Comment by benzible | Hacker News Reader

Comment by benzible | Hacker News Reader

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I wouldn't assume that this is about cost cutting. If the goal were saving money, the cheapest option by far would be to leave the hardware in the water and just stop funding the monitoring. Instead the plan is an expensive operation to send ships out to extract 900+ instruments from under two miles of ocean.

It's clear that this is driven by performative climate denialism and a pro fossil fuel stance. The Trump administration made a billion dollar deal with an energy company to stop construction of offshore wind farms and redirect the investment into fossil fuel projects. Trump constantly talks about the "green new scam" and "climate alarmism". And on top of signaling to his base, Trump met with oil executives at Mar-a-Lago before the 2024 election and pitched them on rolling back climate regulation in exchange for $1B in campaign cash. Destroying the instruments that would document the consequences and might spark alarm and activism is one way to hold up his end of the deal.

But… why? Climate change is very much real and even stubborn deep-right voters like my father now ‘believe’ in it. Ok, some people make some cash. But wouldn’t they anyway? I don’t understand this need to keep pandering to a minority and to destroy ecosystems.

Which part of trump making billions of dollars from oil oligarchs is the confusing bit? His incentive structure is clear.

Many deep-right voters do not believe in climate change. They're a big part of Trump's base.

You don't need a chart these days. I live in Boulder Colorado, and I can't imagine that we'll have more than 10 more ski seasons.

Upside - Aspen loses it’s arrogant environmentalists and it starts mining silver again.

Wow yeah such a great upside!

Eradicating species, destroying economies, and eliminating entire ways to enjoy nature's bounty here on earth –– a small price to pay to hurr hur hurrr... own the libs ;)

The DSM needs to be updated soon for this type of sociopathic cynicism. It can't be kept with the rest of society.

Less Aspen arrogance is a net positive for America, at the cost of dethroning a few deep pocketed environmentalists.

If you can find a cleaner way to do it, I’m all ears.

See a therapist.

The government knows it's real, these are generally well-educated people who went to decent schools. But, I would challenge that most right-wing voters know whether it is real. Where I live in rural America the vast majority are pro-fossil fuel, anti-EV. EVs are seen as "gay" or "feminine" by the folks out here. So the choice to use fossil fuels might just be some performative machismo, allowing their pick-ups to output black smoke, make a loud noise and look "tough."

Those are the majority of the Republican voters at this stage. To make them happy you do things like spend millions to tear up infrastructure which challenges their worldview. This should result in increased votes for the current administration at the mid-terms. So even if climate change is a real and current threat, you need to say it isn't to get re-elected.

I don't believe they do any of this for votes. I think somebody within the administration has a personal grudge against science, especially anything related to climate change.

Those 2 motives are not mutually exclusive! Both may apply at the same time.

> So the choice to use fossil fuels might just be some performative machismo, allowing their pick-ups to output black smoke, make a loud noise and look "tough."

Might be linked to petrol cars being cheaper to buy for the same amount of car? That seems like an easier explanation. There is a masculine element in that men want to be seen to own big things to show off, but I doubt it has anything to do with liking black smoke. If they wanted loud noises they'd go a motorbike or get an obnoxious horn.

Look up the phrase "rolling coal".

These people do exist, unfortunately.

For those who don't live adjacent to rednecks: https://m.youtube.com/results?search_query=rolling+coal

You have no idea what you're talking about. Respectfully,

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about if you don't know anything about rolling coal and you don't realize people like to drive loud cars.

I've had several friends tell me they just couldn't drive an EV because it just doesn't have a soul, meaning it doesn't have that roar for its performance. It being nearly silent as it accelerates hard is missing half the point. It's a common thing among car enthusiasts.

I can attest that a lot of “car culture” and “motorcycle culture” people want the car or motorcycle to be as loud as possible. Where I live they’re frequently interrupting conversations and waking children up. It’s a major nuisance.

No, it’s tribalism of sorts. For men they’ll often paint something they don’t understand with words like that. I grew up in a culture that did that and won’t go back. Many many humans lack basic curiosity about the world.

If "petrol cars" wasn't a dead giveaway of not being American, the rest of the comment confirms it. No clue what you're talking about.

I was in the gas station recently and heard a girl talking to her friend. She said she'd never date a guy who didn't drive a pick-up and would definitely never date a guy who paid with a [credit/debit] card. She said "cards are for girls."

There are still a ton of cash transactions out here in the sticks. When I ask why they say they don't want the government knowing their business. But I guess from that conversation it also helps you get a date?

I think that attitude may change if there is ever an EV that could be competitive in a NASCAR event. For now, the closest we are likely to see is a hybrid, because EVs don't have enough range.

NASCAR has a tendency to fight changes to the drivetrain technology, so a hybrid might take a while still. The regulations banned fuel injection up until 2012, required transmissions to be 4 speed manuals until 2021 and will probably keep the 2 valve pushrod valvetrain and 90° V8 layout til the end of time. If they ever get around to implementing hybrid powertrains (they've been grumbling about the issue since 2024), they aren't going to be there to save gas. Racing hybrids are designed primarily to recover kinetic energy in deceleration, store it for short term and use it to boost acceleration. There are designs for race hybrids that don' t even use batteries or utilize electrical energy for the hybrid part; instead storing it mechanically in flywheels to avoid the inefficiency of converting from mechanical to chemical energy and back.

Reactionary politics, greed, stupidity. Pick any three.

It's the very definition of a culture war and in addition sadly evidence of limited intelligence. Even the most red blooded oil man wouldn't do this because this data is also useful for petroleum drilling and logistics - it's a whole other kind of person driving this.

It all makes sense when you realize QAnon basically runs the white house now. There’s a very insulated type of American who lives in their own world, that unfortunately lots of voters are apparently sympathetic to. It’s probably seen as a victory against the climate change hoax or something along those lines.

That's how the Chinese empire collapsed. They had scientists and explorers until one day the emperor decided that knowledge upsets harmony.

You don't know anything about China.

I have seen some chatter where 2nd-term Trumpism has been (very imperfectly) compared to Mao's Cultural Revolution.

Obviously there are many differences, no question. But it's actions like this where a bit of the comparison seems apt -- fervent, nonsensical anti-intellectualism / anti-science actions done purely in the name of ideology.

Why else would one actually go out of the way to dismantle a working ocean observation system, which provides a rich amount of data for multiple purposes?

The only action that seems to make sense is that: A) Some of that data can be used to observe climate change issues. B) In Trumpism, it is not enough anymore to propagandize that climate change is not happening. One must also actively suppress anything that could suggest climate change is happening, no matter how much the cost, no matter how much it hurts other non-related things.

It’s seen in Crusader terms. A bunch of things which are not Christian, for example controlling social order at all costs, are adornments on nationalism. The apocalyptic parts of QAnon slot into their belief system. So many other religious movements rely on salvation. Another commenter mentioned ancient China. Big political upheavals swept ancient China based on very slight new ideas about salvation.

Tribalism.

Science is antithetical to rule-by-decree or other forms of despotism, since it strives to disprove any and all claims. The powers that be simply don't like to be told "you're wrong", and that is the core of what science does. It's as simple as that.

https://xkcd.com/3226/

Because we have actual retards in office. People keep looking for a deeper explanation. There isn't one. They are actual stupid people. They do stupid things.

I'd encourage you to express this sentiment without the slur. Disability advocates have been pressing hard to reduce its usage.

I don't think Trump or any of his appointed lieutenants think any of this through. It's the result of decisions made by emotion, not logic. "Vibe-governing" in other words.

Climate change, and science in general, is associated with nerds, boring reality, obstacles to immediate gratification, and effects on poor people.

Fossil fuels are associated with large wads of cash, action films, and sticking it to the libs.

Decisions might have terrible consequences. Who cares? Thinking things through is boring, and the people making the decisions are rich enough to be insulated from anything that might happen and old enough to not be around when it does.

I doubt that people in government, along the entire chain of command, that get paid to analyse policy, that pay consultants to analyse policy, that produce reports on the many facets of the world… that all of that is put together to NOT think things through.

I’d honestly prefer the explanation to be that they’re just that evil, at least that aligns with my worldview.

> even stubborn deep-right voters like my father now ‘believe’ in it

I don't believe that, sorry. I mean I believe you that your father says so. But I don't think that holds for most right voters.

He sees the consequences, he’s a hobby farmer. He watches the news talk about how weather patterns got aggressive and disruptive, how crops now fail, etc. He fixes the roofs destroyed by giant hail. He gets it.

Now, you’re right in some ways. He doesn’t care for the science or the electric cars and so on; but after a lifetime of exposure to the situation, it’s hard to keep dismissing it. He grew up in a very different country, weather-wise, and made the connection between climate change and why his potato harvest failed.

I believe, without proof, that most people understand that the world’s climate is changing and creating Big Problems. They might not admit it or understand the science, but can see the consequences. And no, they don’t agree with how to solve this.

The entire motivation of Trump and the MAGA movement is "fuck you, libs." The left likes green energy and scientific research performed on the environment so the right hates that stuff even if their actions also hurt themselves.

People are going to give you all sorts of answers that are based on strategy or negotiation or interests, but I think it basically all boils down to "to own the libs." We have to remember that before this all started, he was registered as a Democrat. He doesn't (or didn't) give a shit about any of this, but people that said no to him do, so he's going to do his level best to break it all. It's just spite, and glee at being able to make people bewildered, angry, and sad. That's all so much of this is.

Your father believes it because, presumably, he is not paid to deny it, like the president and his lackeys are.

It's the deep desire for a sort of restorative authoritarianism: someone who can reduce the complex state of the world into "the way it should be".

The resentment is not versus fate or calamity but against those people who study and give voice to complexity. If someone can just shut those people up and make them go away, we will be restored to a simpler and more moral world. Where tragedy can rightly live in the realms of Gods and Mystery.

I would gently remind those that prefer such simplicity that not all nations do. We are not alone in the world. The nation that better understands the complexities of the natural world will, all else being equal, utterly trounce the nation that persists in fictionalizing existence. Unless you want to re-write your national anthem in Mandarin, you will someday need to (re-?)grapple with the complexities of the universe.

Because once shit hits the fan, those responsible for destroying the ecosystem will take a one-way flight for a fully air-conditioned bunkerized apartment lot in Dubai with any Epstein island-level luxury you can think of and fuck the consequences for everyone else, that's why.

Remove the source of evidence and its easier to deny the claim.

I don't believe Trump himself makes any of these decisions, and as for deals I don't think he remembers what happened yesterday let alone a deal made on the campaign trail. Parties in his administration are actively trying to destroy science and cripple any kind of climate research or green energy development, even if it costs nothing. Whoever they are, they make these plans and then get him to sign while he's awake.

Of course. Trump isn't aware of "details" like this. But he's very much on board with the "own the libs" project, the project of helping fossil fuel, and he appointed the people who are making it happen.

Although with Trump, it's more specific than "owning the libs": a clear motivating force is undoing anything Obama did or that was around on his watch. Pulling out of the JPOA agreement Obama made with Iran, then launching a war at the price of tanking the global economy which best case will result in a pale imitation of the JPOA (along with a much stronger and richer Iran), is only the latest example.

That cheapest option may not be the cheapest option in the long-term when the next Democratic president would re-activate the devices.

Same reasoning as removal of many post office boxes in last days of Trump 1 term.

The post boxes were more about crippling mail-in votes. In Washington Bill De Joy had at one point dismantled several of the sorting machines which dramatically slowed how fast mail gets dispatched. The result was that you could no longer mail your vote the day before election day and have it arrive on election day.

Quid pro quo

Oil industry pays and Trump delivers.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/09/trump-asks-oil-exec...

The crazy thing is that the oil companies confessed to a misinformation campaign and at least publicly talked about change/reform (of course, they're still oil exploration/refinement companies so not abandoning that). But they did discuss responsible use of fossil fuels in transition towards renewables.

But Trump was fooled and is more committed than ever to the since-abandoned misinformation campaign. It took on a bigger life than Exxon ever could've imagined.

The snowflakiest of them all - they can't handle unbiased readings from instruments that survey our planet.

The Mauna Loa CO2 data is still up.[1] Trump tried to kill off the CO2 measuring, but that doesn't seem to have happened. The Mauna Loa data goes back to 1958, measured at the same point, far from any CO2 sources. 315ppm in 1958, 441ppm today, and almost a noise free curve with mild seasonal variations. Clearest trend in global warming.

[1] https://gml.noaa.gov/webdata/ccgg/trends/co2/co2_mm_mlo.txt

[2] https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/01/climate/trump-cuts-mauna-loa-...

I don't think Trump was "fooled" by anything. His policy positions reflect what makes him and his cronies money, and what keeps him in power. That's it. He doesn't care about truth or correctness. Just money and power.

I submit that the "is malice or incompetence" heuristic can be broken by pathological inputs which result in an indefinite runtime, and that we've encountered some of them in the last decade.

The correct response when that happens is to say "both" until/unless the perpetrators want to plead just one or the other.

To be honest this sounds more like an excuse and cover for having a bunch of ships and submarines in places they'd normally wouldn't be at.

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