Yeah, I’m not mad at this. There’s a lot around SpaceX that makes it hard to really see what an offering from them is*, but this actually looks legitimately interesting - a way to run medium-to-long-term microgravity experiments with a proper data uplink and power structure could be a real boon for a lot of interesting science. Turning microgravity into a purchasable commodity, instead of something you need a specialized project for, is genuinely one of those “human capacity building” things.

* (definitely feel free to fill in the seventy volumes of dialogue I left out of this comment in the replies, though)

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mrandish 14 hours ago | parent [-]

> There’s a lot around SpaceX that makes it hard to really see what an offering from them is*

> * (definitely feel free to fill in the seventy volumes of dialogue I left out of this comment in the replies,

Ok, I will. You're alluding to two separate problems which are both pet peeves of mine. The less controversial one is that product marketing/communication is becoming all marketing and little communication. Why do landing pages, press releases and ads created by teams of highly paid professionals fail to clearly convey what something actually is (and is not) and why I should care? (although this case is an exception since the page does make what it is and does pretty clear.)

The second problem is it's getting damn near impossible to discuss any aspect of a high profile company, product or even technology without the politics, personalities, or social impacts related to it swallowing everything. At minimum it's now normal, if not expected, to preface any discussion by signaling your position on {related controversy} and it's accepted for people to intentionally divert the discussion off-topic. Before the last decade, normal people would think always doing that was weird. And to be clear, I think Musk's mis-adventures into politics and social media are bizarre and wrong. Yet I can discuss products and technologies related to his companies without bringing that up.

Here's an example avoiding current 'triggers': in a discussion on foreign policy in the 80s or 90, you could observe ex-president Richard Nixon's China foreign policy was bold and successful - some might agree and others disagree - but no one would feel the urgent need to signal their views on Watergate or the fact Nixon was universally considered by far the worst U.S. president ever (as well as a morally reprehensible toxic personality). Enlightened people could handle discussing different aspects of things without fearing that NOT mentioning the 'obviously problematic' adjacent aspect might somehow be taken as personally endorsing it.

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cma 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Enlightened people could handle discussing different aspects of things without fearing that NOT mentioning the 'obviously problematic' adjacent aspect might somehow be taken as personally endorsing it.

My granddad was in the military in WWII and would always mention how strange it felt to have a Toyota now and that it and VW were very frowned on by people in the war for a long time. Probably same would be felt about Tesla the nazi salute and otherwise support even back in the 80s.

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mrandish 10 hours ago | parent [-]

The strangeness your grandad felt was from seeing products from Enemy Countries parked in his neighbor's driveway, unrelated to Volkswagen or Toyota as companies or the behavior of their founders. I think that's understandable. His generation witnessed and survived fighting the largest World War in human history. A conflict which divided actual civilizations in an existential battle for survival, during which 70M-85M people died - 3 to 4% of all humans on the planet.

That's not an example which counters my point, in fact, it makes the point perfectly. Which is: it isn't appropriate or normal when people hyper-overreact to something as inconsequential as an erratically eccentric Tech Bro's juvenile trolling (or thoughtlessly stupid unplanned gaffe, depending on who you believe) at a level similar to, as you've pointed out, the reaction of a traumatized survivor of the biggest, most consequential and horrible single event in all of human history - people who watched their friends and families die violent, brutal deaths, and in many cases witnessed systematic genocide against their entire race at scales beyond imagining. That's the level at which some people now react to stupid, wrong, offensive words and gestures by fucking morons and trolls on Twitter and TikTok. Thank you. That's actually a much better example of my point.

I think Elon is a complete nutjob but, seriously, these are NOT remotely the same level or scope. Your granddad was a literal, fucking hero - and obviously made of much sterner stuff than (some) people today. Your grandad mentioned seeing Enemy Vehicles around town was "strange." He didn't hold candlelight vigils in front of Volkswagen and Toyota dealers, he didn't harangue VW owners in the supermarket parking lot, or need to social signal about it every, single time those countries, companies or cars were mentioned.

If he had protested and harangued, I'd understand that level of reaction and constant obsession. War zone PTSD is terrible and never goes away. Oh, and tens of millions died in, arguably, the biggest, worst thing... ever? Yeah, I'm okay if Gramps over-reacts a little. I'd thank him for his service, buy him a beer and listen to his stories from "The War." But apparently your granddad didn't think over-reacting, constantly being 'triggered' and making a fuss over THAT would be appropriate - it just felt 'strange'. My dad lied about his age to enlist at 17. The war left him physically and emotionally scarred for life. But he never made a big deal about it either.

	▲	cma 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		No, he had a Toyota, and talked about how unimaginable it was for him earlier. If the head of Toyota had been whipping out Nazi salutes he probably would have still kept it unimaginable.

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roughly 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Thanks, and I’ll just say in advance that I’m thrilled that whoever’s gonna decide to take the other side of this debate’s gonna go ahead and do that, and if you’re the one who decides to continue with this, well hey, I appreciate you doing that, too.

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stonogo 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> The second problem is it's getting damn near impossible to discuss any aspect of a high profile company, product or even technology without the politics, personalities, or social impacts related to it swallowing everything.

I don't know what you think is supposed to happen after Citizens United v FEC. Corporate money is protected speech. Therefore doing business with a given corporation is inherently a political act. If you don't like it, campaign to overturn that decision, but bitching at the people who are correctly reacting to changes in the political system is not going to accomplish anything, ever.