The Tom Lehrer Wisdom Channel
1 HN recommender · recommended in 6 months, 2017–2022
3:27 · 5M views · Mar 20, 2008
Tom Lehrer's gallows-humor song about nuclear annihilation, in which everyone goes together when the bomb drops.
Mostly quoted as a joke in nuclear war and doom threads, with one commenter praising Lehrer's satire.
6 comments from Hacker News
For those who aren't aware and/or won't look this reference: [LINK] As the other comenter noted, Tom Lehrer is indeed a national treasure, and his satire is top shelf. From the light-hearted "The Elements": [LINK] (watch for the surprise at the end) To the gallows comedy of "We Will All Go Together When We Go": this video NB: I appreciate the irony linking to YouTube content in a 'WTF Google/YouTube' thread.
> why write like this? This comment makes no sense to me > transmission-poor You're insulting their communication skill, but some (I'd say possibly many) people actually enjoy reading/listening to this kind of communication . I actually really enjoyed it and found it funny and witty, and satisfying especially because it made me google for ~30sec to find out about Thucydides and Melos to be able to decode "old Melian", and then more to solve the puzzle of the "Piper" - although native Enlish speakers are more familiar with the The Pied Piper of Hamelin I'd guess or at least with the "pay the piper" expression. I actually find regular low-density conversations excruciatingly boring so tuning the density way up and sprinkling some puzzles in there improves my ability to focus and not tune out as I do in many conversations . It's a form of communications that helps AHDHed-techno-creatives like us follow and enjoy conversation and reading more actually, not transmission-poor but on the contrary more like transmission-enhanced , but probably only for a subset of people with brains wired a particular way. (Now that I think about it, even the sci-fi literature that I enjoy reading, eg. Charlie Stross, Vernor Vinge is a bit like this comment, although way more diluted probably to appeal to a greater audience... and yeah, I guess conspiracy theories are the lower end trash version of "sci-fi appealing to ADHDed-techno-creatives", so it kind of makes sense.) ...come to think about it, I
Ah, the illusion that one can separate oneself from you human society and survive indefinitely. We had the biosphere, we had the sovjet cold war era bunkers, and under tests- the results where always the same. Insufficiently prepared, longterm psychological effects not calculated in - the buried alive envying the dead on the surface. this video
Adopting an attitude similar to Tom Lehrer in "We will all go together when we go" [1] may provide some peace of mind in this case. In any event, here is a rousing, uplifting song which is guaranteed to cheer you up: [1] this video
Either we all die or we don't[1], either way there's nothing you can do. I'm sure there's things you can be worried about that you can actually affect. [1] this video