[HN Gopher] Larry King has died
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Larry King has died
        
       Author : Anon84
       Score  : 384 points
       Date   : 2021-01-23 13:16 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (twitter.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
        
       | janmo wrote:
       | HN is turning into an obituary. Brad Cox yesterday, Larry King
       | today.
        
         | TillE wrote:
         | This has been a persistent issue for years. The obituaries are
         | a really weird quirk of HN, which is otherwise not a general
         | news site. Some public figure dies, no particular relevance to
         | this site's users, nobody has anything especially interesting
         | to say, but there's the post at the top of the page. Baffling.
        
         | Simon_says wrote:
         | Lotta that goin' around.
        
         | JoeAltmaier wrote:
         | There's a 'hide' button below each submission title. I suggest
         | hitting that when some post isn't riveting. Saves on pointless
         | complaining.
        
           | janmo wrote:
           | Thanks, I think it would be great if HN would have more
           | categories/tags. There is already the "Show HN" which is
           | great.
           | 
           | And then an option to hide/follow a certain tag/category.
        
       | alexjplant wrote:
       | One of the more amusing cultural intersections I've seen is Larry
       | King on Snoop Dogg's YouTube channel... though I guess given the
       | latter's collaborations with Martha Stewart it shouldn't be
       | _that_ surprising. RIP.
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8awqtaD3LAI
        
         | king_panic wrote:
         | Snoop dogg is as pop culture as Martha Stewart and Larry King
         | and has been for awhile
        
       | williesleg wrote:
       | Witch wife gets the mother load?
        
       | baxtr wrote:
       | I always enjoyed his interviews especially his calm style. It's
       | maybe not that relevant, but: he died of/with Covid... R.I.P.
        
         | nerdponx wrote:
         | I think it's relevant. He might have had more time, and his
         | family would have had more time with him.
         | 
         | All of the US politicians who obstructed a proper pandemic
         | response back in March have his and 350k others' blood on their
         | hands.
        
           | rayiner wrote:
           | > All of the US politicians who obstructed a proper pandemic
           | response back in March have his and 350k others' blood on
           | their hands.
           | 
           | What about all the other big EU countries that have
           | comparable death rates? (The UK, France, Spain, Italy, etc.)
           | And what about the countervailing economic devastation caused
           | by lockdowns?
           | 
           | How much "blood" does Fauci and the CDC have on their hands
           | for lying about masks early in the pandemic?
           | 
           | Moralizing public policy like this is one of the worst ideas
           | we've had in the last few decades and we need to goddamn cut
           | it out.
        
             | dahart wrote:
             | > Moralizing public policy like this is one of the worst
             | ideas we've had in the last few decades
             | 
             | Amen. Politicizing and protesting mask wearing is the
             | dumbest thing Republicans could have done to their _own_
             | agenda of keeping the economy going. I really don't get it.
             | What our leaders should have been asking us to do is wear a
             | mask to go out shopping safely. At least Fauci admitted it
             | was a mistake to say early on not to get masks, at least
             | his statements were aimed at protecting COVID responders,
             | and at least he corrected it fairly early on.
        
               | craftinator wrote:
               | The way I read that whole situation with Fauci, it seemed
               | like there was a presidential order not to encourage mask
               | wearing. The CDC should've know better; in fact, I think
               | they did. I'm by no means involved in the medical field,
               | but simple physics tells me that a layer of stuff between
               | me and another person means less of my gems get to them.
               | If you're a professional in that area of study, I imagine
               | there's zero doubt that masks are the right choice. No
               | downside, only upside. By similar logic, Fauci knew. Then
               | at some point it seemed like he realized he would
               | probably get fired no matter what he said, so he grew a
               | pair and started speaking truth.
        
               | rayiner wrote:
               | Yes, it was incredibly stupid. But so was people throwing
               | around "blood on your hands" rhetoric every time someone
               | mentioned the very legitimate need to reopen the economy.
               | I remember American media flipping out over Trump saying
               | we can't stay locked down forever, and then watching
               | Germans nod soberly along while Angela Merkel said the
               | exact same thing.
               | 
               | We've become addicted to moralizing political decisions.
               | Reagan unfortunately is responsible for a lot of that,
               | also Gingrich. But since Obama Democrats have run with
               | that tactic too.
        
               | skedaddle wrote:
               | Angela Merkel is taken seriously because she's a serious
               | person. Americans flipped out over Trump because he was
               | in complete denial about the crisis. He had no
               | credibility when he talked about reopening because he was
               | also calling covid-19 the sniffles and inventing
               | ridiculous new "treatments" on the spot. It wasn't wrong
               | to be alarmed.
        
             | cygx wrote:
             | _What about all the other big EU countries that have
             | comparable death rates?_
             | 
             | The US actually is fairly unique in that excess mortality
             | never returned to baseline.
             | 
             | For example, Belgium is one of the European countries that
             | was hit hardest: Mid-April, twice the number of people died
             | per week than the average of 2015-19. The numbers were back
             | to normal a month later (until the next wave hit in
             | August).
             | 
             | In the US, deaths also peaked mid-April. But while deaths
             | were up by a factor of 'only' 1.5, excess mortality _never_
             | went back to normal for all of 2020.
        
             | schoolornot wrote:
             | Fauci should've been fired for his original comments on
             | masks. Outrageous! His backpedaling comment on why he chose
             | those words was even worse. Given how long he's been in
             | that role, I believe there are powers at work keeping him
             | in, from Big Pharma or something else.
             | 
             | But I really want to know who decided to abandon HHS' plan
             | to mail masks out to every household. If that person or
             | team can be held accountable, I can overlook Fauci's
             | addiction to being a TV star.
        
             | cmmeur01 wrote:
             | The people who make the policies have morals that leak into
             | them.
             | 
             | Is it moral to force people into work without protection
             | and no recourse against their employer when they get sick
             | and their family member dies? Sounds like we should make a
             | moral judgment against that policy and the ones who made it
             | to me.
        
             | maxerickson wrote:
             | "What about all the other big EU countries that have
             | comparable death rates? (The UK, France, Spain, Italy,
             | etc.)"
             | 
             | Yeah, they shit the bed too, what's your point?
        
               | rayiner wrote:
               | Do all those politicians "have blood on their hands" as
               | well?
        
               | maxerickson wrote:
               | There's widespread criticism of the pandemic response in
               | England, France, etc.
               | 
               | Are you just objecting to the phrase? It seems obvious
               | enough that Trump is responsible for much of the failure
               | in the US, failure that exacerbated the death toll. If he
               | had done sensible things instead of dancing around
               | talking about injecting bleach, it's painfully likely it
               | would have made a difference. And then the choices about
               | who led the response. Why was Kushner involved at all? He
               | had no obvious experience to suggest he should be making
               | decisions (and had pretty much already demonstrated
               | incompetence).
        
               | rayiner wrote:
               | > Are you just objecting to the phrase
               | 
               | Yes, I am, which is why I referred to "moralizing" above.
               | Public policies kill people directly or indirectly. If
               | you reduce GDP growth by 0.5% you can convert that to a
               | body count.
               | 
               | Rhetoric like saying people have "blood on their hands"
               | is just an attempt to emotionalize the issue. And it
               | destroys our political debate and discourse.
        
               | nerdponx wrote:
               | Somehow I feel like reducing a preventable death toll
               | larger than most cities to "rhetoric" is reductio ad
               | absurdum.
        
             | oblio wrote:
             | > What about all the other big EU countries that have
             | comparable death rates? (The UK, France, Spain, Italy,
             | etc.)
             | 
             | Isn't the US richer and also... exceptional? :-)
        
               | rayiner wrote:
               | Covid death rates seem pretty uncorrelated with wealth
               | the world over. As to the US being exceptional--it is in
               | many respects, but quick and coordinated societal and
               | government response has never been one of those things.
               | There is a long-standing joke that "Americans will
               | eventually do the right thing, after they've tried
               | everything else."
        
             | lucian1900 wrote:
             | Several countries have managed to eradicate the virus with
             | very few deaths, so it's clearly possible.
             | 
             | All politicians that valued profits over lives have blood
             | on their hands, all over the world.
        
             | tptacek wrote:
             | I take your point, but the pandemic is different from the
             | economy as a whole+, with different incentives. It is
             | probably possible to keep society running with total
             | indifference to COVID-19, pretending that its death toll is
             | essentially the same as a bad flu. Over a million people
             | would die, but society can metabolize a million deaths
             | without really skipping a beat.
             | 
             | Preventing as many of those deaths as is reasonably
             | possible requires sacrifice and expenditure, and really the
             | only incentive we have to undertake that is moral.
             | 
             | I don't think the problem is that "blood on their hands" is
             | _moralizing_ , but rather that it's _hackneyed_ , _shrill_
             | , and _unpersuasive_.
             | 
             | + _cf downthread_
        
       | shimonabi wrote:
       | I remember him sitting the whole night in that CNN election
       | studio when Kerry lost, looking really upset.
       | 
       | Jon Stewart made fun of his interview style by writing a Larry
       | King interview with Hitler:
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPK1d5Fh0mE
        
       | danso wrote:
       | Larry learning to play the harp, 5 years ago:
       | https://youtu.be/9aexdYSarow?t=96
        
         | throwawaycauseT wrote:
         | I ended up watching a few videos of his, and I found this one
         | of him interviewing Donald and Melania Trump in 2005:
         | https://youtu.be/q4XfyYFa9yo
        
       | simmons wrote:
       | When I was a kid growing up in a small town in the 1980's, radio
       | was my way of finding out about the outside world. I would stay
       | up late at night listening when I was supposed to be sleeping.
       | 
       | I often ended up listening to Larry King's late night radio show.
       | Although unlikely for the medium and time slot, he was somehow
       | able to attract amazing guests, and I learned about a lot of
       | things. I especially remember his interviews with Isaac Asimov
       | and Douglas Adams, which introduced me to those authors. RIP.
        
         | fattire wrote:
         | "Last Chance To See" interview?
        
         | audiometry wrote:
         | I never cared for his tv shows but I recall enjoying his late
         | night am radio show that I listened to each night at my summer
         | university semester in Texas back in 1992. He was pretty quick
         | on his feet dealing w obnoxious callers. For some reason I
         | still recall (and chuckle) him cutting down a nasty caller
         | with, "you, sir, are lonely by the choice of others". Amuses me
         | 30 years later.
        
         | xxpor wrote:
         | Part of the reason he was able to attract guests was because he
         | didn't ask tough or technical questions. That's not a
         | criticism, I think there's more than enough room for both the
         | Larry Kings and Isaac Chotners of the world, and they're both
         | important in their own ways.
        
       | Tade0 wrote:
       | I learned English watching Larry King Live, because that was my
       | father's favourite talkshow during the 90s.
       | 
       | I didn't understand half of what was going on in those
       | conversations, but what stuck with me was the broad spectrum of
       | people he interviewed and how consistently respectful he was
       | towards his interviewees.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | xu_ituairo wrote:
       | Sad.
       | 
       | (Ora Media inserting themselves into the obit so many times feels
       | crass.)
        
       | graupel wrote:
       | Larry King spoke at a conference I was at in the early 1990s and
       | his speech was so good I bought an audio cassette tape copy of
       | it. Wow I sound old!
        
         | hashkb wrote:
         | We're all here talking about a radio host.
        
           | cbozeman wrote:
           | Radio hosts are just podcasters / YouTubers of yesteryear.
        
       | INVEST_IN_UVXY wrote:
       | I couldn't care less about some old white guy. What is with
       | America and it's glorification of white not-so-funny "comedians"?
        
       | ignoranceprior wrote:
       | Larry King previously stated that he wanted his body to be
       | cryopreserved after legal death:
       | 
       | https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/magazine/larry-king-is-pr...
       | 
       | > He has arranged to have his body frozen and then thawed out
       | when researchers discover a cure for whatever killed him -- the
       | so-called cryonics approach. (Unlike Williams, King does not wish
       | to have his dead head cut off.) King told me later that the
       | people behind cryonics are ''all nuts,'' but at least if he knows
       | he will be frozen he will die with a shred of hope. ''Other
       | people have no hope,'' King said.
       | 
       | Also see his interview on Conan:
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF7NpKG_S8g
       | 
       | I wonder he actually ended up signing a cryonics contract or not.
        
         | jelliclesfarm wrote:
         | I am surprised because I thought Larry King was of the Mormon
         | faith. They have some interesting mind virii mythology about
         | post death existence.
         | 
         | ETA: what I meant by 'mind virii' ;
         | https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mind%20virus ..
         | certainly wasn't being disrespectful towards anyone's faith.
         | 
         | From: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viruses_of_the_Mind ..
         | the vocabulary of atheism from my younger days still lingers
         | even though I am on search mode now.
        
           | nso95 wrote:
           | He was Jewish and agnostic
        
             | jelliclesfarm wrote:
             | Got it. Quick googling shows that his ex was Mormon.
             | https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7970945/Larry-
             | King-...
        
               | Netcob wrote:
               | That's the Daily Mail, which should be taken with more
               | than a grain of salt. According to Wikipedia he was
               | indeed Jewish and agnostic.
        
               | jelliclesfarm wrote:
               | I am actually ok with Daily Mail these days. Can't tell
               | the difference from main stream media except for the
               | occasional typo and annoying ads.
               | 
               | I am not a news/media elitist anymore. Things have
               | changed in the past few years.
        
           | ensignavenger wrote:
           | Larry Kings former wife is a Latter-day Saint, he is not.
        
         | microtherion wrote:
         | Neal Stephenson's most recent novel "Fall; or, Dodge in Hell"
         | is about cryonics. As usual, it's sprawling and arguably too
         | long, but as usual, there are interesting ideas in there on the
         | economics and politics of the idea, on simulation vs
         | resurrection, etc.
         | 
         | I found it an enjoyable read.
        
           | AlchemistCamp wrote:
           | Larry Niven wrote an excellent series of short stories on the
           | same premises decades earlier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
           | Flatlander_(short_story_collec...
        
           | jacquesm wrote:
           | That's a good book, actually.
           | 
           | From another one, different author, same theme:
           | 
           | "Case, promise me one thing: when this gig is over, erase me,
           | ok?"
           | 
           | https://williamgibson.fandom.com/wiki/Dixie_Flatline
        
             | wrinkl3 wrote:
             | I'm a fan of Stephenson's work but I couldn't finish Fall.
             | Such a waste of paper.
        
               | jacquesm wrote:
               | I agree it's not his best work but it actually has some
               | pretty good stuff. It's just not as tight as his other
               | books.
        
               | microtherion wrote:
               | It seems that like with Stephen King that the more famous
               | the author gets, the less power the editors get to push
               | back.
               | 
               | In the case of Stephenson, this is counteracted a bit by
               | Stephenson improving his craft somewhat over the years.
               | His earlier novels all had very weak endings in my
               | opinion, and that improved somewhat. But his never novels
               | could use tightening.
        
         | mxcrossb wrote:
         | It seems he passed due to the coronavirus, so hopefully the
         | people of the future have that handled before he is unfrozen.
        
           | cbozeman wrote:
           | If we can reconstitute frozen people with no ill effects, I'm
           | pretty sure we can figure out the coronavirus problem.
        
         | pmoriarty wrote:
         | _" at least if he knows he will be frozen he will die with a
         | shred of hope. ''Other people have no hope,'' King said."_
         | 
         | I've always found it interesting how for most people and in
         | most religions the hope is to be resurrected, go to heaven,
         | and/or live forever, while in Buddhism the point is to escape
         | the cycle of death and rebirth.
         | 
         | It's a completely different approach, which sees more life as
         | something to be avoided rather than desired.
        
           | CapitalistCartr wrote:
           | I'm Buddhist and I'm currently happy with the "cycle of death
           | and rebirth" for now. I have infinite time, after all. And
           | this Human game is fun for now.
           | 
           | Buddha shows the path forward; I'm walking slow.
        
         | prvc wrote:
         | As long as the structure of his brain (at an appropriate level
         | of detail--- how much is enough though?) is preserved for the
         | duration of his ice nap, why couldn't something like a
         | continuation of him be reconstituted some time in the future?
        
         | turing_complete wrote:
         | Why wouldn't you do this if you have the money? :-)
        
           | rriepe wrote:
           | Pascal's wager for the irreligious
        
             | newsbinator wrote:
             | This sounds different than Pascal's wager because it's
             | binary: you have nothing to lose, so preserve or don't
             | preserve.
             | 
             | Whereas in Pascal's wager you have to choose one religion,
             | which by definition excludes other religions.
        
               | rriepe wrote:
               | Here you have to choose a single company to freeze your
               | head. If you choose the right company you get an
               | afterlife, so you might as well choose one, even if they
               | all seem like total bullshit. It is exactly Pascal's
               | wager.
        
               | wzdd wrote:
               | 1. Choose the wrong religion or no religion and you may
               | suffer a fate worse than simple nonexistence. Not so with
               | cryopreservation.
               | 
               | 2. Many religions logically exclude other religions, i.e.
               | if they are correct then other religions are not. This is
               | not the case with cryopreservation, where there is a
               | nonzero chance that more than one company may
               | successfully resurrect you.
               | 
               | 3. Various monotheistic religions don't accept "I think
               | it's total bullshit but I'm going to act as if I believe
               | it anyway" as belief (opinions vary on what exactly is
               | required), whereas cryopreservation companies are happy
               | to take your money regardless of what you privately
               | think.
        
               | rriepe wrote:
               | 1. You're comparing death to death here but the correct
               | comparison is room-temperature death to Hell. Dead-but-
               | cryopreserved is the pre-afterlife state equivalent to
               | death in traditional religions.
               | 
               | 2. How do you revive the frozen heads from companies that
               | couldn't pay their freezer bills three decades ago? You
               | don't. Those heads picked the wrong company. Expecting a
               | just god from some other religion to let you into the
               | afterlife anyway is a common response to Pascal's wager.
               | 
               | 3. Is the word you're looking for here "faith"? I don't
               | think that word helps your argument. I will concede that
               | there's probably no condition where the company unfreezes
               | you and then kills you because you're not up to their
               | standards. Well, unless they find those old bad reviews
               | you left...
        
               | microtherion wrote:
               | AFAIK, there are numerous competing and mutually
               | exclusive preservation technologies, none of them with
               | any track record of success.
               | 
               | Which is obviously entirely different from My Religion
               | which is Known To Be True.
        
             | mensetmanusman wrote:
             | It's different, because it provides an excuse to the rich
             | to hoard their wealth more by preserving the coordinates of
             | ice crystals.
             | 
             | At least religion offers people an excuse towards charity
             | because 'you can't bring anything to the afterlife.'
        
           | tomrod wrote:
           | https://bobiverse.fandom.com/wiki/We_Are_Legion_(We_Are_Bob).
           | ..
        
             | cbozeman wrote:
             | God I love that series.
        
           | nolok wrote:
           | Honestly I would be worried of it because of all the crazy
           | distopia sci fi stuff one that always resonated to me as "I
           | could see it happen" is those where bodies are donated /
           | preserved by a private entity which ends up changing hands
           | god knows how many time until you wake up in a nightmare
           | later on.
           | 
           | Playing SOMA might have ruined it for me...
        
             | arghwhat wrote:
             | What has historically happened is just that the company
             | goes bankrupt, the bodies defrost in random warehouses and
             | is finally disposed of in less-than-respectable fashion.
             | 
             | There is pretty much zero chance that a cryopreserved
             | individual would be revived. They're frozen when dying or
             | dead, the process itself causes significant damage (with
             | every mitigation just trading in a different severe form of
             | damage), and even if future technology could undo _all
             | that_ and somehow make this severely damaged body somewhat
             | operational, why in the world would anyone bother?
             | 
             | The person is forgotten, replaced, and has nothing in their
             | name any more. There is no gain for those reviving them.
        
               | fairity wrote:
               | > What has historically happened is just that the company
               | goes bankrupt, the bodies defrost in random warehouses
               | and is finally disposed of in less-than-respectable
               | fashion.
               | 
               | Source? Based on my research, no cryonic institution has
               | failed in this manner to date.
        
               | RealityVoid wrote:
               | I think op was refferring to the first uhhh, cryonics
               | attempts. They were sad, I recommend giving this podcast
               | a listen: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/354/mistakes-
               | were-made
               | 
               | I'm not sure if any actual official institutions failed
               | in this way.
        
               | henearkr wrote:
               | One solution is to store frozen bodies in a lava tube on
               | the Moon or Mars. Then the company can go bankrupt and
               | that would have no effect.
        
               | mongol wrote:
               | Not so simple solution.
        
               | arghwhat wrote:
               | That's a solution to staying cold, not a solution to
               | avoid getting severely damaged by the freezing process,
               | already being weak/sick/dead at the time of freezing, and
               | there being no realistic outcome other than being reduced
               | to a sad meat popsicle.
        
               | henearkr wrote:
               | Yeah, I know. But at least it addresses one more issue
               | than the current state of the art ^^
        
               | j9461701 wrote:
               | I know personally, if I had the opportunity, I would
               | gladly spent time bringing someone frozen back to life. I
               | don't gain anything, but I also don't gain anything when
               | I donate to charity either. The simple chance to do
               | something good in the world is all the motivation I need.
        
               | arghwhat wrote:
               | I assume the cost to even try would be in the hundreds of
               | thousands to millions of dollars.
               | 
               | Spend that on the living instead. We're already too many
               | as is anyway, no need to also bring the dead back.
        
               | azangru wrote:
               | > why in the world would anyone bother
               | 
               | Why do people want to resurrect the woolly mammoth? ;-)
        
               | arghwhat wrote:
               | Because it's extinct.
        
               | smolder wrote:
               | That's actually possible, because you're not resurrecting
               | _a specific, dead_ wooly mammoth, you 're growing a new
               | one. Natural reproductive processes are an effective way
               | to create living things, unlike thawing corpses with what
               | are almost certainly irrevocably damaged brains.
        
               | saberdancer wrote:
               | Would a dying person be able to set up a trust fund or a
               | bank account/investment that would "live on" when they
               | die. Issue I see here is that the law does not recognize
               | "crypreservation" as continuation of life so all your
               | assets are probably inherited.
               | 
               | I'm sure cryo companies offer this type of safekeeping of
               | money or investment.
        
               | leetcrew wrote:
               | it's hard to have faith that such an account could exist
               | long enough to pay for your revival many years in the
               | future. it would be very tempting for the living to raid
               | large funds that are earmarked for reviving dead people.
               | who would stop them?
        
               | Joeri wrote:
               | They may get lucky. In Heinlein's _The Door into Summer_
               | the protagonist only survives the long sleep because he
               | ends up put into storage with the wrong repository, but
               | that happened to be the one that kept the lights on for
               | 30 years.
        
             | adam12 wrote:
             | I hope this doesn't ruin SOMA for me.
        
               | bentcorner wrote:
               | Don't worry, it doesn't at all. Play it, it's a fantastic
               | game.
        
           | minitoar wrote:
           | Because I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.
        
             | jamesdmiller wrote:
             | Cryonics (I'm signed up with Alcor) can reduce the measure
             | of you being tortured. Assume a multiverse where some
             | versions of you are going to be tortured for a long time.
             | If you sign up for cryonics, if you get brought back most
             | likely you won't get tortured and so this might reduce the
             | percent of you across the multiverse that is not being
             | tortured.
        
               | minitoar wrote:
               | I'm open to this, but I'm not following how getting
               | brought back equates to less torture. Can you elaborate?
        
               | jamesdmiller wrote:
               | Let's say that across the multiverse all versions of you
               | are going to collectively live for 1 billion years.
               | Unfortunately, some versions of you will be tortured and
               | let's assume that collectively you will be tortured for
               | 10,000 years meaning that the measure your torture is
               | 10,000 / 1 billion. But if you sign up for cryonics you
               | most likely only get brought back in a world that has
               | cured death and isn't evil. If many versions of you do
               | sign up for cryonics say you live collectively for 2
               | billion years and are only tortured for 11,000 of these
               | years so the measure of you being tortured is 11,000/ 2
               | billion.
        
               | minitoar wrote:
               | Ah, it was the "probably a non-torturous society will
               | bring you back, since they are more likely to be
               | altruistic" assumption that I was missing. Of course, it
               | only takes one entity to bring you back for an eternity
               | of torture to ruin this logic, as is the case in
               | IHNMAIMS.
        
               | jamesdmiller wrote:
               | Infinity makes decision making really weird since
               | infinity + 1 is the same as infinity so if you are going
               | to be tortured for infinity years it wouldn't be
               | irrational to volunteer to be tortured for an extra year.
        
               | [deleted]
        
           | ur-whale wrote:
           | You should read Transmetropolitan [1]
           | 
           | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmetropolitan
        
           | busyant wrote:
           | > Why wouldn't you do this if you have the money? :-)
           | 
           | I've had these fantasies, too and then I thought, "Why
           | wouldn't you just leave a few cells and then have someone re-
           | clone you?"
           | 
           | The obvious answer is that your memories/experiences are
           | wiped out and what I _really_ want is to continue on with my
           | pre-existing memories/experiences. It would be more optimal
           | if you could pickle your memories, clone yourself and then
           | (at some appropriate time later in life) "re-implant" the
           | memories into your clone. I think that's what people like
           | Larry King are really hoping for.
           | 
           | But then there's all sorts of problems with this (e.g., your
           | loved ones will presumably be gone, so who's going to give a
           | shit about your memories? etc. etc.).
           | 
           | The prospect of death is frightening to most of us.
        
             | prmph wrote:
             | But even if your were to be cloned and your memories re-
             | implanted, that would not necessarily be your consciousness
        
               | hntrader wrote:
               | Agreed, but by that definition my consciousness in 15
               | years isn't me either, since most of the cells in my body
               | will have been regenerated with different particles.
        
             | hntrader wrote:
             | > what I _really_ want is to continue on with my pre-
             | existing memories/experiences
             | 
             | This reminds me of an interesting philosophical question.
             | 
             | To state the obvious, even if the clone had an exact copy
             | of your memories/experiences, that clone isn't you, you've
             | died. If I had a teleportation machine that could
             | "teleport" you to work by destroying you painlessly and
             | instantly at the source location, and reconstruct you
             | particle for particle at destination, how many would use
             | it? I wouldn't, however irrational that may be, because "I"
             | would be dead.
             | 
             | This bias is pretty interesting since by that definition we
             | all die multiple times, as the particles that constitute
             | our body are literally interchanging with the environment
             | over time. But we don't feel uncomfortable about that fact.
        
               | dxhdr wrote:
               | > This reminds me of an interesting philosophical
               | question.
               | 
               | Also known as
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
               | 
               | > This bias is pretty interesting since by that
               | definition we all die multiple times, as the particles
               | that constitute our body are literally interchanging with
               | the environment over time. But we don't feel
               | uncomfortable about that fact.
               | 
               | I've wondered about that, is it strictly true? Aren't
               | there heavy metals and other elements that are
               | accumulated in the body over time? Or at least, they are
               | eliminated so slowly that you'd never rid yourself of
               | them completely before dying. I guess bones replace
               | themselves every 10 years so any incorporated metals
               | would have a chance to be eliminated on that timescale.
               | But what's to stop a few of those elements making their
               | way back into another structure after being ejected into
               | the blood stream? Maybe we've all got a few persistent
               | cadmium or lead atoms hanging out in our bodies from
               | birth to death. Ship of Theseus crisis averted!
        
               | missingrib wrote:
               | It's not really the Ship of Theseus. The question OP was
               | referring to is about the self and the continuity of
               | consciousness specifically. Derek Parfit first proposed
               | it in his book Reasons and Persons.[1][2]
               | 
               | [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletransportation_parad
               | ox
               | 
               | [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasons_and_Persons
        
               | r0m4n0 wrote:
               | Great read... I've had similar thoughts before.
               | 
               | Question though: when that thought experiment is applied
               | to the physical body of a person, aren't our cells dying
               | and being replaced constantly? Does that mean our
               | identity changes over time and with new experiences?
               | (Mind blown)
        
               | [deleted]
        
           | staticman2 wrote:
           | Because it won't work?
        
           | zucker42 wrote:
           | You can spend the money on something that actually helps
           | other people instead.
        
             | xiphias2 wrote:
             | Actually it helps other people: it's used for researching
             | more efficient ways of cryopreservation, thereby making it
             | more accessible.
        
               | mensetmanusman wrote:
               | The same money could be spent on increasing the rate of
               | research in this area by 100-1000x if we could solve how
               | to do this on mice first...
        
               | Aeronwen wrote:
               | The effectiveness of cryogenics goes way down when you
               | don't freeze yourself.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | zucker42 wrote:
               | I believe the chance that anyone who is cryopreserved
               | today will ever be revived is exceedingly small, so I
               | look at the whole venture as futile and in the same way I
               | might look at an overly expensive funeral. Personally, I
               | would spend my money to enjoy my life more while I'm
               | alive, or else to help others in some tangible way.
        
               | xiphias2 wrote:
               | Actually it is important tech for living people as well.
               | The technology De Greg Fahy is working on can be used to
               | freeze and unfreeze organs. It may save your (living)
               | life if you get an organ just at the right time.
        
             | timonoko wrote:
             | After the Final Countdown people will be delighted to find
             | a warehouse full of cryo-preserved well-seasoned meat.
        
             | neilsense wrote:
             | Yawn.
        
           | furyofantares wrote:
           | You don't even need much money all at once, you can use life
           | insurance.
        
           | alisonkisk wrote:
           | If your don't want to be frozen and want to do something
           | useful with your money. If you care about preserving
           | yourself, spread your genes or memes is a more effective way
        
             | kubanczyk wrote:
             | Spreading your memes for money is known as advertising. Not
             | particularly cheap or effective. Didn't hear about anything
             | similar for genes. These two are much better done by
             | investing your own time and your own effort.
             | 
             | Of the remaining important things that money can buy, I
             | think cryogenics is a very decent gamble.
        
               | justinclift wrote:
               | > Didn't hear about anything similar for genes.
               | 
               | Probably the most successful at this that I'm aware of
               | (morality aside) are the IVF doctors who use their own
               | sperm to impregnate women.
               | 
               | Some with _many_ biological children from this. Results
               | from a quick online search:
               | 
               | * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertold_Wiesner
               | 
               | * https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/14/europe/jan-karbaat-
               | fertil...
               | 
               | Oh, this looks relevant too and suggests some other
               | approaches. Harem's and/or being a king seem like winners
               | for those so inclined:
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_the_mos
               | t_c...
        
             | melling wrote:
             | In 500 years when we have the technology to revive him and
             | he can live a few hundred additional years, wouldn't his
             | investment now be better?
             | 
             | The understanding of aging, disease, and death is
             | progressing slowly but a few centuries of research will
             | likely make significant discoveries.
        
           | elmomle wrote:
           | Because it's profoundly selfish--you _might_ buy yourself
           | more life in some unspecified future, or the same money today
           | could definitely save and/or improve many, many lives now.
        
           | coldtea wrote:
           | Because you believe in science, not sci-fi inspired scientism
           | metaphysics, so you know it's 100% bogus...
           | 
           | If, and when, a real method for immortality/life extension
           | emerges, we can jump on it.
           | 
           | Merely frozing a corpse with the idea of some bogus future
           | ressurection technology (that will still retain memories etc)
           | is wishful thinking.
           | 
           | Not to mention those cryo-preserves will be shut down with
           | narry a thought in the first case of crisis...
        
         | BrandoElFollito wrote:
         | I remember a short movie (from "The Outer Limits?") where
         | frozen bodies where entangled spiritually and there was a
         | psychopath in the group that was making a hell of their lives.
         | 
         | I do not remember the exact story but the idea was interesting
         | to the 22yo me at that time (some 25 years ago)
         | 
         | EDIT: I think this is "The Refuge" (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki
         | /pmwiki.php/Recap/TheOuterLimits1...)
        
           | stopChanging wrote:
           | sounds like Ubik
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | kilroy123 wrote:
       | I saw him several times at Dodger stadium. I never met him as I
       | didn't want to go bother the guy.
       | 
       | For those that don't know, he was a massive baseball and Dodger
       | fan and would sit right behind home plate. He could often be seen
       | on TV.
       | 
       | He would often go to games and just sit at the bar watching from
       | inside. Crazy but I guess he felt more comfortable there at the
       | stadium instead of at home.
       | 
       | RIP Larry
        
         | xbar wrote:
         | My older brother introduced me to intellectual literature,
         | Larry King, the Dodgers, and PBS cooking shows in the 1980s.
         | 
         | I wish I had kept as up to date with all of them as I did with
         | Larry King for the rest of his career.
         | 
         | RIP
        
       | tux1968 wrote:
       | Always enjoyed his interviews and his style. I happened to just
       | watched a very short clip of him talking about his fear of death
       | with Norm Macdonald last night. Guess we all have to face that
       | moment, and even though he had a long and successful life i'm
       | sorry for him and his family now.
       | 
       | I linked the clip[1] below, but it may be a bit disconcerting and
       | too soon to view for some.
       | 
       | [1] https://youtu.be/8ZKq7CoZv4w
        
         | rococode wrote:
         | Here's another clip of him repeating that fear:
         | https://twitter.com/OfficialCHall/status/1352971460206276609
         | 
         | Definitely more than just an off-hand comment, and, I think,
         | quite a common fear among successful people. Bill Gates, Peter
         | Thiel, Larry Ellison, and a handful of other tech execs have
         | all shared how uncomfortable they are with death ("I don't
         | understand how someone can stop existing", greatest fear is not
         | being able to think, "death is a terrible, terrible thing",
         | etc.).
        
         | alsetmusic wrote:
         | Sad news that he died.
         | 
         | I don't identify with a fear of "not existing." Not existing
         | doesn't have a negative connotation to me. It's an absence of
         | awareness, so who cares?
        
           | dkersten wrote:
           | Right. I wasn't scared of the time before I existed, so why
           | would I be scared of the time after.
        
             | tolbish wrote:
             | Because you've become rather fond of existing and would
             | like to keep it that way?
        
             | fattire wrote:
             | Counterpoint: I am extremely scared of the fact that I
             | don't exist on Antarctica and in the center of the
             | Andromeda galaxy. And 10 meters below where I am. I'm just
             | as dead on my roof right now. I'm dead in most of the
             | universe RIGHT NOW and this is terrifying.
        
               | fattire wrote:
               | Update: I've just discovered I am not alone. Turns out
               | Hannibal Hamlin, Abraham Lincoln's V.P., is just as
               | dead/not in existence on my roof. This is very
               | disconcerting and I hope there are no more ghosts like
               | this in my vicinity.
        
             | jamesrcole wrote:
             | it's not being scared of that time after you've died, it's
             | being scared of no longer being able to exist.
        
           | taneq wrote:
           | The survival instinct is the most basic drive in any living
           | thing. If the idea of ceasing to exist truly doesn't make you
           | uncomfortable then it might be worth talking to a
           | professional...
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | abellerose wrote:
             | Ah yes, the mentality that anyone that doesn't fear what I
             | fear must be mentally ill in some way.
        
             | isoskeles wrote:
             | Some people say they don't fear death because they think it
             | makes them sound brave.
             | 
             | So I don't usually believe what people say about themselves
             | on this topic. Unless they're quite old or lived through
             | cancer or some similar situation where they had to confront
             | their mortality, I won't assume they know how they truly
             | feel about their death. It's just an idea when expressed
             | with words, and simply thinking about it may not evoke real
             | emotions.
        
             | saberdancer wrote:
             | There is a difference between survival instinct (would I
             | swim up, jump to avoid getting hit by a car or duck if
             | something is thrown at me) with fear of death.
             | 
             | I don't fear death, I fear the process of dying, I wouldn't
             | want it to be painful or slow, but not existing, that I do
             | not fear.
        
               | spacedcowboy wrote:
               | Agreed, and we'll said
        
             | staticman2 wrote:
             | Many religions are all about not fearing death as a goal.
             | If your immediate reaction to hearing someone doesn't fear
             | death is talk to a professional you have an interesting
             | take on what professionals are for.
        
               | dota_fanatic wrote:
               | Those belief systems also tend to have things in store
               | for the individual after death, though. Why should one
               | fear death itself if it's actually the means to travel to
               | a place where 72 virgins are waiting for them? Not
               | disagreeing with your second sentence.
        
               | jazzyjackson wrote:
               | The "ego in heaven" stuff is in the washed down religion
               | for mass appeal, the actual mystical practices, whether
               | islam christian or hindu/buddhist are overcoming
               | attachment to your identity on earth, to identify your
               | 'self' with the infinite unfolding of the universe so you
               | know that 'you' never die, you just stop looking out this
               | window.
        
           | dalbasal wrote:
           | At some point, you get to fundamentals. "Why live?" is not,
           | IMO answerable logically or by reference to other things.
           | 
           | That said, wanting not to die is fairly compatible with all
           | our other beliefs and judgements. Murder is bad, for example.
           | That's pretty compatible with not wanting to die.
        
           | warent wrote:
           | Many people see birth and death as a clearly defined ultimate
           | boundary: the final infinite wall; a big blank room forever;
           | the bookends of existence.
           | 
           | but our origin can be traced backwards forever: present day;
           | yesterday; childhood; exiting the womb; formation in the
           | womb; initial conception; individual cells split between two
           | people; grandparents; formation of the elements of the solar
           | system; beginning of the universe; etc.
           | 
           | Presently and onward we are also experiencing death: cells
           | are dying and creating anew; elements breakdown and reform;
           | etc.
           | 
           | In this way we can see life and death are convenience
           | abstractions for speech, but neither are real. This is an
           | endless process of transfiguration and change.
           | 
           | So what shakes me is the possibility that nonexistence and
           | existence are an illusion, and this is just eternity
        
             | acct776 wrote:
             | You are One with the swirling oceanic vortex that Is.
        
           | hackerNoose wrote:
           | You don't fear it because it's an abstract thing to you. If
           | you'll have an moment of facing impeding doom your primal
           | instincts will rear it's head no doubt.
        
             | rohit89 wrote:
             | Unless you're sick and in pain, in which case you'll be
             | wishing for it.
             | 
             | I also don't fear not existing. But I do fear the
             | possibility of an afterlife.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | djitz wrote:
           | People who want to maintain awareness.
        
             | DJBunnies wrote:
             | That's their point though. They wont have any.
        
               | jamesrcole wrote:
               | The person said "who cares?". This is an issue about
               | people who are _still alive_ and their attitude towards
               | death. What you 're saying doesn't apply.
        
               | alisonkisk wrote:
               | They like their life and want a future.
        
               | DJBunnies wrote:
               | That does not conflict with the premise though.
        
               | scsilver wrote:
               | Are people who are drawn to the spotlight more likely to
               | care about what people think of them when they are not
               | around/dead.
        
               | DJBunnies wrote:
               | Based on this Larry King example, I would agree. It seems
               | related to ego and image.
        
               | fattire wrote:
               | Yeah, what an ego-maniacal self-centered jerk this guy is
               | not wanting to die.
        
       | gdubs wrote:
       | I will forever associate Larry King with the movie "Spin". [1]
       | It's a rather brilliant indie documentary about the 1992 (Bill
       | Clinton / HW Bush) election based on a fascinating technological
       | element: back then, Satellite TV feeds would often just keep
       | running during commercial breaks, or warmups.
       | 
       | So the director recorded a TON of footage from these moments
       | where the politicians and news anchors acted themselves,
       | seemingly unaware that anyone was watching.
       | 
       | The segments with Larry King are, um, memorable. Very candid
       | moments.
       | 
       | 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_(1995_film)
        
         | antaviana wrote:
         | Today I watched "Contact". Coincidentally, both Larry King and
         | Clinton appear in cameos (I think that Clinton's cameo was
         | unauthorized, though.)
        
         | dfee wrote:
         | Looks like a great watch. Unfortunately, I can't find Spin
         | available anywhere - paid or less public.
         | 
         | Kinda disappointing to see content like this virtually
         | extinguished.
         | 
         | Actually, it may be up on YouTube in full:
         | https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Uock08dy19s
        
         | nickysielicki wrote:
         | They still do that. See https://www.lyngsat.com/america.html
         | 
         | If you guys think "fuck it, we'll do it live" was bad, you
         | should have seen Barbara Walters. I wish I recorded some of it.
         | All these people in media have egos like you wouldn't believe.
        
         | ridaj wrote:
         | Thanks for the recommendation
         | 
         | This one's pretty good: https://youtu.be/VCUIlV-AKY4
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | PIKAL wrote:
           | How is it possible for any intellectually honest person to
           | downvote a piece of raw, unedited and candid video footage?
           | How?
        
           | cal5k wrote:
           | While the conspiracy theorists seem to love that one, I think
           | he meant "serve" as in "serve on your cabinet".
        
             | ridaj wrote:
             | Obviously... What else do the conspirationists think it
             | mean?
        
               | krapp wrote:
               | Likely that Ted Turner was offering to have CNN serve as
               | a propaganda machine for the Clinton Administration or
               | the Democratic Party at large, due to their common
               | political sympathies.
        
           | SkyMarshal wrote:
           | Thanks. I haven't seen it, but this looks like it might be
           | the full documentary:
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlJkgQZb0VU
           | 
           | Here's the part where the documentary explains how he got all
           | the behind-the-scenes footage:
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlJkgQZb0VU&t=3m58s. TLDR -
           | raw video from remote studios were first beamed via satellite
           | to the Network's HQ for editing and "packaging". But back in
           | those days, people with satellite boxes could intercept and
           | view the raw pre-packaged feeds.
        
             | cbhl wrote:
             | You should also be able to find it on the Internet Archive.
             | 
             | https://archive.org/details/SPINSpringer1995
        
               | Stratoscope wrote:
               | In fact it looks like the film was uploaded to IA by
               | Brian Springer (the filmmaker) himself, along with many
               | of the source tapes:
               | 
               | https://archive.org/details/@brnspring
        
               | tomjakubowski wrote:
               | There's a slightly longer version (1hr15 to credits)
               | here. I'm not sure what the differences are.
               | https://mediaburn.org/video/spin/
        
       | chovybizzass wrote:
       | Long Live King Larry. back when CNN actually had news.
        
         | wesleywt wrote:
         | Its still news. You just want to an opinion, which is not news.
        
         | smoyer wrote:
         | Oh how I long for the days when any of the "news channels"
         | actually had news. Is there anybody who simply states facts
         | anymore?
        
           | treeman79 wrote:
           | Jamie Dupree is what I consider a gold standard reporter of
           | trying to get personal bias out of reporting.
        
           | geff82 wrote:
           | Euronews simply has facts.
        
           | pmoriarty wrote:
           | _" Is there anybody who simply states facts anymore?"_
           | 
           | Which facts?
           | 
           | Picking and choosing which facts to report is in itself a way
           | of controlling the narrative.
        
           | Cthulhu_ wrote:
           | Plenty, but you have to find them first.
           | 
           | But even if news LOOKS like they stick to the facts, you
           | should still look at them critically and get your news from
           | multiple sources; they can still influence your opinion
           | simply by omission or by emphasis (random example: put a
           | muslim terrorist attack front and center, put a nazi
           | terrorist attack in a byline or not publish it at all).
           | 
           | The news items themselves can be presented neutrally, but
           | what news to present and how still matters.
        
             | wiredfool wrote:
             | How do you put a terrorist attack in a byline?
        
               | oceanplexian wrote:
               | Simple, do what they are doing with the Nashville bombing
               | and the Las Vegas shooting before that. Don't bother
               | investigating any relatives, family members, or
               | neighbors. Do a few fluff interviews with the FBI or the
               | police and put it somewhere at the bottom of the page.
        
           | redis_mlc wrote:
           | No because:
           | 
           | 1) Glenn Greenwald said that US journalists must toe the
           | leftist narrative or they will be shunned by fellow
           | journalists
           | 
           | 2) Youtube has just demonetized one of the few remaining
           | independent media outlets, NTD/Epoch Times.
        
           | mgkimsal wrote:
           | "facts", when presented individually, can create almost any
           | impression the fact presenter wants to create. and that's
           | what we've been seeing so much of - people looking at "facts"
           | outside of larger contexts, and (intentionally or not)
           | drawing wrong conclusions.
        
             | brobdingnagians wrote:
             | You are correct there. It is easy to take two facts and
             | extrapolate almost anything you want. I think the issue is
             | that in a lot of modern news the facts are lost in the
             | opinions and rhetoric and extrapolation to the party line.
             | It is better to have lists of facts than lists of opinions;
             | and even better to have a coherent collection of facts that
             | all corroborate one another. It is good to have a variety
             | of primary sources and hard data over a long time period.
             | Too often the news just quotes a death figure without
             | giving you context of how many people usually die in a
             | year, or other information; presumably that data exists. It
             | would be much better to have death rates for each year over
             | the last hundred years, then be able to compare.
        
               | mgkimsal wrote:
               | I had months of people telling me the 'fact' that "Fauci
               | said not to wear a mask! That's a fact! Go read it here!"
               | 
               | When presented with "well, he also later said 'wear a
               | mask' - which is also a fact"... I would get "fake news"
               | or "he flip flops and therefore can't be trusted". When
               | pointed out they were still 'trusting' the "don't wear a
               | mask" fact... things usually ended there, with some
               | profanity thrown my way.
               | 
               | When more information was presented, it was almost always
               | countered with "that's just your opinion". Or... "I don't
               | trust CNN", etc. At some point a switch flips with many
               | people and "facts" only count when they match your
               | internal belief system.
        
           | iso1210 wrote:
           | Which facts?
           | 
           | A list of facts is often biassed.
        
             | brobdingnagians wrote:
             | I think the main issue is when there are _no_ facts, no
             | primary sources, no hard data.
        
             | guerrilla wrote:
             | That's a second problem. You still need to solve the first
             | one to even have that one.
        
           | pmorici wrote:
           | PBS News Hour? There isn't enough of National or Global
           | importance to fill a 24/7 broadcast so any channel that needs
           | to fill that amount of time is doomed to have poor quality.
        
             | jghn wrote:
             | They'll repeat, but it's not clear why that is poor
             | quality. It's not a _bad_ thing that there's not true,
             | honest to goodness, novel news at all hours of the day.
        
           | jghn wrote:
           | Al Jazeera English (can't speak to the other streams) has
           | 30-60 minute blocks of actual news throughout the day.
           | Another benefit is that they have a more global perspective
           | so those news blocks are a lot more likely to be covering the
           | unrest in Darfur than a human interest story about a woman in
           | Idaho who just ate her 10000th Big Mac
        
             | p1esk wrote:
             | Not gonna lie, I'm more likely to click on Big Mac woman
             | video than on unrest in Darfur.
        
           | brobdingnagians wrote:
           | I wish more people would post primary sources & hard data. A
           | lot of people will disagree with the content, but "The Last
           | American Vagabond"[1] does a good job of presenting primary
           | sources (usually medical journals/studies, gov't press
           | releases, interviews, CDC, WHO etc.); includes links to all
           | of them in all show notes so you can look through all of it.
           | The main point here is that including primary sources is
           | important, and I don't see most people doing that. I wish
           | more news sources would include the primary sources and more
           | hard data to support their position.
           | 
           | [1] http://thelastamericanvagabond.com/
        
             | codysan wrote:
             | It's just as misleading to string together dozens of
             | "sources" in an article to prop up a narrative. It appears
             | to me that the website you've linked is just playing on
             | peoples paranoia, a la YouTube "news" channels. If the
             | actual content has to chase the dramatic headline the
             | entire time, you can be sure that it's a whole lot of BS.
        
         | aero-glide2 wrote:
         | News channels were always like this. We just have the internet
         | to cross check now.
        
           | brobdingnagians wrote:
           | I think some news was always like this; but I think
           | investigative journalism like Glenn Greenwald used to be
           | given more time in the primetime news. Really shocking things
           | were uncovered and actually spread (like Norman Gorin's 60
           | Minutes Report on 1976 swine flu). There is news that is
           | fantastic now, but it is getting pushed further and further
           | out.
        
           | codysan wrote:
           | News channels do not broadcast 24 hours of news. The majority
           | of programming are personalities, opinions and "recaps." The
           | actual news comes on in hour-long chunks once early in the
           | morning, mid-day and at primetime.
        
             | matwood wrote:
             | > The actual news comes on in hour-long chunks once early
             | in the morning, mid-day and at primetime.
             | 
             | Yep, even Fox has some 'real' news a few times a day. Or at
             | least they did until Sheppard Smith quit.
        
             | Cthulhu_ wrote:
             | I'm not going to say my news is perfect, but it's from a
             | non-commercial / nonpartisan organization, they get money
             | from the government / taxes (which is less than ideal, but
             | their independence is codified I believe), etc. It sticks
             | to the news, professional-like.
             | 
             | Switch to the commercial channels (we thankfully don't have
             | major 24 hour news channels) and the news on there has much
             | more er, Personalities, quirkiness, some silly background
             | news, and a weatherman that travels the country to visit
             | events and petting zoos and shit.
        
               | codysan wrote:
               | State-funded media has it's own problems but at least
               | there's some accountability which is effectively
               | nonexistent for large media companies. As long as the
               | free market rewards sensationalism, there will be profit
               | driven "journalism." Ultimately, the general populace
               | needs to be educated on the veracity of news in the
               | digital age; how to spot a misleading headline, and how
               | to corroborate actual expository works.
        
               | specialist wrote:
               | As you well know:
               | 
               | The trick is paying attention long enough to determine if
               | sources stay consistent, issue proper corrections &
               | retractions, are intellectually honest, etc.
               | 
               | Or if the purveyors are just hacking ratings, for more ad
               | revenue.
               | 
               | In the 80s, I eschewed a career in broadcast media. I
               | _loved_ the gear, doing creative stuff, working in the
               | studio. But absolutely hated the business.  "If it
               | bleeds, it leads."
               | 
               | We've been complaining about outrage engines since the
               | beginning. Social media just made things much much worse.
        
           | phkahler wrote:
           | >> News channels were always like this. We just have the
           | internet to cross check now.
           | 
           | CNN was not in the beginning. They were a scrappy news
           | channel that came to prominence with real reporting (most
           | notably in the Iraq war). They got corrupted once it was
           | clear they could not be ignored.
           | 
           | News sources have probably always had bias, but it was never
           | such blatant characature back in the day.
        
             | ecopoesis wrote:
             | CNN launched in 1980. The Gulf war was in 1990. Larry King
             | Live premiered on CNN in 1985.
             | 
             | CNN has long been a mix of news and opinion, like all news
             | media ever. That's why media exists: to push facts and
             | interpretations of those facts.
             | 
             | Media is not a charity: William Randolph Hearst and Ted
             | Turner want something for their money: they want to control
             | the narrative.
             | 
             | It has always been blatant: you just haven't been paying
             | attention. Hearst started a war! He was such a reviled
             | figure that one of the greatest movies ever made was made
             | to dunk on him.
        
             | rayiner wrote:
             | I distinctly remember when CNN jumped the shark. It was
             | during the 2000 election coverage when they started
             | introducing all these computer generated graphics.
        
               | asveikau wrote:
               | I remember their coverage of Monica Lewinsky and related
               | issues being pretty annoying, along with the rest of the
               | networks.
               | 
               | I remember when Clinton tried to attack claimed al Qaeda
               | infrastructure after the embassy bombings and made a
               | speech about bin Laden (the first time I heard the name)
               | they asked if it was to distract from Monica. Compared it
               | to the film _Wag the Dog_.
        
             | wisam wrote:
             | I'm not even American, but CNN coverage of the 1990-91 Gulf
             | War really put them on the radar. The whole Middle East
             | watched CNN Live coverage.
        
               | mbg721 wrote:
               | Anecdotally, (and I am American) it was also somewhere
               | between the Gulf War and the OJ Simpson trial that cable
               | changed from some exotic thing that rich people paid for
               | to something a lot of your friends had.
        
               | spaetzleesser wrote:
               | I remember there was this CNN guy in Bagdad that reported
               | the air attacks live from there. That definitely put them
               | on the map.
        
               | dhimes wrote:
               | Wolf Blitzer, IIRC, did that.
        
               | lukateake wrote:
               | Wolf Blitzer was the CNN reporter at the Pentagon that
               | day. He appears in the first video linked above.
        
               | DonHopkins wrote:
               | Al Franken and his One Man Mobile Uplink!
               | 
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHKiVkeup2o
               | 
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCwYfNo3BGU
               | 
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxyMnhqhEII
        
               | spaetzleesser wrote:
               | Just remembered: Peter Arnett. He was the only one who
               | had a phone line out from Iraq during the first attacks.
        
               | evgen wrote:
               | Bernard Shaw and a couple of other reporters from what I
               | remember. I distinctly recall tuning in a few minutes
               | after things started and listening to them hide in the
               | hotel room as Iraqi security started to clear the hotel
               | that all of the reporters were staying in at the time.
        
               | bena wrote:
               | Dude had a cameo in the first Ghostbusters. Larry King
               | was already a known entity. There's a reason CNN picked
               | him up.
               | 
               | Never mind, I got mixed up, you're talking about just
               | CNN.
        
               | selimthegrim wrote:
               | He also went with Snoop to Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles
               | and did not appear to enjoy the food.
        
               | epc wrote:
               | Just in the past week someone posted what appears to be
               | control room video from CNN in 1991 (and others):
               | https://youtu.be/5CxWCWhs-uc - start of the US air war,
               | https://youtu.be/RpClxMvpEmM - second hour.
        
         | koolba wrote:
         | For the curious, that was in 2010.
        
         | epc wrote:
         | Facts don't attract viewers, facts don't pay.
        
           | mxcrossb wrote:
           | Hence why over half of the comments in this thread about the
           | passing of Larry King are about the political bent of CNN
        
         | mbg721 wrote:
         | Was that about the same time period MTV had music videos?
        
         | ecopoesis wrote:
         | Don't parrot popular false narratives. CNN still has news
         | today, though generally only on breaking news type situations.
         | It turns out the Internet is better for headlines then a
         | thirty-minute talking head loop.
         | 
         | And when on CNN Larry King wasn't part of their news operation.
         | He was a talk show radio host. Larry King Live was Oprah for
         | old men. Larry King is big part of why CNN moved away from 100%
         | news.
        
           | beervirus wrote:
           | CNN does still have news. But a lot of what it has is more
           | like unlabeled editorials, treated like news.
        
             | mbg721 wrote:
             | Even Fox News has news, for 30 seconds at the top of the
             | hour or whatever it is.
        
         | _Microft wrote:
         | Stop spreading FUD, CNN actually does have news. Certain parts
         | of the populace might _not like_ their reporting but that's it.
        
           | tspowell wrote:
           | CNN uses clickbait titles and misleading interpretations to
           | pander to their viewers for page views. They are far from
           | respectable.
        
           | briefcomment wrote:
           | I'm sure there's news, but it's always buried under a mound
           | of opinion. And there's news worthy facts that get
           | conveniently left out.
        
             | MobileVet wrote:
             | Every organization has bias, period. Some have more, some
             | have less. The sooner one recognizes and accepts it, the
             | sooner one is able to have constructive conversations and
             | consume media with the appropriate level of skepticism.
             | 
             | News is a business like any other. They require money,
             | which is equal to clicks in the online world. Hate the
             | game, not the player (unless they are purposefully
             | distorting reality).
        
             | PaulHoule wrote:
             | Mostly CNN is sensationalistic and wants to develop an
             | attachment to it's brand. CNN has to fill 24 hrs of TV and
             | has less budget to do it then a network has for the half
             | hour evening broadcast.
             | 
             | That means as little flying to flyover states as possible,
             | never leave WDC or Atlanta, certainly dont send Anderson
             | Cooper to Egypt where he could get beat up by government
             | thugs.
             | 
             | Thus its a lot easier to make the news about yourself;
             | reminds me of the ESPN morning SportsCenter from years ago
             | -- when they ran out of sports lowlights the anchors would
             | get caught abusing people on tape.
        
               | maxerickson wrote:
               | https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/anderson-cooper-
               | attac...
               | 
               | Are you saying they changed in the last 10 years? CNN has
               | revenues in excess of $1 billion, so they are likely
               | spending millions of dollars a day.
        
               | PaulHoule wrote:
               | Yes, they've gotten worse.
               | 
               | AC used to go to interesting places and do interesting
               | things. After he got beat up they'd have him sit behind a
               | desk and report on WDC politicians acting like children
               | except he had to take them seriously instead of calling
               | out their behavior.
               | 
               | Before Trump came on the scene you would hear them talk
               | about themselves on a slow news Sunday, and the big
               | problem they face was low ratings. You might think they
               | just chased away people with saturation cover of school
               | shootings and plane crashes, but they tried many
               | different things and convinced themselves they were doing
               | the optimal thing.
               | 
               | Probably the owners thought about shutting it down, but
               | the presence of Fox News made that seem really
               | irresponsible.
               | 
               | Trump came and it was great for ratings, like 9/11 every
               | day. That's over now.
        
               | dakics wrote:
               | There are Arwa Damon and Clarissa Ward. Then another
               | female anchor, who people-smuggled herself through Africa
               | with a hidden camera. They are all serious badasses, I
               | don't even watch movies that tense.
               | 
               | There will always be another storm season for Chris Cuomo
               | and AC. :-)
        
           | TheAdamAndChe wrote:
           | Watch recordings of the news coverage of 9/11. The news
           | casters were sober and stunned of course, but they were
           | emotionally calm and allowed for moments of silence. They
           | tried to only reference what they considered facts, or were
           | extremely explicit in stating that something was a rumor.
           | 
           | Look at them now. The emotionality of everything is amped up
           | to 11. They reference Twitter constantly. Everything is an
           | existential crisis, and when Trump was in office, everything
           | was his fault. During the 2015 democratic primaries and 2016
           | election, CNN got the nickname "Clinton News Network" because
           | of how one-sided the coverage was.
           | 
           | There's a reason that trust in news is decaying. Though this
           | is kind of a tangent from the main topic.
        
             | isbadawi wrote:
             | Just to clarify, Donald Trump called them "Clinton News
             | Network". I think it's a little misleading to say they just
             | "got the nickname".
        
               | selimthegrim wrote:
               | He took that from Rush Limbaugh
        
             | treeman79 wrote:
             | They always leaned left. But there was an expectation of
             | being neutral, or at least appearing so. Basically being
             | professional.
             | 
             | That restraint has been lost. Watching young reporters is
             | painful in his much they are tying to get jabs in. Like a
             | dog being rewarded for killing neighbors chickens.
        
           | Dma54rhs wrote:
           | It's equivalent of Fox news, they really went insane from all
           | the attention trump gave them. It sure feels like a pure
           | propaganda channel now.
        
           | spaetzleesser wrote:
           | I am pretty left wing but what I have seen from CNN lately
           | was basically a left wing version of FoxNews. Lots of opinion
           | mixed with a little amount of news and clearly geared against
           | Trump. Definitely not the CNN from around 2000.
        
             | ianai wrote:
             | The danger in having so many extremist elements on the
             | right side is, in part, breeding extremism on the left. The
             | situation would be helped if the right side extremism
             | became less extreme - either through lack of interest or
             | conscious choice on their part.
        
             | pmoriarty wrote:
             | _" CNN lately was basically a left wing version of FoxNews.
             | Lots of opinion mixed with a little amount of news and
             | clearly geared against Trump."_
             | 
             | You don't have to be on the left to be critical of Trump.
             | Plenty of right wingers (including Bush Jr) are critical of
             | him. He's made a lot of enemies all over the political
             | spectrum.
             | 
             | To me CNN is basically a right-wing channel, just not as
             | right-wing as FOX.
             | 
             | For real left-wing media, watch _Democracy Now!_ or read
             | _The Nation_.
        
           | forinti wrote:
           | I used to watch CNN, but it just doesn't seem serious
           | anymore. It's all about getting people into heated debates
           | (inspired by Fox maybe?) or presenters having emotions or
           | interviewers trying to corner people with their
           | righteousness. Amanpour has very different approaches
           | depending on who she interviews; her preferences are just too
           | obvious.
           | 
           | The news channel I like best nowadays is Aljazeera. I like
           | some shows on RT, but it is not really a news channel either.
        
           | sparkling wrote:
           | If we are talking about the TV station, 20% of any given news
           | clip are actual information, the remaining 80% are spins and
           | opinion from the editor or host.
           | 
           | Also, we are really stretching the meaning of the word "news"
           | nowadays. Remember this piece?
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixEahmx0Btw
           | 
           | While i have great respect for Larry King, i have lost nearly
           | all respect for CNN. By the way, the same applies to Fox.
        
           | greatwhitenorth wrote:
           | CNN is a warner media company and they're a for profit
           | business. They will say anything to make money. If you're an
           | expert in a topic, read how it's reported in CNN/media. You
           | will see how much they lie and exaggerate.
        
       | betimsl wrote:
       | Ngushellime familjes.
        
       | PaulHoule wrote:
       | In my mind any good he's done was long erased by his
       | informercials for scam supplements -- no wonder old folks hate
       | the Government, most of what they see advertised on TV is fraud
       | in plain site and nobody does anything about it.
        
         | dalbasal wrote:
         | Nothing is erased by other things, luckily. We just have to
         | live with complexity. That's not to say nothing overshadows
         | other things, but if one deed canceled another there would be
         | nearly no deeds.
         | 
         | If you zero out everyone who ever worked for a filthy oil
         | company, pharma, held bad beliefs, buys or sells harmful
         | products, etc... there isn't much that's decent in the world.
         | 
         | High standards is a good thing, and we should strive to live
         | our ideals but there is a gulf between our ideals and our
         | present reality. "To hell with reality" is not a viable
         | perspective.
         | 
         | If you are reborn born a pharaoh's prince tomorrow, is the only
         | moral path fratricide?
        
           | mensetmanusman wrote:
           | Excellent comment;
           | 
           | from The Gulag Archipelago,
           | 
           | "If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil
           | people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it
           | were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and
           | destroy them.
           | 
           | But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of
           | every human being."
           | 
           | I laugh when I see so called progressives acting the same as
           | puritanical early Americans in their infantile understanding
           | of humanity.
        
             | dalbasal wrote:
             | Great quote.
             | 
             | Leonard Cohen's Anthem is about something similar:
             | 
             |  _Ah, the wars they will be fought again / The holy dove,
             | she will be caught again / Bought and sold, and bought
             | again / The dove is never free
             | 
             | Ring the bells that still can ring / Forget your perfect
             | offering. / There is a crack, a crack in everything /
             | That's how the light gets_
             | 
             | George Martin quotes a William Faulkner all the time about
             | fictional subject matter. _"The only thing worth writing
             | about is the human heart in conflict with itself."_
             | 
             | It's why his fantasy stories have that gritty realism. The
             | knights of Gondor riding against the evil horde of Sauron
             | meme becomes parody. Good and evil is more subtle, cuts
             | through the heart of every human being... regularly. The
             | fantasy element is just about scale. It might be a choice
             | between being kinda jerky and nice. Most people can be
             | both. Novels get into a character's head. Stories where
             | good and evil is a conflict within that head feel more
             | real, because that's what it's like inside our heads.
        
             | samstave wrote:
             | There is actual objective good though, and objective evil.
             | 
             | Did you see the video of the chinese man beating Uygur
             | children that were "given" to him because their parents
             | were harvested off to whatever the fuck the chinese
             | government are going to do to those parents.
             | 
             | As a father of three daughters, I would personally kill
             | that motherfucker for what he did to those three little
             | girls.
             | 
             | My actions would be an objectively GOOD thing for humanity
             | by killing that piece of shit. His actions were objectively
             | EVIL and if anyone can watch that video and think there is
             | * _anything*_ ok with it, then they are also objectively
             | EVIL.
        
           | packersville wrote:
           | Thank you for this response. I logged in for the first time
           | in a long time just to thank you!
        
             | dalbasal wrote:
             | thanks
        
         | nindalf wrote:
         | It's funny you should blame the government for this. In the 90s
         | people actually died from shady supplements. In response the
         | FDA tried to expand its authority to regulating these
         | supplements. The industry started a scaremongering ad campaign
         | telling people that they wouldn't be able to get Vitamin C
         | supplements unless they wrote their congressman. Many did. Reps
         | received more letters from their constituents on this one Bill
         | than the entire Vietnam War [1]. In response to pressure from
         | constituents, government reversed course.
         | 
         | The unelected experts in Government tried to do the right
         | thing. It's the people who were so easily misled that forced
         | the end of regulation for dietary supplements.
         | 
         | Paraphrasing what Terry Pratchett said, the problem here isn't
         | that we have the wrong sort of government, it's that we have
         | the wrong sort of people.
         | 
         | [1] - https://youtu.be/WA0wKeokWUU
        
           | samstave wrote:
           | This isn't my first rodeo - can I scam you into a reverse
           | mortgage?
        
           | specialist wrote:
           | Former US Rep Henry Waxman has written about his efforts to
           | regulate supplements. It won't surprise you that certain
           | stake holders, like US Sen Orrin Hatch (Utah), ran
           | interference. (Mormons love their vitamins.)
           | 
           | Older me has come to see these slap fights as generational, a
           | la Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions. It's a really
           | big deal. Until it isn't. Marriage equality, cannabis
           | legalization, banning cigarette ads, yada yada.
           | 
           | One of my political friends worked EIGHTEEN YEARS to pass the
           | most modest portion of some family medical leave legislation.
           | These reforms take tenacity, undying optimism, and no small
           | amount of nuttiness. (Normal people choose to do more normal
           | things.)
        
           | PaulHoule wrote:
           | The same people don't trust the media and I am sure that they
           | lose many percentage points because of scammy ads, not
           | because they think it through, but because the scam ad
           | feelings blend over into the media ezperience.
        
           | hashkb wrote:
           | As for the "wrong sort of people" - iirc, most dangerous
           | ingredients and chemicals from the 90s were diet pills,
           | calorie free sweeteners, appetite suppressants, etc. We'd
           | rather die than have a little dad bod.
        
             | dalbasal wrote:
             | True, but it's a somewhat false dichotomy. More like
             | "rather die than drink unsweetened drinks." A body to die
             | for has a little glory to it. Dying for gluttony is closer
             | to the mark.
        
               | hashkb wrote:
               | I should be just as respected for having a 6 pack as for
               | drinking one every night. I think Terry might agree.
        
             | skizm wrote:
             | More like we'd rather die or be fat than just eat healthy
             | in the first place lol.
        
           | dalbasal wrote:
           | Funny is one word for it.
        
           | microtherion wrote:
           | And to answer with Bertolt Brecht "would it not be be simpler
           | if the government simply dissolved the people and elected
           | another?"
        
         | Spooky23 wrote:
         | King came from overnight talk radio, and scammy supplements
         | have always a big part of that business.
         | 
         | Today it's escalated... bs supplements are like a form of money
         | laundering. How do you think every angry talk show host says
         | the same exact thing at the same time?
        
           | jrochkind1 wrote:
           | Escalated indeed.
           | 
           | "A major funder of the anti-vaccine movement has made
           | millions selling natural health products"
           | 
           | https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2019/10/15/fdc.
           | ..
        
         | Frost1x wrote:
         | Government definitely shares the blame here but let's not
         | forget business practices that humor the idea of directly lying
         | to customers.
         | 
         | Statistically, that older population are the very population
         | that votes for representatives pushing looser
         | regulations/enforcement on businesses that enable these sort of
         | behaviors. Representatives clearly looking out for business
         | interests over the average voter's interest (the consumers)
         | don't help matters.
        
           | PaulHoule wrote:
           | Right, that's why the right wing is so dominant in America:
           | there is a positive feedback loop such that the carnage they
           | cause gives them more power.
        
             | ABeeSea wrote:
             | R: Government doesn't work.
             | 
             |  _R gets elected and proceeds to sabotage government_
             | 
             | R: See government doesn't work!
             | 
             | Example: Trump put Rick Perry in charge of the Department
             | of Energy including our nuclear labs. Rick Perry had
             | previously said the Department of Energy should be
             | dismantled and should no longer exist.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | sidlls wrote:
             | This doesn't deserve downvotes: it's the truth. I'd add:
             | the feedback loop works in part because there really is not
             | a left wing in America. There is a right wing (democrats)
             | and a dangerously unstable, evil extremist wing
             | (republicans).
        
               | [deleted]
        
       | astheydo12 wrote:
       | UK main stream tabloid media is painting this as covid, perhaps
       | not exactly (use of commas and within), but knowingly inferring
       | it was from covid, buried in the article is lung cancer, t2, and
       | several other degenerative diseases. Getting sick of covid fear
       | being spun. Slightly OT.
       | 
       | tl;dr he died. not of covid.
        
       | CyberRabbi wrote:
       | He was mensch. Z"L
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | PIKAL wrote:
       | Decades ago, the news networks used to beam AV via satellite
       | directly from the remote station in the field back to
       | headquarters to be broadcast. They didn't encrypt those signals,
       | so anyone could pick them up if they knew how. This was raw
       | footage, so there would often be candid segments showing people
       | setting stuff up or getting ready for an interview.
       | 
       | Someone recorded a lot of these and later published a multi-hour
       | compilation of them on YouTube. I forget the name of that
       | compilation, but I can tell you that the following is by far the
       | most interesting segment from it.
       | 
       | https://youtu.be/VCUIlV-AKY4
       | 
       | When I try to tell people about this segment, they don't believe
       | me. They write me off as being insane. Decide for yourself. Don't
       | believe what the news media tells you.
       | 
       | Edit: DanG, why is my comment being collapsed when it has ~20
       | upvotes?
        
         | bikitan wrote:
         | "Deciding for yourself" doesn't mean jumping to conspiratorial
         | conclusions based on an ambiguous, off-the-cuff remark from
         | 1992, though. And just looking at the comments on that video
         | you can see what sort of agenda these people are bringing to
         | their judgments.
        
           | 29athrowaway wrote:
           | Most journalism has an editorial line, which is usually
           | aligned with the people that pay the bills. It is the case
           | for newspapers, radio, TV... even websites.
           | 
           | Very rarely you have journalism with neutral editorial lines.
        
             | xxpor wrote:
             | There's no such thing as neutrality. Usually when people
             | talk about neutrality, they really mean status quo, or
             | worse giving equal weight to "both sides" (implying the
             | major US political parties are the only possible views on a
             | subject), without even trying to assertain the truth of the
             | matter.
             | 
             | Journalism isn't simply putting facts down on paper, but
             | it's also interpreting how it affects the reader. Even if
             | you pretend to simply write the who what when and where of
             | a story, you still have to choose what to cover. That in
             | and of itself has no right answer, you inevitably make an
             | idological choice.
        
               | 29athrowaway wrote:
               | You can argue "there's no such thing as neutrality"...
               | but consider the following:
               | 
               | News Station A:
               | 
               | 1. Heavily edited clip of political candidate saying
               | something.
               | 
               | 2. News anchor provides a 10 min opinion of what
               | happened.
               | 
               | 3. An analyst is invited to give their opinion about what
               | happened for 30 min..
               | 
               | News Station B:
               | 
               | 1. Video of what happened.
               | 
               | 2. News anchor describes when it happened and where. No
               | accompanying opinion is provided.
               | 
               | What is more neutral? News Station B, for sure. The first
               | format is the only one available in the US, in my country
               | that format is considered yellow journalism and is
               | unacceptable.
        
           | PIKAL wrote:
           | Raw video footage doesn't have an agenda. You have clearly
           | decided for yourself what the footage means to you. Good for
           | you.
        
           | colordrops wrote:
           | No leaked videos are even necessary. It should be obvious to
           | any critical thinker that CNN is the Democrat version of FOX
           | news with a small amount of viewing.
        
         | na85 wrote:
         | It seems quite obvious to me that Larry is trying to get Ted
         | Turner a job in the Clinton Administration.
         | 
         | What are you seeing there that's so shocking?
        
         | tanotcare wrote:
         | "serve" him in a cabinet position. Hope that clears things up!
        
           | PIKAL wrote:
           | And you would say the same thing if the same footage came out
           | but it was Bill O Reilly, Rupert Murdoch and George Bush
           | instead of Clinton, King and Turner?
        
             | ChrisClark wrote:
             | Um, yes, of course. Isn't it obvious what the context is?
        
               | PIKAL wrote:
               | In what context should billionaire media moguls be
               | serving, colluding or collaborating with politicians of
               | any kind, let alone a presidential candidate?
        
               | CptFribble wrote:
               | There is a long history of presidentially-appointed
               | people saying they "serve at the pleasure of the
               | President." It simply means that they hold the job only
               | so long as the president wants them there.
               | 
               | This has extended "serving" to broader, more casual usage
               | when speaking about people who work for the president as
               | you can see here. It's not "serving" like working as a
               | servant/a billionaire doing whatever the president says
               | in a controlling/exploitative way, it just means that
               | Larry King thinks that Ted Turner wouldn't turn down a
               | cabinet appointment.
               | 
               | You can also infer from the way King says that "what's he
               | got left in life to gain," and Clinton's surprised
               | "you're kidding," that they both consider this kind of
               | service to be a major downgrade from the billionaire life
               | - King saying here that Ted Turner has nothing left to
               | gain indicates a separation in his mind between personal
               | gain and working for the Clinton administration.
               | Clinton's surprised response tells us he feels the same
               | way, surprise that a billionaire would want to work for
               | the president.
        
               | PIKAL wrote:
               | A very substantive comment.
        
               | isbadawi wrote:
               | Has the comment you're replying to made you change your
               | interpretation of the clip?
        
         | qqj wrote:
         | yikes, what a sleazebag. Larry hit the anti-Semitic trifecta
         | (Jews, Israel and media moguls in bed with politicians) in
         | under a minute of just random chit chat. The mind reels at the
         | shady backroom deals this man was responsible for.
        
           | xeromal wrote:
           | I'm being 100% honest here. I'm having a hard time following
           | what he said or the meaning behind it at least. Care to
           | elaborate?
        
             | nickdonnelly wrote:
             | Long and short of it: Ted Turner is the guy who created
             | CNN, a very influential news source in the US. Many people
             | consider CNN to be a "left-wing" news source, and in the
             | clip King talks to Bill Clinton, a democratic politician,
             | about Ted Turner "serving" Clinton after he was elected
             | president.
             | 
             | The use of the word "serving" is the issue, as it sounds
             | like a quid pro quo.
        
               | fattire wrote:
               | It could just as easily mean "serve" as in your
               | administration-- in a cabinet position for example.
        
               | syshum wrote:
               | >> Many people consider CNN to be a "left-wing" news
               | source
               | 
               | Are their people that do see the clear bias of the
               | network?
               | 
               | This is like saying "Many people consider Fox news to be
               | a "right wing" network"
               | 
               | There is no doubt of the political leanings of either
               | network. CNN is/was not called Clinton News Network for
               | nothing.....
        
               | qqj wrote:
               | You have to see this through 90's lens: back then the
               | media wasn't nearly as polarized, and the public had much
               | greater trust in news networks, especially in CNN. "Fake
               | news" was mostly relegated to the domain of conspiracy
               | theories, and blatant promotions of political agendas as
               | neutral news wouldn't fly back then (although, of course,
               | the networks did have an agenda and did promote it, but
               | they were... much more subtle and civil about the whole
               | thing).
        
               | syshum wrote:
               | I was alive, and consuming news in the 90's
               | 
               | In the 90's the bias was shown in the stories they choose
               | to cover and what they choose to ignore not in the
               | coverage itself
               | 
               | this is still true today but now in addition to this bias
               | there is almost zero "strait" reporting, everything has
               | political commentary mixed in, some more subtle than
               | others but it is still there. Even in places like APnews
               | where it is more subtle
        
               | umanwizard wrote:
               | CNN is not really "left-wing" in a broad ideological
               | sense. It's the unofficial mouthpiece of the Democratic
               | Party and the "liberal" side of the US culture war. Note
               | for example how poorly they treated Sanders who was
               | further left than any of the other mainstream candidates.
        
               | JohnJamesRambo wrote:
               | I'm tired of fact-based and reason-based news being
               | painted as 'left-wing". CNN is just the news. I miss when
               | we all watched the same news and it tried to be objective
               | and half the country wasn't watching provably false news
               | and wanting to split off into madness and domestic terror
               | cells and make the human race go backwards.
        
               | mattcwilson wrote:
               | There is a difference between "this news source strikes
               | me as not being too politically extreme in either
               | direction compared to my own views" and "this news source
               | is completely neutral and objective with respect to all
               | political views."
               | 
               | How can you be sure you're not seeing the former and
               | calling it the latter?
        
               | syshum wrote:
               | If you believe CNN is "just the news" then you are
               | suffering from reinforcing confirmation bias as well as
               | echo chamber.
               | 
               | You agree with the positions CNN takes there for it is
               | "news" and outlets that have differing positions to those
               | you agree with are "fake news" and "want to make the
               | human race go backwards"
        
               | syshum wrote:
               | It is 100% NOT the liberal side of the cultural war.
               | There really is no liberal side
               | 
               | The right side is theological authoritarian, the Left
               | side is illiberal Identitarianism which is ironic because
               | identitarianism started out as a "far right" ideology but
               | in a real world example of the horseshoe theory of
               | politics has become far-left authoritarian
        
             | qqj wrote:
             | The way I interpret it, Mr. King is suggesting to Clinton
             | he (Clinton) might be interested in establishing a
             | reciprocal relationship with one of most prominent media
             | moguls and politically influential billionaires, Ted
             | Turner.
             | 
             | Teddy helps Billy with the optics on CNN, maybe funding
             | various campaigns, and in turn Billy helps Teddy with his
             | own projects, like I dunno, passing a bill to kill off
             | competitors and so on.
             | 
             | The yin and yang that are Politics and Media.
        
               | fattire wrote:
               | You're reading QUITE a bit into that.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | fattire wrote:
             | Nothing especially bad. He talks about how incredible it is
             | he reaches so many countries with his broadcast-- at the
             | time a staggering thought-- and to illustrate tells a story
             | of seeing a praying Rabbi at the Wailing/Western wall in
             | Jerusalem who turns to ask king about domestic US politics
             | (Ross Perot, who ran against Clinton and Bush).
             | 
             | Then he basically says Ted Turner, founder of CNN, is a
             | nice guy to work for and is a fan of Clinton (as if he is
             | not allowed to be?) and could "serve you" whatever that
             | means which I guess could be as ominous as your imagination
             | allows but probably means in his administration.
             | 
             | There is zero antisemitism expressed. Only Larry King and
             | the Israeli rabbi interested in American politics are
             | Jewish. Clinton, Perot, and Turner are not.
             | 
             | The claimed outrage is absurd.
        
               | lotsofpulp wrote:
               | > There is zero antisemitism expressed.
               | 
               | I believe qqj was saying it's ammo for anti semites that
               | hits those 3 accusations, not that Larry King was
               | expressing anti semitism.
        
               | fattire wrote:
               | I dunno, who do you think he was saying was the
               | sleazebag? I don't see the "ammo" here-- neither Turner
               | and Clinton are Jewish.
        
               | TameAntelope wrote:
               | "Serve in an administration" is a fairly common phrase, I
               | believe is the only important additional context needed.
        
         | bane wrote:
         | You can see a number of these here
         | https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Brian+Spri...
        
         | toddey65 wrote:
         | I don't see anything wrong with this. I mean it's like I'm
         | talking to Elon Musk. And I have a friend who really wants to
         | work at Tesla. Yeah I'd be a good friend and mention him to
         | Elon Musk.
        
       | libertine wrote:
       | The man that didn't want to die because he didn't believe in
       | after life, and wanted to be frozen so he could keep on going.
       | 
       | I wonder if they could even fulfill his wish due to covid...
        
       | qubex wrote:
       | Tangentially related: the first time I got online with a 56k
       | modem way back in mid '99, cnn.com was the first website I could
       | think of pointing my browser (Netscape) to.
        
         | xeromal wrote:
         | I remember being online around '98 and I remember playing
         | starcraft but that's about it. I can't even remember what I
         | read on the internet. I think cheatcc.com? Haha
        
         | dkersten wrote:
         | I don't remember what the first site I visited was, but I
         | remember the whole hype about "going online on the internet"
         | and it being rather anticlimactic in the end.
        
         | philtar wrote:
         | '97 or '98 for me.
         | 
         | Went online because I heard Nasa put up pictures of Mars so the
         | first website I went to was nasa.gov
         | 
         | I typed out the entire url like nasa.gov/pathfinder/images or
         | whatever it was after seeing it on TV and writing it down. It
         | took a while to load and then was super underwhelming. I think
         | I searched for Sonic The Hedgehog next.
        
         | baccheion wrote:
         | The first site I visited was porn.com. 1998.
        
         | Cthulhu_ wrote:
         | First time was me and my dad going to the local library, really
         | thinking on what the heck to do. I think we went for lego.com
         | (I must've been around nine at the time?).
         | 
         | Later when we got internet at home we looked up "spelletjes"
         | (Dutch for games) aaand ended up on a porn site. Thankfully not
         | one with images on the front page.
        
         | taneq wrote:
         | I think my first brush with the internet was in 96 or 97 and I
         | ended up staring at a Yahoo search box with absolutely no idea
         | what to even do with it.
         | 
         | Netscape Navigator 4 or something. Good times.
        
         | wisam wrote:
         | 2001 was the first time I got online; first site visited was
         | also cnn.com on a 56k modem.
        
       | kippinitreal wrote:
       | Great interview with Larry King focused on his interview style:
       | https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/larry-king/id124844662...
       | 
       | Some great stories in there including one about how in his early
       | days he would play a game with his producer where he'd go in
       | blind and try and figure out who his guest is. I guess this
       | helped him develop his "average guy" style. While series is worth
       | a listen if interview styles is of interest.
        
         | djmips wrote:
         | My favorite part of this interview about interviewing. King: "I
         | hate interviewers who don't ask questions but make statements"
         | Thorn: "Well that's just what I was going to say. One of things
         | about your interview style that's special is you are a very
         | modest interviewer. You're not afraid to ask a simple
         | question.. uh what is this..." King: then interrupts his
         | statement and riffs as if Thorn had asked the question "Why do
         | you ask simple questions". :D
        
       | GNU_James wrote:
       | How is this related to IT?
        
         | progre wrote:
         | Not everything has to be if you read the site guidelines
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | RobGav wrote:
       | I am Polish and I haven't watched too many of his programs, but
       | great respect for the quality of journalism.
        
       | siltpotato wrote:
       | How is this relevant to a tech news website? I will attempt to
       | guess some reasons and I ask others here if any of mine are
       | correct, because I do not understand the hn rules for relevance
       | for nondirectlytechrelated content.
       | 
       | - Founded a media company: television is tech
       | 
       | - Was his diversity of media usage cutting edge at the times he
       | jumped on (though late for radio though)? Was he frequently an
       | early adopter? I can't tell, but if so, then.
       | 
       | - I am uncreative and am uncertain of other reasons...
       | 
       | Please supply.
        
       | fakedang wrote:
       | Larry King was the OG interviewer. To the point, rational, always
       | asking pointed questions, yet not shying from adding a dash of
       | humor. Yet to find anyone on par with him.
        
       | antattack wrote:
       | It was interesting to me to learn recently that Larry King was in
       | business of making infomercials. Including one where he was
       | supposedly tricked: https://www.propublica.org/article/the-
       | disinfomercial-how-la...
        
       | rossmohax wrote:
       | His program on RT was one of few worth watching
        
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