zlacker

>>dtagam+(OP)
The fact that is even possible is insane. Imagine there being over 700 videos of pilots messing up in one month, 700 crane operator mishaps in a month, 700+ food poising by a chain in a month. The also imagine you believe there's no problem.

This is Ba Sing Se levels of delusion for some people.

>>DeonPe+ek
>This is Ba Sing Se levels of delusion for some people.

A reference I never expected to see on HN.

It's insane, but then you realize that a significant portion of the US population _still_ only watches television news media and refuses to spend extra time looking at other sources, like Twitter.

>>spike0+Pu
Neither you or the parent poster explained what "Ba Sing Se" is. I quickly discovered that it is a reference to a city in "The last Airbender" [0].

I don't want to watch three seasons of it just to understand the reference. A very obscure reference might deserve an explanation to make the remaining 99.9% of the readers able to understand what you mean.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar:_The_Last_Airbender#Ba_...

>>simone+7w
“There is no war in ba sing se” is the equivalent of the older phrase “we were never at war with Eurasia”. Which is now more obscure but likely better understood on HN.

OP is saying you’d need to be incredibly delusional to deny police are brutal and there’s a problem.

>>bnjms+gB
With all due respect, 1984 has a much higher cultural impact and awareness than ATLA. The show isn't that well known outside of current 20-30 year olds.

>>dtech+XI
Frankly... among my generation of roughly 30 year olds, I'd expect Avatar the Last Airbender to have higher cultural impact than 1984 (which was written in 1949).

Most of us were forced to read 1984 and didn't really enjoy it. ATLA however, is something that we organically grew up with through high-school / college and actually paid attention to.

My group of friends would be aware of 1984 concepts... such as "Big Brother is Watching" (phrases / concepts which have escaped the book and become a thing of their own). But I don't think we'd recognize the phrase "At War with Eurasia".

Honestly, the only reason why I remember "At War with Eurasia" is because I was a quiz-bowl player and was forced to memorize key phrases from many books I barely read. Even if I did read 1984 in my high school classes, it never actually stuck with me.

>>dragon+3Q
Among your generation _where you live_ maybe.

1984 is a very popular and influential book.

I fairly confident that if you asked the authors of Avatar The Last Airbender they would tell you straight that they’d based that idea on 1984.

I’d be willing to bet people will be quoting 1984 long after ATLA has been forgotten.

>>Lio+X21
Either way, I'm able to connect with the root comment here about Ba Sing Se more readily than "We're at war with Eurasia".

The original two posters in this thread were also intimately familiar with Ba Sing Se / Avatar the Last Airbender. So multiple people here are fully aware of the reference and are in good communication.

I probably wouldn't reach for a reference to ATLA myself. But, apparently its popular enough that plenty of different posters in this very discussion are aware of it and able to explain to other people here the concept.