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Comment by Emma_Goldman | Hacker News Reader

I have to disagree. It attempts to satirise today's mass media by exaggerating its influence on politics to the point at which it revolves around little else, succumbing to what it is supposed to be objecting to: the idea of politics and politicians as trivial. The plotline was so wildly implausible that it ended up saying little about the real world.

Also, the asteroid threat is not a good analogy for climate change, as it is supposed to be. Climate change is so difficult to deal with because its effects are uncertain, long-term and unevenly felt. None of those issues hold for an asteroid that will, per the plot, destroy the whole of human civilization in 6 months with 99.9% certainty absent intervention.

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Its not good satire because its very heavy handed (similar to Idiocracy) but its criticisms seemed spot on to me. The characters were all there from the jingoist politicians, a media focused on trivial distractions, techno utopianists, a fragmented society that cant agree on common truths and ultimately a disastrous ending that could have been avoided. Its not a cheerful movie

>Its not good satire because its very heavy handed

ah, yes, such blunt and heavy handed satire compared with old, subtle satire, like that one, modest, pamphlet advocating for eating poor children.

not sure why satire needs to be subtle to be good. It can go from crass to oscar-wilde-subtle, as long as it's funny and based on reality I would call it good.

> jingoist politicians, a media focused on trivial distractions, techno utopianists

Note that these groups are (for the most part) mutually antagonistic. It's not hard to find someone who agrees that politicians and media and public-health officials are all incompetent or malign or both, yet those same people absolutely idolize techno-utopian billionaires who hardly have any better claim to such adulation. That antagonism is what drives the " fragmented society that cant agree on common truths" that you mention. The problem with a movie like Don't Look Up is that everyone looks right past the offense to others, sees their own in-group being lampooned, and decides that the whole thing must suck.

Thats a great point! “I liked everything about the movie until my ox was gored” and in this case the movie goes for it leaving no one spared. The evisceration of techno John Galt and the media might be the most flagrant sins amongst professional critics’ social class

We do indeed disagree!

I don't think it was saying that politics and politicians as trivial -- I think it was saying that they're not necessarily smart people, and they're certainly not necessarily acting in the best interests of the people they serve.

I think they were also saying that the media serves to reinforce denial in the general population.

The asteroid is just a plot device -- the message is that in the face of mortal danger, huge chunks of the population refuse to even acknowledge the danger so that any intervention can be made. And those in power will exploit that for their own enrichment.

We don't just see this with climate change -- we've observed it with the previous administration...some hits:

- "Lock her up" -- yes, let's just start imprisoning political rivals and see what that does for us as a society)

- "Covid will go away by april" - I suppose they didn't say which april.

- Hydroxychloroquine/Ivermectin/Vitamin C

- Vaccines have microchips

- Masks don't do anything

The list goes on -- We've seen that the population is perfectly willing to disregard any science that threatens their way of life. It's easier to dismiss than to adjust.

Let me take a couple of specific examples. Upon being told that an asteroid large enough to destroy human civilization was on course to hit the earth in 6 months, the President decided that it would make strategic sense to delay announcing or acting on the threat until after the midterms - a month or so later. This was conspicuous for the fact no reason was given, which had to be the case as it makes no sense.

Collective threats of this kind have historically created a rally-around-the-flag effect the helps incumbents. Even a venal politician would not assist in the imminent destruction of the planet from which they themselves could not escape. Obviously information of that magnitude of importance would leak, as it did in the film. Meaning its only effect would be to crater the President's support when it became clear they hid the truth. Even an amaetuer political observer would understand all this, let alone a Whitehouse team that won a Presidential election.

Or how about the manner in which the astronomers announced their discovery? They went to the NYT, who inexplicably decided that they would forego running the biggest story in human history. Instead, they helped arrange for the astronomers to announce their discovery in a 2-minute segment on an infotainment news show. Neither the NYT, nor the astronomers, nor anyone would think that was a good idea. It would never, ever happen. During the interview, one of the astronomers got upset because the talk show hosts were nonchalant about the news of the possible end of civilization (!?). Returning to the NYT offices, they're told that the journalists were able to confirm their findings with well-respected third party scientists, but that because one of the astronomers got upset in air, they weren't going to run the story - again, easily the biggest story in human history, which anyone could appreciate at such.

The upshot of this never-ending string of implausible plot points is that the film ends up obfuscating how real politics works. It dumbs politics down and makes it trivial to make an easy joke, making it part of the problem that it ostensibly satirises.

> Let me take a couple of specific examples. Upon being told that an asteroid large enough to destroy human civilization was on course to hit the earth in 6 months, the President decided that it would make strategic sense to delay announcing or acting on the threat until after the midterms - a month or so later. This was conspicuous for the fact no reason was given, which had to be the case as it makes no sense.

Counter example: Trump new about the severity of covid and downplayed it for quite some time instead of trying to rally the country.

> Meaning its only effect would be to crater the President's support when it became clear they hid the truth. Even an amaetuer political observer would understand all this, let alone a Whitehouse team that won a Presidential election.

In light of the above, this has been shown to be false. There absolutely can be some fanatical base that will construct shared delusional propaganda to avoid the realization that they've been conned.

> Or how about the manner in which the astronomers announced their discovery? They went to the NYT, who inexplicably decided that they would forego running the biggest story in human history. Instead, they helped arrange for the astronomers to announce their discovery in a 2-minute segment on an infotainment news show. Neither the NYT, nor the astronomers, nor anyone would think that was a good idea. It would never, ever happen.

This I'm more inclined to believe. I'm not sure if it would impact the outcome though. I can't imagine there's a huge overlap in people that read the NYT versus watch morning infotainment. I've also lost all faith in humanity, so I can't rule out that it's quite possible that people would make such bad decisions.

> During the interview, one of the astronomers got upset because the talk show hosts were nonchalant about the news of the possible end of civilization (!?). Returning to the NYT offices, they're told that the journalists were able to confirm their findings with well-respected third party scientists, but that because one of the astronomers got upset in air, they weren't going to run the story - again, easily the biggest story in human history, which anyone could appreciate at such.

I think this pretty firmly falls into satirical license as a commentary on meme culture, and how people care more about the messenger than the message.

> Counter example: Trump new about the severity of covid and downplayed it for quite some time instead of trying to rally the country.

The irony is that the pandemic was such a slam-dunk easy win politically. Handled with the minimum level of political savvy, this was a dead simple way to send his approval ratings into the van allen belt, just like Bush post-9/11. I think his personal financial stake in the hospitality industry clouded his judgment and prevented him from taking advantage of the biggest election campaign tailwind in a generation.

I remember when asked about what to say to the American people about the pandemic who are scared. His response was to lash out. It was such a easy slam dunk question, I was almost inspired to create a you tube video asking people to remix it and answer the question like a president.

I think this scenario was a textbook example of why the traditional norm for incoming presidents to divest from their businesses exists. His head was probably spinning like a gyroscope over his business empire cratering and his loans coming due.

We can only imagine how things would've turned out if we'd had leadership with an unbiased focus on national unity and the greater good. He could very easily have had a landslide re-election.

Mulling it over, he could have made sooo much by reconfiguring them into humane quarantine centers, without the need to have FEMA-camps, or things like that.

>Trump new about the severity of covid and downplayed it for quite some time

Trump neither tried to hide the existence of COVID from the public nor thought it would topple civilization and kill him personally. He downplayed it and the risk it posed, but that is a different order of lying. Trump said exactly as much as he thought he could get away with, and no more.

>There absolutely can be some fanatical base that will construct shared delusional propaganda to avoid the realization that they've been conned.

Sure, but COVID-deniers are a fringe and any political calculus that depends on denying COVID is therefore bound to fail. It is equally clear that denying the existence of an earth-shattering asteroid makes no political sense.

You're right, it doesn't make sense. People do things that don't make sense.

The president in Don't Look Up didn't think it would topple civilization and kill her personally. They thought the plan to break it up and mine it would work. They took a greedy gamble on the fate of the world and lost.

In so doing, they took for granted all of the amazing technology that we have and disregarded expert opinions.

Likewise with trump, who had worked to dismantle the existing pandemic playbook[0] took for granted how well our medical response would be. He regularly disregarded expert opinions, or simply did not speak with them[1]. He even worked to make it difficult for states to get help, because he lost the vote there[2].

In my opinion, these actions do not make sense, yet they were taken by an actual POTUS.

With that in mind, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that a POTUS would try to leverage the event for political gain, and use it opportunity for personal profit, and that a sizable amount of the population would support it.

And you're right. It makes no sense. It's mind mindbogglingly dumb. Still plausible.

[0] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/obama-team-left-pandemic...

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/23/fauci-says-trump-hasnt-atten...

[2] https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/494807-trump-ask...

Looks to me like Hollywood's obsession with Trump is never ending. Makes sense - they pretty much created him.

I think this is a bit of a straw man. Yes, people sometimes do things that aren't in their rational self-interest, even capaciously understood. But we are talking about a specific scenario.

The question is: would the President, told of an imminent asteroid collision large enough to destroy human civilization, and knowing this information would leak if she did not announce it, elect to hide this information for a month until after the midterms for no particular reason?

You say "They thought the plan to break it up and mine it would work." At the time of the decision of whether to announce the existence of the asteroid, and create a plan, there obviously was no plan. So no, she didn't think that.

>"Likewise with trump, who had worked to dismantle the existing pandemic playbook[0] took for granted how well our medical response would be. He regularly disregarded expert opinions, or simply did not speak with them[1]. He even worked to make it difficult for states to get help, because he lost the vote there[2]."

Again, this isn't the point. Even Trump never tried to deny the existence of COVID. Clearly that would not have worked and would have exploded in his face.

>They went to the NYT, who inexplicably decided that they would forego running the biggest story in human history

My understanding was they ran the story and the morning tv show was part of a media tour they set up, the response on the tv show such that they did not really want to continue with the big media blitz and publishing more stories that they had planned.

>Returning to the NYT offices, they're told that the journalists were able to confirm their findings with well-respected third party scientists, but that because one of the astronomers got upset in air, they weren't going to run the story

They had ran it by other scientists in the initial meeting who said that the data looked credible. However after the disastrous media appearance one of the things that made the NYT not want to continue with writing more articles was that they had learned the science was not 100% and they were mad they had been lied to.

Who said the science was not 100%? Dr. Jocelyn Calder the head of NASA, later Calder resigns in disgrace to shield the administration when scientist with Ivy League credentials confirm the comet is coming.

on edit: formatting, grammar

I always thought the asteroid threat was the pandemic.

It seems that way because it tracked how the pandemic played out really closely, but they wrote the script before the pandemic started. It was meant as commentary on climate change.

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