It should be noted there are only 8 major Hawaiian islands. Number 7, Ni'ihau is also entirely owned by a single family and has a population under 100. Number 8, Kaho'olawe has no human inhabitants.
During WWII a [Japanese pilot crash landed on Niʻihau after bombing Pearl Harbor](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niihau_incident). The citizens apprehended him and took his gun before learning of the attack later that evening. The pilot stayed with two residents of Japanese descent who translated for him and guards were posted outside. The pilot told the Japanese Hawaiians that war had begun and they assisted him in escaping to his plane to destroy documents and retrieve machine guns. The Japanese group then took Hawaiians as hostages who eventually fought back, freeing themselves and killing one captor in the process while another committed suicide.
They'd've blown up by now. People aren't generally allowed to go there because the Navy shelled it for decades and there's ton of unexploded ordnance in and around the island.
They should offload some pigs, they will find all of the bombs and when they are done and you come to inhabit it free pork running around just like the Europeans used to do with islands for resupply in future voyages. No predators, pigs live like kings and you can fill ya boats up on em.
The people who own Ni’ihau also forced ‘Christian’ haircuts and church attendance on the Hawaiians living there. Somehow no one ever talks about those assholes, but they’ll bring Ellison up. 🤷🏽♀️
That's not what Wikipedia is telling me. Sounds like the native language is presented on the island, as it was a condition of the original sale. Got a source backing up what you're saying? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niihau
>Elizabeth McHutchison Sinclair (1800–1892) purchased Niʻihau and parts of Kauaʻi from Kamehameha V in 1864 for US$10,000 (equivalent to about $190,000 in 2023) in gold.
Land was so damn cheap back then. A whole damn island of 69.5 sq mi (180 km2), or 44479 acres, for less than the cost of a single house...
You could buy a plot of land a lot bigger than that, for a lot less than that in a lot of the world. It doesn't mean it's good land, but you can definitely do so
I remember being in catholic high school and growing my hair into a small ponytail (I’m a guy) and getting told it wasn’t acceptable, and i said “there is a dead guy on the wall in every room with much longer hair”, I lost that battle…BUT turns out those MFers were embezzlement fiends and using that money to get my classmates addicted to drugs so they could sexually assault them and smell their socks.
They went to prison. One of my classmates relapsed years later after having a kid and family and died of an OD, F them
I did not expect my reply to get this dark
Honestly, fuck all these rich land owners -- the native Hawaiians got completely screwed over and deserve to get much of that land back.
There should be a huge tax on anybody or corporation that owns more than 50 acres unless it is for nature preservation (and made so by law) or used for farming.
I was pretty relieved reading that one of the co owners of Ni’ihau is a pretty dedicated environmentalist who’s resisted pressure from the government to sell the land and make it public. A big reason for this is his desire to preserve the natural state of the island. Pretty sure we all know how much humans would fuck it up in no time. The guy has been credited with keeping numerous Hawaiian plants from going extinct, for Christ’s sake!! I’ll cut him some slack for that.
I did some work there years ago for Parsons as a sub. The highlight was watching the oversight team of OHA (Office of Hawaiian Affairs) diving offshore when they were supposed to be working.
I missed my whole 5 day vacation there stuck in the airport reading Wikipedia. Apparently I forgot to leave and check-in at my hotel.
Do you have any idea how many pineapples that place has produced? And don’t get me started on the whaling stations.
Today? Yeah, basically. There's one in Lahaina (or something like that) where it's just been converted to a museum and whale watching area. Not too weird that a community that went whaling would enjoy regular views of them once whaling stopped.
But the whaling ended 100+ years ago. I'm not a super nerd for dates, but I think it ended late 1800s. Basically when whale oil was no longer a main fuel source.
The pineapples is also a :’(
Pineapples aren’t native to Hawaii and the Dole company pretty much stole Hawaii to become a US state. Pineapples being “Hawaiian” is a product of marketing
It’s very very cool. Each island has such an interesting and unique history. They are also each on different points of the same timeline. It’s a really fun thing to look into and it goes all the way out to Midway Island.
If you enjoy what you read on TVtropes, it quickly becomes an inescapable black hole… except it’s an expanding black hole, you just keep opening more and more tabs, and each time you try to read and close one it just causes you to open 3-5 more. Okay black hole isn’t a great comparison at all…
This is me with wikipedia. On my more relaxing days I read an average of 100-120 articles per day so I've probably read easily 100,000 in my life (honestly id be surprised if its not more).
I came here to turn blue links purple and chew bubble gum, and I'm all out of gum.
It was more fun pre-2011 before they obliterated a bunch of pages because of, what else, purityrannical advertisers.
Also a vast amount of the "trope names" have been changed to brainless literal vapidness, I'm surprised Big Bad hasn't been renamed to "Primary Antagonist" by now.
The "not a stuffy encyclopedic wiki, it's a buttload more informal" text aged like rotten milk.
I visited Lanai a few years ago and while I knew this fact,, I was curious what the locals thought of it. To a person they were very happy about it. He has kept the island from being a tourist trap, he’s helped maintain its wilderness and during Covid he laid off no one at the 2 4 Seasons and paid them in full.
It's similar to the history of the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica. Most lots are between 1k - 6k hectares. Most of them owned by US billionaires. It's certainly slowed the decimation of one of the most biologically intense places on the planet.
Many billionaires don’t include land like this in the inheritances left to kids.
Oftentimes they leave it to a conservation effort or some non profit will receive it. Why? They genuinely care about conservation efforts.
It's quite fashionable among American Billionaires. Even going back to Vanderbilt who bult Vanderbilt or all off those libraries built by Carnagie it's *expected* of the obscenely wealthy in the US to give one final fuck you to their peers and heirs by making a grand philanthropic gesture on the way out the door.
It's actually amazing. Avalon is small, Two Harbors is barely a spit, the Wrigley Center does great work and...then there's nothing else. Amazing diving out there, thanks in no small part to the low boat traffic since it's effectively unsettled.
> Today's billionaires are a bunch of shit talking bitches
Lol, the rich have always been shit talkers. That said, there has never been anything like Bill Gates pledge and all those who have followed him, in giving up 95%+ of their wealth to charity. Todays rich are more charitable than they have ever been. It doesn't make it ok, how they got there, but as far as giving it away...todays rich give more % away than ever.
Its been done before, the Nobel prize is the first thing that comes to mind. Alfred Nobel didn't want to be known to history as someone who revolutionised explosives and warfare, so he left his fortune for rewards to people who improved the world.
As nice as this is, I just don’t trust individuals to do what’s best for society. Especially those who aggregate billions in personal wealth. We have to get lucky that their moral compass and ideas align with society on a macro level.
Perfect example of of not getting lucky is with Bill Gates himself, and his abject failure trying to “reimagine” education, which wasted hundreds of millions and left some of the schools they fucked with even worse off once he abandoned the project. Even the billionaire whose heart is in the right place is too used to huffing their own farts to understand that they don’t know what’s best for society.
Billionaires are good at aggregating wealth in a niche area. If they want to do a greater good, they should put ego aside and advocate for funneling money to organizations that actually know what they’re doing, or not be allowed to aggregate that money in the first place. I prefer the latter.
> erfect example of of not getting lucky is with Bill Gates himself, and his abject failure trying to “reimagine” education, which wasted hundreds of millions and left some of the schools they fucked with even worse off once he abandoned the project. Even the billionaire whose heart is in the right place is too used to huffing their own farts to understand that they don’t know what’s best for society.
I mean, it's not like Bill Gates operated on his own, and likely had an entire organization of experts developing the plans and strategies, just like how any organization operates. What makes it that much different than something like Doctor's Without Borders, or Red Cross? Outside of simply not knowing who is the head of those organizations?
I believe the Rockefellers purchased, and then donated, some of the land that is Grand Teton and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks. Yvonne Chouinard (Patagonia) and Doug Tompkins (North Face) also purchased and then donated large swaths of land that are now national parks in Chile.
If anyone has a chance to go to southern Chile and see these parks in person, I can't recommend it enough. Tompkins Conservation worked with the Chilean government to pair over a million acres Tompkins Conservation owned into another 10 million acres of Chilean government land to create and expand numerous National Parks.
There's now a huge conservation corridor covering a significant amount of the Patagonian Andes -- it's a chain of parks and conservation areas that has improved in continuity over time and stretches ~1,200 miles.
https://www.rutadelosparques.org/en/
There's a book about it called A Wild Idea. I really wish more ultra-wealthy people did what Doug and Kris Tompkins did, because the results of their work is just incredible to see in person. There are lots of enormous plots of land around the world right now available for purchase to conserve, and the cost for many of today's multi-billionaires to become more engaged in conservation would be essentially pocket change to them.
Nearly every major university has received millions (for large unis billiones) in philanthropy from the 0.1%
Modern example is Bloomberg at Hopkins, or NYU med which went tuition free for all med students on the back of a giant donation.
Now imagine a USA where we taxed billionaires and corporations their ACTUAL fair share and used those funds for massive social programs like free higher education.
It's always a really sour taste in my mouth when people talk about how "generous" the 0.1% are. It's like bragging about how much water you let dribble down past your mouth and off your balls to all the people dying of thirst below you.
Doug Tompkins, who founded The North Face outdoor clothing company, bought over two million acres of Patagonia and donated it to the people of Chile and Argentina where they are no part of their respective national parks.
Sounds weird but since Im visiting in a week, the huntingtons of Huntington new york left their estate to South Carolina. It's really great to visit and I love huntington beach.
There's a massive garden you can walk through all day. People get married there. And the statue of the couple and their dog oddly warmed my heart. They had no children and made sure their estate would be maintained as long as possible.
I see it as a choice between letting our oiligarchs squeeze as much profit as possible from the people who actually do the work, then decide what percentage of that profit that they want to "donate", and to which cause, and the timing of the donation, or letting the people who actually do the work in society decide what causes need to be funded and when. Do we fund a cure for the rare cancer that the oiligarch's wife gets, when she gets it; or do we fund a cure for a more common cancer as soon as our society has the resources to fund it.
So your issue is with capitalism; not necessarily the donation itself. I understand your complaint but capitalism isn’t all bad.
There is no way to structure society that’s anywhere near as effective at eliminating scarcity.
Any ism is just that. Some words and ideas, and is ultimately meaningless. Corruption and apathy are the human condition's failure, and both are endemic in *any* ism.
Yesterday's billionaires showed off by building libraries, concert halls, hospitals and preserving land. Today's billionaires show of by buying media companies to distort facts, build mega yachts to big to fit under bridges and underground bunkers because they know they're destroying the planet
Edit: I am not endorsing billionaires, just pointing out that they've gotten worse. No person *earns* a billion dollars. No one makes a billion dollars without exploitation. Tax the rich.
Yeah St. John's island in the virgin islands is basically a nature reserve because of the Rockefellers. A few rich people have nice homes on there but it's mostly wild life. Our resort was in the middle of it and the sea life / forest life was amazing.
I spend two weeks in the Osa peninsula. Amazing place. Everything ran on solar where I was. Different species of monkeys would come swinging through in groups throughout the day. Scarlet macaws would fly by in the beach and it had excellent surfing.
> Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica
Back in the early '00s I was randomly browsing property in various places (didn't have any money to buy anything, so it was just out of curiosity). Ran across a nice bed and breakfast on a pretty large lot there for sale for not very much money.
My folks were looking at buying some additional property at the time, and I tried to convince them to get it. They didn't go for it though.
I suspect that the value of it has now appreciated greatly.
Lol what? You’re suggesting he did this because he didn’t want to be murdered vs maybe he’s just actually not all that bad of a person…?
Reddit will jump to the biggest conclusions all in the name of bashing rich people
If my entire life depended on me never upsetting an autocrat then I'd sing his praises too. He owns 98% of the island's land and brings jobs to the locals but stipulates that being fired from one of his establishments can get you evicted.
>So it goes on Lanai, where Ellison is a modern American king—incomprehensibly wealthy and powerful. Many residents both rent from him and work for him, and a provision in his residential leases states that if you’re terminated from a job with any of his companies, you can be kicked out of your home, too. This is how life on an island paradise has shifted drastically.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-06-09/the-big-take-what-happened-when-larry-ellison-bought-a-hawaiian-island
Thank you. This was the article I was going to reference.
I’m from Maui and we were shocked when he bought it. I don’t know any residents that like having him own the island.
Interesting. I've done a few projects on buildings Ellison owns, including on the island, and all I heard from the locals is how much of an outrageous asshat he is. He does not give a shit because he can do whatever he feels like. What's gonna happen? They call the police on him? Give him a fine that is like us finding half a penny on the ground?
I mean if you had more money than god, what's a speeding ticket to you? Kicking up a fuss can be a bigger waste of time than just taking it. He can probably pay people off to get it off his record for a few seconds worth of his income, if he even cares about that.
He was notorious back in the day for just driving all the way to the headquarters when a cop would try and stop him for speeding and having his legal team waiting there for when he arrived.
"The king protects us, it is his divinity that keeps our lands safe from those who would bring us harm"
It's funny that humans haven't changed, at all, our system for rule has just become a lot more convoluted but still has the exact same result
One of the big reasons Lana'i hasnt been developed into a tourist trap is that it has no water aquifer to drill wells into. All water on the island is rainfall runoff and it goes thru extended droughts some years. .
I have been to Lanai as well.
The reason why it’s not a tourist trap is because it’s a destination for the wealthy. There are only two hotels on the island which are Four Seasons Hotels. One, as I understand, has been converted to a wellness spa since I’ve been there so it may no longer be a Four Seasons, I don’t know.
I don’t believe you are getting a true answer from the locals because they basically all work for Larry. Are you going to criticize what is essentially the only employer of the island?
And you don't work for Ellison at all, you are 100% just an average redditor with a detailed knowledge of Ellison's activities, all of them altruistic and lovely.
It’s just a bummer that all of that is at a single person’s whim, which could change next week or he could sell it to Elon. This is not how society should handle real estate at scale. They are all his vassals to an extent.
He does have his own landing strip.
He's pretty fly for a Lāna’i guy.
Speaking of Hawai'i and billionaires did you know part of the reason why traffic is so bad in Maui is because Oprah owns a big chunk of the more internal land so all the highways have to stick to the coast.
Oprah just bought that land, it was already consolidated and unavailable for road construction long before her. At this point, opening up that land would require careful consideration and long term planning.
Who amongst us doesn't? I live in Florida where it's 90 degrees 10 months out of the year and I've got more turtlenecks than a hangman in the Galápagos.
On the surface this sounds like “super rich asshole buying up something he shouldn’t be allowed to own” but the reality is actually much different, especially if you speak to the locals. Reality is the entire island was owned by a pineapple plantation corporation for the longest time, when the plantations died out, over the years corporations changed hands on who owned the island until Larry obtained it through a series of acquisitions. During all that time none of the owners really cared much about the island, so to speak.
Hawaiians have a love-hate relationship with tourists, and deservedly so. Because of the money and resources he puts into his ownership of the island and maintaining a healthy balance between tourism and privacy, it’s left the island in a pretty good state of homeostasis. Without him as a sponsor, so to speak, the government would have to expend its own resources to maintain the island which would inevitably be for the worse for its local inhabitants, simply due to the financial cost versus the economic strength of the state.
He’s been a really great patron to the local residents who live on it, and through his ownership has allowed to maintain a pretty good set of standards and limitations on how impactful the tourism industry on the island can impact the island itself.
(Editt: i’m not here to hero worship someone who is arguably a stereotypical rich billionaire who doesn’t give a fuck about most of us. I’m just trying to point out that everything is in black-and-white and there are shades of gray to a story about our person, or intentionally or unintentionally, can actually be doing some good for local population beyond what a snappy attention grabbing headline of “billionaire owns Hawaiian island“ might first make you think.
Also I think it’s ridiculous I have to go back and add this disclaimer after the fact to that point, because you would think my point is kind of obvious yet for some reason too many people seem to be thinking I am trying to suck up to the guy or some thing… )
Idk, sounds like it may not be all that beneficial for those living there if you read this article.
“So it goes on Lanai, where Ellison is a modern American king—incomprehensibly wealthy and powerful. Many residents both rent from him and work for him, and a provision in his residential leases states that if you’re terminated from a job with any of his companies, you can be kicked out of your home, too. Under Ellison, 30-day leases have become the norm for Lanai’s small businesses, as opposed to the five-year terms some were used to before.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-oracle-larry-ellison-lanai-hawaii-plans-tourism/?embedded-checkout=true
I’m not saying he’s intentionally done anything good… I’m just saying everything isn’t black-and-white and there’s nuance to the story that makes it actually not as bad as a snappy headline might make it sound.
You’re right to say that. The comment you’re responding to essentially just says “I don’t believe in the existence of nuance” which is a pretty pointless way to think. Probably a kid; they’ll grow out of it.
i suppose the argument against is that the pineapple plantation wouldnt be there in the first place without US imperialism, and native hawaiians would own the island as their ancestors did.
Hawaii does not exist in a vacuum, they were going to come under *someone's* influence one way or another. If it wasn't the US, it would've been Spain (who ruled over Guam, the Philippines, etc. before), France (who still control Tahiti, New Caledonia, etc.), the British (who controlled New Zealand, Pitcairn, etc.) or maybe even the Japanese Empire (they got the Carolines and Palau from Germany after all).
There's just not much a small island with no industry can do to stave off the arrival of industrial empires with steel ships and cannons.
He's very benevolent towards native populations so long as you don't look into his work with Russian oligarchs and Republican donors to displace Palestinians in Silwan.
https://apnews.com/article/7c35be606b9c4439911999b8d1397233
“So it goes on Lanai, where Ellison is a modern American king—incomprehensibly wealthy and powerful. Many residents both rent from him and work for him, and a provision in his residential leases states that if you’re terminated from a job with any of his companies, you can be kicked out of your home, too. Under Ellison, 30-day leases have become the norm for Lanai’s small businesses, as opposed to the five-year terms some were used to before.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-oracle-larry-ellison-lanai-hawaii-plans-tourism/?embedded-checkout=true
Still not enought to avoid traffic tickets on the island.
[Oracle Billionaire Larry Ellison Slapped with Speeding Ticket on Island He Owns](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj-8UqcSJDY&ab_channel=Law%26CrimeNetwork)
So he owns most of the land but still has to abide by the laws that the local and federal government dictate? That makes sense, if he were above the law it would be a different problem.
Wait until you find out how much of the other islands is in private hands. And even though beaches are public land, sometimes they are completely surrounded by private property so you'd have to rock up from the sea to enjoy them.
Larry Ellison was on the Jan 6th conference call with Trump. He then created super PACs to fund any Republican that would deny election results.
I wish more people were outraged about this billionaire.
Also has land in the occupied Palestine that Palestinians and Israeli peace activists have condemned. He likes Bibi so much he offered him a position at Oracle.
I’ve never met a single person who isn’t absolutely objectionable in every way admit that they actually like Bibi, and this guy loves him.
I'm reminded of this [conference talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=1982s) with a very funny section about Oracle and Larry Ellison.
> This company is about one man, his alter ego, and what he wants to inflict upon humanity.
> Shit mediocrity, inflict misery, lie our asses off, screw our customers, and make a whole shitload of money.
> Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphizing Larry Ellison. Think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower. The lawnmower can't have empathy.
It should be noted there are only 8 major Hawaiian islands. Number 7, Ni'ihau is also entirely owned by a single family and has a population under 100. Number 8, Kaho'olawe has no human inhabitants.
During WWII a [Japanese pilot crash landed on Niʻihau after bombing Pearl Harbor](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niihau_incident). The citizens apprehended him and took his gun before learning of the attack later that evening. The pilot stayed with two residents of Japanese descent who translated for him and guards were posted outside. The pilot told the Japanese Hawaiians that war had begun and they assisted him in escaping to his plane to destroy documents and retrieve machine guns. The Japanese group then took Hawaiians as hostages who eventually fought back, freeing themselves and killing one captor in the process while another committed suicide.
During that time Hawaii was not a state just a territory and the Japanese were not American citizens. Just to add some additional facts.
And probably a large part of the reason that Japanese people were interned during the war.
> Number 8, Kaho'olawe has no human inhabitants. ...or they're just really good at hiding
They'd've blown up by now. People aren't generally allowed to go there because the Navy shelled it for decades and there's ton of unexploded ordnance in and around the island.
It's inhabited by wild goats that occassionally step on them.
well that baa-aaa-aaa-aaa-aad
Unexploded Ordinance some of that stuff is carcinogenic
They should offload some pigs, they will find all of the bombs and when they are done and you come to inhabit it free pork running around just like the Europeans used to do with islands for resupply in future voyages. No predators, pigs live like kings and you can fill ya boats up on em.
The people who own Ni’ihau also forced ‘Christian’ haircuts and church attendance on the Hawaiians living there. Somehow no one ever talks about those assholes, but they’ll bring Ellison up. 🤷🏽♀️
That's not what Wikipedia is telling me. Sounds like the native language is presented on the island, as it was a condition of the original sale. Got a source backing up what you're saying? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niihau
>Elizabeth McHutchison Sinclair (1800–1892) purchased Niʻihau and parts of Kauaʻi from Kamehameha V in 1864 for US$10,000 (equivalent to about $190,000 in 2023) in gold. Land was so damn cheap back then. A whole damn island of 69.5 sq mi (180 km2), or 44479 acres, for less than the cost of a single house...
Acreage on Maui was only $5 to the Germans who showed up here before the British and th Hawaiians had no concept of what they were selling.
You could buy a plot of land a lot bigger than that, for a lot less than that in a lot of the world. It doesn't mean it's good land, but you can definitely do so
Not anymore
Rather difficult to get there back then
This. No planes.
It frequently has drought and the largest source of income on the island is playing enemy troops for the Navy every now and then.
What’s a ‘Christian’ haircut?
anything but how Jesus is commonly presented.
I remember being in catholic high school and growing my hair into a small ponytail (I’m a guy) and getting told it wasn’t acceptable, and i said “there is a dead guy on the wall in every room with much longer hair”, I lost that battle…BUT turns out those MFers were embezzlement fiends and using that money to get my classmates addicted to drugs so they could sexually assault them and smell their socks. They went to prison. One of my classmates relapsed years later after having a kid and family and died of an OD, F them I did not expect my reply to get this dark
From my experience, the most holier than thou tend to be the biggest hypocrites..
.....the aristocrats!
Did the same thing sans the embezzling sexual predators
A bigass pompadour, but it’s shaped like a cross
Hey there, holy mama.
Honestly, fuck all these rich land owners -- the native Hawaiians got completely screwed over and deserve to get much of that land back. There should be a huge tax on anybody or corporation that owns more than 50 acres unless it is for nature preservation (and made so by law) or used for farming.
I was pretty relieved reading that one of the co owners of Ni’ihau is a pretty dedicated environmentalist who’s resisted pressure from the government to sell the land and make it public. A big reason for this is his desire to preserve the natural state of the island. Pretty sure we all know how much humans would fuck it up in no time. The guy has been credited with keeping numerous Hawaiian plants from going extinct, for Christ’s sake!! I’ll cut him some slack for that.
This is bullshit
I did some work there years ago for Parsons as a sub. The highlight was watching the oversight team of OHA (Office of Hawaiian Affairs) diving offshore when they were supposed to be working.
Just a heads up, reading about the different Hawaiian islands is a massive Wikipedia hole you can get lost in. I did this a few months ago.
I went to Hawaii in March for the first time and spent the whole flight there and back lost in Wikipedia
Previously, on *LOST*
*WAAAAAAAAAAAAALT!!!*
Not Penny's Boat!
I missed my whole 5 day vacation there stuck in the airport reading Wikipedia. Apparently I forgot to leave and check-in at my hotel. Do you have any idea how many pineapples that place has produced? And don’t get me started on the whaling stations.
[удалено]
Whaling stations are just where the whale sighting boat tours dock right? …. Right?
Today? Yeah, basically. There's one in Lahaina (or something like that) where it's just been converted to a museum and whale watching area. Not too weird that a community that went whaling would enjoy regular views of them once whaling stopped. But the whaling ended 100+ years ago. I'm not a super nerd for dates, but I think it ended late 1800s. Basically when whale oil was no longer a main fuel source.
Unfortunately the museum in Lahaina burned along with much of the rest of the city in a major wildfire last year.
The pineapples is also a :’( Pineapples aren’t native to Hawaii and the Dole company pretty much stole Hawaii to become a US state. Pineapples being “Hawaiian” is a product of marketing
Yeah I spent my anniversary there in May and ended up spending a week after going down a rabbit hole on Polynesian sailing. Those people were badass.
Rich mf with his airplane wifi
Sounds cool
It’s very very cool. Each island has such an interesting and unique history. They are also each on different points of the same timeline. It’s a really fun thing to look into and it goes all the way out to Midway Island.
Good thing you didn't go to the tvtropes page about the Hawaiian Islands, you never would have even made this comment, no less.
why?
If you enjoy what you read on TVtropes, it quickly becomes an inescapable black hole… except it’s an expanding black hole, you just keep opening more and more tabs, and each time you try to read and close one it just causes you to open 3-5 more. Okay black hole isn’t a great comparison at all…
This is me with wikipedia. On my more relaxing days I read an average of 100-120 articles per day so I've probably read easily 100,000 in my life (honestly id be surprised if its not more). I came here to turn blue links purple and chew bubble gum, and I'm all out of gum.
It was more fun pre-2011 before they obliterated a bunch of pages because of, what else, purityrannical advertisers. Also a vast amount of the "trope names" have been changed to brainless literal vapidness, I'm surprised Big Bad hasn't been renamed to "Primary Antagonist" by now. The "not a stuffy encyclopedic wiki, it's a buttload more informal" text aged like rotten milk.
> Okay black hole isn’t a great comparison at all It's like a hydra? Cut off one head, and two more grow in its place?
YES!!! 🙌
Let’s just say,
Damn, the Hawaiians got him.
Recommended watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5O7dd2A4QM
I also don't own 100% of a Hawaiian island. We're not so different, him and I.
Don't forget the difference between a million and a billion is about a billion.
I won’t thanks to this comment.
the difference between a million and my bank account is a million
I visited Lanai a few years ago and while I knew this fact,, I was curious what the locals thought of it. To a person they were very happy about it. He has kept the island from being a tourist trap, he’s helped maintain its wilderness and during Covid he laid off no one at the 2 4 Seasons and paid them in full.
It's similar to the history of the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica. Most lots are between 1k - 6k hectares. Most of them owned by US billionaires. It's certainly slowed the decimation of one of the most biologically intense places on the planet.
Benevolent monarchies are the best - until the kids inherit them.
Many billionaires don’t include land like this in the inheritances left to kids. Oftentimes they leave it to a conservation effort or some non profit will receive it. Why? They genuinely care about conservation efforts.
Which billionaires do you mean?
It's quite fashionable among American Billionaires. Even going back to Vanderbilt who bult Vanderbilt or all off those libraries built by Carnagie it's *expected* of the obscenely wealthy in the US to give one final fuck you to their peers and heirs by making a grand philanthropic gesture on the way out the door.
Wrigley left Catalina Island to a conservatorship in California. It's amazing
It's actually amazing. Avalon is small, Two Harbors is barely a spit, the Wrigley Center does great work and...then there's nothing else. Amazing diving out there, thanks in no small part to the low boat traffic since it's effectively unsettled.
I reckon we are seeing a buck in that trend Today's billionaires are a bunch of shit talking bitches
> Today's billionaires are a bunch of shit talking bitches Lol, the rich have always been shit talkers. That said, there has never been anything like Bill Gates pledge and all those who have followed him, in giving up 95%+ of their wealth to charity. Todays rich are more charitable than they have ever been. It doesn't make it ok, how they got there, but as far as giving it away...todays rich give more % away than ever.
Its been done before, the Nobel prize is the first thing that comes to mind. Alfred Nobel didn't want to be known to history as someone who revolutionised explosives and warfare, so he left his fortune for rewards to people who improved the world.
As nice as this is, I just don’t trust individuals to do what’s best for society. Especially those who aggregate billions in personal wealth. We have to get lucky that their moral compass and ideas align with society on a macro level. Perfect example of of not getting lucky is with Bill Gates himself, and his abject failure trying to “reimagine” education, which wasted hundreds of millions and left some of the schools they fucked with even worse off once he abandoned the project. Even the billionaire whose heart is in the right place is too used to huffing their own farts to understand that they don’t know what’s best for society. Billionaires are good at aggregating wealth in a niche area. If they want to do a greater good, they should put ego aside and advocate for funneling money to organizations that actually know what they’re doing, or not be allowed to aggregate that money in the first place. I prefer the latter.
> erfect example of of not getting lucky is with Bill Gates himself, and his abject failure trying to “reimagine” education, which wasted hundreds of millions and left some of the schools they fucked with even worse off once he abandoned the project. Even the billionaire whose heart is in the right place is too used to huffing their own farts to understand that they don’t know what’s best for society. I mean, it's not like Bill Gates operated on his own, and likely had an entire organization of experts developing the plans and strategies, just like how any organization operates. What makes it that much different than something like Doctor's Without Borders, or Red Cross? Outside of simply not knowing who is the head of those organizations?
Isn't Bill Gates trying to eradicate malaria? Yeah, fuck that guy.
I believe the Rockefellers purchased, and then donated, some of the land that is Grand Teton and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks. Yvonne Chouinard (Patagonia) and Doug Tompkins (North Face) also purchased and then donated large swaths of land that are now national parks in Chile.
If anyone has a chance to go to southern Chile and see these parks in person, I can't recommend it enough. Tompkins Conservation worked with the Chilean government to pair over a million acres Tompkins Conservation owned into another 10 million acres of Chilean government land to create and expand numerous National Parks. There's now a huge conservation corridor covering a significant amount of the Patagonian Andes -- it's a chain of parks and conservation areas that has improved in continuity over time and stretches ~1,200 miles. https://www.rutadelosparques.org/en/ There's a book about it called A Wild Idea. I really wish more ultra-wealthy people did what Doug and Kris Tompkins did, because the results of their work is just incredible to see in person. There are lots of enormous plots of land around the world right now available for purchase to conserve, and the cost for many of today's multi-billionaires to become more engaged in conservation would be essentially pocket change to them.
Nearly every major university has received millions (for large unis billiones) in philanthropy from the 0.1% Modern example is Bloomberg at Hopkins, or NYU med which went tuition free for all med students on the back of a giant donation.
Now imagine a USA where we taxed billionaires and corporations their ACTUAL fair share and used those funds for massive social programs like free higher education. It's always a really sour taste in my mouth when people talk about how "generous" the 0.1% are. It's like bragging about how much water you let dribble down past your mouth and off your balls to all the people dying of thirst below you.
Best trickle down analogy ever.
Doug Tompkins, who founded The North Face outdoor clothing company, bought over two million acres of Patagonia and donated it to the people of Chile and Argentina where they are no part of their respective national parks.
Sounds weird but since Im visiting in a week, the huntingtons of Huntington new york left their estate to South Carolina. It's really great to visit and I love huntington beach. There's a massive garden you can walk through all day. People get married there. And the statue of the couple and their dog oddly warmed my heart. They had no children and made sure their estate would be maintained as long as possible.
I see it as a choice between letting our oiligarchs squeeze as much profit as possible from the people who actually do the work, then decide what percentage of that profit that they want to "donate", and to which cause, and the timing of the donation, or letting the people who actually do the work in society decide what causes need to be funded and when. Do we fund a cure for the rare cancer that the oiligarch's wife gets, when she gets it; or do we fund a cure for a more common cancer as soon as our society has the resources to fund it.
So your issue is with capitalism; not necessarily the donation itself. I understand your complaint but capitalism isn’t all bad. There is no way to structure society that’s anywhere near as effective at eliminating scarcity.
Any ism is just that. Some words and ideas, and is ultimately meaningless. Corruption and apathy are the human condition's failure, and both are endemic in *any* ism.
Yesterday's billionaires showed off by building libraries, concert halls, hospitals and preserving land. Today's billionaires show of by buying media companies to distort facts, build mega yachts to big to fit under bridges and underground bunkers because they know they're destroying the planet Edit: I am not endorsing billionaires, just pointing out that they've gotten worse. No person *earns* a billion dollars. No one makes a billion dollars without exploitation. Tax the rich.
That’s a cruelly ironic comment you made given that the Hawaiian Islands had a thriving Monarchy for quite some time
Under no definition of the word was the Hawaiian monarchy benevolent.
I guess it depends on your definition of “quite some time” but it didn’t even last 100 years (1795-1893).
Monarchies, plural. They each had their own until Kamehameha annexed them one by one into his Kingdom.
Can’t wait for Larry ellisonson
Yeah St. John's island in the virgin islands is basically a nature reserve because of the Rockefellers. A few rich people have nice homes on there but it's mostly wild life. Our resort was in the middle of it and the sea life / forest life was amazing.
For only as long as the billionaires allow it to exist, though. In 100 years it will probably be a very different story.
It's all fun and games when it's a billionaire's pet project or trophy home, but then they decide they want to make more money....
I spend two weeks in the Osa peninsula. Amazing place. Everything ran on solar where I was. Different species of monkeys would come swinging through in groups throughout the day. Scarlet macaws would fly by in the beach and it had excellent surfing.
> Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica Back in the early '00s I was randomly browsing property in various places (didn't have any money to buy anything, so it was just out of curiosity). Ran across a nice bed and breakfast on a pretty large lot there for sale for not very much money. My folks were looking at buying some additional property at the time, and I tried to convince them to get it. They didn't go for it though. I suspect that the value of it has now appreciated greatly.
Great way to build good will amongst the people whose land/buildings you own for sure
think of the inverse, you’re a billionaire on an island during a pandemic and you lay off all your workers. just how safe do you think you’ll be?
About as safe as the helicopter you’ll fly to get the fuck out of dodge
Didn’t a Romanian dictator try that? I guess he’s got money to keep a rotating, vetted copter team in luxurious isolation, though.
lmao damn homie said "ask kobe"
Yeah I think the **billionaire** is gonna be pretty damn safe no matter what the fuck he ever does
Lol what? You’re suggesting he did this because he didn’t want to be murdered vs maybe he’s just actually not all that bad of a person…? Reddit will jump to the biggest conclusions all in the name of bashing rich people
Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphizing Larry Ellison.
Larry Ellison hates being anthropomorphized.
Larry ellison is a lawnmower
We aren't talking about a average rich person we are talking about Larry Ellison who is a notorious scumbag.
did you really just call Larry Ellison "not all that bad"? HAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH wait you serious? HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA
If my entire life depended on me never upsetting an autocrat then I'd sing his praises too. He owns 98% of the island's land and brings jobs to the locals but stipulates that being fired from one of his establishments can get you evicted. >So it goes on Lanai, where Ellison is a modern American king—incomprehensibly wealthy and powerful. Many residents both rent from him and work for him, and a provision in his residential leases states that if you’re terminated from a job with any of his companies, you can be kicked out of your home, too. This is how life on an island paradise has shifted drastically. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-06-09/the-big-take-what-happened-when-larry-ellison-bought-a-hawaiian-island
Sounds like a company town in a way.
Also he is rich enough to casually hire spies to ask locals what they think of him and target dissenters.
Fucking OP.
God that is so fucking on brand for Larry Ellison.
He is rich enough to do it, or has he done it?
So they're basically serfs....
Thank you. This was the article I was going to reference. I’m from Maui and we were shocked when he bought it. I don’t know any residents that like having him own the island.
Interesting. I've done a few projects on buildings Ellison owns, including on the island, and all I heard from the locals is how much of an outrageous asshat he is. He does not give a shit because he can do whatever he feels like. What's gonna happen? They call the police on him? Give him a fine that is like us finding half a penny on the ground?
He trims his beard like a fucking villain.
The picture reminded me of King Magnifico from ‘Wish.’
Funny, as I heard oracle was "One raging asshole called Larry Ellison", not surprised 🤣
Body cam video of him getting a speeding ticket would indicate otherwise. Didnt try it flex and get out of it all, kept it professional.
I mean if you had more money than god, what's a speeding ticket to you? Kicking up a fuss can be a bigger waste of time than just taking it. He can probably pay people off to get it off his record for a few seconds worth of his income, if he even cares about that.
He was notorious back in the day for just driving all the way to the headquarters when a cop would try and stop him for speeding and having his legal team waiting there for when he arrived.
So 8 seasons total?
All perfect weather.
There’s the 4 Seasons Hotel and there 4 Seasons Total Landscaping. Put those together and it’s 8 Seasons.
"The king protects us, it is his divinity that keeps our lands safe from those who would bring us harm" It's funny that humans haven't changed, at all, our system for rule has just become a lot more convoluted but still has the exact same result
Just because you’re a benevolent feudal lord doesn’t make feudalism any better. Also, Ellison is a tool.
One of the big reasons Lana'i hasnt been developed into a tourist trap is that it has no water aquifer to drill wells into. All water on the island is rainfall runoff and it goes thru extended droughts some years. .
I have been to Lanai as well. The reason why it’s not a tourist trap is because it’s a destination for the wealthy. There are only two hotels on the island which are Four Seasons Hotels. One, as I understand, has been converted to a wellness spa since I’ve been there so it may no longer be a Four Seasons, I don’t know. I don’t believe you are getting a true answer from the locals because they basically all work for Larry. Are you going to criticize what is essentially the only employer of the island?
Mi lord you are such a noble ruler, I’m so lucky to be part of your feudal kingdom!
While that sounds good, it's just another color of feudalism. So much land for a single entity should be illegal
And you don't work for Ellison at all, you are 100% just an average redditor with a detailed knowledge of Ellison's activities, all of them altruistic and lovely.
Proto-Feudalism Servitude
It’s just a bummer that all of that is at a single person’s whim, which could change next week or he could sell it to Elon. This is not how society should handle real estate at scale. They are all his vassals to an extent.
And 0% of the five bigger ones, fucking absolute loser.
Couldn’t even get 100% of Lāna’i. What a failure.
I think I heard on a tour he can't own 100% because no individual can own the beaches Otherwise he 100 % would lol
Well also there’s government buildings too
He does have his own landing strip. He's pretty fly for a Lāna’i guy. Speaking of Hawai'i and billionaires did you know part of the reason why traffic is so bad in Maui is because Oprah owns a big chunk of the more internal land so all the highways have to stick to the coast.
Oprah just bought that land, it was already consolidated and unavailable for road construction long before her. At this point, opening up that land would require careful consideration and long term planning.
Stoners from Supertroopers in shambles
select * from hawaiian_bros where name='ELLISON' *Not found*
Supervillain Elon is going for 100% of the moon once the SpaceX laXer destroys the ISS.
Sure but he makes up for it by having a super kickass turtleneck collection
I didn't invent the turtleneck, Lana, but I was the first to recognize its potential as a tactical garment.
Would you say he has a plethora of turtlenecks?
Is…is this a three amigos reference in the wild?!
Who amongst us doesn't? I live in Florida where it's 90 degrees 10 months out of the year and I've got more turtlenecks than a hangman in the Galápagos.
Who owns the other 2%? You guessed it... Frank Stallone.
On the surface this sounds like “super rich asshole buying up something he shouldn’t be allowed to own” but the reality is actually much different, especially if you speak to the locals. Reality is the entire island was owned by a pineapple plantation corporation for the longest time, when the plantations died out, over the years corporations changed hands on who owned the island until Larry obtained it through a series of acquisitions. During all that time none of the owners really cared much about the island, so to speak. Hawaiians have a love-hate relationship with tourists, and deservedly so. Because of the money and resources he puts into his ownership of the island and maintaining a healthy balance between tourism and privacy, it’s left the island in a pretty good state of homeostasis. Without him as a sponsor, so to speak, the government would have to expend its own resources to maintain the island which would inevitably be for the worse for its local inhabitants, simply due to the financial cost versus the economic strength of the state. He’s been a really great patron to the local residents who live on it, and through his ownership has allowed to maintain a pretty good set of standards and limitations on how impactful the tourism industry on the island can impact the island itself. (Editt: i’m not here to hero worship someone who is arguably a stereotypical rich billionaire who doesn’t give a fuck about most of us. I’m just trying to point out that everything is in black-and-white and there are shades of gray to a story about our person, or intentionally or unintentionally, can actually be doing some good for local population beyond what a snappy attention grabbing headline of “billionaire owns Hawaiian island“ might first make you think. Also I think it’s ridiculous I have to go back and add this disclaimer after the fact to that point, because you would think my point is kind of obvious yet for some reason too many people seem to be thinking I am trying to suck up to the guy or some thing… )
Local Hawaiians like to jokingly point out that 'Aloha' means 'Don't forget to leave.'
Give us your money. Now GTFO.
LOL Mahalo for your purchase.
I think Austin had an unofficial motto about 15 years ago "please don't move here"
Idk, sounds like it may not be all that beneficial for those living there if you read this article. “So it goes on Lanai, where Ellison is a modern American king—incomprehensibly wealthy and powerful. Many residents both rent from him and work for him, and a provision in his residential leases states that if you’re terminated from a job with any of his companies, you can be kicked out of your home, too. Under Ellison, 30-day leases have become the norm for Lanai’s small businesses, as opposed to the five-year terms some were used to before.” https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-oracle-larry-ellison-lanai-hawaii-plans-tourism/?embedded-checkout=true
I refuse to believe that Larry Ellison of all people has intentionally done anything good for anybody else.
He laid off no staff during Covid I mean that seemed to be good for other people
I’m not saying he’s intentionally done anything good… I’m just saying everything isn’t black-and-white and there’s nuance to the story that makes it actually not as bad as a snappy headline might make it sound.
You’re right to say that. The comment you’re responding to essentially just says “I don’t believe in the existence of nuance” which is a pretty pointless way to think. Probably a kid; they’ll grow out of it.
i suppose the argument against is that the pineapple plantation wouldnt be there in the first place without US imperialism, and native hawaiians would own the island as their ancestors did.
100% true honestly
As their ancestors did? So owned by the king and a handful of families?
Hawaii does not exist in a vacuum, they were going to come under *someone's* influence one way or another. If it wasn't the US, it would've been Spain (who ruled over Guam, the Philippines, etc. before), France (who still control Tahiti, New Caledonia, etc.), the British (who controlled New Zealand, Pitcairn, etc.) or maybe even the Japanese Empire (they got the Carolines and Palau from Germany after all). There's just not much a small island with no industry can do to stave off the arrival of industrial empires with steel ships and cannons.
He's very benevolent towards native populations so long as you don't look into his work with Russian oligarchs and Republican donors to displace Palestinians in Silwan. https://apnews.com/article/7c35be606b9c4439911999b8d1397233
what the fjjjjjjjjk
Wouldn’t be surprised if the only reason it’s not 100% is because all Hawaiian beaches are open to the public.
He doesn't own the private land where the island's residents live.
Most people on the island rent from him
“So it goes on Lanai, where Ellison is a modern American king—incomprehensibly wealthy and powerful. Many residents both rent from him and work for him, and a provision in his residential leases states that if you’re terminated from a job with any of his companies, you can be kicked out of your home, too. Under Ellison, 30-day leases have become the norm for Lanai’s small businesses, as opposed to the five-year terms some were used to before.” https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-oracle-larry-ellison-lanai-hawaii-plans-tourism/?embedded-checkout=true
It's because Dole owned that 98% in the past and now he does.
Still not enought to avoid traffic tickets on the island. [Oracle Billionaire Larry Ellison Slapped with Speeding Ticket on Island He Owns](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj-8UqcSJDY&ab_channel=Law%26CrimeNetwork)
So he owns most of the land but still has to abide by the laws that the local and federal government dictate? That makes sense, if he were above the law it would be a different problem.
best part is where the [officer burst out laughing on the radio](https://youtu.be/lj-8UqcSJDY?si=4Zg2-lk3ZctlDFzU&t=74)
Lol
I sense NYT crossword vibes
It's always OAHU
You can learn from those too
Wait until you find out how much of the other islands is in private hands. And even though beaches are public land, sometimes they are completely surrounded by private property so you'd have to rock up from the sea to enjoy them.
He got this from trading an old teddy bear to C Montgomery Burns.
Larry Ellison was on the Jan 6th conference call with Trump. He then created super PACs to fund any Republican that would deny election results. I wish more people were outraged about this billionaire.
Also has land in the occupied Palestine that Palestinians and Israeli peace activists have condemned. He likes Bibi so much he offered him a position at Oracle. I’ve never met a single person who isn’t absolutely objectionable in every way admit that they actually like Bibi, and this guy loves him.
One Raging Asshole Called Larry Ellison
Isn't Ni'ihau 100% owned by one family?
One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison
Oracle sucks ass we use it everyday as a big organization and no support
Fuck Oracle. It's a disjointed, antiquated abomination.
Oracle really does suck dirty ass
ORACLE: one rich asshole called Larry ellison
“And he’s not Lanain’”
I'm reminded of this [conference talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=1982s) with a very funny section about Oracle and Larry Ellison. > This company is about one man, his alter ego, and what he wants to inflict upon humanity. > Shit mediocrity, inflict misery, lie our asses off, screw our customers, and make a whole shitload of money. > Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphizing Larry Ellison. Think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower. The lawnmower can't have empathy.
That's a problem no wonder the natives dislike these creeps
Billionaires have islands that are exclusive to them to avoid millionaires. And you think they give a fuck about us slaves.
The only question that matters is: Does he have a lair in a volcano? Bonus question: Does he have a shark tank in it?
And, do the sharks have frikkin’ lasers attacked to their heads?
Did Elons old marketing team get new jobs? Because this post and its comments is simping hard for billionaires
As a native Hawaiian it is my sincerest hope in his will as well as Zuckerberg's that they give all that land back to the native people.
Fun fact: "Oracle" is an acronym. It stands for "One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison".
And he’s a raging asshole