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Comment by supliminal | Hacker News Reader

“Most people across generations favour the idea of impartial news, but young people more often (32% compared with 19% of those 55+) think it ‘makes no sense for news outlets to be neutral on certain issues’, such as climate change or racism.”

Unfortunately it’s documentarians such as David Attenborough that carefully curate a picture of nature as some playful, curious thing. It would behoove schools that prepare students for post-secondary education to put on actual video recordings of how animals go at it and how the strong kill the weak (and their offspring) in the most savage and cruel of ways with complete disregard. And then ask them if they would rather not know this is how the world really is. Because that’s what taking a side means here, is being wilfully ignorant.

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Taking a stance frames results for the writer, such that they are less likely to write about points of the opposing side or express skepticism towards findings on theirs. I'd rather understand the situation regardless of how much it advantages my preference than gain a false understanding. Most issues are nuanced yet interest in covering things in this manner seems to be more rare over time. You have to hope you can cobble this together by looking at both sides, establish what's true, perhaps if lucky run into an insider / impartial sources (which is why I come back to HN).

This is tangential, but what you wrote about nature reminded me of a biology professor once saying how at least in nature it seems like other animals generally kill in a quick, efficient way where hopefully the prey won’t suffer too much.

Humans are by far the most vicious animal species, because the sophistication with which they apply torture is off-the-charts. Felines and orcas may consume their prey alive or play with them, but it's not in their capacity to keep their victims alive indefinitely with the express goal of inflicting maximum suffering.

Attenborough narrated documentaries are filled with death and carnage, shot by the most patient cinematographers in the world. What a nonsense take.

No, it is unfortunately very romanticized and carefully narrated. It gives a very skewed impression of reality. It is closer to a staged scene and less of a documentary, which is why some of those cinematographers wait for so long. Actual nature, and its cruelty, is so banal as to be boring that without the storytelling, you wouldn’t want to see it.

I suggest you see some raw video footage, without music, additional sounds, careful DOF camera work and color correction, of one animal killing another. Watch the whole thing if you can sit through it - it takes quite awhile for an animal to die while it’s screaming in pain unable to move.

I agree that attenborough’s documentaries are carefully composed, presumably to be suitable for a British family audience of the 1970s. You seem to uncharitably ascribe intentional malice to this approach rather than it being a product of its time and cultural values. For what it’s worth, I think his documentaries have done much more good (in raising awareness of the natural world and the need to conserve it) rather than harm.

But what I don’t understand is that you quote the OP article re climate change and racism, but then go off on a tangent re Attenborough? Sounds like you have an axe to grind.

It’s a fair criticism but I don’t have an axe to grind here. I do enjoy the docus and many of the other documentarians could learn a lot from the lack of drama/theatrics in Attenborough’s work.

What I am getting to is that by taking a side on these matters we implicitly think one is wrong, one is right, and by shunning/ignoring that magically the wrongs can be righted. I bring in nature to question this line of thinking: the moment they “fix” nature, they’ll fix racism and other things they seem to think are wrongs to be righted. Because if they knew how deep this rabbit hole goes, and once they see what kind of planet they have to contend with, it may make them realize how their $current_issue is a tempest in a teapot.

In other words: you can take a side all you want, and then what.

Epstein should have been a wake up call that rules and laws made by man are fictitious.

Idk if anyone has told you this before but race is a human invention.

I believe his response would be: and then what?

"taking a side is willful ignorance"

So is "neutrality." Neutrality is at best just a third perspective obtained through distance. A foreigner who reports on an ethnic genocide can in many cases be neutral because they're distant from it, but as they learn more about it they'll almost certainly adopt a position, losing their neutrality as their distance to the issue shrinks. Much worse is when the perception of distance coincides with an unspoken bias on an issue. How can an American who grew up in America be neutral on racism and what does that mean?

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