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Comment by abletonlive | Hacker News Reader

Is there any way that you can quantify that? Please remember you're on hackernews, not reddit.

The US started the 2021 with an attempted self-coup, its first ever failure to peacefully transfer power, and has so far done little to punish the organizers of it (though that's subject to change); a constitutional crisis is on the horizon depending on the outcome of a case the SCOTUS has agreed to hear; the Southwest US is facing record drought, including the near depletion of a watershed depended upon by millions of people; the Russian invasion of Ukraine is just a few wrong moves away from nuclear conflict; there's an ongoing real estate crisis brewing in China; and we're more than 2 years into a global pandemic with no sign of it truly abating, just people mostly fed up with acknowledging it. I'm not quite as pessimistic as some about the possibility of a looming recession, but add that to the pile and things just get even more concerning.

"Eventful" is hard to objectively quantify, but subjectively I certainly think that qualifies.

Meanwhile, farmers in Netherlands are no longer allowed to grow food. If there ever was a reason to have the right to own arms, and to overthrow the government, I think losing the right to grow food is a valid justification for a "self-coup".

But, if you take a very big view of things, both the religious and science fanatics believe the world is ending. They have different reasons, of course. Nonetheless, the world is not ending.

They can still grow food, there are just emission standards for tractors, which importantly will take most of a decade to go into effect. It's a pretty gross misrepresentation of the situation to say they're no longer allowed to grow food.

Obviously the world has not ended yet, but that doesn't mean all of history was equally uneventful or pleasant to live through. I'm not saying the world is going to end in the next decade, I'm just saying that it stands to be "eventful", and quite likely not in a good way.

Has nothing to do with tractor emissions. They are being forced to forgo using nitrogen based fertilizer for crops, and cull their cattle herds to reduce ammonia. Both are going to severely cut into their income for an industry with very thin margins, and put a lot of them out of business. Their government even conceded that fact very early on and still pushed it through. The farmers are pissed and rightly so.

If they can still grow food, why are they protesting? Seems like a lot of time to waste not working on the farm. But, honestly, I haven't really found a source of news that wasn't just calling the farmers terrible names. Why do you think the farmers are being called terrible names by news sources? Maybe its because they are not growing food. Its becoming a circle now.

Which decades were "uneventful"?

I don't know why you want me to be the one to defend the protests of farmers whose positions I clearly disagree with. I wouldn't be a very effective advocate for their position. And while I didn't see any articles calling them names, "short sighted" seems pretty fair given the goals of the emission standards.

I feel pretty comfortable saying the 1990s were less eventful in the US than the 1930s, not that I think you're responding in good faith.

I didn't ask you to defend them. I asked why they would be protesting. I, too, would be a bad advocate for them as well. I am neither a Netherlander nor a farmer. I just eat and don't wonder where the food comes from, nor do I want to. I just want the food to be at the store when I am ready to buy it.

I agree the 90s were great, but I'll admit I was born in '92. So I might be biased.

I don't know what you mean by "good faith". I don't think the farmers are the short sighted ones here. They are farmers. They might be little bit interested in the long view, as hear it takes many months to grow food, and years to raise livestock. Again, I don't know, I just go to the grocery store. I hope in 10 years, whatever the farmers are protesting about, the Netherlanders can enjoy a burger [1][2], just like I do.

[1]"The ruling coalition has earmarked an extra 24.3 billion euros ($25.6bn) to finance changes that will likely make many farmers drastically reduce their number of livestock or get rid of them altogether." https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/22/thousands-of-dutch-...

[2]"According to government estimates, this could lead to the shutting down of about 30 per cent of livestock farms." https://thewest.com.au/politics/dutch-farmers-block-roads-po...

> there are just emission standards for tractors

That's not what it's about. Farmers in NL are protesting because the government wants to slash NITROGEN emissions; which are associated with synthetic fertilisers and composting. It has nothing to do with CO2 emissions on tractors...

c'mon, "coup" is a bit of a ridiculous way to describe a few nutcases trespassing on government property. I did worse as a teenager.

If it were just the people storming the capitol it would already be one of the worst security breaches in the country's history. It also involved more than 60 lawsuits to overturn election results, plots to submit fraudulent slates of electors or fraudulent election results, attempts to convince officials in several states to just overturn their states' election results, over 100 congresspeople voting to overturn lawful elector counts, pressure on the vice-president to illegally overturn the election results (or even just to cooperate with them trying to do that), and plenty more, much of which was organized by the outgoing administration. It perfectly fits the definition of "self-coup", with no exaggeration required.

The nutcases were the distraction for the plan to breach Congress. You need a mob to operate without interference from Capitol police. The idea was to pull a mayor Giuliani after 9/11 scenario and have an excuse to stay in power after manufacturing chaos.

Giuliani tried to get a three month extension on his term in the wake of a massive terrorist attack in NYC. He also threatened to try to get the term limits on the mayoralty changed so he could run again. He was denied and Bloomberg was elected. Bloomberg did get around the term limits thing to get an extra term, which I bring up to highlight that a mayor serving a third term is not some horrible crisis or usurpation.

"Pulling a Giuliani" just seems like a weird expression. First, the events weren't all that comparable - 9/11 versus an hours long riot. If the worst terrorist attack on American soil didn't weaken democracy enough for a mayor to take a third term, why would a protest turned riot overthrow the presidency? Second, what Giuliani tried wasn't even that bad. And, third, not even Giuliani could pull off a Giuliani.

Personally, people who think the January 6 riot was some coup seem a bit hyperbolic to me. Was it a coup attempt when violent protesters attacked Trump's inauguration? I'd say no, of course not. Neither was January 6th.

Those nutcases being Donald Trump, Peter Navarro, Steve Bannon, Rudy Guliani and Sidney Powell to be clear.

Do you say the same thing to people in real life?

I have people say things like this to me all the time.

My standard response at the moment is something along the lines of "If the house is burning down and water is not flowing from the fire hydrant, you don't stop to measure the water pressue".

The assertion that "you cannot improve something if you cannot measure it" IMHO promotes a lot of unproductive activity.

The actual W. Edwards Demming quote is "It is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it – a costly myth.”

https://deming.org/myth-if-you-cant-measure-it-you-cant-mana...

Most people around me tell me we are heading towards disaster.

I asked random people om the street with a microphone. They say the same thing. There are huge things that have now been set in motion, they cannot be easilly stopped

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