Hacker News Reader

Comment by bostonsre | Hacker News Reader

I think the point isn't to lay claim to representing planet earth, the point is to unite people on earth to stop the tribalism and bickering over trivial crap. We are a pale blue dot in a sea of blackness and the world would be a better place if everyone thought we were on the same team.

View on HN

I would assume tribalism comes from conflict over limited resources, and not because everyone failed to agree on a logo. I would also assume that there are forces that benefit and profit from fomenting and hosting this "bickering" and simply draping some new bunting over the whole mess isn't going to change much.

Maybe we can drive attention to the logo so we start bickering about it and not about limited resources.

Maybe some of the tribalism is due to fighting over limited resources but I don't think it can solely be blamed in a society of plenty like the United States and other places.

I don't believe the overview effect is made up. Simply doing nothing and letting it continue seems like a shit option. Anything that attempts to give people better context to unite instead of divide seems worth while to me.

Plenty of people, including myself, want nothing to do with some other tribes, it's our prerogative, not yours.

The 'everything flag' will mostly mean the 'USA + kind of China and sometimes UK/EU/Japan' flag.

Just China and India have a lot more people than the US.

So then I suppose the Earth flag will be for the people who are willing to share the Earth, and the non-Earth flags can be for those who do not wish to share.

lol!

If by 'share' you mean a small minority dominate and obfuscate the input of everyone else, then sure.

Yep, until there is a planet threatening asteroid or an alien invasion or a clusterfuck of a climate crisis. It is easy to see coming together for an immediate crisis but I don't understand why a slow moving trainwreck crisis doesn't convince everyone that we're all human beings in this together and that we as a species would be better off in the long run to be on the same team.

“People on earth” is a pretty huge group, but I think given the right kind of publicity, a fraction of them could find themselves united in their dislike of the purveyors of that flag.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com