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Probably everyone know “ standing on the shoulders of giants”. Every new discovery is based on knowledge acquired from previous discoveries. What is achieved b

Probably everyone know “ standing on the shoulders of giants”. Every new discovery is based on knowledge acquired from previous discoveries. What is achieved by USA is also standing on the work of previous great civilizations. Indeed all the knowledge USA today have, is built on top of knowledge brought in by immigrants from their respective society, culture and place. China is not the only country trying space missions. European Union, Japan, South Korea and India has also been trying for years. Besides Russia, USA now China is 3rd country to successfully launch a space station and then take crew to it, despite the sanctions and constant blocking of technology transfer (indeed forgetting the basic tenet of standing on the shoulders of giants). It’s a big achievement for China given they were blocked from ISS and need to re-invent the wheels. Hopefully they will be able to show same innovation and operational capability in space as they have shown in fast speed bullet trains. Personally I hope that humanity can come together to have more collaborations on space, given it will be the only hope if something happens to Earth. Docking of spacecraft with crew is a win for science and another feather in understanding space. Congratulations to all the scientists and people involved in this project, they deserve an applause for the this feat.

sidlls 5y ago
Please don't abuse the phrase "standing on the shoulders of giants." It's the difference between riffing off a work of art to produce something novel versus plagiarism. What China does is the latter, not the former. It's not "standing on the shoulders of giants." And in this case it's worse: China's government is engaged in a genocide and empire building at least as bad as any colonial power in the West, and likely worse due to its extremely oppressive, authoritarian nature. Their achievements are not only built on theft of others' hard work, but on the backs of the oppressed people that have guns pointed at their heads. > Personally I hope that humanity can come together to have more collaborations on space, given it will be the only hope if something happens to Earth. I do, too. But China isn't going to contribute to that: they'd rather let others do the hard work and then steal it. It's not a bad strategy in some respects. But it's not respectable or good in any meaningful sense as it applies to a shared endeavor such as you describe.
- trasz 5y ago
  Nice, comparing Chinese "genocide" - roughly similar in shape to what the West calls "youth penitentiary prisons" - to actual crimes, ranging from Guantanamo to continued oppression of racial minorities.
- BelenusMordred 5y ago
  > Their achievements are not only built on theft of others' hard work, but on the backs of the oppressed people that have guns pointed at their heads. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
  - sidlls 5y ago
    Tu quoque arguments are rather poor, really.
- dragonsh 5y ago
  > I do, too. Sorry based on your comment, it seems not. There is a clear strong negative bias towards China in your comment and lack of understanding with “standing on the shoulders of giants”. You can read all about rockets, still it will be hard to build one. Very few companies and countries are able to do space missions, even with the availability of all the know how. India took two decades to build cryogenic engines based on the Russian design and specifications, called CE-7.5 (and variants with minor changes). It helped them build CE-20 later and it’s still hard and they are working on it. So may be for once just keep your bias on side and be able to acknowledge the achievements based on science.

sidlls 5y ago

Please don't abuse the phrase "standing on the shoulders of giants." It's the difference between riffing off a work of art to produce something novel versus plagiarism. What China does is the latter, not the former. It's not "standing on the shoulders of giants." And in this case it's worse: China's government is engaged in a genocide and empire building at least as bad as any colonial power in the West, and likely worse due to its extremely oppressive, authoritarian nature. Their achievements are not only built on theft of others' hard work, but on the backs of the oppressed people that have guns pointed at their heads. > Personally I hope that humanity can come together to have more collaborations on space, given it will be the only hope if something happens to Earth. I do, too. But China isn't going to contribute to that: they'd rather let others do the hard work and then steal it. It's not a bad strategy in some respects. But it's not respectable or good in any meaningful sense as it applies to a shared endeavor such as you describe.

trasz 5y ago
Nice, comparing Chinese "genocide" - roughly similar in shape to what the West calls "youth penitentiary prisons" - to actual crimes, ranging from Guantanamo to continued oppression of racial minorities.
BelenusMordred 5y ago
> Their achievements are not only built on theft of others' hard work, but on the backs of the oppressed people that have guns pointed at their heads. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
- sidlls 5y ago
  Tu quoque arguments are rather poor, really.
dragonsh 5y ago
> I do, too. Sorry based on your comment, it seems not. There is a clear strong negative bias towards China in your comment and lack of understanding with “standing on the shoulders of giants”. You can read all about rockets, still it will be hard to build one. Very few companies and countries are able to do space missions, even with the availability of all the know how. India took two decades to build cryogenic engines based on the Russian design and specifications, called CE-7.5 (and variants with minor changes). It helped them build CE-20 later and it’s still hard and they are working on it. So may be for once just keep your bias on side and be able to acknowledge the achievements based on science.