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Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy
- mrob 10y agoThe solution is simple. Continue calling the boat Boaty McBoatface. Ignore all references to the government's preferred name. They can choose what's painted on the side, but the name depends only on what people call it. If enough people call it Boaty McBoatface its name really is Boaty McBoatface. If your job depends on calling it the government's preferred name then subtly alter the timing of your speech to make it clear that it's not the real name while maintaining plausible deniability. Only written communication from coerced people remains a problem, and hopefully that will be far outweighed by people using the real name.
- Frenchgeek 10y agoSo "A McBoatface by any other name would sail as adequately"?
- joshvm 10y agoThis will probably happen anyway. Research ships are manned by researchers (usually of the non-bureaucratic variety) and in my experience are game for a laugh. Regardless of what it gets officially named, this ship will almost certainly be unofficially referred to as Boaty McBoatface by its crew. (And as another commenter who is familiar with the project internals pointed out - they already do call it McBoatface)
- noobie 10y ago>this ship will almost certainly be unofficially referred to as Boaty McBoatface by its crew. Except for the captain.
- baddox 10y agoI don't see much fun in that. The funny thing about getting the ship named Boaty McBoatface is that it would be painted on the ship and would be named as such in official documentation. The ability to casually refer to the ship by that name does exist, obviously, but how often do people refer to specific government ships by name anyway?
- radiorental 10y agoOn the contrary, think of the why/who behind nicknames.
- vidarh 10y agoOne has to wonder if someone will decide to apply an unauthorised paint job at some point..
- DonHopkins 10y agoI hope somebody paints a big face on it.
- Natanael_L 10y agoA banner would be safer
- oldmanjay 10y agoThe problem with this "joke" is that it's a mildly amusing story at best. Having it painted on the boat is just prolonging something that never really made it to the amusement level of a joke with legs. I hope the officials hold firm. Long after the easily entertained public has moved on, they can do their job without being reminded of how poor the sense of humor in the general populace actually is.
- lmm 10y ago> I hope the officials hold firm. Long after the easily entertained public has moved on, they can do their job without being reminded of how poor the sense of humor in the general populace actually is. How is the a bland, inane government-issue name it will no doubt end up with going to be any better?
- uptown 10y agoYour reply is about Boaty McBoatface, am I correct?
- Coincoin 10y agoEven better, call the boat Sir Boaty McBoatface. Everyone takes a Sir seriously.
- mikecb 10y agoDame
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- vidarh 10y agoAlso, consistently refer to the person overriding the competition result as Sour McSourpuss.
- chollida1 10y ago> The solution is simple. Continue calling the boat Boaty McBoatface. Ignore all references to the government's preferred name. This is good advice. In Toronto we have a baseball stadium called the Rogers Center (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Centre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Centre). It was originally called the SkyDome but it was bought by a company called Rogers and renamed. Everyone still refers to it as the Skydome. Corporate branding be damned:)
- theseatoms 10y agoLikewise in Chicago, the Sears Tower is now technically the Willis Tower.
- _asummers 10y agoIt got bought again, though I don't know if the newest buyers plan on changing the name again.
- gryphonshafer 10y agoThis happens with airports a lot. Some really wonderful and generous old pilot or aviation engineer dies, so the field gets renamed in honor of the person. But aviators still refer to the field by it's traditional name. It's not a slight against the honored dead; rather, it's just out of habit and the fact that it's tremendously easier to remember "$CITY_NAME Airport" than it is "$GUY_WHO_DIED Field".
- jshelly 10y agoThe marketing opportunities alone are insane. I am amazed that they are turning down the name. This ship had the opportunity to be as well known as the Titanic (but for better reasons)
- __david__ 10y agoAgreed. Especially if they do something funny with the paint, like a giant happy face on the front or something. Maybe some cartoon arms on the side. Suddenly it goes from a soon-to-be-forgotten research vessel into an iconic mascot. I'd buy a Boaty McBoatface toy and I'm not even British.
- moron4hire 10y agoCould totally make a browser extension to automatically convert the text on a page, like the "On the cloud => in my butt" one.
- talmand 10y agoThat wouldn't make it the name, that would make it the nickname.
- imgabe 10y agoOutside of the people who actually work on the ship, how many members of the public are ever going to have any reason to call this ship anything at all after the poll is over? I mean, it's cute to give the public an opportunity to name something, but half the people who voted in the poll have probably forgotten the ship even exists by now.
- gumby 10y agoYes! It's "name" is probably some registration number anyway. And regardless I doubt anyone will call it "Boaty McBoatface". It'll be abbreviated into something anyway. BMBM or Boaty or something. And it will demonstrate that resistance is futile!
- lb1lf 10y ago<Cough> Working for a contractor heavily involved in this project, all I can say is that internally on our servers as well as in any documentation and conversation the vessel is referred to as 'Boaty McBoatface'.
- snitko 10y agoThis small example shows the true nature of any democratic government: if you vote the way they don't like, they will not submit to it. Voting is useless.
- rootlocus 10y agoThis is a gross simplification. Internet trolling and mockery doesn't really represent the will of the people.
- delroth 10y agoYou are projecting your own opinions and representing them as "the will of the people". I personally vastly prefer things in life being amusing and unexpected rather than boring and pompous, and as such I think "Boaty McBoatface" is likely a way better name than whatever will be chosen as its replacement. Wanting life to not be bland is not "internet trolling" nor "mockery".
- pete622 10y agoThere's a chance you might be misjudging "the people."
- marcoperaza 10y agoThis seems like bad move on the British government's part. Name the thing Boaty McBoatface and reap great PR for years. Edit: Or maybe it's all part of the plan. Let us all down by hinting that they're not using the name, then announce a change of heart. The internet would explode.
- JorgeGT 10y agoNot only the PR but all the merch for kids: stuffed toys, models, t-shirts, caps... follow Boaty through his artic adventures!
- seanp2k2 10y agoYes exactly. If anything, it's a great way to get kids interested initially and tell the story about what it's doing, why, how they do something like that some day, etc.
- TheOtherHobbes 10y agoNothing good can ever come of getting kids interested in science. Next thing you know they'll want to be doing science themselves. Where will it end?
- seanp2k2 10y agoI'm sure that the crew and people who do research on it, if they have any sense of humor, would get an enormous kick out of it too. How'd it be to tell your mates that you'll be out for 6 weeks at sea on RRS Boaty McBoatface ? I'd personally bust out laughing every time I talked about it. It's not to say that the work isn't serious or important, just that sometimes it's OK to have a laugh, even in an omgsrsbzns environment. It's not really at the expense of anyone (aside from perhaps the pride of a few) and it's not really disrespectful or non-kid-friendly (actually I'm sure kids would love it) like e.g. RRS Naff Minger or something else that the internet at large might dream up. My point is that it's actually a viable family-friendly name, and I mean...just look at it. Totally looks like a Boat McBoatface to me. It has that Pixar anthropomorphic look to it. It also looks like a big toy version of a real boat. Very cartoony, especially in bright red Boaty McBoatface it is, then.
- dmurray 10y agoThe best thing to have come out of this is a headline from satirical online newspaper Waterford Whispers: US Military Introduce Childbomber McChildbombface http://waterfordwhispersnews.com/2016/04/18/us-military-introduce-childbomber-mcchildbombface/ http://waterfordwhispersnews.com/2016/04/18/us-military-intr...
- geromek 10y agoThe story is more complex than the article says. A Spanish forum (one of the top-40 more visited sites in Spain) voted massively the name "Blas de Lezo" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blas_de_Lezo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blas_de_Lezo ) a Spanish admiral who in 1741 defeated a British Army far bigger than his own one. After gaining the #1 position the organization decided to withdraw the name from the polling, causing more controversy about this digital process.
- narag 10y agoIf you believe it would have been outrageous that this man had his name in a british ship, you'll be surprised by the shitstorm that would happen if his name would be given to a spanish ship.
- gpvos 10y agoAccording to Wikipedia, several Spanish ships have been named after him.
- narag 10y agoHas been. Try it now and see what happens.
- gpvos 10y agoPlease explain.
- gaur 10y agoAmong other things, I guess those of us who don't know every piece of trivia about Spanish culture would get an explanation of what exactly is unsavory about this Blas de Lezo person.
- narag 10y agoYou had it in the Wikipedia article linked by the op. Edit... anyway: De Lezo took part in the Spanish Sucession War. In that war, Catalonia lost some fueros (middle ages common law) because it was against the Borbons (that won) and in the revisionist version of history that we're hearing in very recent years, that's tantamount to genocide.
- duncan_bayne 10y agoThe author has conflated democracy with voting. Sortition - the selection of Government at random from the citizenry - is a far superior mechanism, and results in a Government that is genuinely of the people. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
- vlehto 10y agoThe reason why nobody has sortition, is because deep down democracy is about being as agreeable as possible to the median citizen. If you have vague feeling that you decided who is prime minister, you are more motivated to pay taxes and fight wars. The country that gets least tax evasion and most volunteers to army is likely to perform better than anybody else. And so survival of the fittest governments has favored democracy for past three centuries.
- thaumasiotes 10y ago> The reason why nobody has sortition, is because deep down democracy is about being as agreeable as possible to the median citizen. If you have vague feeling that you decided who is prime minister, you are more motivated to pay taxes and fight wars. I doubt this has any explanatory power as to why sortition isn't used much today. Among other things, the median citizen doesn't care even a little bit about who is prime minister or otherwise in charge.
- makomk 10y agoI think it has a lot of explanatory power. From what I've seen the main reason people don't care about who's in charge is because they think all the candidates are basically the same and none actually represent them.
- vlehto 10y ago...in the framework of your country. If you are U.S. citizen, you probably would prefer Obama over Enrique Peña Nieto. Personally as a Finn I like Sipilä and Niinistö over Putin. In a way any Finnish party head would suit me better than Putin. It matters little which of them, but it matters a lot that it's one of them. In medieval Europe, vassal dukes would bargain who king they would pay taxes to. And you had situations where Britain was ruled by dude who spoke French and lived in Normandy.
- newjersey 10y ago> “The key point is that representatives’ voting behavior was not strongly constrained by their constituents’ views,” Achen and Bartels write. “Elections do not force successful candidates to reflect the policy preferences of the median voter.” The authors claim there’s no hard evidence to suggest that these dynamics would vary in countries with political systems of proportional representation and more parties than in the U.S. I'm not a fan of grover norquist but I think it is unfair to say our representatives should be free to disregard the pledge they so publicly made when they were campaigning. Yes, we expect our representatives to go against their platform in extreme cases for the greater good but I'd say if that happens, the representative must turn right around and resign immediately from office and not run for office again. No, it doesn't matter if the cause was an "obstructionist" Congress. It didn't matter with George HW Bush and it won't matter now. Can you imagine if we had a referendum for independence of Scotland and had Cameron said "nah jk" after the results came in favor of Independence? Or if he started attaching new conditions to the promised he made Scots to vote no? "Oh we will get right to the issue of devolution but we must make sure Scots can't vote in England only legislation" but then who didn't they say that when campaigning? Imagine a system where there was a yearly pie eating contest to determine the king for a year. Would it be OK for the current winner to abolish the contest and make the position hereditary? Of course not!
- Nutmog 10y agoI'd say it's fair for candidates to break promises. If voters keep voting for them and their party despite seeing that happen, then it means voters don't mind broken promises. This is what's nice about democracy - you don't have to argue about too many rules, the rules evolve naturally. For some reason it turned out that keeping promises wasn't a natural rule that voters wanted. The same goes for resigning. If they don't resign and are still re-elected or their party is still re-elected then that reflects what their constituents want, not some artificial rules that some unelected rule-maker (who would that be?) decided on. The US system seems to be doing quite well. The majority of the population doesn't care at all, and their votes don't count. Those are people who either always vote for the same party or don't vote at all. The important decision then comes down to the minority of people who are most interested in the policies - the swing voters. Isn't that quite an efficient division of labor?
- dcw303 10y agoComparing Boaty McBoatface to electing a democratic official for representation is a little disingenuous. One is a popularity contest of suggestions to a concrete answer of a question, the other is marking a preference for someone who you hope will perform executive actions in line with what you want. Surely it's closer to compare it to a referendum: in which, the public majority agreed on an answer that the establishment didn't like, and will now renege on.
- toyg 10y ago> the other is marking a preference for someone who you hope will perform executive actions You so wish. It's a popularity contest like any other. Proof: Reagan, Schwarzenegger, Ventura, Berlusconi, Trump, Franken, the Ghandi dynasty, even the last Troudeau. Name recognition alone pretty much trumps (eh) everything else, once you couple it with pre-existing popularity you've basically won, no matter what your message is. You can try to outweigh that with massive doses of continuous higher education, sure, but the natural rest state is that any electoral process is mostly a popularity contest.
- slavik81 10y agoWhat the poll results don't tell you is how much people care about the choice they picked. In a representative democracy, it's not just about what the majority wants, but how much people really care. If a majority prefers pepperoni pizza but will eat basically anything, don't be surprised when the representative orders vegetarian. The vegetarians care far more about the exact type of pizza that's served and are more likely to change which representative they vote for in order to get what they want.
- takno 10y agoIt may be cultural thing, but in the UK tech scene at least even if people are flexible about pepperoni it's mostly because there is a large and delicious range of meat-based pizzas to split the vote. The representative who orders just vegetarian pizza clearly isn't thinking in terms of re-election.
- vidarh 10y agoThe rep who orders just vegetarian pizza will have a bloody revolution on their hands. I have pretty much three criteria for pizza selection: No anchovies, no pine apple, and at least one form of meat.
- josteink 10y agoSeconding (thirding?) this. Where I work, any rep who orders a group of mostly meat-eaters vegetarian food because the group has a single or a few vegetarians too, will be seen as making a declaration of war. I've had people walk out of company dinners (to get "real" food) due to inconsiderate behaviour like this, from supposedly "tolerant" managers. Needless to say, such incidents are seldom repeated. And I say inconsiderate, because that's what such behaviour constitutes as in my cultural climate.
- RubyPinch 10y agoI really don't get why people are trying to manufacture drama over the name of a boat, seriously. "tyrannical" because a group that got a boat, asked some people what their thought on the matter was, and then said "no that silly"? "What happened to disapproving of what you name your boat, but defending to the death your right to name it" and now this is infringing on free speech as well?
- jernfrost 10y agoI don't agree with a lot of the conclusions of this article. E.g. they propose that voting "probably" works the same way in all other countries as the US. There are plenty of objections to be made against that. E.g. 1) the US being a two party state means that getting representatives which represents the great variety of voter opinions is exceedingly difficult. 2) US elections are so dominated by advertisement, expensive campaigns and donations that there is no way a politician can actually do what they tell voters because at the end of the day they have to satisfy donors otherwise they can't get money to run elections. There has been studies that show American politicians are mainly aligned with the wishes of the rich rather than people who vote on them. That is just two big points, which makes the US stand out of many other western democracies, and there are multiple others. My other objection is that Boaty McBoatface, somehow represents the will of the people. No it doesn't. It represent the will of people who bothered to vote on an issue most people likely don't give a dam about. If a choice was demanded of the whole population then Boaty McBoatface would never have won. Whenever there is an issue most people don't have a vested interest in or think is very important it is likely that whoever wants to stirr up stuff or make some fun are going to win, because nobody else has any incentive. This is of course a major issue with democracy. When you let people make decisions on things they don't really care about then they will make poor decisions. Democracy shouldn't make everything a choice, but rather be about choosing people you think will make good choices on your behalf.
- chrischen 10y ago> My other objection is that Boaty McBoatface, somehow represents the will of the people. No it doesn't. It represent the will of people who bothered to vote on an issue most people likely don't give a dam about. If a choice was demanded of the whole population then Boaty McBoatface would never have won. The point is that if it does represent the will of the people and the people in power don't like it, the will of the people will still lose out. The two party system in the US is a problem, but it turns out it's natural consequence of Democracy. There's no law against other parties, it just turns out that with direct voting in a large country, over enough time, we arrive here with two parties. If you look at the Democratic party, in 1968 an unfavored candidate was nominated based on votes, and so the DNC decided to institute the concept of super-delegates from thereon out. They did this because letting normal democracy run its course didn't work because the people elected someone the party elites didn't think was the best. The super delegates composed of party loyalists and high ranking party members that could ignore DNC votes. This essentially gave the party more control over who would win and removed voting power from normal people. In the current election, Donald Trump is doing the same thing to upset the Republican party leadership. The Republicans haven't implemented anything as undemocratic as super-delegates yet, but if Trump wins they might be encouraged to (since it's the type of Democracy-giving-poor-results scenario people in power try to avoid).
- mtgx 10y agoFirst off, this is nothing like how elections work. People are still run by representatives in democratic countries. Second, everyone, including the government is making it sound as if this is a "terrible name", just because it's out of the framework they imagined it to be. But I think this is a great name and has brought nothing but popularity to the project being done on that boat.
- johnsonjo 10y ago>First off, this is nothing like how elections work. People are still run by representatives in democratic countries. It's partially true this isn't how elections work, but I think what the article was trying to get by or at least what I got out of it is that the process was democratic and in similar ways democracy fails. Now this is somewhat subjective and entirely dependent on what you call democracy. It's funny I read this now as I had just started reading a new book I got titled Our Republican Constitution by Randy E. Barnett (great read by the way.) The writer is talking about the American constitution. Once when Benjamin Franklin was asked what form of government the framers had devised he answered famously "a republic, if you can keep it." This was in contrast to a democracy which the writer says they didn't wholly disagree with, but having an excess of democracy had created problems. The author states two conflicting paradigms a Democratic Constitution and a Republican Constitution. He states these are not reflections of what we see as the democratic and republican parties that the USA has today as both parties have believers of both viewpoints. His main distinction that I perceived from reading was that the Democratic Constitution perceived what was constitutional or law by the "majority". Well the alternative to that doesn't seem like it would be anything good it's quite the contrary. The alternative as he states is The Republican Constitution (what he states was the founders paradigm) which has the basis of constitutionality on whether each "individual" had there basic rights. In some cases throughout american history majority rule hasn't favored the individual e.g. racial segregation. In cases where majority rule opposes the inalienable rights of the individual I feel democracy fails and as I stated before that's the one part that I could agree with the journalist that democracy isn't always the best solution to a problem.
- alkonaut 10y agoWhy is it undemocratic to not respect the outcome of an online poll? First of all, online polls are never democratic (They are directed to subset of the population - which is pretty obvious when they are hijacked.). Second - even proper referendums are usually advisory, i.e. the outcome isn't bindnig for legislators. I don't see a democratic problem with that either unless legislators would go against a strong public opinion, repeatedly.
- JustSomeNobody 10y agoThen they should never have asked people what they want.
- brohoolio 10y agoThe second place name, Poppy Mia, is named after a 16 month old kid who died after battle with incurable cancer. Just imagine being the parents and losing to McBoatface. Have it named after the kid with Mcboatface be the nickname.
- return0 10y agoCrowdsourcing of a name is not about democracy. It doesn't appear to me that the public was widely informed that they had to make a democratic decision, instead sounds like a bunch of kids trolling. I think the article is conflating two unrelated entities here. As a sideline, what is democracy even? Democracy via elections would be oligarchy to ancient Athenians, who prefered democracy by lot anyway.
- notahacker 10y agoAnd of course Athenian democracy would be oligarchy to modern democrats, who think that more than 10% of the population should be enfranchised... Agree with your point that it doesn't really help the discussion to treat obscure and easily manipulated online polls on trivia as actual mass expressions of public will. I mean, it's about as valid as the poll Redditors brigaded to try to prove that nearly every American would vote for Sanders.
- takno 10y agoThe vote was well covered in the British press, and the people I know who voted were neither kids not anything other than completely serious about the name.
- Lawtonfogle 10y agoBoaty McBoatface is not internet trolling. Look at Mountain Dew's renaming disaster to see internet trolling.
- gpvos 10y agoI'm still disappointed they didn't call the Northwest Territories "Bob".
- ohthehugemanate 10y agoThis article is good food for thought in a year dominated by two strong "outsider vs the Establishment" candidates in the US, populist rise in all the European elections, and the entire Brexit issue. We are confronting a lot of areas where the "will of the people" differs from "the will of the people who know what the fuck they're talking about." this raises a lot of questions about "democratic-ness." executive powers originally designed for extenuating circumstances are being used on one side and the other: to select delegates in an election, to get around a stonewall Congress in Washington, to name a boat in England. Where they aren't used, there is pressure to use them: to avoid a Brexit disaster, to stand up for a comedian's right to free speech in Germany, to respond to terrorist threats in France and Belgium. I have to wonder if this is the Internet doing to Democracy what it is doing to Capitalism : breaking fundamental assumptions of how the world works. Information and opinions work very differently, now. We are part of much larger social herds, governed by different forces, with much faster (and more selective) information transfer. Populism is a different beast today than when Berlusconi ran in the 90s. Maybe it's time you disrupt democracy.
- buserror 10y agoAnd what's wrong exactly if the name appeals to every 5 years old in the country? I think /that/ is inspirational -- how better to get kids interested in the science than having them following that boat adventures over the oceans? I think refusing that name would be not just be 'anti democratic' -- it's just be very un-british, because as a foreigner, that's /exactly/ what I'd expect the british to come up with as a name, just for a smirk, and that's something I like about them!
- Klathmon 10y agoSeriously! I can't believe that the boat probably won't be named Boaty McBoatface! My nephew would have wanted to learn about it, it would have been something I could keep up to date a bit on what it's doing and he'd love to hear about it. Hell I can't believe the people on the project didn't go 100% for it right away, giving the boat a fun paint-job and maybe even doing something like working with a children's book author to write some stories about what the boat is doing that are geared toward children. It would have been an amazing way to get kids involved and interested in the whole thing.
- minikomi 10y agoSerious Sciency McScienceface seems like an apt compromise.
- logfromblammo 10y agoScience MacResearch O'Gravitas, Fourteenth Earl of Bergcleave, breaker of the ices, measurer of time and tides, and bearer of the kegerator
- rubyfan 10y agoDirect democracy and representative democracy are different. But let's not fool ourselves into thinking the Internet suggestion box for ship names was direct democracy.
- goda90 10y agoEveryone is wrong. It should have been named Boaty McFloaty.
- xufi 10y agoVery original. I'd call it Uncle sam
- krylon 10y ago> “Can you imagine one of the world’s biggest research labs travelling to the Antarctic with your suggested name proudly emblazoned on the side?” I know it is silly and childish, but that would be so awesome. That joke would never get old.
- smoyer 10y ago“The new royal research ship will be sailing into the world’s iciest waters to address global challenges that affect the lives of hundreds of millions of people, including global warming, the melting of polar ice, and rising sea levels,” "Imagine Boaty McBoatface sailing into the world's iciest waters with the wide-eyed fascination of a child. Observing global challenges that affect the lives of hundreds of millions of people, Boaty McBoatface absorbs new facts and ideas without the jaundiced and prejudiced views of older research vessels while providing fresh perspectives and iron-clad observations of data regarding global warming, the melting of polar ice and rising sea levels." I think it works!
- Angostura 10y agoAs the article makes clear, this wasn't a bait and switch, it was clearly said at the start what the parameters were. They were there to avoid this type of situation where people chose a crass name.
- Overtonwindow 10y agoSomething else that may have not been considered is that the whole voting system was rigged. Much in a "marblecake the game" scenario. What should be done in a situation where the vote has been rigged by nefarious/trolling actors?
- vidarh 10y agoWhen the consequences of playing along are what they are in this case? Play along. They've been handed a fantastic PR opportunity, and they're turning it against themselves.
- Overtonwindow 10y agoVery good point!
- tychuz 10y agoEh, I did not enjoy RSS Boaty McBoatface. However, like 15th entry really caught my attention in that voting poll - RSS Boat. Now that's something simple yet elegant.
- brightball 10y agoA professor from UVA once told me that Democracy was the art of convincing people that they actually made the decision.
- pete622 10y agoThis is profound.
- daemonk 10y agoThis name is obviously a joke name that probably shouldn't be used. Yes, there is a responsibility to maintain a democracy by the governing body. But shouldn't there also be a responsibility on the governed to take voting decisions seriously?
- a3n 10y agoWhy Be Serious? ™
- logfromblammo 10y agoI would guess that the name itself was put forth as a signal to the organizers that "we know your public vote is bullshit, and this will prove it", and every vote in favor was saying "we triple-dog dare you to prove us wrong, and actually give up that meaningless iota of control to the people". I think that everyone already knew that the poll was nothing more than a meaningless diversion, and "Boaty McBoatface" was just throwing it back into the organizers' faces. Everybody knew this would happen, and that was the entire reason for the joke names. If it doesn't matter anyway, it's at least good for a laugh or two.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- sputr 10y agoNot calling it Boaty McBoatface will just be a massive missed opportunity for effective science outreach and a crappy PR move. You say it's going to be doing important research? Great! Add a social media presence, pull in people with the "funny name" and keep them for the exciting and interesting research. But you're not going to that, because you're too important for that, ... because you're snobs.
- a3n 10y agoI hope when $NAME_OF_VESSEL crosses the Arctic Circle, they refer to themselves as Boaty McBoatface, at least for the day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-crossing_ceremony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-crossing_ceremony
- szerated 10y agoReally, really over the top with the drama here... This is a crowd sourced name where people didn't take it seriously. This has happened countless other times with Internet polls. Not everything is a statement about democracy...
- TallGuyShort 10y agoI'd say it's the executive who doesn't take the vote seriously.
- szerated 10y agoIt's a bad name. If it were a funny name, or creative, I think there would be a point to make here. But its neither. The only reason to vote for this name is because it would be funny to make them name it something stupid. The humor is only in the anarchy. A mindset that juvenile doesn't deserve to be taken seriously.
- TallGuyShort 10y agoI think it's both funny and creative. Got better PR for a science project than we've seen in a long time. Your objection is as immature as if I said you had a bad face and your name was stupid.
- xenophonf 10y agoThis is the country of the author who gave us ship names such as Gunboat Diplomat, You'll Thank Me Later, and (my personal favorite) I Blame Your Mother. You'd think the NERC would understand that it's all in good fun and would have the grace to use the name chosen by us unwashed masses. I mean, it's irreverent, but it isn't obscene, so who cares?
- TheCowboy 10y agoI wouldn't have thought to bring up Banks, but it's a good point. To think that a lack of gravitas in naming is an indictment of democracy is absolutely ridiculous. I think it's on topic as there are many ships in his books with names referencing a lack of "gravitas". As explained by Banks: "But it was a scathing review of Culture ship-naming policy delivered by another Involved civilisation. They suggested that such enormously powerful and intellectually refined entities ought to have names with a little more gravitas, to reflect their near-god-like status; the immediate and sustained reaction of one of the Culture's ship manufacturies was to name all its subsequent vessels things like: Stood Far Back When The Gravitas Was Handed Out; Gravitas, What Gravitas?; Gravitas... Gravitas... No, Don't Help Me, I'll Get It In A Moment; Gravitas Free Zone; Low Gravitas Warning Signal"
- detaro 10y agoReusing a Culture ship name would have been a great tribute, now that I think of it :(
- pilsetnieks 10y agoAt least Musk will do it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_spaceport_drone_ship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_spaceport_drone_shi...
- cpeterso 10y ago"Culture ship name" was the first thing I thought when I first read about Boaty McBoatface. :)
- squozzer 10y agoCompromise is the essence of democracy. In that spirit, I suggest the following: A serious official name, for example the HMS Stephen Hawking. The people's choice, hand-painted in comic sans.
- red_admiral 10y agoThere's two things we British excel at, silliness and pedantry. So it's no suprise that the best objection I've heard to the name so far is that it's stupid because the vessel is clearly a SHIP, not a BOAT.
- percept 10y agoShippy Shippington.
- PedroBatista 10y agoShip Shipperson
- pbhjpbhj 10y agoThat's a double win: it gets talked about for the name and one gets to pedantically point out is a ship.
- noja 10y agoShippy McShipface? Sounds like something from urban dictionary.
- red_admiral 10y agoI guess the NERC researchers might be a bit less keen if there was a risk they'd ever have to put out a distress call like this over a bad radio connection: "mayday ma-day may--y this is Shi--y McShi-face ..."
- AndyMcConachie 10y agoWhat's wrong with Boaty McBoatface? I think it's kinda cute.
- blubb-fish 10y agoWhat's funny about this ridiculous name??? It's stupid - simply stupid and reminds me of Churchill's infamous remark: » The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. «
- chris_wot 10y agoMy daughter is devastated. She's 8.
- mcguire 10y agoThis article is troubling. It seems to be an attack on the fundamentals of modern governments, that the legitimacy of the government follows from the will of those governed. Because those governed can't be bothered. So, what's your next suggestion, then? Personally, as a random human and as a scientist, I have no problem with Boaty McBoatface, although I know a lot of the stuffier set who would regard it as ridiculous and insulting, and might reflect those feelings on the work done aboard the ship. (I also feel those people should be vetoed.)
- anon4 10y ago“That’s why we want a name that lasts longer than a social-media news cycle and reflects the serious nature of the science it will be doing.” Huuh.. Reminds me a bit of the naming scheme of Culture ships following http://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/sep/11/iainbanks-science-fiction http://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/sep/11/iainbanks-scien... (search for MattB242's comment)
- ourmandave 10y agoThese are the voyages of the starship, McBoatface. It's five year mission...
- nateweiss 10y agoThe Boaty McBoatface incident reminds me, with a smile, of a similar incident when Kraft (Australia) turned to the public to name a new variant of Vegemite. The winning name was "iSnack 2.0" which sure seems (at least to me) to have been intended as satire/commentary. Anyway the product launched under that name to much ridicule, before being later renamed Cheesybite. Interestingly, the name Vegemite itself was also originally "crowdsourced" back in the 1920s [1], so the effort had some tradition behind it. Perhaps "Vegemite" also sounded really silly back then. I think (but not sure) that it's still for sale in Australia... in any case it is/was delicious, regardless of the name. [1] http://adage.com/article/global-news/crowdsourcing-wrong-vegemite-isnack-naming-disaster/139327/ http://adage.com/article/global-news/crowdsourcing-wrong-veg...
- GCA10 10y agoIn the realm of prank names, this one is actually pretty good. It's not sexist, racist, obscene or infused with hate speech. I can see shutting down a prank name that's got hurtful overtones. But this one is playful and harmless. Here's hoping that the authorities relent.
- transfire 10y agoThe British government also fails to realize that by accepting the name, people might be surprised to learn their government actually listens to the people! Then in the future these kinds of events might be taken a bit more seriously.
- doktrin 10y agoI don't see a cause for outrage here. They never promised to abide by the results of the vote, and drawing parallels to the political system feels like a complete non sequitur.
- cpeterso 10y agoThe code name for Apple's Power Macintosh 7100 was "Carl Sagan", an in-joke that the mid-range PowerMac 7100 would make Apple "billions and billions". Sagan asked Apple to rename the project, so they chose "BHA", short for "Butt-Head Astronomer". Sagan sued Apple (twice) and lost. Apple eventually renamed the project "LAW", short for "Lawyers are Wimps". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Macintosh_7100#Codename_lawsuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Macintosh_7100#Codename_... Also, the "Sosumi" alert sound introduced in MacOS 7 is short for "So sue me", referencing the Apple Corps v. Apple Computer lawsuit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sosumi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sosumi
- cpeterso 10y agoTo avoid this isssue, they should have asked people to vote from a list of pre-approved names.
- fanalin 10y ago10 years ago, I got elected to our local parliamant and I learned that democracy does not work very good for searching names. That's just something which somehow is not a good fit for the political process. Perhaps other methods how votes are counted (Condorcet or other methods) could work better. Similar issue: when the new Wembley stadium got a new bridge, there was a voting for the name of the bridge. The german football (soccer for my american friends) player Dietmar Hamann scored the last goal in the old stadium, and german football fans tried to overrun the election to force the englishman to name it "Dietmar-Hamann-Bridge", a slap in the face for every english football fan. Although Hamann won the vote, the bridge got the name White Horse Bridge (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Horse_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Horse_Bridge)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- fhood 10y agoThe real issue with democracy is that people (me included) care far more about whether a research vessel is christened Boaty McBoatface than they do about almost anything else.
- mindcrime 10y ago"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. Liberty is a well armed sheep contesting the outcome". Let's not kid ourselves... Democracy is no perfect ideal to aspire after. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority Let's also consider what Bastiat had to say[1]: What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense. Each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force — his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right — its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force — for the same reason — cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups. Such a perversion of force would be, in both cases, contrary to our premise. Force has been given to us to defend our own individual rights. Who will dare to say that force has been given to us to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces? If this is true, then nothing can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all. Now I don't agree with his appeal to "God" as the justification for the inherent nature of the right to self-defense, but his basic argument is sound. [1]: http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html#SECTION_G004 http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html#SECTION_G004
- woodandsteel 10y agoWhat an idiotic article. "Democracy doesn't work. " So the authors wouldn't mind if the US became a dictatorship? One reason that democracy works vastly better than authoritarian government is that the public agrees on a lot of things. For instance, the public in the US disapproves of governmental corruption, and so it is far lower than in authoritarian countries like Putin's Russia. Oh, and if the authors think that informing the public doesn't work, then why are they working for a media organization is, guess what, informing the public?
- akshatpradhan 10y agoThe UK Gov't really doesn't get it. Just imagine the marketing and sales opportunity for a Kids Television Show about Boaty McBoatface, the Research Vessel. Or how about toys, educational videos, educational cartoons, educational books featuring Boaty McBoatface and friends. This is a Scientific Research Vessel that people could really fall in love with, and instead of capitalizing on that possibility, they'll give it a name like the Hawking. Nothing against Hawking.