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Comment by cableshaft | Hacker News Reader

There's so many examples of this it's just so sad.

Joshua Tree on U2 album cover destroyed: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2971368/U2-fan-pilgr...

Kids knock down 16 million year old rock formation: https://military.id.me/news/idiots-ruin-18-million-year-old-...

One man accidentally killed the oldest tree ever: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-one-man-accide...

World's most isolated tree knocked down by drunk driver: https://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/earths-most-isol...

So sad how an act of stupidity by as few as one person can eliminate something of beauty that's been around longer than tens, hundreds, thousands of their lifetimes.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiidk%27yaas

> Kiidk'yaas (meaning "ancient tree" in the Haida language[1]), also known as the Golden Spruce, was a Sitka Spruce tree (Picea sitchensis 'Aurea') that grew on the banks of the Yakoun River on the Haida Gwaii archipelago, in British Columbia Canada. It had a rare genetic mutation that caused its needles to be golden in colour (rather than the usual green). Kiidk'yaas was considered sacred by the Haida people

> Kiidk'yaas was felled in January 1997 by Grant Hadwin as an act of protest against the logging industry.

> an act of protest against the logging industry

That makes zero sense. He killed an awesome, special tree to protest killing of trees. What a loser.

" I didn't enjoy butchering, this magnificent old plant, but you apparently need a message and wake-up call, that even a university trained professional, should be able to understand. . . . I mean this action, to be an expression, of my rage and hatred, towards university trained professionals and their extremist supporters, whose ideas, ethics, denials, part truths, attitudes, etc., appear to be responsible, for most of the abominations, towards amateur life on this planet."

Fighting fire with fire

A couple of those are not the same. When it happens by genuine accident it is not the same as vandalism.

I didn't call it vandalism. I consider it to be an equivalent loss whether it happened with intent, by accident, or a freak of nature. It's all sad to me.

Does it really make sense to apply the perception of loss for something that nature gives and takes without human influence?

For example, all those interesting formations and places that disappeared 1000 years ago - so we've never seen those in the first place - are those also losses?

By that logic, wouldn't be any form of natural change be huge tragedy, an endless sequence of losses?

Actually, it took 2 acts of stupidity. The vandalism, and the bureaucratic decision to help the vandal to finish the job.

How do we arrive at either of those conclusions?

I, for one, know nothing of this tree other than what I have seen just now. It's entirely possible that a trained arborist (which most cities and counties employ) looked at the tree and decided it needed to be taken down or coppiced. In fact I would argue that it's much more likely that happened than anything else.

I'm actually a little disappointed that the article jumps to weird conclusions in an attempt to be insightful.

I didn't know what the verb "coppice" means, but it turns out to mean cutting off the top of a tree so that new growth will occur: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppicing

The 'oldest tree ever' is still alive, probably because its location is undisclosed publicly:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah_(tree)

The “oldest tree ever” is always alive!

That's not true.

You mean "the oldest tree now" is always alive.

Waiting for the day some space-bound joy-rider flies through the Rings of Saturn and leaves big gaping holes. How many years will it take the custodian moons to clean up?

The rings are comfortably larger than Earth: http://www.arcadiastreet.com/cgvistas/images/saturn_&_earth_...

To do any damage at any speed you'd notice would be a self-correcting problem as whoever tried it would be destroyed. It's definitely not a problem you're going to see within your lifetime.

Until someone uses a gravity well projector to write "BURMA SHAVE".

The lesson here, clearly, is: tall poppies get mowed. It is known. :-/

Who would mow their poppies? Other than the Dutch?

I learned it from an Australian. Go figure. :-)

The nail that sticks up will get hammered in.

white house allows mining company to destroy this: http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/10/politics/bristol-bay-salmon-in...

That hasn't passed yet, nor has the mining company 'destroyed' it.

> Pebble still would have to apply for permits before building a mine in Bristol Bay. Two public hearings will be held in Alaska on the topic this week. And the public has until October 17 to comment on Pruitt's proposed policy reversal before it could be finalized.

I'd call that a lesson on the impermanence of beauty.

If it were ended by time or natural cause, then so be it. It's sad but it's unavoidable. Idiots are avoidable, they're just often determined and why we can't have nice things.

Or knocking over a goblin rock formation, for "safety"

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/18/goblin-valley-boy-...

Damn. I sure hope nothing happens to this famous tree that I grew up with in New Zealand:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=that+wanaka+tree&tbm=isch

You’re aware of the irony in posting this, right?

> That year, a well was dug near the tree, offering a hint to how it had managed to survive in the sand. The tree, only around 10 feet tall, had roots that stretched down more than 100 feet to the water table.

Amazing.

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