6 ms·

Everyone wants more great engineering to happen. You're not a snowflake in that regard. You're complaining because you can imagine it happening faster than it

by mburns 11y ago

Everyone wants more great engineering to happen. You're not a snowflake in that regard. You're complaining because you can imagine it happening faster than it is, which is unhelpful and unpleasant. Thus, downvotes.

CamperBob2 11y ago
Everyone wants more great engineering to happen. No, they do not. Otherwise we'd have three dozen New Horizons-class spacecraft flying throughout the solar system and Kuiper Belt by now. Right now, there's a sizable contingent of people who are looking at the Pluto imagery and muttering to themselves, "So what? How does this affect the Kardashians?" Some of those people -- not all of them, but enough of them -- vote. All of this self-congratulatory stroking on our part just empowers them.
- mburns 11y ago
  I should have said "(nearly) everyone reading on Hacker News wants..." He's complaining to the choir (of sorts) while disparaging the very real progress we are making because it isn't as good as it could have possibly been if reality were different.
- baudehlo 11y ago
  Absolutely true. When a co-worker saw the picture I posted on hipchat of Charon, he said "so what, looks just like our moon." Thankfully he was chewed out by another science fan in the channel, but a sad number of people care less about this achievement than about the latest sports team win.
  - im3w1l 11y ago
    The pictures can be boring even if the science is exciting. Maybe we could instead talk about what this means. What we have learned from this.
anigbrowl 11y ago
I find it neither unhelpful nor unpleasant. It could certainly be happening faster if we could persuade politicians to expend more money on space engineering or facilitate the raising of private capital. I find your argument strangely teleological.
- benihana 11y ago
  That's a different than "this isn't very impressive because I think these achievements should be happening faster."

by mburns 11y ago

CamperBob2 11y ago

Everyone wants more great engineering to happen. No, they do not. Otherwise we'd have three dozen New Horizons-class spacecraft flying throughout the solar system and Kuiper Belt by now. Right now, there's a sizable contingent of people who are looking at the Pluto imagery and muttering to themselves, "So what? How does this affect the Kardashians?" Some of those people -- not all of them, but enough of them -- vote. All of this self-congratulatory stroking on our part just empowers them.

mburns 11y ago
I should have said "(nearly) everyone reading on Hacker News wants..." He's complaining to the choir (of sorts) while disparaging the very real progress we are making because it isn't as good as it could have possibly been if reality were different.
baudehlo 11y ago
Absolutely true. When a co-worker saw the picture I posted on hipchat of Charon, he said "so what, looks just like our moon." Thankfully he was chewed out by another science fan in the channel, but a sad number of people care less about this achievement than about the latest sports team win.
- im3w1l 11y ago
  The pictures can be boring even if the science is exciting. Maybe we could instead talk about what this means. What we have learned from this.

anigbrowl 11y ago

I find it neither unhelpful nor unpleasant. It could certainly be happening faster if we could persuade politicians to expend more money on space engineering or facilitate the raising of private capital. I find your argument strangely teleological.

benihana 11y ago
That's a different than "this isn't very impressive because I think these achievements should be happening faster."