I wonder if it had been a more prominent natural area, such as Yosemite Valley or Muir Woods or Yellowstone where he decided to build his castle. Surely he could afford whatever fines would be levied anywhere, but the public outcry would have been far more prominent, the beauty of the areas well-known and understood and agreed-upon.
These are places we have mutually determined to protest and hold sacred in our country. The National Parks and Forests, especially in the West, where there is some notion that the natural land—the wilderness—is above the petty desires of human folly. The green that grows trumps that which is printed, and no man can override it.
I grew up summers in Yosemite, in the high country, where in two days you can hike to places that perhaps no man has ever set foot. There is something sacred about that, not in a religious way but in a sense of truth and place and knowing the world which produced you by whatever means.
I know a grove of trees and a stream there. They is as nondescript and unremarkable as this one, except that they are absolutely remarkable for their beauty. If anyone built a castle there, I'd personally assist in bringing them to justice, and personally assist in restoring the land to its natural state. I'm thankful that the protection of the National Park and surrounding wilderness areas are present to prevent this sort of destruction in at least certain regions.
I'm not saying this is the ultimate slight against nature; far from it. It's a small thing. But it shows a lack of respect and carelessness that need not be rewarded, and in this case, I think the punishment and disrespect directed toward this event is entirely valid. We cannot prevent every use of the land, but we can encourage respect and understanding. In this case there was no respect and no understanding—especially not of riparian habitats and stream management—those regulations are there for good reasons and you can't pick and choose haphazardly whether you follow them.
If you've ever been to Big Sur, you know it's a special place, regardless of the imaginary borders we may or may not choose to lay down in symbolic protection. I'm happy that however small this infraction might have been, it will be met with fines and public humiliation. Silicon valley excess? That's up for debate, but who cares? It was dumb and disgusting.
But Big Sur is hardly some little known park. It's well above Muir Woods in annual visitors (I'm seeing 3M vs 700k) and not too far behind Yosemite (3M vs 4M).
I'm pretty surprised that there hasn't been an uproar over it yet. This is the first I've heard of it. Good on Madrigal.
Well, the problem is jurisdiction and ownership. Big Sur isn't a National Park, it's really just a region, including a State Park scattered around an area with privately owned land as well. In contrast, Muir Woods is just a very small national monument (AFAIK, hence its small visitation) and Yosemite has the protection of the NPS and federal government.
Looks like the hotel was on private land, so really the issue is the waterway modifications and general carelessness with regards to laws and regulations. Those laws and regulations are still extremely important: water is a complex subject especially in the west. In this case the river flows directly through the state park and has many ecological considerations, as well as fishing (salmon spawning) and other wildlife.
So, it's still private land, but anything that happens to a stream in California has gotta be done right or you're in trouble, and there's a damn good reason why even if you don't like fish.
It seems Mr. and Mrs. Parker should have purchased their own coastal land for their fanciful wedding. Surely they could afford to do so. They could have probably avoided public scrutiny. However, I think the author's indignation and clear bias are a little over-the-top -- I think he even came close to using the all-powerful "middle class" hammer we've been beaten over the head with so much in the last year or two: "Basically, what was supposed to be a facility that people of all incomes -- including the general public -- could visit had become a high-end resort...". Sigh. It's worth noting also the CCC is notorious for their zeal in enforcement. Ask anybody who owns property along the California coast, and you will hear story after story of severe enforcement. Most any project is deemed to have significant impact; consequently, only those with deep pockets can afford to obtain the costly permits. To Mr. Madrigal, though, this is "...also part of the new Silicon Valley parable".
But it's the law in California that you can't cut off public access to the coastline or alter it willy-nilly, and has been for a long time. If you want a private bit of coastline you can look in an adjoining state or on one of the other coasts. Now it's true that most people don't find other coastlines around the US as nice as that of California's but that's why it's rigorously conserved as a public resource.
I do think it's up to Mr Parker how he spends his money and while I think $10m for a wedding seems a bit daft to me that's partly because I don't have $1 billion in the bank; at least he's spreading it around, and I respect him for just paying the fines instead of litigating the matter or attempting to evade it via an offshore business address (although in a case like this, it would be relatively easy to 'pierce the corporate veil' and litigate against the individual whom the corporation exists to benefit).
On the other hand, just because you're very wealthy doesn't give you an automatic right of purchase to things that have been designated as 'not for sale.' You're arguing for a private right of eminent domain - because an individual has the money and the willingness to spend it, should that confer the right to purchase something others (individually or collectively) do not wish to sell? I don't think so.
Kinda. All coastlines are public-access, but if you own the property up to the coast (say, a cabin on a river), you do not have to grant access across your property. So, you could walk down the river and hang out in front of this cabin, but you can't trespass across private property.
Correct, but if there's a pre-existing easement (right of way) you can't buy the property and then close it off. I mention it in this context because of the agreement the inn had signed to make its parking area available to campers and hikers, which it appears to have reneged on.
Except in this case the availability of this space to the middle class was supposed to be explicitly guaranteed via an agreement with the Inn. In exchange for being allowed to expand they were to maintain the campsite and parking lot for public use.
So this isn't an idle "the rich own too much!" complaint followed by populist grandstanding, this appears to be a literal violation of an explicit contract.
This is getting a lot of bad press for Mr. Parker--my eco-aware friends on facebook (yeah, I know) are going nuts over this.
If I were him, I'd want to salvage my reputation and quick. Maybe donate some huge amount more (Wedding cost was $10M? Donate $10M.) and humbly apologize. Otherwise, he'll always be "that facebook guy who cut down the forest."
Not that I know the guy, but he comes across as the type who just doesn't care.
I respect him for what he did at Napster, what he attempted to do at Plaxo (as some start ups today have, in a way, picked up where he left off), what he helped Facebook become, and what he did at Spotify, but he comes off as incredibly cocky[1] and has a talking style filled with arrogance[2].
Again, nothing but respect for what he accomplished in the business world. But nothing seems to piss people off more than a rich guy who thinks he can do whatever he wants. Especially when it involves the environment...in California...in a National Park. It'll be interesting to see what happens.
2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCyMz-u-HcQ . Good interview, and he is obviously incredibly smart, but he comes off in such a way that seems very egotistical. Maybe when you're a billionaire you can get away with that.
Kinda reminds me of back when I used to grow organic vegetables for a living. Well, tried to. The farmer I worked with specialized more in meats and the like, and together me and him would drive down to Houston and The Woodlands to make deliveries, because that's how we operated, people placed their orders and we delivered at designated spots.
I learned a lot of things during that period, but the weird thing is, the one that really stuck was how weird people with money can be. Oh, sure, we had our share of middle class customers, but for the most part we delivered to doctors, lawyers, business owners and the like, who would thrown down anywhere from $200 to $1000 per order on meat and act like it was nothing. I don't think they really cared about some of the values that come with the whole local foods movement, or the values that come with organic farming, they just heard about some health fad, decided to buy this meat, and stuck with it because it tasted good.
This is just the same really, only on a much more epic scale. Yeah, these people were rich, but at best their net worth was around $5 million, so their obscenities were limited to just buying ridiculous amounts of meat for an absurd amount of money while bringing it back home to their McMansion in a new BMW or a Mercedes, sometimes a Cadillac Escalade if they insisted on being that revolting. When you have a net worth that extends beyond the billion dollar line, then the obscenity of your purchasing choices is virtually unlimited.
And yet, you have these other titans with net worths that dwarf the net worths of so many other people who could do the most obscene crap with their money...but they don't. There's no shortage of rich people who are generous with their money, but at the same time there's no shortage of rich people who are just weird with it. I've ultimately decided that the difference is that the former never gave much priority towards money in the first place, but they got it anyway, or they had priority at first but changed their minds afterwards because they have large minds, and now money is merely a tool for greater things. Then you have that latter group of people who really wanted money, and made conscious efforts towards that goal, but in the end small minds are limited in ambition, so they make limited amounts of money and flaunt their petty wealth in ways only a small mind can, with fancy cars, McMansions, and large quantities of really expensive meat.
Sean Parker is just another one of those small minds, only he was one of the few who got a little luckier than most, acquired wealth those little fish could never possibly hope to achieve, and spent it in a way a small mind typically would, by disregarding the natural legacy of an old growth forest so he can build some tacky castle in the middle of it, all the while letting his construction crew make all these amateur mistake, because once again, a small mind.
I certainly hope my mind is bigger than such frivolities, just in case.
From what I have heard secondhand he is very bright and very arrogant. This is what you should expect from him. The question is whether he is an exemplar or an outlier.
There's the not so minor point that this is a freaking fake castle being built in a redwood grove in Big Sur.
I wonder how often the people pooh-poohing this as a bunch of overzealous government regulators interrupting Sean Parker's God-given right to do whatever the fuck he wants have ever even been to Big Sur.
It's one thing if you own the land and do everything right, including following regulations and correctly managing the land... another if you're dicing and slicing haphazardly and especially modifying waterways, which are a very complicated ecological and ownership maze, especially in California.
Thanks to one environmental science class I took, I know for example that erosion upstream, even slightly as they've done here can modify the downstream water quality significantly, and have an impact on whole populations of fish and wildlife. They had no right to do what they did, even if they thought the regulations were pointless or dumb. They are not.
It was more than tasteless. Doing this seems to have broken civil laws (hence the fine). You have to have permits for any kind of construction like this. You can bet there is no way this would have been permitted.
The reason Big Sur is the way it is, is that development has been tightly restricted. In this sense, the construction Parker did was directly counter to the spirit of Big Sur. It's more of a "take only pictures, leave only footprints" kind of place. It's one of the most magical places in the American West.
It's a slippery slope argument in some ways; sure he can afford it, but if that's the case, should people with means be able to do anything they can afford? Or is there some limit where we can reasonably call it "excess" by nature of it being more than is reasonable for a person to need or desire; even if the excess in question is just disrespect for the conventions. It is an opinionated judgement, but it's not misleading.
I am not defending Parker. I saw 'excess' in the headline, I was expecting to see some form of immoderate indulgence. What I saw, was in line with my expectations, unfortunately. The guy's sense of perspective is probably long gone.
Disregard for the conventions (and laws) is a different matter though. I hope this goes beyond simple fines.
I wonder if it had been a more prominent natural area, such as Yosemite Valley or Muir Woods or Yellowstone where he decided to build his castle. Surely he could afford whatever fines would be levied anywhere, but the public outcry would have been far more prominent, the beauty of the areas well-known and understood and agreed-upon.
These are places we have mutually determined to protest and hold sacred in our country. The National Parks and Forests, especially in the West, where there is some notion that the natural land—the wilderness—is above the petty desires of human folly. The green that grows trumps that which is printed, and no man can override it.
I grew up summers in Yosemite, in the high country, where in two days you can hike to places that perhaps no man has ever set foot. There is something sacred about that, not in a religious way but in a sense of truth and place and knowing the world which produced you by whatever means.
I know a grove of trees and a stream there. They is as nondescript and unremarkable as this one, except that they are absolutely remarkable for their beauty. If anyone built a castle there, I'd personally assist in bringing them to justice, and personally assist in restoring the land to its natural state. I'm thankful that the protection of the National Park and surrounding wilderness areas are present to prevent this sort of destruction in at least certain regions.
I'm not saying this is the ultimate slight against nature; far from it. It's a small thing. But it shows a lack of respect and carelessness that need not be rewarded, and in this case, I think the punishment and disrespect directed toward this event is entirely valid. We cannot prevent every use of the land, but we can encourage respect and understanding. In this case there was no respect and no understanding—especially not of riparian habitats and stream management—those regulations are there for good reasons and you can't pick and choose haphazardly whether you follow them.
If you've ever been to Big Sur, you know it's a special place, regardless of the imaginary borders we may or may not choose to lay down in symbolic protection. I'm happy that however small this infraction might have been, it will be met with fines and public humiliation. Silicon valley excess? That's up for debate, but who cares? It was dumb and disgusting.