classicsnoot

And the HN trend continues: attack the speaker, ignore the words, congratulate self, move on.

In the spirit of disclosure, I agree with Yarvin on many points. One position I've never seen thoroughly rebutted is the mutual doctrine/dogma of every public and ivy league University system. Just like the Catholic Church, you get turf disputes, subtle thematic variations, and degrees of skill differences. Just like the Protestants, you get dramatic variations of window dressing. But I challenge anyone to demonstrate a core, ideological difference held by any number of institutions. Obviously, Bob Jones University doesn't count, and why should they? The bare handful of private institutions that deviate from the Norm do not count in any other setting. Harvard™ makes an edict, the Church of Learn follows suit, heretics are smoked out, and Progress marches forward.

I think this is portentous. I think this is a canary that many will regret not noticing its asphyxiation. SSC, by most any measure, is a dyed in the wool progressive. The whole thing feels like a purge that is winding up and spiraling off into the next round eliminating undesirables. I wouldn't be surprised if the next victim is the triggerman/journalist who is responsible for this instance.

Can you refute the statement or do you just find it troubling? I know the trope is that Intel people are all crew cut conservatives, but, like most Hollywood stereotypes, that is utter codswallop. The American University Complex churns out left leaning specialists, and the intelligence agencies hire exclusively from the AUC. It is not a very big leap at all. Stztrok and Page are very representative of modern IC.

I might be a lowballer myself. I'm not a fan of Fox News, or any legacy media for that matter, but I take umbrage to the idea that the source dictates the recipient. CNN consistently inflates and mislabels information to fit a narrative, but that doesn't mean the people watching are by necessity failing at reasoning.

Keep posting. The bar for HN is "interesting topics." This absolutely qualified. Also, keep the faith. Food is the great leveller. The world will probably come back around to appreciating those that give it to us.

Can you define "lowball intelligence?" That seems like a bigoted term and probably violates HN rules.

I wanted to be clear that i didn't come up with the ideas I related, and I have gotten in trouble with HN moderation for linking the blog in the past.

On a certain blog that is completely outside acceptable standards for wrongthink and political correctness, a very popular topic of late is why NASA seems to have it in for Elon Musk Personally and SpaceX generally. The commonly stated reasons, and I will be paraphrasing and transliterating freely, are: HR culture defining administration wide objectives and methods and reasoning, professional embarrassment over languishing reputation, gross incompetence, turf defense of budget and status, and a desire to stay firmly planted on Terra while being lauded for dreaming of the stars.

I am always skeptical of any argument that is unfamiliar, but more and more it does appear that NASA has lost its way. The shuttle was an obvious mistake in retrospect; there may even be some credibility to the obscure theory that NASA only did it to further separate themselves from DoD. I think NASA has become a political creature that is less concerned with science and more concerned with SCIENCE™. If this is the case, they will fight tooth and nail against any expansion of manned space exploration (because it will be both private and military in nature), the will fight against innovation that doesn't spring from their own workshop(s), and they will use Cape Canaveral (and their heritage facilities/infrastructure) as a way to bully "adversaries" into submission.

I hope this isn't the case, and if it is, I hope they can reverse whatever practices and policies that have led us to where we are. As it stands though, it appears NASA is more like OSHA then it is like its historical instance.