People like to think the pendulum will always swing back. That is because of survivor bias. They have always seen it swing back. Every fallen civilization believed in the pendulum theory too, until the last one. You can't magically remake our forests. We are just stupid.
This is kind of one of the points I try to make. All of the damage that is being done right now is very hard to fix when we have sane people back in power (if that happens). It’s 100x easier to destroy than build, and we are seeing it happen in real time.
Also, attempts to undo the damage will be painted as extreme, whether it’s rehiring / recreating the agencies that were destroyed or prosecuting the crazy corruption and seizing funds.
We need more good faith debate on the topic of state vs federal government—-especially when it comes to public resources. I’m torn on states rights to manage their pressing issues. But I’m adamant on public lands staying public (though it seems clear we’re losing).
I can think of zero arguments which might persuade my house representatives in NY to care to stick their necks out on public lands and resources when the economy, transportation, mass deportation and war spending are priorities.
US is one of the very few countries that is left with irreplaceable natural beauty. It is sad that we’re at a point where a multi trillion dollar economy cannot leave this public treasure alone because private interests want everything to be a race to the bottom.
I haven't studied this but isn't it the case that England basically completely transformed their ecosystem over time? Like there are essentially no parts of it that look like they did before humans arrived.
Personally, I'm a big believer in upscale cities massively and leave lots of nature. Like Hong Kong.
Many areas for sure, although there is the Lake District, the coasts of Cornwall, and so on which are fairly untransformed, so to speak. Looking at Great Britain overall, the Scottish Highlands of course come to mind, as well. I think your overall point stands though, farmlands and villages which are regarded as positive through the romantic lens nowadays are of course a man-made change to the whole ecosystem.
This seems opposite to my experience. Sure, the US has beautiful places (and national parks), but also many visually polluted spaces with ads etc.
I see many other countries in LatAM, Asia etc having just as many beautiful places of nature. And then in Europe there’s the beauty of e.g Gothic architecture in cities that are kept (mostly) clean.
No matter how beautiful architecture is it's still not natural beauty.
I do agree there's plenty of places in other countries that have natural beauty, but the US has a combination of very large natural spaces, kept in a mostly natural state (not over developed), and does a decent job maintaining it. This is relatively rare (although the US is not the only one).
The US Forest Service has nothing to do with the amount of ads and billboards in US cities.
I'm 90% sure this is satire, but given how things are and how fashionable it is to hate on America/Americans I'm not sure. I guess that says something ha
There's hundreds of countries in the world. I said "relatively rare" and I said explicitly US is not the only one with worthwhile nature. Where did I give the impression I thought it was uniquely rare?
I'm visiting the Los Padres National Forest this weekend, and reading this story makes me cry for the fleeting beauty that doesn't have to be fleeting yet is. In the name of greed an irreplaceable treasure is being lost. I don't understand why we want something when it costs something we can never replace.
Budget for an entity costs far, far, far more than just salaries alone. Also, all in cost on a salaried employee is usually 2-3x their actual salary cost… this isn’t 100k people. It’s roughly 35k people (per their own publicly available info) as well as presumably a large amount of actual physical costs. You gotta pay for offices, equipment, consumables, etc etc.
> You gotta pay for offices, equipment, consumables, etc etc.
aka literally what I said in the next line :-)
35k is same Order-of-magnitude as the 50k I set. Still no idea what to do/compare with those numbers tho
---
numbers in sister comment say FBI has same budget/headcount, so... 300m pop vs 35k agents is ~10k:1, and since area-wise ~1% is urban and ~10% is forests... each Forest Service employee gets to keep and eye on ~100k house lots worth of trees?
The US collected $5.23T in tax revenue in 2025, $2.1T is individual income tax [0]. GDP is estimated at around $30T.
Spending on social security is about $680B, medicare is $480B, defense is at $410B [1].
Microsoft's valuation is approx. $2.8T [2], Google $3.8T [3], Amazon $2.3T [4], Facebook $1.6T [5] (Linux supply side is valued at approx. $8.8T).
The FBI employs roughly 38k people with about $10B in funding [7]. The CIA employs roughly 22k people with about $15B (?) in funding [8].
So, from that perspective, $10B is roughly .5% of yearly tax revenue (and about how much the FBI/CIA are funded) and estimated 50k people is about the size of the FBI and CIA combined.
People like to think the pendulum will always swing back. That is because of survivor bias. They have always seen it swing back. Every fallen civilization believed in the pendulum theory too, until the last one. You can't magically remake our forests. We are just stupid.
This is kind of one of the points I try to make. All of the damage that is being done right now is very hard to fix when we have sane people back in power (if that happens). It’s 100x easier to destroy than build, and we are seeing it happen in real time.
Also, attempts to undo the damage will be painted as extreme, whether it’s rehiring / recreating the agencies that were destroyed or prosecuting the crazy corruption and seizing funds.
We need more good faith debate on the topic of state vs federal government—-especially when it comes to public resources. I’m torn on states rights to manage their pressing issues. But I’m adamant on public lands staying public (though it seems clear we’re losing).
I can think of zero arguments which might persuade my house representatives in NY to care to stick their necks out on public lands and resources when the economy, transportation, mass deportation and war spending are priorities.
US is one of the very few countries that is left with irreplaceable natural beauty. It is sad that we’re at a point where a multi trillion dollar economy cannot leave this public treasure alone because private interests want everything to be a race to the bottom.
nitpick: I think almost every single country has irreplaceable natural beauty.
It is incredibly sad that the US has come to this though. Yet another example of the country self-harming in ways that will leave permanent scarring.
A quote I've repeated before: "The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment".
I haven't studied this but isn't it the case that England basically completely transformed their ecosystem over time? Like there are essentially no parts of it that look like they did before humans arrived.
Personally, I'm a big believer in upscale cities massively and leave lots of nature. Like Hong Kong.
Many areas for sure, although there is the Lake District, the coasts of Cornwall, and so on which are fairly untransformed, so to speak. Looking at Great Britain overall, the Scottish Highlands of course come to mind, as well. I think your overall point stands though, farmlands and villages which are regarded as positive through the romantic lens nowadays are of course a man-made change to the whole ecosystem.
> private interests want everything to be a race to the bottom
This is also about rich guys wanting to play rancher.
And a nice, wide, security perimeter between their ranches and the hordes they imagine will come for them.
What makes you think that is happening, the announcement looks more like a reorg.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/about-agency/reorganization
Moving headquarters out of DC seems like a good idea on the surface.
It is explained in the article. You should read it.
This seems opposite to my experience. Sure, the US has beautiful places (and national parks), but also many visually polluted spaces with ads etc.
I see many other countries in LatAM, Asia etc having just as many beautiful places of nature. And then in Europe there’s the beauty of e.g Gothic architecture in cities that are kept (mostly) clean.
No matter how beautiful architecture is it's still not natural beauty.
I do agree there's plenty of places in other countries that have natural beauty, but the US has a combination of very large natural spaces, kept in a mostly natural state (not over developed), and does a decent job maintaining it. This is relatively rare (although the US is not the only one).
The US Forest Service has nothing to do with the amount of ads and billboards in US cities.
Canada & Australia are better examples than the US.
How is that relevant to this conversation?
> How is that relevant to this conversation?
Because it's important to put Americans in their place. They are not good, and must be reminded that others are better.
I'm 90% sure this is satire, but given how things are and how fashionable it is to hate on America/Americans I'm not sure. I guess that says something ha
It’s not as rare as you think.
Anyway not hating, just giving some other examples.
There's hundreds of countries in the world. I said "relatively rare" and I said explicitly US is not the only one with worthwhile nature. Where did I give the impression I thought it was uniquely rare?
I'm visiting the Los Padres National Forest this weekend, and reading this story makes me cry for the fleeting beauty that doesn't have to be fleeting yet is. In the name of greed an irreplaceable treasure is being lost. I don't understand why we want something when it costs something we can never replace.
Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47626641
Isn't there a losing war going on to focus on?
What better time to do deeply unpopular things than when everyone is looking the other way?
in FY2024 the entire budget for the Forest Service was $10.8B
1 day of military special operations?
no idea how big or small that is, so here's my OoM analysis:
10B$ is equal to 100k people with 100k$ a year salaries
that's 2k such salaries per state, I guess half or more can be counted for buildings/traveling/equipment expenses
no idea what to do with "1k people per state" estimate tho
Budget for an entity costs far, far, far more than just salaries alone. Also, all in cost on a salaried employee is usually 2-3x their actual salary cost… this isn’t 100k people. It’s roughly 35k people (per their own publicly available info) as well as presumably a large amount of actual physical costs. You gotta pay for offices, equipment, consumables, etc etc.
> You gotta pay for offices, equipment, consumables, etc etc.
aka literally what I said in the next line :-)
35k is same Order-of-magnitude as the 50k I set. Still no idea what to do/compare with those numbers tho
---
numbers in sister comment say FBI has same budget/headcount, so... 300m pop vs 35k agents is ~10k:1, and since area-wise ~1% is urban and ~10% is forests... each Forest Service employee gets to keep and eye on ~100k house lots worth of trees?
medium-sized city worth of forests per every man
The US collected $5.23T in tax revenue in 2025, $2.1T is individual income tax [0]. GDP is estimated at around $30T.
Spending on social security is about $680B, medicare is $480B, defense is at $410B [1].
Microsoft's valuation is approx. $2.8T [2], Google $3.8T [3], Amazon $2.3T [4], Facebook $1.6T [5] (Linux supply side is valued at approx. $8.8T).
The FBI employs roughly 38k people with about $10B in funding [7]. The CIA employs roughly 22k people with about $15B (?) in funding [8].
So, from that perspective, $10B is roughly .5% of yearly tax revenue (and about how much the FBI/CIA are funded) and estimated 50k people is about the size of the FBI and CIA combined.
[0] https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/gover...
[1] https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
[2] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MSFT/key-statistics/
[3] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GOOG/key-statistics/
[4] https://companiesmarketcap.com/amazon/marketcap/
[5] https://companiesmarketcap.com/meta-platforms/marketcap/
[6] https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/24-038_51f8444f-...
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Bureau_of_Investigatio...
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency
Now do the same calculations for the DOD
So less than 0.03% of the national debt?
Have to pay for the pending war with Cuba somehow.
Let’s not forget all the upstanding tech leaders that stood next to Trump and smiled.
Thanks guys. Thanks for fucking nothing.
They're not fucking nothing.
They're fucking everything.
More vile destruction from the Trump admin.
Wonder who will help for fires now? Conservatives do hate trees I guess.
They love trees. What they hate is sharing their trees with everyone else!
Just curious, why is this flagged? @dang
Nevermind, looks like the [flagged] tag was removed.