Sean Parker Builds Beach-Access App To Atone For His Rule-Violating Wedding (wral.com)

An anonymous reader quotes the Associated Press: A tech billionaire whose elaborate wedding in a redwood grove violated California rules has helped create a smartphone app that shows users a map of more than 1,500 spots where people can get to the coastline. The California Coastal Commission unveiled the YourCoast app at its meeting Thursday in Newport Beach. "This is an only in California story," Commission Chair Dayna Bochco said in a statement. "Where else could you find a tech mogul partnering with a regulator to help the public get to the beach?"

Sean Parker, co-founder of file-sharing service Napster, agreed to help make the educational tool after he built a large site resembling a movie set for his wedding in an ecologically sensitive area of Big Sur without proper permits. However, the commission determined the construction in a campground area wouldn't harm the environment and the wedding was allowed to proceed. Parker, a former president of Facebook, also paid $2.5 million in penalties, which helped fund hiking trails, field trips and other efforts to increase public access to the popular tourist area. It was a rare high-profile coastal violation case resolved with cooperation rather than a legal fight.

Comments

Another way to read the situation

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

If you ain't rich and you you can't fund the devlopment of an oops-sorry app, you don't get to have a nice wedding in a protected nature reserve. If you are, you do.

Somehow that story doesn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy...

Re:Who's Sean Parker

[rmdingler]

Former President of Facebook, he famously pointed out that:

a social-validation feedback loop is "exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you're exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology. The inventors, creators -- it's me, it's Mark [Zuckerberg], it's Kevin Systrom on Instagram, it's all of these people -- understood this consciously. And we did it anyway."

That's why we need rich people

[GuB-42]

It may be an unpopular opinion but I think that allowing the rich to break some rules in exchange for making things better for others is a good thing.

The whole point of being rich is to be able to do things you and I can't do. And reserving a spot of nature that is not available to the commoner in a way that doesn't damage it won't hurt anyone, so let them do it. In exchange they give us something good. Win/win: they have their little eccentricity, I have my beach access app.

Pure equality is not a good thing, some resources are limited. Letting no one access them would be a waste, and letting everyone access them would be a catastrophe. So let the rich have them, and in exchange, make the more common resources more accessible for everyone else.

Re:That's why we need rich people

[DNS-and-BIND]

They already freely break the rules without us "allowing" them to do it. Why did you ever get the idea in your head that they need beg us for our permission?

Re:That's why we need rich people

[scourfish]

I believe that everyone should follow the same rules, there should just be less rules overall.

Re:That's why we need rich people

[Anonymous Coward]

It may be an unpopular opinion but I think that allowing the rich to break some rules in exchange for making things better for others is a good thing.

This is not simply an unpopular opinion, it's an attack on democracy itself. You're harkening back to a day when some people were above the law. We tried this before, more than 200 years ago when the world was run by monarchy, and the rich WERE above the law. the rule of law says nobody is above the law.

I certainly don't want to go back to a monarchy, and a literal ruling class. Do you?

Do as he says, not as he does

[DNS-and-BIND]

You break the law, you are heavily penalized. He breaks the law, he gets a sweetheart deal from the government, spends some chump change and laughs about it. We really are bifurcating into an aristocracy and commoners situation in America. And the aristocracy doesn't see any reason why they should be subject to the same laws as us deplorables.

False dichotomy

[rsilvergun]

We don't need to give them special power in exchange for nice things, we're already giving them vast amounts of money in exchange for those nice things.

Pure equality does have it's place: in the law. If they law doesn't apply equally then it's not the law. You're confusing equality of opportunity with equality of outcome.

This was a rental, not a fine

[Pinky's Brain]

This went just as planned, he rented a Redwood forest for 2.5 Million dollar. The politicians who let him get away with it are corrupt pieces of shit, the media which pretends this isn't a giant corrupt mess are also pieces of shit. This whole thing stinks to high heaven.

If I had a small marriage in nature park do I get away with paying a couple thousands dollar to the cop and just continue the wedding? Of course fucking not. Blow off the marriage location, clean it up on his dime and throw the book at him. Letting him get away with this is fucking insane.

Billionaire justice ...

Oh, one more thing

[rsilvergun]

this is literally an app to help working class folks find beaches they could go to because by a rich guy who denied them access to said beaches...

It's a bit like having a fracking magnate list of all the places where it's safe to drink the water provided. Sure, it's nice to have and it's nice the fracker feels guilty for making your water flammable, but it'd be even nicer if the water wasn't made flammable in the first place....