The Sean Parker Wedding Is the Perfect Parable for Silicon Valley Excess

More like he had connections through his days at Harvard to people with more connections and money and hands on the levers of power. Whatever though.

Or, maybe, the 2.5 million in fines actually had something to do with the actual event itself, which is shameful and disgusting.

Nobody is surprised when people from Hollywood do shameful and disgusting things, because they are openly and honestly shameful and disgusting.

But Silicon Valley and the SF area like to paint and market themselves as somehow better than that. So it's a "surprise" when they go and do something shameful and disgusting.

They've made so much money, couldn't they have found a better way to spend it? If you want to create a magical experience, why does it have to involve destroying the environment?

I disagree, sure there was some bias in the article. The fact that Parker made his money in Silicon Valley is completely besides the point. My take away is that a rich asshole* thinks the rules and laws don't apply to him. He developed an sensitive ecological area without little to no regard as to it's effects. People should be called out for these type of things. I could have done without the bias also but this was and is something worth calling people out on.

*I don't personally know Parker of course so asshole may be a bit of an unfair judgement but stories like this aren't likely to make me think favorably of him.

> "If Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had done the same nobody would give a damn. Bill Gates could probably easily get away with stuff like this too."

This is where we disagree. The core of the story is someone wealthy doing something against the public good in a particularly flamboyant way.

The backlash would be the same regardless of who they are. It's the sheer flamboyance that's the core of the story. Larry Ellison had similar coverage when it came to being incredibly loud and obnoxious - and he's as close to a traditional industrialist as the software industry gets.

> "but I really don't feel like starting a long historic discussion here.."

Pardon me for saying so, but you've made some big claims and controversial statements, and your response to any refutation has been "well, I don't want to start a discussion here..." - so what do you want to do, besides drop a big, bombastic claim and walk out?

[edit] I'd also like to point out that whenever stories about the shenanigans of Silicon Valley appear, there is frequently the argument made that everyone else is just jealous, or that they are sore losers. This argument has a bad smell to it (in the code smell sense of the word).

I've also felt, recently at least, that this community has a nascent persecution complex, like everyone else is out to get us - usually because they're jealous, or they're luddites, or they're just evil in a laughably generic way. This particular trend I find highly annoying.

>> Bill Gates could probably easily get away with stuff like this too.

The difference is that Gates doesn't do stupid things like this because Gates knows that he is a public figure. He hires people who know what they're doing and invests his time and energy in PR. Parker, Zuckerberg, and others seem to think that they can enjoy the benefits of being public figures when they want to and then turn it off when they don't. It doesn't work that way.

Also, why doesn't Parker have anybody around him to tell him that building a fake ruined castle in Big Sur is not going to look good in the press? If I was him and I read this article, I'd be figuring out who had my best interests at heart and who was just hanging on for the money.

Huh? Hearst Castle was built 96 years ago and is over 2 hours from Big Sur...

I understand your point but no fine should be levied? This kind of behaviour should be discouraged and a fine is entirely appropriate to discourage it.

From the findings: "The unpermitted development has thus impacted the existing redwood forest habitat and has likely caused sedimentation of Post Creek."

The fact that he brazenly (and illegally) modified land designated for public use is pretty bad as well. Imagine if I decided to shoot a porno right in the lap of the Lincoln Memorial, setting up lights and cheap sets and basically making the whole monument look like a joke, ruining what would have been a solemn and sacred space for the general public.

Of course, I would also be shot by the guards there. There's no similar guardian for that particular part of the Redwood forest.

Valid counterpoint.

"unlike most bulldozers" seems to heavily imply it's still a bulldozer:

"Unlike most bulldozers, most loaders are wheeled and not tracked, although track loaders are common. They are successful where sharp edged materials in construction debris would damage rubber wheels, or where the ground is soft and muddy. Wheels provide better mobility and speed and do not damage paved roads as much as tracks, but provide less traction."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loader_(equipment)

The problem seems to be that some platforms were build on the bank of the creek with no erosion control, meaning that a good rain storm or two might cause it to collapse into the creek which presumably would block it.

There's certainly, let's call it "journalistic excess" in the story (OMG! Google busses!) but I think real damage was done. Weird that neither Parker or the owner had the sense to think that they should clean up afterwards. The specifically sought out the place because of its ecological beauty.

Can you, or anyone else for that matter, prove that installing a few temporary platforms and fake ruins WILL NOT cause actual damage to a waterway?

If you can't see that these regulations are there specifically to protect precious natural reserves from unanticipated damage, you are a moron.

The penalty for such barefaced contempt of the law should be death. As a billionaire with an army of lawyers, Sean Parker has no excuse for flaunting the general will of the public in this way. This isn't an innocent mistake made in a drunken moment of passion. This is calculated, premeditated contempt for the laws of our society. If Sean Parker has so little respect for our laws he should have his wealth stripped and be excommunicated from the state. He should feel lucky to escape this kind of crime with his life.

Obviously American society is degenerate and borderline non-existent when this kind of conspicuous contempt for society receives apologies by supposedly well-educated people.

There was a bridge built over a waterway, yes, with a hard concrete channel underneath. Unless done absolutely correctly (and this is a very complicated subject of environmental science) the hard bottom channel can create erosion that destroys local riparian habitat within the erosion zone, as well as sedimentation that destroys (yes, destroys) downstream habitat. The increased sedimentation also changes the water chemistry and particulate content, so species of fish, insects (which fish, birds, and other animals eat, being an important base of the food chain), and other species are greatly affected, if not entirely killed off downstream. Of particular interest with this stream is salmon spawning, which is extremely sensitive and a huge focus of environmental groups in California and the northwest, for good reason.

No one is simply claiming it—it is absolutely proven.

Federally listed steelhead use the lower reaches of the creek to spawn. Construction without taking measure to keep sediment from reaching the creek will affect steelhead reproductive success downstream and would be considered a take under the endangered species act.