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What lessons are to be learned by the process of the JWST? I'm amazed that such an ambitious project, which required many advances in the "state of the art" has

What lessons are to be learned by the process of the JWST? I'm amazed that such an ambitious project, which required many advances in the "state of the art" has been successful so far, even with the 12 year delay. It gives me hope for reversing climate change, though the scale and scope of the projects are absurdly different. 1000 gigatons of CO2 is a lot, but we'll have to start somewhere.

ligerzer0 4y ago
What I find scary is that we might invest lots of resources into "reversing" climate change, and while under this belief that the reversal is just around the corner, we let the degradation continue at unnecessary rates, pretty much creating a race between the ability to reverse it, and it reaching a point of no reversal
- KerrAvon 4y ago
  What's scary is that we might not invest any resources either to deal with or reverse climate change, because the billionaires in charge are planning to jet to New Zealand until the waters recede (they're not generally very bright).
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    They aren't smart, but they are old and they know that. The don't expect to live long enough to see the bad shit they are causing, so they don't care.
    - donkarma 4y ago
      Billionaires have kids so
      - Sunspark 4y ago
        You are making the assumption that they care about their kids. A sociopath thinks only of themselves.
        bigiain 4y ago
        I dunno why you’re being downvoted, when the richest guy in the world has a daughter who’s changing her name to avoid being associated with him…
        bryananderson 4y ago
        True, but not that many people are true sociopaths. Much more common among “bad” people is garden-variety self-centeredness with lots of rationalization. Everyone has selfish instincts, but very few people can sleep at night if they see themselves as a bad guy. Fortunately for them, humans are ridiculously good at mental gymnastics to subdue that cognitive dissonance.
        bigiain 4y ago
        Not many people are billionaires either, and anecdotal evidence (or maybe just internet pundits assertions?) suggests there’s probably some strong correlation between the two. “Everybody has selfish instincts“, but the magnitude of “selfishness” required to amass a wealth of a billion dollars is way way beyond “normal”. Whether that guarantees sociopathy or not is not a simple question I guess.
        bryananderson 4y ago
        That’s fair, it’s definitely plausible that the process of becoming a billionaire does select for sociopathy or similar traits. Still, this is far from scientific, but any time I read in-depth about bad (in my view) people, I’ve always been struck by the seemingly low incidence of true sociopathy among them. Corrupt politicians, robber barons, mobsters, warlords, lackeys of authoritarian regimes—you see some who read like a list of sociopathy markers[0], but seemingly more who do not, who had people in their lives who they clearly loved, activities that brought them joy, and so on. It’s a very different and more extreme example, but I remember being really struck by this when I first visited the US Holocaust Museum: even if some at the top were true sociopaths, many of the major perpetrators who were profiled at the museum were seemingly psychologically “normal” people who committed unthinkable acts (often because that was the way to climb the ladder in the hierarchy) and rationalized them somehow so they could sleep at night. To me that was just terrifying: I’d always sort of thought that the people who did these things must have been so abnormal as to be barely recognizable as human, but if they weren’t, what then? Then it could happen anywhere and to anybody if we don’t get serious about teaching moral courage. The Germans today know this very well, but I’m not sure Americans (and presumably others) absorbed the lesson. I think it’s tempting to try to explain terrible people as being fundamentally different from oneself, because then we don’t have to worry about how not to become like them. It’s rather scary to think that they’re not so different, but if they’re not, we have to ask ourselves what we’d do different if we found ourselves in their position, whether that’s running a little startup that turned into a big corporation or serving in the Dutch state bureaucracy in 1940. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disor...
- hooande 4y ago
  It would take massive social change to dramatically slow the current rate of climate change. I would guess that it would politically require about the same amount of time as carbon capture / reduction technology. Out of the blue, I'm thinking that everyone on earth would have to use 20%-30% less energy on a daily basis to effectively slow or reverse the process of climate change. Technological improvement seems much more realistic, to me.
  - fnordpiglet 4y ago
    Don’t look up!
  - imiric 4y ago
    One hundred companies are responsible for 71% of global greenhouse gas emissions.[1] Rather than trying to change the habits of everyone on earth, a more realistic goal would be to change a fraction of these corporate polluters. Efforts to place the responsibility of climate change on individuals is mostly corporate propaganda. Not that altering our habits wouldn't be an improvement, but it's not addressing the main cause of the problem. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10...
    - cdelsolar 4y ago
      Why do you think companies exist? For customers…
      - bigiain 4y ago
        That’s a funny way to spell “shareholders”. If you start something to benefit other people, you run a charity or a non profit. Companies are started and run by people who want to make money for themselves and their investors. You might be using “benefitting our customers” as a tool in your profit-making, but it’s not why you get out of bed every morning (whether you admit it to yourself or not).
      - 4y ago
harshreality 4y ago
That managing projects require a combination of social ability > he can go into a room, he can sit in a cafeteria, and by the time he leaves the cafeteria, he knows half of the people. and ability to think technically/rationally > He earned a bachelor’s in math from Virginia Union and a bachelor’s in electrical engineering from Howard. ...to be able to carefully reason through what's required for a technical project, and get stakeholders on board.
- wolverine876 4y ago
  I don't doubt Robinson's technical ability at all, but the credential that matters is the track record at NASA. Bachelors degrees in math and EE don't signify much at all; plenty of irrational thinking and people in SV have better STEM degrees than that. Personally, I'd trust someone more if one of the degrees was in the humanities, showing an ability to deal with questions that aren't solvable with algorithms.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
    My most brilliant engineer had a high school diploma. He regularly stunned the Ph.Ds in Japan, and they were no slouches.
    - vba616 4y ago
      Lewis Hamilton started karting at about 8 years old. I don't even follow F1; I guessed that, and Googled it to confirm, because that's how all race drivers start - let alone the best ever. It would be a different, and strange, world where people typically got to be professional drivers by taking out loans at 18 to buy brand new 500 hp sports cars and majoring in "Race Car Driving" at universities.
      - bigiain 4y ago
        Counter example, Max Biaggi. 3 times runner up in MotoGP (or 500cc), and 2 time World Superbike Champion. “ Biaggi was more interested in football as a child. But in 1989, after he was given a motorcycle for his seventeenth birthday, he began his racing career in the 125cc class at age eighteen.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Biaggi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Biaggi Definitely not “typical”, but you don’t _have_ to be a child prodigy to be a world champion (motorcycle) racer. (Sadly, I suspect the one guaranteed indicator of world champion potential in motor racing is being a “rich kid”. )
yaya69 4y ago
Plants
- dylan604 4y ago
  watered with what water?
  - fnordpiglet 4y ago
    You mean from the toilet?
blamazon 4y ago
I listened to an interview on NPR with someone else who was a leader on JWST and the host asked this leader if there was ever a time when it all felt hopeless, that things were doomed to fail. The leader said: no, never. When they encountered a major issue, or a costly mistake was made, the team did not despair or point fingers. Instead, they just added time to the schedule, and worked to figure out how to solve the issue and move on to the next problem. This person also noted that pretty much everyone involved felt they were working towards the greatest achievement of their lives.
- q1w2 4y ago
  It's not over yet - the micro-meteor strikes so far have been at a FAR higher rate than expected, and unless they turn out to be a statistical outliers, the lifespan of JWST is drastically reduced below expectations. This could still turn out to be a big disappointment if it goes offline within the year. I wonder how hard it is to launch a shield to protect it.
  - bjtitus 4y ago
    > if it goes offline within the year This would be a >95% reduction in lifespan. I'm really curious what source suggests anything close to such a colossal failure in the predicted meteoroid environment.
  - avalys 4y ago
    The telescope has had the mirror deployed for 6 months and so far it has had a single micrometeroid strike that exceeded expectations, and did some minor damage to a single mirror segment. Even if this continues at roughly the same rate, the telescope will continue to function within the initial design specification for at least another year or two, and will be far from "offline within a year". You can't extrapolate anything from a single event. It could have just been bad luck. If another one happens this year - then it's worth some concern.
  - muppetman 4y ago
    I'm interested in the "strikes higher than expected" all I can find online is the one big strike a couple of weeks ago. Is there details online about the number it's getting?

ligerzer0 4y ago

What I find scary is that we might invest lots of resources into "reversing" climate change, and while under this belief that the reversal is just around the corner, we let the degradation continue at unnecessary rates, pretty much creating a race between the ability to reverse it, and it reaching a point of no reversal

KerrAvon 4y ago
What's scary is that we might not invest any resources either to deal with or reverse climate change, because the billionaires in charge are planning to jet to New Zealand until the waters recede (they're not generally very bright).
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  They aren't smart, but they are old and they know that. The don't expect to live long enough to see the bad shit they are causing, so they don't care.
  - donkarma 4y ago
    Billionaires have kids so
    - Sunspark 4y ago
      You are making the assumption that they care about their kids. A sociopath thinks only of themselves.
      - bigiain 4y ago
        I dunno why you’re being downvoted, when the richest guy in the world has a daughter who’s changing her name to avoid being associated with him…
      - bryananderson 4y ago
        True, but not that many people are true sociopaths. Much more common among “bad” people is garden-variety self-centeredness with lots of rationalization. Everyone has selfish instincts, but very few people can sleep at night if they see themselves as a bad guy. Fortunately for them, humans are ridiculously good at mental gymnastics to subdue that cognitive dissonance.
        bigiain 4y ago
        Not many people are billionaires either, and anecdotal evidence (or maybe just internet pundits assertions?) suggests there’s probably some strong correlation between the two. “Everybody has selfish instincts“, but the magnitude of “selfishness” required to amass a wealth of a billion dollars is way way beyond “normal”. Whether that guarantees sociopathy or not is not a simple question I guess.
        bryananderson 4y ago
        That’s fair, it’s definitely plausible that the process of becoming a billionaire does select for sociopathy or similar traits. Still, this is far from scientific, but any time I read in-depth about bad (in my view) people, I’ve always been struck by the seemingly low incidence of true sociopathy among them. Corrupt politicians, robber barons, mobsters, warlords, lackeys of authoritarian regimes—you see some who read like a list of sociopathy markers[0], but seemingly more who do not, who had people in their lives who they clearly loved, activities that brought them joy, and so on. It’s a very different and more extreme example, but I remember being really struck by this when I first visited the US Holocaust Museum: even if some at the top were true sociopaths, many of the major perpetrators who were profiled at the museum were seemingly psychologically “normal” people who committed unthinkable acts (often because that was the way to climb the ladder in the hierarchy) and rationalized them somehow so they could sleep at night. To me that was just terrifying: I’d always sort of thought that the people who did these things must have been so abnormal as to be barely recognizable as human, but if they weren’t, what then? Then it could happen anywhere and to anybody if we don’t get serious about teaching moral courage. The Germans today know this very well, but I’m not sure Americans (and presumably others) absorbed the lesson. I think it’s tempting to try to explain terrible people as being fundamentally different from oneself, because then we don’t have to worry about how not to become like them. It’s rather scary to think that they’re not so different, but if they’re not, we have to ask ourselves what we’d do different if we found ourselves in their position, whether that’s running a little startup that turned into a big corporation or serving in the Dutch state bureaucracy in 1940. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disor...
hooande 4y ago
It would take massive social change to dramatically slow the current rate of climate change. I would guess that it would politically require about the same amount of time as carbon capture / reduction technology. Out of the blue, I'm thinking that everyone on earth would have to use 20%-30% less energy on a daily basis to effectively slow or reverse the process of climate change. Technological improvement seems much more realistic, to me.
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  Don’t look up!
- imiric 4y ago
  One hundred companies are responsible for 71% of global greenhouse gas emissions.[1] Rather than trying to change the habits of everyone on earth, a more realistic goal would be to change a fraction of these corporate polluters. Efforts to place the responsibility of climate change on individuals is mostly corporate propaganda. Not that altering our habits wouldn't be an improvement, but it's not addressing the main cause of the problem. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10...
  - cdelsolar 4y ago
    Why do you think companies exist? For customers…
    - bigiain 4y ago
      That’s a funny way to spell “shareholders”. If you start something to benefit other people, you run a charity or a non profit. Companies are started and run by people who want to make money for themselves and their investors. You might be using “benefitting our customers” as a tool in your profit-making, but it’s not why you get out of bed every morning (whether you admit it to yourself or not).
    - 4y ago

harshreality 4y ago

That managing projects require a combination of social ability > he can go into a room, he can sit in a cafeteria, and by the time he leaves the cafeteria, he knows half of the people. and ability to think technically/rationally > He earned a bachelor’s in math from Virginia Union and a bachelor’s in electrical engineering from Howard. ...to be able to carefully reason through what's required for a technical project, and get stakeholders on board.

wolverine876 4y ago
I don't doubt Robinson's technical ability at all, but the credential that matters is the track record at NASA. Bachelors degrees in math and EE don't signify much at all; plenty of irrational thinking and people in SV have better STEM degrees than that. Personally, I'd trust someone more if one of the degrees was in the humanities, showing an ability to deal with questions that aren't solvable with algorithms.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  My most brilliant engineer had a high school diploma. He regularly stunned the Ph.Ds in Japan, and they were no slouches.
  - vba616 4y ago
    Lewis Hamilton started karting at about 8 years old. I don't even follow F1; I guessed that, and Googled it to confirm, because that's how all race drivers start - let alone the best ever. It would be a different, and strange, world where people typically got to be professional drivers by taking out loans at 18 to buy brand new 500 hp sports cars and majoring in "Race Car Driving" at universities.
    - bigiain 4y ago
      Counter example, Max Biaggi. 3 times runner up in MotoGP (or 500cc), and 2 time World Superbike Champion. “ Biaggi was more interested in football as a child. But in 1989, after he was given a motorcycle for his seventeenth birthday, he began his racing career in the 125cc class at age eighteen.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Biaggi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Biaggi Definitely not “typical”, but you don’t _have_ to be a child prodigy to be a world champion (motorcycle) racer. (Sadly, I suspect the one guaranteed indicator of world champion potential in motor racing is being a “rich kid”. )

yaya69 4y ago

Plants

dylan604 4y ago
watered with what water?
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  You mean from the toilet?

blamazon 4y ago

I listened to an interview on NPR with someone else who was a leader on JWST and the host asked this leader if there was ever a time when it all felt hopeless, that things were doomed to fail. The leader said: no, never. When they encountered a major issue, or a costly mistake was made, the team did not despair or point fingers. Instead, they just added time to the schedule, and worked to figure out how to solve the issue and move on to the next problem. This person also noted that pretty much everyone involved felt they were working towards the greatest achievement of their lives.

q1w2 4y ago
It's not over yet - the micro-meteor strikes so far have been at a FAR higher rate than expected, and unless they turn out to be a statistical outliers, the lifespan of JWST is drastically reduced below expectations. This could still turn out to be a big disappointment if it goes offline within the year. I wonder how hard it is to launch a shield to protect it.
- bjtitus 4y ago
  > if it goes offline within the year This would be a >95% reduction in lifespan. I'm really curious what source suggests anything close to such a colossal failure in the predicted meteoroid environment.
- avalys 4y ago
  The telescope has had the mirror deployed for 6 months and so far it has had a single micrometeroid strike that exceeded expectations, and did some minor damage to a single mirror segment. Even if this continues at roughly the same rate, the telescope will continue to function within the initial design specification for at least another year or two, and will be far from "offline within a year". You can't extrapolate anything from a single event. It could have just been bad luck. If another one happens this year - then it's worth some concern.
- muppetman 4y ago
  I'm interested in the "strikes higher than expected" all I can find online is the one big strike a couple of weeks ago. Is there details online about the number it's getting?