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Purely a guess, but a lot of people whose pride stems from understanding complex subjects are the same people who will gatekeep that subject. Sagan, making astr

Purely a guess, but a lot of people whose pride stems from understanding complex subjects are the same people who will gatekeep that subject. Sagan, making astronomy more accessible to lay people, would be a grave offense to someone like that.

JohnJamesRambo 4y ago
Imagine thinking you are superior to Carl Sagan because you made a beige box.
emsign 4y ago
The Apple engineers' unwillingness to back down but even pushing things further with their insulting second code name shows a degree of arrogance that's astonishing.
- xbar 4y ago
  My memory is that the average 90's Silicon Valley engineer was arrogant. It was not at all astonishing.
  - JKCalhoun 4y ago
    Arrogant is a strong word and I think carries too fine a point. The industry was interesting (bizarre) at the time in that the engineers were more or less left to run their domain. Upper management might give the overall direction of what to work on but beyond that there was not a lot of middle or lower management that could tell engineers how to do that. This left a lot of the responsibility (and authority if you will) in the hands of engineering to accomplish what the company wanted. And so engineers chose code names. To be sure too they were not meant for (sanitized by) the PR department — they were strictly at the whim of engineering. Engineers don't want to have to put on a "marketing hat", or get marketing to sign off on a codename (for chrissakes). That one of those code names leaked somehow and caused bad publicity for the company — that was management's/marketing's problem, not the engineer's. We're in a more modern era now where the balance has shifted to a much more top-down model — diminishing the broader role engineers used to have.
- Redoubts 4y ago
  I don’t think people outside the company should get a say over internal code names at all To think otherwise is a much stronger arrogance
  - dahfizz 4y ago
    Is there a word for this kind of logical fallacy? GP asserts that what the engineers did is wrong. They didn't say that the public should get to decide what codenames to use or anything like that. They simply pointed out the arrogance of the engineers, and they are right. It's like a straw man, but specific to issues of morality. "X is wrong". "Oh, so you want to jail every offender of X? You want to completely regulate Y in case it leads to X?"
    - Redoubts 4y ago
      > Is there a word for this kind of logical fallacy? You just don't know what a fallacy is. > Oh, so you want to jail every offender of X? This is not what I'm saying. I'm disagreeing, and putting forward a stronger, opposite claim.
somat 4y ago
Not sure about this case, but in general I find it to be the opposite, people love to teach others about the subjects they care about and have taken the time to learn in depth. I am the same way, I tend to self censer because who wants to hear about the subtle intricacies of the bgp system. until they start to show interest, then you can't shut me up.
adastra22 4y ago
This is true (source: worked at NASA and heard other astronomers opinion of Sagan). The other chief aspects were (1) some had professional disagreements with Sagan and resented that he still won academic battles for mindshare just by being Sagan, and (2) resentment of his success by academics who were just as good but didn’t get fame and the grant wins or lucrative work that came from it.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  Ref #2, I wonder if scientists feel similarly to Neil deGrasse Tyson today. He doesn’t seem likely to be wildly better as a scientist than his peers, but being wildly better as a communicator has incredible differentiating value (and likely has a tailwind for the other scientists in terms of public support for science when it’s something they feel is almost within their grasp).
  - andrepd 4y ago
    I find Neil deGrasse Tyson to be a terrible science communicator, especially since a few years back. Just look at the man's twitter. Putting him and Carl Sagan in the same sentence is almost insulting x)
    - ConstantVigil 4y ago
      Not to mention that I am fairly certain I've caught him being horribly wrong more than once. But for the life of me, I cannot seem to remember which times it was. I'm sure I'll come across those videos again sometime though, and when I do; I'll be sure to edit this comment. Knowing my luck, it will be in the next few days time.
      - vladTheInhaler 4y ago
        Tyson once said on twitter “An airplane whose engine fails is a glider. A helicopter whose engine fails is a brick.” Now it's not at all obvious why that's not true. But that's why it's important to be humble about what you do and don't know.
temac 4y ago
Ironical from people working at Apple in the 90s.

JohnJamesRambo 4y ago

Imagine thinking you are superior to Carl Sagan because you made a beige box.

emsign 4y ago

The Apple engineers' unwillingness to back down but even pushing things further with their insulting second code name shows a degree of arrogance that's astonishing.

xbar 4y ago
My memory is that the average 90's Silicon Valley engineer was arrogant. It was not at all astonishing.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  Arrogant is a strong word and I think carries too fine a point. The industry was interesting (bizarre) at the time in that the engineers were more or less left to run their domain. Upper management might give the overall direction of what to work on but beyond that there was not a lot of middle or lower management that could tell engineers how to do that. This left a lot of the responsibility (and authority if you will) in the hands of engineering to accomplish what the company wanted. And so engineers chose code names. To be sure too they were not meant for (sanitized by) the PR department — they were strictly at the whim of engineering. Engineers don't want to have to put on a "marketing hat", or get marketing to sign off on a codename (for chrissakes). That one of those code names leaked somehow and caused bad publicity for the company — that was management's/marketing's problem, not the engineer's. We're in a more modern era now where the balance has shifted to a much more top-down model — diminishing the broader role engineers used to have.
Redoubts 4y ago
I don’t think people outside the company should get a say over internal code names at all To think otherwise is a much stronger arrogance
- dahfizz 4y ago
  Is there a word for this kind of logical fallacy? GP asserts that what the engineers did is wrong. They didn't say that the public should get to decide what codenames to use or anything like that. They simply pointed out the arrogance of the engineers, and they are right. It's like a straw man, but specific to issues of morality. "X is wrong". "Oh, so you want to jail every offender of X? You want to completely regulate Y in case it leads to X?"
  - Redoubts 4y ago
    > Is there a word for this kind of logical fallacy? You just don't know what a fallacy is. > Oh, so you want to jail every offender of X? This is not what I'm saying. I'm disagreeing, and putting forward a stronger, opposite claim.

somat 4y ago

Not sure about this case, but in general I find it to be the opposite, people love to teach others about the subjects they care about and have taken the time to learn in depth. I am the same way, I tend to self censer because who wants to hear about the subtle intricacies of the bgp system. until they start to show interest, then you can't shut me up.

adastra22 4y ago

This is true (source: worked at NASA and heard other astronomers opinion of Sagan). The other chief aspects were (1) some had professional disagreements with Sagan and resented that he still won academic battles for mindshare just by being Sagan, and (2) resentment of his success by academics who were just as good but didn’t get fame and the grant wins or lucrative work that came from it.

sokoloff 4y ago
Ref #2, I wonder if scientists feel similarly to Neil deGrasse Tyson today. He doesn’t seem likely to be wildly better as a scientist than his peers, but being wildly better as a communicator has incredible differentiating value (and likely has a tailwind for the other scientists in terms of public support for science when it’s something they feel is almost within their grasp).
- andrepd 4y ago
  I find Neil deGrasse Tyson to be a terrible science communicator, especially since a few years back. Just look at the man's twitter. Putting him and Carl Sagan in the same sentence is almost insulting x)
  - ConstantVigil 4y ago
    Not to mention that I am fairly certain I've caught him being horribly wrong more than once. But for the life of me, I cannot seem to remember which times it was. I'm sure I'll come across those videos again sometime though, and when I do; I'll be sure to edit this comment. Knowing my luck, it will be in the next few days time.
    - vladTheInhaler 4y ago
      Tyson once said on twitter “An airplane whose engine fails is a glider. A helicopter whose engine fails is a brick.” Now it's not at all obvious why that's not true. But that's why it's important to be humble about what you do and don't know.

temac 4y ago

Ironical from people working at Apple in the 90s.