5 ms·

Is America Facing Another Sputnik Moment?

25 points by anthotny 9y ago

lr4444lr 9y ago
I'm surprised that despite talking about the push for scientific education that came out of the Sputnik event, the article doesn't quote the seminal manifesto that really galvanized the conversation: A Nation at Risk[0] Is it as relevant today as it was back then? The rest of the BRIC nations hadn't yet reached their ascendancy, and outsourcing was in its infancy. AI automation was a fantasy. [0] https://www2.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/risk.html https://www2.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/risk.html
chollida1 9y ago
> Indeed, recently opened archives suggest that Eisenhower preferred to let the Soviets reach space first, so as to establish a precedent. The United States would then be free to launch reconnaissance satellites without incurring the wrath of its Cold War nemesis. You hear things like this alot, - The US knew about Pearl Harbor attacks and let them happen - The US knew about 9/11 and let it happen. - The US knew about soviet misses moving to Cuba and let them get there intentionally. Most people dismiss this as tinfoil hat territory. I wonder how many of these "conspiracies" have any truth to them? As to the US facing a "Sputnik Moment" now, I don't think the article lays out any valid reasons why now is their Sputnik moment. You could have written this article any year from 1969 to now and it would be equally true.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- iraklism 9y ago
  I catch myself internally debating this from time to time. On the one hand, we are encouraged to make decisions based on facts/data/evidence. Speculation is speculation. Anything goes. On the other hand, if we only do this we are bound by the “reality” that has been provided to us. No evolution/revolution can occur. History is filled with documented cases of these “conspiracies”. I’d be really interested in hearing other peoples’ views on this.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - jerf 9y ago
    I think the error that a lot of conspiracy theorists make isn't so much the idea that conspiracies exist, but that they have some sort of additional metaphysical super-reality that makes them supremely powerful and omniscient. I can process the possibility that 9/11 was at least permitted to happen by somebody who happened to work for the government. But I bet it didn't go as they expected (doubt anyone planned on one of the planes crashing before arriving at the Pentagon), and I would also lay money down the after effects were not precisely what they wanted or expected either. Just as it the effects were not precisely what the terrorists themselves probably expected or desired, either. (And in only the craziest levels of the conspiracy theory would the motives of the actual people and the conspirators actually line up.) A lot of conspiracies probably exist. Mostly they fight with each other (knowingly or otherwise), work at cross purposes, and don't have exactly the predicted effects any more than any of the rest of us can predict the future precisely either. And people underestimate what people can do. At the risk of being excessively topical, as an example, at the moment I see nothing in particular about the Las Vegas shooting incident that requires a conspiracy to have occurred. That doesn't prove there wasn't one, and I reserve the right to change my mind as evidence comes in, but at the moment, I don't see anything that requires that as an explanation. In a world of 7 billion people, a non-trivial number of which are crazy, a non-trivial number of those of which recently went crazy due to environmental factors such as drugs (prescription and otherwise) or brain tumors, I don't think the baseline of such incidents will ever be zero. (And I'm not necessarily all that hard pressed to more-or-less believe the official account of 9-11 either, honestly.) In summation, I think that certainly some conspiracies exist, but they are less powerful and omniscient that people ascribe to them, that there are things that "just happen" without a conspiracy, and that sometimes they do succeed and remain secret. I'd also observe that just like there's a rush every time a new product comes out to be the first to denounce it and declare it's utter failure, there's a rush to be the first person to declare that you can see the workings of a conspiracy or how something is a false flag operation. In our social media age, this is what I would call "the expected result", not some sort of surprise or meaningful signal.
- TrainedMonkey 9y ago
  US government is a huge entity made up of a lot of people, no matter how crazy something is you can always find someone who knows about it.
- pvg 9y ago
  One of these is not like the others. A document from an archive that lends itself to a particular interpretation is just that. It's evidence that others can verify and reinterpret for themselves. The other three things you mention don't reach that kind of standard at all.
- jimrandomh 9y ago
  These aren't similar. Sputnik wasn't a bad thing; there's no reasonable basis to suggest the US should've tried to prevent it. Your other three examples are of bad things, which, if the US did have prior warning, it should've acted to prevent.
- 3131s 9y ago
  - The US knew about 9/11 and let it happen. Pretty likely IMO. A while back I summed up some of the evidence that I've come across in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14136336 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14136336 If any of my summary is off base I would like to know -- but at this point I am pretty resolute in the belief that at the very least high-level Bush administration officials should be formally investigated regarding foreknowledge of 9/11.
roesel 9y ago
A nice intro into Sputnik, but otherwise almost no substance. How are crewed missions not in line with the Apollo missions praised earlier in the article? I am a huge supporter of basic research but NASA had plenty of success with research which was performed to support/enable a more applied purpose.
heroprotagonist 9y ago
I'm pretty irritated at the title. It seems to pose a question of whether we are having a watershed moment where an achievement by a competing nation will spur us to greater activity. But all the article does is rehash history. A more accurate title would be, "It's the Sputnik anniversary, here are some thoughts".
- canadaduane 9y ago
  A browser plugin that replaces click-bait article titles with your edited versions would be brilliant.
- namelost 9y ago
  Betteridge's law strikes again.
- elpool2 9y ago
  I thought maybe the article was going to be about how the Russians are beating us at the cyber-propaganda game.
- Nokinside 9y ago
  The message in the article is that NASA is getting into the 60 years old Sputnik era mindset of national gestures and symbolism instead of doing space science or helping actual space economy.
horsecaptin 9y ago
Is there a newspaper out there that doesn't use bait-filled titles and articles filled with "analysis" and just reports the news?
intrepidkarthi 9y ago
Stupid title for a TRUMPish article.
imglorp 9y ago
Our systematic, aggressive cost accounting has forced reduction, offshoring, or outsourcing of basic R&D and core competencies in a number of tech fields. Shareholders hate investing beyond the next quarter. Where is the flow of innovations that used to come from Bell labs, DEC SRC, or Xerox PARC? Who among the Buffets and bankers will have the appetite to pay for it?
icc97 9y ago
> It also elides the fact that, at a time of increasing automation here on Earth, the rush to send human colonists to space seems quaint, if not misguided. Personally I find that with all the recent Space X announcements, space exploration really feels like the future is arriving. It turns out we don't need flying cars, but having space rockets that land themselves, having moon bases and people on Mars genuinely is the future. This kind of stuff excites me and makes me long for the future. Automation doesn't. Obligatory XKCD: https://www.xkcd.com/1232/ https://www.xkcd.com/1232/
princetontiger 9y ago
The United States is in terminal decline, and NASA is the poster child for it. How can my child say, Daddy, what's a space shuttle? Like the fall of Rome and Greece, it's quite sad.

25 points by anthotny 9y ago

I'm surprised that despite talking about the push for scientific education that came out of the Sputnik event, the article doesn't quote the seminal manifesto that really galvanized the conversation: A Nation at Risk[0] Is it as relevant today as it was back then? The rest of the BRIC nations hadn't yet reached their ascendancy, and outsourcing was in its infancy. AI automation was a fantasy. [0] https://www2.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/risk.html https://www2.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/risk.html

chollida1 9y ago

> Indeed, recently opened archives suggest that Eisenhower preferred to let the Soviets reach space first, so as to establish a precedent. The United States would then be free to launch reconnaissance satellites without incurring the wrath of its Cold War nemesis. You hear things like this alot, - The US knew about Pearl Harbor attacks and let them happen - The US knew about 9/11 and let it happen. - The US knew about soviet misses moving to Cuba and let them get there intentionally. Most people dismiss this as tinfoil hat territory. I wonder how many of these "conspiracies" have any truth to them? As to the US facing a "Sputnik Moment" now, I don't think the article lays out any valid reasons why now is their Sputnik moment. You could have written this article any year from 1969 to now and it would be equally true.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
iraklism 9y ago
I catch myself internally debating this from time to time. On the one hand, we are encouraged to make decisions based on facts/data/evidence. Speculation is speculation. Anything goes. On the other hand, if we only do this we are bound by the “reality” that has been provided to us. No evolution/revolution can occur. History is filled with documented cases of these “conspiracies”. I’d be really interested in hearing other peoples’ views on this.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jerf 9y ago
  I think the error that a lot of conspiracy theorists make isn't so much the idea that conspiracies exist, but that they have some sort of additional metaphysical super-reality that makes them supremely powerful and omniscient. I can process the possibility that 9/11 was at least permitted to happen by somebody who happened to work for the government. But I bet it didn't go as they expected (doubt anyone planned on one of the planes crashing before arriving at the Pentagon), and I would also lay money down the after effects were not precisely what they wanted or expected either. Just as it the effects were not precisely what the terrorists themselves probably expected or desired, either. (And in only the craziest levels of the conspiracy theory would the motives of the actual people and the conspirators actually line up.) A lot of conspiracies probably exist. Mostly they fight with each other (knowingly or otherwise), work at cross purposes, and don't have exactly the predicted effects any more than any of the rest of us can predict the future precisely either. And people underestimate what people can do. At the risk of being excessively topical, as an example, at the moment I see nothing in particular about the Las Vegas shooting incident that requires a conspiracy to have occurred. That doesn't prove there wasn't one, and I reserve the right to change my mind as evidence comes in, but at the moment, I don't see anything that requires that as an explanation. In a world of 7 billion people, a non-trivial number of which are crazy, a non-trivial number of those of which recently went crazy due to environmental factors such as drugs (prescription and otherwise) or brain tumors, I don't think the baseline of such incidents will ever be zero. (And I'm not necessarily all that hard pressed to more-or-less believe the official account of 9-11 either, honestly.) In summation, I think that certainly some conspiracies exist, but they are less powerful and omniscient that people ascribe to them, that there are things that "just happen" without a conspiracy, and that sometimes they do succeed and remain secret. I'd also observe that just like there's a rush every time a new product comes out to be the first to denounce it and declare it's utter failure, there's a rush to be the first person to declare that you can see the workings of a conspiracy or how something is a false flag operation. In our social media age, this is what I would call "the expected result", not some sort of surprise or meaningful signal.
TrainedMonkey 9y ago
US government is a huge entity made up of a lot of people, no matter how crazy something is you can always find someone who knows about it.
pvg 9y ago
One of these is not like the others. A document from an archive that lends itself to a particular interpretation is just that. It's evidence that others can verify and reinterpret for themselves. The other three things you mention don't reach that kind of standard at all.
jimrandomh 9y ago
These aren't similar. Sputnik wasn't a bad thing; there's no reasonable basis to suggest the US should've tried to prevent it. Your other three examples are of bad things, which, if the US did have prior warning, it should've acted to prevent.
3131s 9y ago
- The US knew about 9/11 and let it happen. Pretty likely IMO. A while back I summed up some of the evidence that I've come across in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14136336 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14136336 If any of my summary is off base I would like to know -- but at this point I am pretty resolute in the belief that at the very least high-level Bush administration officials should be formally investigated regarding foreknowledge of 9/11.

roesel 9y ago

A nice intro into Sputnik, but otherwise almost no substance. How are crewed missions not in line with the Apollo missions praised earlier in the article? I am a huge supporter of basic research but NASA had plenty of success with research which was performed to support/enable a more applied purpose.

heroprotagonist 9y ago

I'm pretty irritated at the title. It seems to pose a question of whether we are having a watershed moment where an achievement by a competing nation will spur us to greater activity. But all the article does is rehash history. A more accurate title would be, "It's the Sputnik anniversary, here are some thoughts".

canadaduane 9y ago
A browser plugin that replaces click-bait article titles with your edited versions would be brilliant.
namelost 9y ago
Betteridge's law strikes again.
elpool2 9y ago
I thought maybe the article was going to be about how the Russians are beating us at the cyber-propaganda game.
Nokinside 9y ago
The message in the article is that NASA is getting into the 60 years old Sputnik era mindset of national gestures and symbolism instead of doing space science or helping actual space economy.

horsecaptin 9y ago

Is there a newspaper out there that doesn't use bait-filled titles and articles filled with "analysis" and just reports the news?

intrepidkarthi 9y ago

Stupid title for a TRUMPish article.

imglorp 9y ago

Our systematic, aggressive cost accounting has forced reduction, offshoring, or outsourcing of basic R&D and core competencies in a number of tech fields. Shareholders hate investing beyond the next quarter. Where is the flow of innovations that used to come from Bell labs, DEC SRC, or Xerox PARC? Who among the Buffets and bankers will have the appetite to pay for it?

icc97 9y ago

> It also elides the fact that, at a time of increasing automation here on Earth, the rush to send human colonists to space seems quaint, if not misguided. Personally I find that with all the recent Space X announcements, space exploration really feels like the future is arriving. It turns out we don't need flying cars, but having space rockets that land themselves, having moon bases and people on Mars genuinely is the future. This kind of stuff excites me and makes me long for the future. Automation doesn't. Obligatory XKCD: https://www.xkcd.com/1232/ https://www.xkcd.com/1232/

princetontiger 9y ago

The United States is in terminal decline, and NASA is the poster child for it. How can my child say, Daddy, what's a space shuttle? Like the fall of Rome and Greece, it's quite sad.