Title prior to admins changing it was "Trevor Moore, co-founder of Whitest Kids U Know, dies at 41"
I think it's especially tragic when someone so talented dies at what many of us would consider a young age. Trevor's comedic takes on a wide range of topics (occasionally touching on technology, AI, robotics) left a profound impact on me.
Same here. In the back of my mind I was always kind of looking forward to what he would create next. I grew up watching WKUK and am a bit biased, but in any case he'll be missed.
Seems like HN policy is that all death announcements get the "John Doe Has Died" title. Probably makes it easier to avoid weird comment threads proclaiming that "John Doe didn't really invent the robotic sex doll!" or what have you.
> There's actually a huge Supreme Court Case involving it right now. Where a guy copied the words from it but substituted his ex-gf for the president and he got arrested. It's crazy
Crazy is right. A guy posted the text of that sketch but the subject being changed to be his ex wife, and then did similar things but about a local park, a local school, and law enforcement.
These guys made me laugh and helped me get through the pandemic with their group podcasts. Led by Trevor, the man and his creative/unique comedic mind are truly irreplaceable.
First “celeb” death that has made me outright cry. It felt more like losing a friend. His show aside, I listened to his weekly twitch show throughout the pandemic, it gave me something to look forward to. With a young child as well, so fucking unfair.
This is...this is extremely crappy news. Their Twitch stream alone helped me through some really tough times and their show inspired me more than I could say.
Incredibly talented. I always felt like WKUK was just a few years too early -- had they launched in the YouTube era I bet they would have been 100x bigger.
"What if governments learned from the MKUltra experiments in the 50's that trauma allows you to control people, so they purposely orchestrate disastrous events to keep their citizens afraid + dependent on them, and that's one of the reasons that mental illness has been rising? lol"
I'd say it indeed seems government amplifies/escalates disastrous event fear (e.g. covid)
Why? grow their magnitude of control e.g. ease of applying authoritarianism, and to please their $ backers / lobbyists (currently pharma companies are the #1 lobbyists in DC).
Sometimes. But other times, it plays the reverse role. In the Ebola scare during Obama’s presidency, and even early in the Covid days, for example, the government downplayed the danger of the virus, saying (for Covid) handwashing is all that’s necessary and that masks are not helpful.
Yes but they have since flipped to such a degree that many people overestimate their risk of hospitalization or death from infection by 10 times or more. The consistent messaging since March 2020 has been that you should be deathly afraid of Covid, no matter your age or comorbidities.
Who says the best outcome is when perceived risk equals actual risk? It may be better for everyone involved to overestimate the risk, same as driving a car.
"Better" does a lot of work for you there. I find being less afraid better than being more afraid as much as I find being alive better than being dead.
Since when is being risk-aware the same thing as being afraid? Pilots for example are quite aware of most of the risks in flying and follow an insane amount of procedure to mitigate them. But you won’t see them quivering day in and day out because of the massive amount of fear; on contrary, they are some of the best performers under pressure you will find. The notion of being afraid scarcely ever even enters their minds.
The people who are quivering are the ones who have an inflated sense of the risk and never get on the plane. Taking procedures against the dangers of flying is a symptom of (rational) fear. If the risks of flying were overestimated, you might see something like half olane capacity to carry parachutes for all individuals on board and emergency escape hatches to allow in flight egress. Surely less people would die if they did that and that would be "better".
Your example of pilots is a great example of my point. Pilots are likely much more informed about the actual dangers of flying and the safety precautions involved. Imagine if they overestimated the danger by 2x, 10x or 100x. Being a pilot would be much more stressful and I bet plenty would find a new job.
Those have definitely been considered, but a plane crash happens so quickly and uncontrolled that an emergency skydiving lesson is not going to make things safer for you. You’ll almost certainly be safer in the brace position inside a metal tube that’s at least partly designed to be able to keep you safe in such a situation.
I would not be so quick to assume that pilots don’t overestimate risks. You probably want them to, so they’re careful when it comes to walkarounds and inspections. It would be interesting to see a comparison of pilots’ estimated risks for all the parts of a plane breaking versus those from the actuaries, engineers, and maintenance techs.
A fun story from James Adomian about how Moore wanted to test the Warren Commission's "lone gunman" story of the JFK assassination by carrying out a live fire recreation at Dealey Plaza with himself in the role of Kennedy: https://twitter.com/JAdomian/status/1424233063504965636
Call of Duty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhufrnT4818
Teachers Union: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_YEPx1Jrfw
Aspiring Politician: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsWLBOyEv6o
Gallon of PCP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFUvmZWf4hI
Leg Peeing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWQoK506xkQ
Homeschooling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFkIJBVZ4_w
We Buy Drugs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2AQ6FwpSrc
Sniper Business: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpC_hO15IoA
My friends and I still laugh at references to many of these and more over a decade later.