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Comment by elzbardico | Hacker News Reader

What I like in The Guardian is that we are always fucked. Everyday a new tragedy

Has it occurred to you that this might be because the status quo is actually a really bad situation, the more you look at it? Many civilizations have fallen, with the resulting societal complexity permanently reduced. Usually, this process is not sudden. I suspect each probably had their version of people speaking inconvenient truths, and being written off as pessimists.

We didn't start the fire

“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

— Anaïs Nin

Thank you for the interesting rabbit hole :)

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/03/09/as-we-are/

The Guardian is just a distribution channel. Academics and the conservation groups that back them stand to benefit by sounding an alarm since that helps them raise funds and get grants. Not a judgement on the legitimacy of the concern but that's just the incentive behind these articles.

thanks. i was about to send a conservation group money but then i learned they might have the ulterior motive of making the world better

I read the parent comment as neutral or good. Conservationists need publicity to raise funds to do their work.

Yea meant to be a neutral comment. Sometimes raising the alarm is justified.

I don't get the snarky comment, looks like you didn't read what I wrote carefully enough

Facepalm

ok, I'll try a serious answer instead of a snarky one.

You point out the incentive behind these articles, and call out the Guardian as a distribution channel for academics and conservation groups.

Without a distribution channel, how should academics and conservation groups get their message out?

Which message is better for our society, one driven by the academics who have been warning us of the danger of radical climate change, of mass poisoning of our homes and environment, of total ecosystem collapse (birds- down 29% https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6461/120, fish, down over 70% https://www.geographyrealm.com/study-finds-staggering-declin..., amphibians, 40% of species on the edge of extinction in 2012 and things have only gotten worse since https://journals.openedition.org/sapiens/1406, insect populations, down 80% https://www.pnas.org/content/118/2/e2023989118, ... shall I continue? Do you know what total ecosystem collapse looks like?

or perhaps the message of Netflix or Disney? Or the message/distribution channel of fake news bent on destroying Western democracy? Or the message/distribution channel used to keep us calm while we commit mass suicide?

Sorry, I'm ranting. Yes, your charge is correct. The Guardian is an important distribution channel for the sources which are trying to get us to stop killing our planet, our home, our selves.

And perhaps it is good to have such a channel.

-- hey, sorry, just saw that you intended your comment to be neutral. Forgive me for letting my grief carry me away.

This is an interesting finding. Animals have culture. And it can disappear. So can human culture. That's good to know. It's part of the human culture that we know that culture can disappear unless we try to preserve it.

Or we can learn to get unfucked.

But that'll put The Guardian out of business!

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