
Tim Cook’s Message to 2019 Graduates: ‘My Generation Has Failed You’ - spking
https://observer.com/2019/05/apple-ceo-tim-cook-tulane-2019-commencement-speech-climate-change/
======
NE2z2T9qi
I guess I'm considered a millennial, but messages like this sound like
misconceived pandering. Firstly, I don't think any generation necessarily
"owes" anything to future generations. But, even if we accept the premise, I
am the beneficiary of absolutely mind-boggling amounts of technological
advancement, culture, progress, infrastructure, science, and on and on and on
even just over the course of my own lifetime (approaching 30 years). "Boo hoo,
things aren't absolutely perfect in every way." That doesn't mean that any
generation has "failed" another. Sure, there might be some setbacks and
difficult problems to solve or adjust to in the future, but come on. As Steven
Pinker has I think convincingly pointed out, things have been reliably getting
better for a long time, and even when we think "the world is going to hell",
it simply doesn't.

Not to mention, there is something extraordinarily presumptuous about the CEO
of one tech company thinking he has the standing to either criticize or speak
on behalf of literally billions of people.

~~~
tedivm
I think there are numerous ways in which Tim Cook's generation has failed the
next generation (at least in the US).

* Wages are flat, * Housing costs are up (in large part due to NIMBYism), * College is more expensive (in large part due to Cook's generation cutting subsidies that they got), * Environment is shot- that whole global warming thing isn't going away anytime soon.

Generally speaking the baby boomers, as a whole, have focused more on
enriching themselves than any other previous generation. This is the first
time in generations that, in the US, the newer generation is seen as worse off
than the one before it.

~~~
NE2z2T9qi
What are you asking for? The world has changed drastically, culture and
preferences have changed drastically, and new technological tools make the job
and economic landscape entirely different than earlier. That's not Baby
Boomers' fault. Are you really going to blame them for not predicting the
future well enough? Baby boomers aren't forcing young folks to like living in
cities more than suburbs. They're not maliciously causing robots and computers
to be more reliable than humans at menial repetitive tasks. They're not
forcing young folks to want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on
mediocre private universities when reasonably priced state universities exist
(and a world of knowledge for self-teaching is available through the
internet). And even the global warming thing, our current prosperity--and
don't kid yourself, America is pretty freaking prosperous--strongly depended
on us exploiting cheap and reliable energy for decades. And it's that
prosperity which gives us the bandwidth and resources to think "hey, let's do
something about this, either find a way to avoid or prepare or cope".

Yes, it would have been nice if everyone in the previous generation had a
crystal ball and selfless motives. But that is not something we are due as a
right, nor is it something anyone should reasonably hold against them. They
didn't blow up the world, and made it better in better in a bunch of ways, and
maybe a bit worse in some ways. On net, that's still like a B+ or higher in my
book.

~~~
rootoor
> what are you asking for?

I want cooperation. Younger people, myself included, want policy changes that
will attempt to mitigate some of the damage done by the previous generation.
However, boomers are still in power and actively resist changes that attempt
to curb issues like climate change and income inequality. I think this is
where a lot of resentment comes from. Additionally boomers will be dead before
the consequences of their actions have a chance to seriously effect their
lives, furthering the resentment.

~~~
darepublic
To me this story of boomers callously enriching themselves at the expense of
future generations sounds like just a bigoted unfounded accusation. Talk about
not taking responsibility.. foisting all your problems onto the parent
generation as if you yourself have no agency to tackle these challenges. Maybe
the millenials will be blamed by the next generation for just burying
themselves in video games and drugs at the time when climate change became
common knowledge, when there was still time to do so something but instead
they chose to be pandered to.

~~~
rootoor
I never said anything about boomers enriching themselves at the expense of
future generations.

I think blaming younger generations for not taking responsibility for what was
handed to them is unfair. We are trying to fix things, however it is difficult
when the people in power (who happen to be boomers) will not allow progress.
That resistance to change and the resulting resentment is what I was
attempting to discuss in my previous comment.

~~~
mc32
When people say "boomers" do they mean "boomers" world-wide, or do they mean
"boomers" as in American "boomers"? I ask because everyone is part of this
thing, but some people may think only American boomers have partaken in the
above ascribed behavior.

~~~
rootoor
I am American and I generally am referring to Americans when I talk about
boomers

------
apo
Context is important. The qualifier at the beginning of the sentence is
important:

> In some important ways, my generation has failed you in this regard [being
> too cautious]. We spent too much time debating. We've been too focused on
> the fight and not focused enough on progress. And you don't need to look far
> to find an example of that failure. Here today, in this very place, in an
> arena where thousands once found desperate shelter from a 100-year disaster,
> the kind that seem to be happening more and more frequently, I don't think
> we can talk about who we are as people and what we owe to one another
> without talking about climate change.

[https://www.iphonejd.com/iphone_jd/2019/05/transcript-tim-
co...](https://www.iphonejd.com/iphone_jd/2019/05/transcript-tim-cook-
tulane.html)

I get the feeling that Cook, like so many other public figures who bring up
climate change post-2016, is really talking about removing the president from
office.

Consider the last sentence here:

> When we talk about climate change or any issue with human costs, and there
> are many, I challenge you to look for those who have the most to lose and
> find the real, true empathy that comes from something shared. That is really
> what we owe one another. When you do that, the political noise dies down,
> and you can feel your feet firmly planted on solid ground. After all, we
> don't build monuments to trolls, and we're not going to start now.

Anyone who believes that climate change is caused mostly by human activity
should be concerned about this trend. The deeply political nature of the
conversation has turned what should be a deliberate discussion about science
and policy into a shouting match.

~~~
briandear
> Anyone who believes that climate change is caused mostly by human activity
> should be concerned about this trend. The deeply political nature of the
> conversation has turned what should be a deliberate discussion about science
> and policy into a shouting match.

The problem isn’t the science as much as the proposed solutions. The more
extreme solutions are more about income redistribution rather than actual
science. Whether or not climate change is unequivocally human caused, there
are those that would use “climate” as a means to enact economic proposals they
favor regardless of the climate impact.
[https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-
failed-c...](https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-failed-
climate-policies-are-about-wealth-redistribution)

For example, what about nuclear? If we are “serious” about climate change,
nuclear is the best choice for large scale electrical production, but nuclear
faces opposition from those that scream loudest about the danger of fossil
fuels. What about the Paris climate meeting? The local airport was filled to
the brim with private jets. To normal people like me, why should I set my
thermostat to a higher temperature in summer when my energy use is just a blip
compared to some “Climate official’s” own carbon footprint. Why should poor
people have to pay a higher percentage of their income for energy taxes while
the limousine liberals keendoing their thing? They aren’t personally consuming
less or suffering the impact of their proposals. Buying “carbon credits” is a
cop out — unless they are actually reducing their own energy consumption, they
are still spitting CO2 into the air, no matter how much they pay for the
privilege. To me, if the situation were so dire, there’d be a lot less
hypocrisy. If the “experts” aren’t flying commercial or video conferencing,
then clearly the problem isn’t a grave as they suggest. There is absolutely no
rationale for climate officials taking a Gulfstream to a climate conference.
The concern over the climate rings hollow compared to the bigger goals of
redistributing the means of production.

Al Gore becoming a billionaire because of the climate industry also creates
some skepticism since he and other like him have a vested financial interest
in propagating his opinions. His Inconvinient Truth movie was full of blatant
inaccuracies and the forecast FUD never materialized. We constantly hear
things like “in 12 years the world will end” yet, here we are, not too much
different than we were in 2000. In fact, it might be argued that the climate
changes with or without human intervention. The “settled” science isn’t very
settled to me, otherwise the predictions wouldn’t be so consistently wrong. I
am loathe to support the attempted destruction of capitalism based on
unreliable computer models. Those of us skeptical of climate politics — we
live here too. It isn’t like we are genuinely interested in destroying the
planet; but some of us don’t have a lot of trust in power that they are
actually altruistic. Remember, Eugenics was “settled science” too and we saw
how horribly that turned out.

~~~
souprock
No matter which side of the climate politics your beliefs are on, you probably
support the proposed solutions that apply to your choice. This is because the
human mind works backwards from the solution to the problem, finding logic to
justify what is desired. Unless you are one of the rare people whose belief in
the validity of "there is human-caused warming we can fix or partially avert"
is in disagreement with your belief in the validity of "income redistribution
is proper", the failings of the human mind likely apply.

To be extra clear: no matter which side you are on, this DOES NOT just apply
to the other team.

------
tptacek
The full quote is "In some important ways, my generation has failed you",
which I think drastically changes the meaning from the one in the headline,
which is clickbaity.

------
Someone
Quote in context: _”In some important ways, my generation has failed you”_.

That’s not _in all ways_ , not even _in all important ways_ , so quite a
different statement.

------
ibeckermayer
Tim Cook can blabber all he wants about his supposed concerned about filter
bubbles — his company, on his watch, is banning alternative social media
platforms from putting apps on his App Store (Gab, for example).

While he spouts off about taking action instead of debating, he actively bans
alternatives to the status-quo. Shut it, Tim. I don’t buy your propaganda.

~~~
askafriend
Gab is extremely toxic trash...I can completely see why they'd ban it.

~~~
IronWolve
Gab offered a censored version for Apple, twitter does not, and twitter allows
porn. Gab being banned was political choice by Apple, there was no reason to
ban the censored version when they allow uncensored twitter/instagram/etc.

------
perfunctory
Watching talks like this is what helps me keep my sanity in the face of
climate change and have hope we will do something about it. My take-away
phrase of the speech is gonna be "do something". I know my doing something
will not even register in the global scheme of things but I'm gonna do it
anyway.

~~~
drcode
...the problem is, I'm not really convinced that we really know of a specific
"something" that we can do that wouldn't backfire and make emissions even
worse by creating perverse incentives elsewhere in the economy.

The only idea I've heard that would likely help in a meaningful way would be
to simply make all domestic oil and natural gas extraction 100% illegal and
try to convince some other nations to do the same. That one thing would raise
world energy prices enough to curb consumption and would also slow down the
economy enough to decrease emissions. (But the economic consequences of doing
this would be brutal)

~~~
chris_va
(disclaimer: I'm part of a climate&energy research group)

While climate change seems like a daunting and unsolvable problem at an
individual level, to be honest it is fairly easy to solve with political
solutions provided you could unblock the political machinery. I used to be
fairly pessimistic about this, as a researcher, but now I think it's mostly a
matter of getting political interest to align at the same time.

In our society, the simplest and most effective way to get something done is
to just make it profitable. You can try to do things by fiat, but if you make
something profitable it tends to encourage massive innovation and is usually
faster.

For climate change, the easiest thing would be to just add a carbon tax that
ramps up over time (or cap+trade, they have the same economic outcome, though
cap+trade is a lot more complex to manage). You can even make it revenue
neutral, though you do need tariffs on any goods not meeting the standard
(which eventually encourages other countries to follow suit when the tax
increases past a certain point).

Anyway, this gives you price discovery, as it eventually becomes cheaper to
pay someone to take the carbon instead of emitting it. From a climate
perspective, I do not really care if natural gas+sequestration wins over
PV+batteries, but with a ramping price we can be confident that at least one
of those will win over dumping Co2 into the atmosphere.

There was actually a bill this year (DOA, presumably due to republican
distaste) that would have done exactly this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Innovation_and_Carbon_D...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Innovation_and_Carbon_Dividend_Act_of_2019)

... that basically would have solved the problem.

~~~
drcode
I claim no expertise on this issue, but it seems pretty obvious to me (perhaps
wrongly, I'll admit) that the only reason carbon taxes are popular as a
solution is PRECISELY because they don't work- i.e. they allow oil companies
to continue extracting oil and sell it to people who then burn it into CO2.

The idea that carbon taxes are a meaningful economic incentive seems mostly
like wishful thinking- It seems obvious to me that it just introduces an
additional layer of perverse incentives for lobbyists to exploit. The only
meaningful "free market" solution that I can see that could work is limiting
supply (but nobody want to do that because it would be painful and most people
care more about doing things that feel good instead of doing things that
actually work)

~~~
chris_va
I think you maybe (or not, couldn't tell) misunderstand the point of the tax.
The point is to build a profitable market they can buy from to _avoid_ paying
the tax.

With my climate hat on (not to be confused with the environmentalist hat), I
have no problem with oil companies continuing to pump out oil as long as they
put the Co2 back into the ground. If they prefer to pay a $100/ton tax to pump
it out over paying someone else $80/ton offset/sequester the emissions, then
they'll quickly go out of business to their competitors.

But, they need an incentive to pay that $80/ton. And the companies that want
to put the Co2 back underground need the $80/ton to make it profitable. Right
now they have none, but if the alternative is a $100/ton tax, then you can be
fairly confident that the net emissions will converge towards zero.

~~~
drcode
You have more authority on this subject than I do, given your background, but
I remain convinced that any "solution" in which the oil companies take
combustible carbon molecules from "below ground" to "above ground" is doomed,
even if reasonable carbon sequestration tech is developed.

~~~
chris_va
You are right that getting every last mole of Co2 in a controlled manner is
doomed, but fortunately that is not required. What you really want is for net
emissions to go to zero or even negative. If you are just pulling Co2 out of
flue gas, that's very difficult (without BECCS, which is a separate thing).

However, Direct Air Capture is also economical at _some_ price point
(optimistically around $130/ton). At that point, you don't have to nab every
last mole of Co2 that the oil companies pump up because you can always pull it
back out of the air. You just need a profitable market to make it economical
to spend that money.

~~~
drcode
If this was true, then the oil companies could just build a machine that
directly converts hydrocarbons into CO2 underground and extracts the energy in
the form of electricity and the hydrocarbons could stay below ground through
the entire process.

No carbon taxes necessary.

------
skywhopper
"the university’s president ... touted that the Apple CEO ... 'represents the
kind of success we hope all of our graduates can attain.'"

... to become the CEO of one of the most profitable companies in the history
of the world? I mean, aim high I guess.

~~~
jsnider3
Perhaps all of the students can fuse into a cyborg-hivemind? That would allow
them to all be the CEO of a company, then it would just be a challenge of
making it the most profitable in the world.

------
avip
Yep. Sorry millennials, it's all downhill from here. We're checking out, the
mess is all yours.

------
AlexTWithBeard
Okay, so what Mr. Cook is going to do about it? He's one of the few people who
is in a perfect position to actually make some change.

May be he's going to move Apple factories back from China to create more
middle class jobs in the US?

May be he's willing to relocate the headquarters from Cupertino to a less
crowded location? Come on, Mr. Cook, that would kill two birds with one stone:
prices for SV houses will go a bit down and you'll be able to revive some
dilapidated neighborhood. May I suggest Detroit, MI?

Or may be he wants to start small: just open a school in a poor SF community.
Find decent teachers. Pay for the first class principal and give several
hundred kids a good start in life.

No...?

------
tuxpenguine
I feel that we can say a particular person has failed you, an organization has
failed you, but saying that his generation has failed us implies that his
generation has some control on the overall trajectory of humanity. I think
that's a pretty bad assumption. When the sample is big enough, it almost
becomes a random walk/ markov chain instead of deterministic algorithm.

------
fred_dev
"There are some who would like to believe that the only way you can be strong
is by bulldozing those who disagree with you…"

This sentence reminded me today's headline news about Huawei !!!

US government bulldozing the other countries tech companies to make CEO of
apple a role model.

I also enjoyed the speech, congrats to all 2019 graduates around the world.

------
umadon
Rich person: "Don't blame the rich, blame the old."

~~~
saagarjha
Tim Cook is 58, so I think it's possible to argue that he's both.

------
neilv
Tim Cook's generation can't take all the blame -- the Internet could've been a
tool to help fix the problems, rather than spy, neuter, and manipulate.

My generation -- teens and college-aged who were already skilled in software
and Internet at the start of the dotcom boom, and who seemed to already have a
better median sense of Web opportunities and risks than people do today -- we
went for the money and power, and often did the exact opposite of what we
already knew about what's good for society.

That admitted, don't fall for standard diversionary and divison tactics that
blame problems on some group -- whether it's ethnicity, gender, religion,
nation, generation, voting group, sports team, or anything else. If you want
to identify where to focus problem-solving, some old investigative advice
applies: _follow the money_.

------
sandworm101
Not has. They _are_ failing us today. Boomers have all the money and political
power yet are doing nothing. Dont say sorry for things you did yesturday. Stop
doing what you are doing today. Stop talking and help us fix the problems.

------
pdq
In my opinion, the much bigger issue is the burden of public debt (and Social
Security/Medicare liabilities) being saddled onto future generations.
Currently it's $181k per taxpayer, excluding Social Security/Medicare. [1]

We've kicked the can down the road for decades, and one day those debts will
come due. Whichever generation inherits it, will pay a huge price, whether
that is massive monetary inflation, or default on the debts.

[1] [https://usdebtclock.org/](https://usdebtclock.org/)

~~~
ThrustVectoring
Society _always_ supports retirees through the efforts of current workers. If
you want to eat forty years from now when you're no longer working, your
choices are either to start stocking up on canned food now, or subsist on a
portion of what workers make forty years hence. The physical storage plan is
obviously impractical when you think about it in full, especially for services
like health care.

The Social Security / Medicare point is basically just saying that our future
society will not be wealthy enough to take care of retirees and other non-
working members of society in the number and standard we're currently
projecting. There's no victims of under-saving because it's basically
impossible to save. If our current benefit levels are "too high" right now,
the people victimized are today's workers having too high of taxes, too much
debt to repay, or too high of asset prices to pay.

------
godzillabrennus
The Graduates to Tim Cook:

No kidding.

------
higgy
Link to actual speech: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taLzKBs-
Yu4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taLzKBs-Yu4)

Jump to mentioned segment: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taLzKBs-
Yu4&t=11m55s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taLzKBs-Yu4&t=11m55s)

------
inflatableDodo
Made me think about Bruce Sterling's comments in this year's WELL State Of The
World about the current depressive mood making headway among the world's
richest people. Here's him riffing on Gates -

>"Here in 2019, there are more Americans alive over 60 than Americans who are
under 18. So for a brisk, road-ahead, forward-looking viewpoint, it might be
time for us to check in with that widely-noted retired guy, Bill Gates.

>Despite his advancing years, Mr Gates hardcore grinds it out more in a week
than I ever do in a year. And, although he's not a facile TED-talk optimist,
he's always got his eye on the deliverable. That's why it's a little weird to
see him tacitly admitting so much defeat in his recent screed.

>To begin, Bill quotes his best pal Warren Buffett, claiming that the bottom
line of human good behavior is "Do the people you care about love you back?"
This seems an odd scheme to promote, considering the Sage of Omaha's
polygamous lifestyle. Buffett's motto should have been, "If your wife leaves
for California and sends her best friend over instead, go for that." Let's
hope they were all happier.

>Then there's this prediction: "software will be able to notice when you’re
feeling down, connect you with your friends, give you personalized tips for
sleeping and eating better." Something downright ominous here, because
obviously Gates is tacitly conceding that it's not your nearest and dearest
but rather the _software_ that ought to be caring about you and loving you
back.

>First, I don't think that's ever gonna work. Second, I'm getting concerned
about Bill's mood. Is he so personally unhappy now that he would want to
digitally monitor his own mental state?"...

>..."finally, "Melinda and I are working on our next Annual Letter. The theme
is a surprise, though it is safe to say we’ll be sharing some positive trends
that make us optimistic about the future."

>Why does Bill even have to say that bullshit? It's because he's got nothing
that he's genuinely enthusiastic about, that's why he says it. Whenever people
are truly positive, they never whine about how, just any minute now, they're
gonna lift their sorry heads and say something positive. "I'm not gonna be
depressed about it, I'm gonna say something really upbeat here," that never
works! It's like a poker tell, something Bill ought to get since he plays so
much poker.

>You can't scold yourself about not talking properly, you have to take action
in some aspect of life that actually makes you enthusiastic. Then you don't
have to tell people that you and the wife will be cheerful any minute now. If
you're really making any headway, people will show up on their own. You'll
have to chase 'em off with a stick.

>In any case, this new-dark malaise I was talking about earlier? He's got it.
Yeah, even him."

[https://people.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/506/State-
of...](https://people.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/506/State-of-the-
World-2019-page01.html)

------
apengwin
Prof. Scott Shenker had similar sentiments at Berkeley's commencement two
years ago.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEcEyiXAjbU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEcEyiXAjbU)

------
ngcc_hk
It is hard to say.

You can have progress but many consequences not taken on board.

If you roll through the world,

India ...

Russia ...

China ...

Europe ...

USA ...

Canada to Argentina ...

Let us not just talk so American centric as many like climate change,
totalitarian control of humanity, human gene, AI, religion ...

Some goods some bad. Some very bad.

------
dzhiurgis
Hope he mean keyboards

------
OJFord
Props to the intern that wrote some bullshit speech making it to HN front
page, I guess...

------
julienreszka
When was the last time Apple release a new product? By new I mean not an
iteration of previous ones?

~~~
Steko
Watch, Airpods, Homepod, Pencil, credit card next month, many services
including Apple Pay.

~~~
julienreszka
How are those new products. Like I said those are just iterations of old ones.

~~~
saagarjha
None of those things existed five years ago.

~~~
julienreszka
They did

~~~
saagarjha
Those were launched in 2014, 2016, 2017, 2015, 2019, and 2014, respectively.

~~~
julienreszka
Equivalent products existed before

