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I've seen negative comments of people claiming this is fruitless and that it pretends to solve racism forever (here and elsewhere). No one involved in naming t

I've seen negative comments of people claiming this is fruitless and that it pretends to solve racism forever (here and elsewhere). No one involved in naming this thought that was the case. They are giving overdue recognition. I can't imagine why people would be negative about this besides feeling threatened.

nickff 6y ago
NASA seems to have started a pattern of naming things after people featured in movies, rather than those who contributed deeply to its achievements. Re-naming the Dryden Center to the Armstrong Center appears to have been part of an unfortunate trend.
- justin66 6y ago
  If only Neil Armstrong had accomplished something significant outside Hollywood, perhaps then he would be worthy of having a building at Edwards named after him, is what you're saying? (he is a particularly bad exemplar of the point you are trying to make)
  - nickff 6y ago
    Dryden was much more important to NASA than Armstrong was. Armstrong was lucky to be assigned Apollo 11; he was not the best test pilot (having crashed an X-15 due to his own recklessness). If they were going to pick people who greatly contributed to the success of the Apollo program, they should have picked Houbolt.
    - justin66 6y ago
      If only Armstrong had accomplished something that made up for overshooting the runway and scraping the paint on the bottom of an experimental aircraft, perhaps then he'd be worthy of having a building at Edwards named after him. I cannot imagine what sort of act might erase the stain of that kind of universal infamy.
      - cheschire 6y ago
        I mean, a dog AND a couple monkeys made it up to space right? How hard can it be? And the landing part is just falling with style.
        jjeaff 6y ago
        Not sure if you are aware, but Armstrong is not famous because he just "went to space".
grugagag 6y ago
I dont know if feeling threatened but aware this person’s contribution was not the reason for the naming but the fact that black people were supressed. It’s a generous move but not highly meritocratic. People might have a problem or two with that. I want to remind them we dont live in a meritocratic society anyway and the powerful snatch the merit away like a giant magnet. It will naturally bruise some egos and pump up some other ones and appear to make a bit of justice. The question is, will black americans be treated as second class citizens in 10, 20, 50 years from now?
- Thorentis 6y ago
  > I want to remind them we dont live in a meritocratic society The reason I love the sciences is that in general, people are more meritocratic in those circles compared to others. I've found especially in scientific academia that people are far more meritocratic compared to other disciplines. This also applies at science/engineering companies. No, not at all levels (the more business-y you get, the less of a meritocracy it becomes). But usually team-leads, senior engineers, etc. rise because of merit. Always exceptions, but in general. Much more than as an accounting firm where you rise because you know somebody who knows somebody. Unfortunately, as time goes on, I've seen academic circles in sci&eng, and especially tech companies (and silicone valley in general) become much more interested in stay relevant, keeping up with social trends and movements, and appearing progressive. You see this with all the FAANG companies calmoring to be the first to speak out against some injustice or another, or be the first to take a stand on Their Platform(TM). And with this, the meritocracy has slowly declined. You don't rise in a company because you're a skilled engineer - you can rise because you're a token minority. Or because you're the most outspoken on a social injustice and can see a way for your company to solve it (sorry, profit from it). You can be rewarded because you were the first (insert random minority here) to solve a problem or do something that plenty of other people had already done. Rather than celebrating scientific advancement, we're now celebrating the type of people making that advancement. What next, the first black woman to clone a GitHub repo? Let's name the GitHub HQ after that.
  - tartoran 6y ago
    People who come to surface are either genial or narcisistic prize seekers. A lot of white people worth mentioning were forgotten because others trampled on them. Don’t be so sure it’s so meritocratic, thats just a myth
Thorentis 6y ago
There is nothing meritorious about being black, or being a female, or being white, or being male. You cannot choose your race, or your biological sex. You didn't earn these traits, and you aren't a better or worse human being for having any of them. The NASA HQ was named after somebody to celebrate traits they didn't earn or choose. There are plenty of engineers that were objectively better engineers (I'm sure there were or are many black female engineers who are better engineers than this individual). And there were many engineers that contributed more to the space program than this individual. If their achievements were that incredible, we would've heard much more about them. Plenty of white engineers had successful careers, contributed to their program, performed well, but will forever go un-named, and unappreciated. And that's fine. Nobody is complaining about that, and neither am I. That's life. But to pluck somebody out of a huge number of engineers because of something they had no control over (the color of their skin) and then name a building after them because of it? Absurd.
- guerrilla 6y ago
  Overcoming sexism and racism is something to be proud of and for others to celebrate. Nobody's celebrating this person for their identity in isolation but overcoming a situation where all the odds are very much stacked against a person of such an identity. > If their achievements were that incredible, we would've heard much more about them. Plenty of white engineers had successful careers, contributed to their program, performed well, but will forever go un-named This isn't remotely true. The majority of things are named after white men to the exclusion of everyone else.
  - Thorentis 6y ago
    > The majority of things are named after white men to the exclusion of everyone else. That's because the majority of scientific achievements to date, have been by white men. I'm not celebrating that fact, I'm just pointing out the source of the statistic you've pointed out. The things weren't named because the person was a white male, they were named because of a tremendous achievement that happened to be made by a white male. When the majority of engineers are white men, that's when you get that trend. As we see more black men/women achieve great things, we will see more things named after them. Unfortunately, the rate of scientific and natural discovery in my opinion is slowing down. There will never be a black Christopher Columbus because there are no continents left to discover. There won't be a black Thomas Edison, because we already have light globes. Going out of our way to inflate other achievements just for the sake of naming buildings after minorities is a ridiculous thing to do.
guerrilla 6y ago
I think what those people mean when they say that is that it hasn't materially changed anything for most people, unlike what some reforms (or revolution) could do for people. They see it as a form of tokenism which they think historically hasn't helped much. Personally, I see both sides. I think this is actual progress that will indirectly have positive material benefits while also recognizing we can obviously do better than this.
spaceisballer 6y ago
The negative comments are because people aren’t aware of their privilege and they need to check it. I personally don’t see the issue, this is recognizing someone for their contribution. It’s a very easy gesture that doesn’t harm anyone. Yet people want to rant about this isn’t fair or this won’t solve racism. Life isn’t fair and this woman had to deal with hardships that were imposed on her because of things she had zero control over. Yet she still accomplished a lot. Recognizing the unsung heroes is a great thing and there should be more of that, especially if it’s a woman or a person of color.

nickff 6y ago

NASA seems to have started a pattern of naming things after people featured in movies, rather than those who contributed deeply to its achievements. Re-naming the Dryden Center to the Armstrong Center appears to have been part of an unfortunate trend.

justin66 6y ago
If only Neil Armstrong had accomplished something significant outside Hollywood, perhaps then he would be worthy of having a building at Edwards named after him, is what you're saying? (he is a particularly bad exemplar of the point you are trying to make)
- nickff 6y ago
  Dryden was much more important to NASA than Armstrong was. Armstrong was lucky to be assigned Apollo 11; he was not the best test pilot (having crashed an X-15 due to his own recklessness). If they were going to pick people who greatly contributed to the success of the Apollo program, they should have picked Houbolt.
  - justin66 6y ago
    If only Armstrong had accomplished something that made up for overshooting the runway and scraping the paint on the bottom of an experimental aircraft, perhaps then he'd be worthy of having a building at Edwards named after him. I cannot imagine what sort of act might erase the stain of that kind of universal infamy.
    - cheschire 6y ago
      I mean, a dog AND a couple monkeys made it up to space right? How hard can it be? And the landing part is just falling with style.
      - jjeaff 6y ago
        Not sure if you are aware, but Armstrong is not famous because he just "went to space".

grugagag 6y ago

I dont know if feeling threatened but aware this person’s contribution was not the reason for the naming but the fact that black people were supressed. It’s a generous move but not highly meritocratic. People might have a problem or two with that. I want to remind them we dont live in a meritocratic society anyway and the powerful snatch the merit away like a giant magnet. It will naturally bruise some egos and pump up some other ones and appear to make a bit of justice. The question is, will black americans be treated as second class citizens in 10, 20, 50 years from now?

Thorentis 6y ago
> I want to remind them we dont live in a meritocratic society The reason I love the sciences is that in general, people are more meritocratic in those circles compared to others. I've found especially in scientific academia that people are far more meritocratic compared to other disciplines. This also applies at science/engineering companies. No, not at all levels (the more business-y you get, the less of a meritocracy it becomes). But usually team-leads, senior engineers, etc. rise because of merit. Always exceptions, but in general. Much more than as an accounting firm where you rise because you know somebody who knows somebody. Unfortunately, as time goes on, I've seen academic circles in sci&eng, and especially tech companies (and silicone valley in general) become much more interested in stay relevant, keeping up with social trends and movements, and appearing progressive. You see this with all the FAANG companies calmoring to be the first to speak out against some injustice or another, or be the first to take a stand on Their Platform(TM). And with this, the meritocracy has slowly declined. You don't rise in a company because you're a skilled engineer - you can rise because you're a token minority. Or because you're the most outspoken on a social injustice and can see a way for your company to solve it (sorry, profit from it). You can be rewarded because you were the first (insert random minority here) to solve a problem or do something that plenty of other people had already done. Rather than celebrating scientific advancement, we're now celebrating the type of people making that advancement. What next, the first black woman to clone a GitHub repo? Let's name the GitHub HQ after that.
- tartoran 6y ago
  People who come to surface are either genial or narcisistic prize seekers. A lot of white people worth mentioning were forgotten because others trampled on them. Don’t be so sure it’s so meritocratic, thats just a myth

Thorentis 6y ago

There is nothing meritorious about being black, or being a female, or being white, or being male. You cannot choose your race, or your biological sex. You didn't earn these traits, and you aren't a better or worse human being for having any of them. The NASA HQ was named after somebody to celebrate traits they didn't earn or choose. There are plenty of engineers that were objectively better engineers (I'm sure there were or are many black female engineers who are better engineers than this individual). And there were many engineers that contributed more to the space program than this individual. If their achievements were that incredible, we would've heard much more about them. Plenty of white engineers had successful careers, contributed to their program, performed well, but will forever go un-named, and unappreciated. And that's fine. Nobody is complaining about that, and neither am I. That's life. But to pluck somebody out of a huge number of engineers because of something they had no control over (the color of their skin) and then name a building after them because of it? Absurd.

guerrilla 6y ago
Overcoming sexism and racism is something to be proud of and for others to celebrate. Nobody's celebrating this person for their identity in isolation but overcoming a situation where all the odds are very much stacked against a person of such an identity. > If their achievements were that incredible, we would've heard much more about them. Plenty of white engineers had successful careers, contributed to their program, performed well, but will forever go un-named This isn't remotely true. The majority of things are named after white men to the exclusion of everyone else.
- Thorentis 6y ago
  > The majority of things are named after white men to the exclusion of everyone else. That's because the majority of scientific achievements to date, have been by white men. I'm not celebrating that fact, I'm just pointing out the source of the statistic you've pointed out. The things weren't named because the person was a white male, they were named because of a tremendous achievement that happened to be made by a white male. When the majority of engineers are white men, that's when you get that trend. As we see more black men/women achieve great things, we will see more things named after them. Unfortunately, the rate of scientific and natural discovery in my opinion is slowing down. There will never be a black Christopher Columbus because there are no continents left to discover. There won't be a black Thomas Edison, because we already have light globes. Going out of our way to inflate other achievements just for the sake of naming buildings after minorities is a ridiculous thing to do.

guerrilla 6y ago

I think what those people mean when they say that is that it hasn't materially changed anything for most people, unlike what some reforms (or revolution) could do for people. They see it as a form of tokenism which they think historically hasn't helped much. Personally, I see both sides. I think this is actual progress that will indirectly have positive material benefits while also recognizing we can obviously do better than this.

spaceisballer 6y ago

The negative comments are because people aren’t aware of their privilege and they need to check it. I personally don’t see the issue, this is recognizing someone for their contribution. It’s a very easy gesture that doesn’t harm anyone. Yet people want to rant about this isn’t fair or this won’t solve racism. Life isn’t fair and this woman had to deal with hardships that were imposed on her because of things she had zero control over. Yet she still accomplished a lot. Recognizing the unsung heroes is a great thing and there should be more of that, especially if it’s a woman or a person of color.