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I would be more depressed if, looking at the current political landscape this corner decided to be entirely alienated or oblivious to the environment in which this massive achievement is made.
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do you think the current environment is more or less just than it was during the 1969 moon landing?
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Nixon wasn't in office yet, but he did have his campaign manager got to Vietnam and promise the VietCong a better deal if they walked away from negotiations, which lead to FIVE more years of war and countless lives lost for nothing other than a point to talk about on his soap box
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The difference seems to be that Nixon may have been crooked, but he was largely competent. He operated on experience, expertise, and causal reality. Our current political situation is largely free of facts, knowledge, or causality. Much of the corruption that happens today is in plain sight and basically ignored. The goal is governance through depoliticization and post-truth infotainment.

Note that Nixon was actually impeached by his own party and would have been removed for what would now be a single day of news cycle, only on a few networks/papers, and completely ignored by a major political party.

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It’s unfortunate, but if you’re blaming the people in the thread for this, I think you’re directing your energy in the wrong direction. Focus on the people who foment and benefit from this division and distraction instead. If you want people to appreciate the bigger picture, you can’t keep forcing them to live on a shorter and shorter term outlook. The HN that you’re presumably nostalgic for existed in a time when there was a lot more fat on the bone, and every efficiency hadn’t been extracted for nebulous benefit to the average person.
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Is there really less "fat on the bone" though? What metric are you tracking for that and what are the historical norms?

"forcing them to live on a shorter and shorter term outlook" -> social media?

Rather than assigning blame I think it's fair to ask the people here to behave. Maybe it's not their fault they spend their day doom scrolling and have the attention span of a cat but they do have agency to change that. [EDIT: This is an attempt at humor]

Isn't "Focus on the people who foment and benefit from this division" asking for politics? The way we get at "those people" (and let's not even argue about who they are) is to regulate ourselves (or for the moderators to do that) and have a more substantive and positive discussion regardless of our perceptions.

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>> Rather than assigning blame I think it's fair to ask the people here to behave

First, are you not doing just that - blaming the people here for making you unhappy?

Second, you're welcome to demand this, but they/we are just as welcome to tell you to piss off.

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> Is there really less "fat on the bone" though? What metric are you tracking for that and what are the historical norms?

It’s just my experience over the last 15 years. If it doesn’t align with yours, that’s nice to know.

> "forcing them to live on a shorter and shorter term outlook" -> social media?

Sure, but it could be lots of other things like 24hr news or the emergence of the gig economy.

> Isn't "Focus on the people who foment and benefit from this division" asking for politics?

No it’s not, it’s asking for agency, personal accountability and self-awareness, as you yourself allude to. If that means politics for you, that’s up to you. I don’t imply to “get at” anyone, but to do best by ourselves instead of doing best by those who benefit from dividing or distracting us.

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> It’s just my experience over the last 15 years. If it doesn’t align with yours, that’s nice to know.

I know it's the narrative that times are bad. But me, my coworkers, my neighbors, my local mall, etc. all seem to be doing really great. And look, moon mission! I would think that there are a lot of people in tech who are doing better than ever. We've also seen layoffs and I know it's hard for people to find a job. This is why I'm asking for metrics because I don't think it's actually as clear as the narrative that this is the worse over 15 years. The pandemic was pretty bad? We had the financial crisis? Gas prices were a lot higher in 2021 ... I guess as they say perception is 99% of reality ...

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How often do you find yourself wondering how you'll be able to pay rent and your car payment during the month? What happens if you need to get dental work? Does that shift your calculus for expenses day to day? Not it in 2021 or whatever, but like this past week?
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I've had a long career in tech and so for me and I assume people like me these are not concerns. I'm not doubting what you describe is the experience for many people.

I'm not American but I work with many Americans who are doing really well (also long careers in tech).

I'm old and I own my house but when I was younger I never leased a car, I always bought used cars that I could afford. So the question of making a car payment wasn't there. I always saved and compared prices in good times and bad times. I rented a cheap enough place to have enough safety margin.

Anyways, being a software engineer through the golden era of software engineering is not your typical person experience.

I still think we need to be more data driven in how we evaluate the state of the economy. The parent was suggesting it's the economic difficulties faced by people on this forum (presumably many in tech) that lead to shallow and political discussion and it's hard for me to gauge that.

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I’ve been there. I have friends who have been there in the last month. None of them reacted by projecting onto space exploration or science. It’s absolutely a choice as to what one channels one’s frustrations onto.
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>Focus on the people who foment and benefit from this division and distraction

your comment is entirely politcal, i.e. contributing more to the problem.

qui bono? we for sure don't bono.

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Choosing one (deliberately ambiguous) line to label the comment “entirely political” is the kind of thinking that explains why tribalism has been so effective.
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"Focus on the people who foment and benefit from this division and distraction"

is a political statement. It says: "don't talk about the actual issue, instead let's go after the enemies, we know who they are." It doesn't say "let's find them", it assumes we know who they are.

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> it's seemingly impossible to have a single thread about something like this that isn't almost entirely negative or political bickering

I quickly browsed the top 10 comments, didn't see much negativity.

And maybe this is because this is a forum of "tech/geeks/nerds/stem people" that you'd expect some educated and critical comments.

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I have family who worked for NASA until the 70s. They’re one of the biggest sources of criticism of this project.

There are negative things to observe about this project. They should not be ignored

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I'd love to read your family member(s) criticisms; anywhere to do so? The perspective of a former NASA employee could be fascinating.

If you don't mind me asking, what did they do for NASA?

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It is possible but you have to cultivate it. There is no mechanism here that automates it, so it’s up to each author’s sentiment to shape the outcome as they see fit.

Submit threads that are apolitical and guide conversations to be positive.

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There was a man on the moon in 1969. 65 years of so-called technological progress and the US is worse than it was before, so we can rule out an interest in technology as a reason for any of this. Getting all teary eyed about a second rate mission from a has-been space agency is kind of cringe-inducing, HN.

Maybe we should revive Pamela Anderson's career, or bring Mike Tyson out of retirement to fight a youtube influencer in an effort to re-live past glory. Oh, yeah, that's right. America already did that. America did that and it was sad.

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If one can't find their true purpose in life, they resort to seek purity in morals and virtue (in themselves and people around them).
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Yes, but it's depressing because of the environmental factors causing the problem, not the people experiencing the problem.
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Not all hackers!
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Trump is the Hacker. HN is the Hacked.
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These people existed in the Apollo era just not on a website. We weren't exactly living in a utopia then either and you'd have difficulty convincing some folks to be excited about space exploration then too.

Some people feel their outlook on the world takes precedence. And they'll shit in other people's celebrations to get their point across. Best to downvote or ignore them and embrace what nuance you can find.

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My problem isn't that these people exist in the world. My problem is they're increasingly drowning out other voices in a community I'm part of. I would prefer significantly more active moderation against politics and general non-technical negativity on this site.
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