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Comment by beckman466 | Hacker News Reader

> blew up what remained in a spectacular and profitable fashion

profitable?

this kind of spectacle is a net loss for the natural world, for humanity and for all the other species we share the earth with. if you think i'm exaggerating you're not seeing how much waste and destruction our current proprietary paradigm is responsible for.

this whole doing 'fun' experiments on non-modular black-box consumer-grade tech by destroying it or blowing it up for 'content' is the definition of insanity. we will look back from our communist open source future society and shiver with horror, disbelief and fear as we watch back 1080p videos showing how some of us poisoned our watersheds and laughed hysterically while creating the toxic, plastic, holocenic sludge.

think i'm being a crybaby? see images of global north e-waste giving cancer to children in the global south. it's devastating to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mleQVO1Vd1I

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I don't think you're being a crybaby, but you do seem to be deliberately misinterpreting the parent post.

> you do seem to be deliberately misinterpreting the parent post.

am i though? or is society using an overly simplistic (and therefore dangerous/harmful) economic theory that considers our natural world an 'externality' and tries to grow the economy infinitely?

the Tesla car that was blown up was a piece of 'non-modular black-box consumer-grade tech'. i wish more people would recognize the horrific waste and planned obsolescence our current institutions are encouraging, and work on alternatives to replace them (my earlier posts: mikorzal.org/valueflo.ws, holochain + open source ecology).

anyway, at the root of comments like my earlier one is both a deep love for our planet, as well as 'earthgrief' (Chellis Glendinning/Francis Weller). it's those two things, as well as capitalist alienation: currently being unable to adequately exercise autonomy - not being able to sustainably take part in concretely building transitionary systems with others. not being 'allowed' and supported to be as deeply and continuously curious as i'd like to be because of the way science and tech are increasingly enclosed in new knowledge fiefdoms.

the reason i quoted the word 'profitability' was related to the concept of audience commodity and the destructive profit-seeking nature of youtube (as well as the economic system as a whole which google/alphabet etc. are inside of):

“the paying customers are the advertisers, and what is being sold are the users themselves, not their content. This means that the source of value that becomes Facebook’s profits is the work done by the workers in the global fields and factories, who are producing the commodities being advertised to Facebook’s audience.” -- Dmytri Kleiner

I think most of this is irrelevant despite being interesting.

OP used the common-usage definition of profit (made more money than spent) and you sought to rebut that on the basis of a different definition that seems to be of your own creation. You clearly know that OP meant profit in the usual sense based on your comments. That seems like deliberate misinterpretation to me; you are responding to an argument that you know OP wasn’t making (that this event was a net environmental / societal positive).

> despite being interesting.

glad to hear it. i guess maybe that's what i subconsciously aim for when i write things like this; hoping for things that resonated with me to also resonate with others.

i agree actually that it's willful misinterpretation of the person's comment. i think maybe the seemingly thoughtless presence/use of the word profit in this context just jumped out at me, as we're swimming in a pool of constant and endless capitalist realism. i personally appreciate it a lot when others challenge and expose our cruel and unsustainable material reality, so my comment probably comes from a desire to contribute to that critique.

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