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Isn't Al Gore rich though? I'm bothered when the elite speak of others as if they're not part of that 1%.
by Overtonwindow 9y ago
Isn'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.
- dllthomas 9y agoI think at this point we're talking past each other a bit. As I read the comment in question, the concern was not whether the (article -> comment) reproduction was faithful, but about the original (speech -> article) reproduction. That's not an unreasonable question to carry some skepticism about in the general case, and it's not something that checking the article can answer. I agree that the cited reason for increased skepticism in this case - the insertion of ", said ..., " - isn't actually cause for increased skepticism.
- 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...