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Comment by curiously | Hacker News Reader

I thought the exact same thing. It might be unfair of me to judge what he does with his money but all I see is just a rich guy having fun. Not that there's anything wrong with it. But consider that these battleships once fired on Americans, helped enslave Asia. If he found a German U-boat my response would be the same. Here we are celebrating the artifacts of a perverted imperial force that is responsible for countless crime against humanity.

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If only your average rich guy would have similar definition of "having fun", the world would be a much better place. His "fun" is at least actually useful, even if you could find better uses of that money.

I start to wonder, if this is why rich people don't do useful things with their money more often? I mean, reading some comments here, I think I'd feel like this:

- Hey people, I found you a battleship of historic importance! Cool, isn't it?

- Oh you rich guy, wasting money on fun. How about spending it on malaria?

- You know what? Fuck you, you ungrateful, entitled assholes. Go die in your own dung. I think I'll be spending my money on a platinum golf club set instead.

I disagree with the characterization of people who think he could have used his means more effectively than this as "ungrateful, entitled assholes."

Are we required to celebrate everything a wealthy man does with his money as long as it's not overtly bad?

> I disagree with the characterization of people who think he could have used his means more effectively than this as "ungrateful, entitled assholes."

Not everyone is, of course, but I imagine this is how it feels to be on the receiving end of those complaints.

> Are we required to celebrate everything a wealthy man does with his money as long as it's not overtly bad?

Of course not. But what I see is that the default reaction is almost always whining. I wonder how wealthy people cope with that - whatever they do, they get to read a ton of crap written about them. And particularly, Paul Allen does a lot of really useful stuff with his wealth.

In this case, I think it's because the general perception is that we're expected to praise him for this (Twitter announcement, press releases) and there is a backlash against that expectation.

Also I got downvoted for my first comment. I can't even imagine who took offense or why.

Me neither. I upvoted you to compensate.

No. You're free to ignore it. But please don't join the cavalcade of armchair philanthropists who think they can fix the world if only they could control enough of someone else's money.

History and the preservation of artefacts is not about celebrating. It's about remembering and learning why people did what they did. It's incredibly important for future generations to know what happened in the two World Wars otherwise there will always be a danger that people might do it again.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana

And finding the Musashi wreck reminds us of that… how? Wouldn't it have been a much better reminder if Allen had put his yacht money towards, say, improving the Unit 731 Museum or conserving/improving the east-european camps ruins?

oh boy, you sure have an issue with what hobbies people choose :) why don't you have an issue with people going bowling & drinking beer on saturday night, just to pick an example out of gazillions more? this one has more outcome than just joy of participants, everybody here except you accepts it and is happy about that... just sad trolling around?

> oh boy, you sure have an issue with what hobbies people choose :)

Not at all, and I find it sad that you can misread clear comments to such an extent :)

> why don't you have an issue with people going bowling & drinking beer on saturday night, just to pick an example out of gazillions more?

Because I don't have an issue with people's hobbies. Here's the difference: nobody is pretending that people going bowling and drinking beer is somehow "incredibly important for future generations" :)

> this one has more outcome than just joy of participants

What outcome :)

> everybody here except you accepts it

Yes, I'm here with a dozen sockpuppets pooping your party, of course :)

I will also celebrate any artifact of Chengis Khan ...

Humans are renewable resource[1]. History and knowledge are much more precious.

[1] Not only mine, but every corporation with HR department opinion.

There might be some interest in a german u-boat wreck: it might tell us where that specific u-boat disappeared and how. There's no such thing from the Musashi wreck since we already knew where the and the how.

> Here we are celebrating the artifacts of a perverted imperial force that is responsible for countless crime against humanity.

I'm celebrating the fact that the United States sank her.

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