Congressman Spends Week on Uninhabited Island in Pacific | Hacker News Reader

Congressman Spends Week on Uninhabited Island in Pacific

washingtonpost.com

43 pointsbreck18 comments

That brings back memories of my days in Boy Scouts. Getting out in the outdoors is a wonderful character building exercise and presents opportunities that you won't get so much in city living. And yes, it can be breathtaking beautiful and serene.

That being said, I'm keenly aware that it is a fun diversion for rich people. (The Congressman is probably a good deal wealthier than my family growing up, but either of us are quite rich in comparison to the typical inhabitant of the Marshall Islands.)

Nature can be breathtakingly beautiful and awe inspiring. It can also be terrible and merciless, every inch the avatar of the old pagan gods, and it has a virtually infinite number of ways to kill you. The foundation of human civilization that people enjoy temporarily escaping from so much is minimizing the chance of terrible, brutal death dealt out stochatically by an uncaring world.

This is why while I enjoy the occasional escape to nature (with sensible precautions taken) I feel no particular urge to venerate it per se. The folks who live in uncontrolled nature 365 days out of the year -- the global poor -- live in misery, squalor, and constant fear of death from things the rest of us can scarcely comprehend you can die from. (One well-fed American can survive on plentiful crabs for a week but, then again, he could survive on rainwater for a week. A child in a village full of barely-making-it folks can succumb to diseases exacerbated by famine if the local subsistence food production is just a bit worse than it typically is -- and they don't have a panic button to summon the Coast Guard.)

The foundation of human civilization that people enjoy temporarily escaping from so much is minimizing the chance of terrible, brutal death dealt out stochatically by an uncaring world.

Wow, thank you for putting it so well!

> Depending on how permanent Sharpie markers really are, I may have managed to confuse anthropologists years from now, who will surely wonder how it is that hermit crabs on Jabonwod are numbered.

That is awesome.

It kind of bother me, I mean can't he find another way to distract himself without "damaging" his environment ?

What, are you worried the hermit crabs are now going to set up some sort of repressive caste system based on their shell numbers?

You never know ;-), but the main problem I have with this is that when camping or when you have some sort of outdoor activity there is one precept : "Leave no trace behind". More details : http://wikitravel.org/en/Leave-no-trace_camping

I don't think he has done much damage to these crabs, it's insignificant, but he's ruining the beauty that nature has to offer him. He's also ruining it for others and that's more annoying.

I'm sure he was pleased to discover this untouched place, he's gesture in my opinion is selfish because he is depriving others from the experience he had, he's even saying at some point :

I thought I was watching a large graceful bird in flight, like a red-tailed hawk [...] I was watching a large manta ray, spotted and absolutely beautiful.

Now I'm not sure this mantra would have seem so beautiful to him if someone had written his name on it for example.

Agreed the Sharpie might disapear in a few days, I'm more concerned about the behaviour : he was bored so he wrote on crabs.

It's hard for me to tell what exactly you're concerned about. He didn't injure or probably even bother the crabs. The Sharpie really will disappear within a few days, so even if some future nature-lover stumbles upon the island later, his experience won't be "ruined" by numbered crabs (I would find it charming if I found such a thing!) So why are you concerned at all?

I can't speak for cake, but I suspect it's as much an aesthetic thing as anything. Example from art: if you were insistent on viewing the Mona Lisa from a cubist aesthetic, it would be a crummy painting. It's not a moral assertion as such, though.

I'm concerned by the fact that he allows himself to go to such a place without applying the precept "Leave no trace". In my opinion if you want to preserve wild areas like this one, it is very important to respect it no matter what.

You would find it charming but I would find it sad. We don't know who else might visit this area and by what frequency, just by respect for other people who may not be pleased by such a gesture and because he doesn't own the place he shouln'd have done that. It really seems just like a basic outdoor camping rule to me.

> I'm concerned by the fact that he allows himself to go to such a place without applying the precept "Leave no trace".

You can't "leave no trace". The animals that noticed you behave differently now. Your footprints diverted an insect. (And, if you were riding a horse, the water that pooled in the hoof prints kept a Texas Ranger alive.) Your "waste" poisoned one thing and provided nutrients to another.

You can argue that these things don't count, but the line isn't as bright as your aesthetic revulsion requires.

I agree. "Leave no trace behind" is like the one and only commandment people reiterate out here(in California). But he's from Arizona, so might not fully understand what it means.

I wonder if the crabs would rather be temporarily numbered or permanently eaten?

True, but he assumes that anthropologists don't read newspapers.

Perhaps he means the anthropologists who are there after the newspapers have long turned to digital compost.

At first, i wanted to scream out.

Who cares.

No really your country is up the creek and here you are filling up an article with nothing more than a blow by blow summary of your week alone on an Island. Yet still i read on. Partly that boyish dream of living the crusoe life style.

The time i reached the end. Jealous and day dreaming. It hammered home the fact we mostly choose the life we lead today.

Equally if i had children, i would want them to read this piece. To allow them that moment to dream and let their mind create Vivid imagery. After all how different was this guys desire to yours and mine to convert that vivid idea into something tangible, real and perhaps even profitable ;)

I trust he won't write a book or turn it into a movie!

I'm just jealous. I think I need a holiday: A week alone on a desert island sounds like paradise right now.

Although the printer-friendly version made for a nicer read, I became curious at the end to see some photos, since he had mentioned he had at least an underwater camera with him.

Here is a link to the main article with photo gallery: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10...

I'd recommend waiting until after you read the article, as it's fairly well-written and descriptive without the images.

I think it will help to bootstrap.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com