion: I don't understand why people are so fascinated with a man simply because of his voice narrating truly marvelous, artistic documentaries. I have way more respect for operators, who spent months in harsh conditions with a slim chance to film anything interesting.

he is far more than just a narrator, often appearing in the documentaries he narrates. he has helped thousands of people to gain a greater appreciation of nature. his documentaries on insects are particular favorites of mine, such as Micro Monsters and Dragons & Damsels. no matter what kind of animal you're interested in, he has probably done a series or TV special on the subject.

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#99

Post by saalweachter »

msikora wrote: post #55
lanza wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always find it really weird when somebody on the anonymous internet talks about local places as if we're all neighbors or something. Googling "Richmond Hill" gave me multiple pages of results that had nothing to do with the one that Attenborough lives at.

Richmond Hill, London

Now I just hear the Cinema Sins "ding!".

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#100

Post by sen »

whyenot wrote: post #65
deferredgrant wrote: post #45

[flagged]

A lot, especially in organismal biology / field biology. We even name things after him, like carnivorous plants (Nepenthes attenboroughii), the whole genus Sirdavida, a hawkweed (Hieracium attenboroughianum), ... more than 50 taxa in all. The unfortunate thing is that the area of biology he has drawn people to is difficult to make a living in. Jobs are few, there is intense compettion for them, they don't pay well, a…

> We even name things after him, like carnivorous plants (Nepenthes attenboroughii), the whole genus Sirdavida, a hawkweed (Hieracium attenboroughianum), ... more than 50 taxa in all.

I assumed there’d be 1 or 2 would be, but 50+ is wild. I just went down the rabbit hole of “things named after Sir David Attenborough” and it’s a lot!

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