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Al Gore: 'The rich have subverted all reason'
- polotics 9y agoJust in case a preemptive post for all shills and otherwise identity-impaired deniers. Please watch this presentation from Sheffield University: https ://youtu.be/7IbyiOoVgnQ Thank you
- Overtonwindow 9y agoIsn't Al Gore rich though? I'm bothered when the elite speak of others as if they're not part of that 1%.
- scotty79 9y agoWould you feel better if he said, "We, the rich, ..."?
- tome 9y agoThat's the headline. It's not clear that Gore said that. An actual quote is. > “I mean that those with access to large amounts of money and raw power,” says Gore, “have been able to subvert all reason and fact in collective decision making” In any case, it's clear that he's not talking about all the rich.
- jasonkostempski 9y agoIs that an actual full quote? When something like "says Gore" is jammed in the middle of a quote, I always suspect there was something else in between. It could be "umm" or it could be something that changes the meaning of the entire sentence.
- undersuit 9y agoIt's the start of the full quote. I'm sorry maybe you could RTFA. >“I mean that those with access to large amounts of money and raw power,” says Gore, “have been able to subvert all reason and fact in collective decision making. The Koch brothers are the largest funders of climate change denial. And ExxonMobil claims it has stopped, but it really hasn’t. It has given a quarter of a billion dollars in donations to climate denial groups. It’s clear they are trying to cripple our ability to respond to this existential threat.” It's a common technique to split a quote like this to identify the speaker and while it's good to be skeptical you should be skeptical of all information, this particular form of quoting is no less and no more infallible to manipulation than the rest of English.
- dllthomas 9y ago> I'm sorry maybe you could RTFA. The parent's concern doesn't appear to be whether there was more quoted in the article, but whether the article elided part of the quote as it was originally given. You appear to recognize this in the second half of your comment, so I'm not sure why you conclude that the parent hasn't read the article. Even if you've so concluded, > Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that." from https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- undersuit 9y agoYep I kinda wish I could take back the RTFA part, still they could have gone back to the article and searched the page with Ctrl+F just like I did and discovered the full quote. Then they wouldn't have to submit an easily answered question to HN and could have gone on to question the authenticity of the article and it would have been an entirely different comment.
- wukerplank 9y agoOr maybe that qualifies him? Knowing a lot of other 1%ers and how they tick?
- jopie 9y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbLK4RZDdzI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbLK4RZDdzI
- splike 9y agoI don't know what your intention is in sharing this video, but isn't his response to the question posed perfectly reasonable? Al Gore has spent his life fighting climate change, believes we can combat it, and has personally invested in companies he believes can make that a reality. I don't see how this makes him a fraud in the slightest.
- Ensorceled 9y agoThere are people who say: "He should put his money where his mouth is". There are people who say: "Of course he says that, he's got skin in the game." Surprisingly, these are often the same people.
- PacketPaul 9y agoHow did he get so rich from a government salary?
- code_duck 9y agoThe amazing answer: he didn't. He was not wealthy (esp by congressional standards) circa 2000, when he retired from government. After that though, he wrote a few books and cofounded a TV network that was sold to Al Jazeera for 100m.
- maxerickson 9y agoHe sold a large stake in a TV network that he was involved with after leaving office: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_TV https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_TV And it isn't like Congress is poorly compensated. Currently Senators are paid $174,000 a year.
- humanrebar 9y agoThat sounds on the low end for mid-to-late career lawyers, doctors, and businessmen in the DC area. Of course, the power and fame is seductive, so paying below market rate makes a lot of sense.
- ac29 9y agoBut, most congress people are already wealthy: the average senator has a net worth of $14 million, and the average representative in the house has a net worth of nearly $7 million [0]. There are of course outliers, with some having hundreds of millions and some having negative net worth. [0] https://ballotpedia.org/Net_worth_of_United_States_Senators_and_Representatives https://ballotpedia.org/Net_worth_of_United_States_Senators_...
- scient 9y agoFunny. Software engineers complaining that someone talking about politics is as rich as the politicians. But you talking about politics on behalf of people who are way worse off than you is somehow different. Its not like engineers are the poorest workers...
- tajen 9y agoI'm generally against generalizations ("the rich have subverted ...") as it leads to witchhunt and lynching of the wrong people. However, he convinced me that a wrong balance of powers is keeping us too much in the "status quo" of runaway pollution, using misinformation, and is slowing us down in the fight against massive destruction. But what can we do? For example, in French politics, there isn't a single person who proposes the right things against climate change. Melanchon comes to my mind, he has a half program against global warming but does hate speech against the 50% richer of the nation (and in France, that mean earning >2000€ pm). And that doesn't even guarantee getting the global warming solved... Macron won't solve much either, unless he digs in the debt, which isn't better for my children. Either way, we're stuck.
- notthemessiah 9y agoI don't suspect that you read the article past the headline otherwise you would have come across this section. "I mean that those with access to large amounts of money and raw power,” says Gore, “have been able to subvert all reason and fact in collective decision making. The Koch brothers are the largest funders of climate change denial. And ExxonMobil claims it has stopped, but it really hasn’t. It has given a quarter of a billion dollars in donations to climate denial groups. It’s clear they are trying to cripple our ability to respond to this existential threat." Gore (and Melonchon for that matter too) aren't referring to the "upper 50%", it's not even the 1% mantra of Occupy Wall St, it's an astoundingly small fraction that have this access to lobbying power and campaign funds.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- emodendroket 9y agoThat seems like a pretty big expansion of the concept of "hate speech" beyond what it is generally used to mean.
- dwe3000 9y agoThe very last line of the article explains it all; this is to promote his soon to be release movie. As always, it's about the money.
- Kurtz79 9y agoMost of people's actions have personal gain (be it money, power, recognition, sense of worth, etc...) as their main motive. But it does not make them necessarily wrong or worthless to others.
- dwe3000 9y agoTrue, but I would appreciate a little integrity/honesty. He flies all over the world, multiple times in a short time span, and then makes his money "complaining" that we are using fossil fuels, when he could have just as easily been there via a teleconference. I don't mind people that walk the talk, but Al Gore avoids that.
- Boothroid 9y agoSadly it does seem to me that there's an large element of ego behind his efforts.
- sethrin 9y agoThis is called "tu quoque"[0] or appeal to hypocrisy. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
- humanrebar 9y agoIn this case, the pitch is for sacrifice and discipline. It undermines his argument if he's somehow exempt from the plan. As in, if even a rich, educated, and passionate Al Gore cannot actually reduce his carbon footprint, is it even doable for India and China?
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- crypt1d 9y ago“Our democracy has been hacked.” is something that resonates with me very well. A select group of people have mastered media manipulation and are now acting as puppeteers while we are all in a state of confusion, no longer able to discern truth from disinformation. It is not classic censorship that worries me anymore. It is this constant bombardment with questionable data that we need to figure out how to battle, as it is our biggest enemy now. We need some way to get out of the disinformation bubble and be able to see the real picture. BTW this article reminded me of a great show[1] that Last Week Tonight did, about how local news outlets in US are used to manipulate the masses. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc
- mathgenius 9y ago> questionable data that we need to figure out how to battle The reality of the situation seems obvious to me, even if the edges are not clearly defined. I don't think it's very difficult to work out what is going on (with climate change etc.) To me this is not about people getting access to good data, or being otherwise properly educated. It's about people identifying with "their group", and attacking the "others". And such battle lines are fought around various issues and language, and labels. But it's not actually about those issues or language or labels. It's about self and other. My people, and those other people. So this is what needs to be healed, this separative egoness.
- nwatson 9y agoAnd in the mean time, other parties will step into our USA internecine war with their own agendas and prey off our pride and ignorance, e.g.: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-radio/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-ra.... [Written from an obvious US viewpoint.]
- cmahler7 9y agoDividing the West and the United States in particular has been planned for a long time. Race, gender, income, politics all of it is being used to keep the plebes at each others throats. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3qkf3bajd4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3qkf3bajd4
- Boothroid 9y agoGlobal warming is just the tip of the iceberg (sorry). Seriously though, there are so many ways in which humanity is making the world immeasurably worse and in which our current models of organisation cannot be sustained, and global warming is only one of them. Take for example modern agriculture: we are forced to pour huge amounts of artificial (i.e. not animal manure) fertiliser onto the soil in order to produce enough to feed ourselves. The fertiliser is required due to the extreme pressure we put on the soil i.e. monoculture, expecting a full crop every year, with no fallow periods for recovery. This fertiliser has in some cases to be mined, obviously at some expense in energy terms, from non-renewable resources. The production and usage of the fertiliser consumes large amounts of currently, predominantly, fossil fuels. The fertiliser runs off the soil into the ocean, disrupting the natural balance, with negative side effects on sea life, itself on which many coastal dwelling people depend for food or livelihood. When was the last time you saw this issue discussed in the media? Sometimes I think that the focus on global warming is negative in that it is far easier for those that stand to lose from wider conciousness about environmental issues, i.e. the usual big business concerns, to counter a single topic than it would be for them to deny the general trend of ongoing worsening and destruction of our natural environment in general. The fact is that western lifestyles cannot be achieved by the whole population of the world without consequent massive pressure on resources. Rather than worrying ourselves solely about global warming I think we would do far better to start reducing consumption, reversing population growth to the point that the world's population starts to decline, and putting efficiency at the heart of humanity's scientific and business endeavours. The chances of this happening? I'd say pretty much zero, because modern capitalism preaches at the altar of inexorable GDP growth, and the rich and powerful aren't going to give up without a fight.
- fsloth 9y agoYes, we have problems. But I would prefer an argumentation that does not place the 'artificiality' of modern farming at the fulcrum as there is no 'natural' farming. All farming is artificial - an artifact of human culture. Farming is a thousands of years old biohack, of whose output we've improved over millenias. Using nitrogen fertilizer generated through Haber process to increase crop yelds is not in any way less 'natural' than manure. Trace chemicals from e.g. pesticides that leak to all sorts of foodchains, including those where human partake - now, that's an issue. It's also not very effective to speak of the general consumption of western lifestyle. We can't fix 'western lifestyle'. But, we can fix specific problems, one at a time. The problem needs some metric and the solution needs some predetermined metric to follow. So, what's the first thing you would specifically fix?
- atemerev 9y agoUsually Mr. Gore visits places where he gives these speeches (as well as his no less entertaining presentations on climate change and how save the environment by limiting consumption) by means of his private jet. So, not impressed. Next!
- anotherturn 9y agoIf any change is going to be made it's going to come through revolution (a la France) or through someone in the top 1% changing things from the top down (a la slavery). The fact that he gets around on a private jet is neither here nor there - we can live with hypocrisy. What we cannot live with is inaction.
- atemerev 9y agoI don't know who are "we" that you are speaking about, but I absolutely can't live with hypocrisy. And large-scale social changes are inevitable anyway -- universal basic income is economically impossible, and transition to post-job economy is nearby.
- kevinSuttle 9y agoI appreciate what he's trying to do here, but Al Gore isn't exactly impoverished.
- hidflect 9y agoThis is the guy who flies on private jets, right?
- kasey_junk 9y agoThat claim was true more than 10 years ago. Responding to the hypocrisy claims he's travelled Southwest for a long time & buys offset credits when he does. That Trump was able to bring that back as if it were currently true is pretty clearly an example of the manipulation talked about in this article.
- humanrebar 9y agoAren't offset credits themselves a form of manipulation? Compared to being a solution, it seems just as likely to me that they're a cultural placebo.
- kasey_junk 9y agoI think economists have mixed views. It seems though that the only way to change the market behaviors is to externalize the climate costs & credits are one way to do that. In any case, based on his current behavior & the current market, dismissing Gore based on the private jet thing seems misguided, but there are lots of very powerful forces aligned to do just that.
- ac29 9y agoOffset programs do fund impactful projects. You can take a took here [0] at one company who funds these sort of things and what they do with the money. Not all of them are carbon-offset programs, but many are. Capturing landfill gas emissions, or reforestation projects are definitely not placebos. [0] https://www.naturalcapitalpartners.com/projects https://www.naturalcapitalpartners.com/projects
- humanrebar 9y agoThe point is whether they actually offset the emissions enough, not whether there's any effect at all. If they only have a marginal effect but provide the feeling of a solution, it could get in the way of a more profound but more difficult solution.
- bryananderson 9y ago"Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance." -Neil Postman This isn't going to get better as AI bots improve their ability to sound human and steer the conversation. I'm kind of at a loss for a solution to this, aside from trusting only well-established media outlets, but that has its own drawbacks.
- awkwarddaturtle 9y agoHow could the rich subvert anything when they control the media/government/wealth/power? Hell they control "reason". Also, I'm startikng to get a bit disillusioned by the amount of guardian, nytimes, bbc, etc articles here. I hope HN doesn't turn into reddit.