I always try to watch the webcasts and I can't help but cringe so hard when they start chanting 'USA USA USA', every single time.
What is up with that?
What is up with that?
Much the same as sports fans cheering for their teams or extreme nationalists at a political rally, chanting such as this is symtomatic of an "us versus them" and/or a "we are better than them" mentality.
I feel pride in SpaceX accomplishments even though I have in no way contributed to their success because I see them advancing the state of the art in spaceflight for humanity. And I am a human.
I hear Elon's stated goal of "making life multi-planetary", and perhaps it sounds idealistic or corny, but I genuinely belive in that goal; I think it is important and I am proud that there are other humans on this planet who are making a concerted effort to see it happen.
I do not object specifically to what they chant: chanting "SpaceX" would be very much just as bad. I follow SpaceX not for its own sake or because I think SpaceX is "good" and others are "bad", but because of what they do and what they plan to do. Chanting "SpaceX" would be showing support for the SpaceX-tribal-team as opposed to the ULA-tribal-team or NASA-tribal-team. It is not the team itself that is special, the team is not better than other teams due to intrinsic virtues, it is what the team has accomplished that is important. Let the accomplishments speak for themselves.
There is at least one chant I would have no problem with: "Humanity! Humanity! Humanity!". Perhaps it's not quite as catchy, but at least it would put things into the proper perspective.
I think it's quite catchy.
Vertebrates Uber Alles!
If they were doing it out of tribalism they'd probably be chanting 'homegrown', which is common after a big win over competitors who recruit mostly foreigners as a way of sticking it to them.
Instead my guess is that they're doing this out of acknowledgement of the infrastructure and regulation that makes this possible.
I've come across it in a few other contexts and I take it like a football chant.
That would be great fun.
We're so saturated with American culture that we do this naturally. We know all about the constitution. We care more about American politics than our own. We feel put out that we can't vote for Bernie.
Every so often I get reminded I'm not actually American, and it's a bit jarring.
Finally, someone who fucking gets it.
HN is such a Mecca of sperglords that the can't even understand a sports chant.
As an American (and specifically, a 16-year-old Software Engineer), growing up in the United States, this is normal, and is sometimes patriotic, sometimes an automatic response to excitement. I understand why some people might find it odd.
I don't really believe that the act of chanting "USA" is meant to alienate people. I guess you could equate it to the cultural oddities, sort of like when you travel to a different country. Some people bow, shake hands, etc for greetings, just the same way that Americans show excitement by chanting "USA", while other countries may not.
Space started out as a national effort. Most space travel is still a national effort, both here (NASA) and abroad (national space organizations). Even though it's a private company, and the stakes are well beyond a single country, I can imagine a sense of pride for representing your country well at such huge scale. For these engineers and other staff, this is the Olympics.
In short, people have all sorts of reasons for feeling prid. These folks certainly earned it. Watching others describe variations of hand wringing and alienation seems silly in comparison.
The chant may be a quirk of the US, the nationalism it represents is absolutely not.
This is not about there not being nationalism elsewhere, but about how US nationalism gets expressed in contexts that is not seen as representative of the nation elsewhere. This doesn't mean nationalism elsewhere is weaker - just that there are cultural quirks to how it gets expressed, and what actions are seen as representing something of the nation.
E.g. most places I've worked I'd expect quite a few people would be offended if you started shouting the country name instead of e.g. the company name as taking away glory for the teams achievements.
But in general chanting is perhaps rarer in many European countries outside of sports arrangements. I can't remember a single big work-related success where anyone started chanting anything. Cheering and clapping and popping champagne, sure, but not chanting. I think most places the latter would be seen as tacky more than anything. So the cultural quirk might be more about the level of exuberance considered appropriate in the workplace.
> I can't remember a single big work-related success where anyone started chanting anything. Cheering and clapping and popping champagne, sure, but not chanting.
Have you ever worked at a place that did anything within even an order of magnitude of what SpaceX has done?
I'm an American and we don't chant USA at the end of an IT contract delivery, or because we set up a database well or something. But if I put something in outer space, then brought it back down to earth and landed it on a robot ship in the middle of the ocean at night, I'd sure as hell be chanting something.
> I'd sure as hell be chanting something.
The question isn't whether or not there'd be celebration, but whether or not that celebration would involve chanting a country name or similar. As I wrote: Cheering and clapping and bringing the champagne out, sure. Chanting a country name? To me that's something people to at football (soccer) matches, and that would seem ridiculously out of place.
Company settings or not, I have never chanted a country name in any setting, or been present while it's been going on other than people doing it to stereotype Americans.
I think this may be more of a personal quirk of yours and/or your immediate social circle. National chants pretty much abound throughout the world, especially in nations that perceive themselves in high competition with others.
Here's another post I made with some examples: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11643852
and yes, many are from sporting events, but I've heard people shout their nation name or some national slogan outside of sports enough times to know it's pretty common (but not universal).
(I notice you live in/near London from your profile, don't you ever notice the conspicuous displays of "Britishness" all over the place? I certainly did the few times I was there. I wasn't bothered by it, and though it did take different forms from the way we do it in the U.S. felt it was okay as a demonstration of national pride.)
I have to constantly guard against this bit of bias - "no, DanBC, they might not be a drunken lout".
It's a bit different during soccer world cup or european cup.
Very few people fly the Union flag.
And chanting: no-one chants unless they're at a sports match.
Chants just feel weird.
But space industry is a bit different, and SpaceX is a very different company - they're honest-to-god driven by the idea, not profit.
(This chanting irks me a bit too, tbh., but I know it's because I'm not American and I want to picture SpaceX's successes as something done for all mankind, not just one group of people I don't belong to. A funny psychological bias :).)
That's kind of silly. The British are widely known for claiming to have the best in many things. And I've watched enough TV in the U.K. to know that even currently extends into Science and Technology education.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwHFm3pBA90 ("TAE HAN MIN GUK!" "Great Korean People's Country")
Here's a show giving fun lessons on how to properly do the chant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Wli6OrUhNU
Here's the history of it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-S-A!
I've heard a bunch of Brits chant something similar "UK! UK! UK! UK!" before.
Here it is in Uraguay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nub526rufzk
In Canada https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiK3f-fEDdY
In Chile, I've heard the chant is something like "CHI CHI CHI! LE LE LE! EN EL MAPA NO SE VE!", here's a comedic routine around it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gigjq9GExuE
Here's the Mexican equivalent https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1ips57oLX0
Here's Sweden after a sports win https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkfqHCwB4aY
If France had a SpaceX equivalent that did something as amazing as this, it would be completely appropriate for the French people who spent years of their lives achieving something thought impossible to suddenly break out and start singing La Marseillaise or chanting.
If it happens for something as unimportant as a sporting goal, it's probably okay for it to happen for something that advances the entire species.
I'm kind of surprised by all the people from different countries that aren't even aware it happens in their own country or that they might have a similar national chant.
Are you sure they weren't just mocking Americans? :) c.f. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyHSjv9gxlE
Obviously the SpaceX staff can do whatever they want when they're celebrating a successful launch and landing. But all non-Americans who are watching and also feeling a lot of pride in what the company has achieved instantly feel alienated when the chant gets going because it's exclusionary. Whether the staff care about this alienation is another matter, but it's real. If you browse the /r/spacex subreddit you constantly see comments about the chant whenever it happens. And that is a community made up of almost total SpaceX supporters.
To give maybe a shallow analogy, it's like a group of men achieved something and then celebrated by chanting “Men, Men, Men!”.
Yes, it is, and yes, as an non-American I feel alienated. But I suck it up. Because I'm just a supporter. A fanboy, for a lack of better world. In reality, this is not my success, but the success of men and women working there, almost exclusively American. They have the right to chant however they like and I don't see the reason to make a big deal out of a bit of national pride. Not compared to what they're doing.
Also Musk, who's the driver of the culture there, doesn't seem very nationalistic, so I'm not worried they'll try to turn this into USA space hegemony.
> I didn't really look it up but it would be hard to believe SpaceX being a strictly American company with 100% American workforce.
They're pretty close to that, actually.
Disclaimer: I used to work there
Why alienate the employees who are working for the good of the Company, and the good of Humanity without considering the benefits for the Country (which is arbitrary and hereditary all too often) with no net benefit? (I highly doubt the USA chants are necessary for cohesion and unity at SpaceX)
(If we're bringing SJW approach into this, then I think you're advocating the minority (SpaceX employees) should adapt to the random cultural expectations of the entitled majority, or whatever.)
If you're saying they should be more considerate, that's fine, but they're free to disregard that opinion.
Personally, I refuse to get outraged - outrage is more often than not a problem with the person who choses to indulge it.
I also don't know what could be done to remedy the situation, assuming its decided that a remedy is in order. I can assure everyone that to my knowledge the chants aren't at all staged, they happen organically and large numbers of employees participate in them.
Again, and I hate to be overly repetitive but I think its worth noting that while I don't partake in the chants myself, if we got word from higher up that this was no longer acceptable behavior I would be extraordinarily pissed. I don't care about the chants either way but the employees here are already sacrificing a lot for this mission, they don't need their spontaneous celebrations micromanaged.
The atmosphere during launches here is electric, and even I, someone who is usually extremely reserved and collected, often get emotional. Most of us work very hard and deal with a fair amount of stress, particularly in the week leading up to launch. If people want to let loose with some celebratory chants so be it.
I suppose we could all just start chanting SpaceX-SpaceX-SpaceX although somehow I have feeling someone would find that equally offensive as well.
I'm seriously starting to think SpaceX should just stop broadcasting the view from inside the Hawthorne facility.
We get to see a sometimes-messy slice of the culture, but we're also seeing how real engineers celebrate a real milestone accomplishment. There's not enough of that visible outside the walls of engineering; people still think of it as a boring profession.
A society gets more of what it celebrates. We should keep highlighting the joys of a gigantic plan coming together.
I don't think is enough or appropriate. A significant fraction of global viewership is disturbed and alienated by the chants. It might well be that they're having the wrong feelings for wrong reasons, but realistically they will not adapt, and SpaceX's actions will not change their attitude in this regard, and they will continue to feel alienated.
I would like to see this properly weighted and considered as a consequence. It's similar to many other situations where you believe that people with different religions and attitudes are offended for ultimately wrong reasons, but you still don't go casually provoking them or making them feel bad.
I'm still not sure what the best solution to this problem would be. While I certainly believe that everyone, including and perhaps especially Americans, should be more cognizant of how our actions are viewed by others, I don't in general like the idea of constantly being fearful that some action, no matter how innocuous you may think it is, will cause offense to someone else and thus needs to be avoided. I think it's fair to assume that some of the things you or I may do or believe will be offensive or alienating to someone somewhere. I hope you can find my attempt at understanding your point of view sincere and that I don't mean to be dismissive of your concerns.
I also don't know what could be done to address the issue internally without upsetting many people here. Even I would find a banning of the chants to be heavy handed on the part of management.
As I said previously, perhaps the best course of action would be to simply stop broadcasting from within the Hawthorne facility. The launch and recovery feeds are far more interesting than the employee celebrations anyway.
With this said, I think I've also come to understand more about why instinctively I feel a little uncomfortable. It is because as a foreigner who would love to work for SpaceX, I don't feel I can - because it is nigh impossible in this day and age to become American without some decent amount of wealth. If it wasn't for ITAR, I think the chant would be less uncomfortable, because it would be less exclusionary.
That said, I don't think you or other Americans should give a rats about what randoms on HN think. We're just jealous of your opportunity to be part of history. Don't feel guilty about having an opportunity, but instead do your best with it. And if that means chanting USA, then do it without any second thoughts!
Speaking of introspection, your comment highlights for me just how lucky I am to be able to work here. I say this as an immigrant who, while growing up in the US from an early age, wasn’t granted US citizenship until adulthood, so I have some first hand experience with the overly complex US immigration process.
ITAR is a tricky issue seeing as a Falcon 9 isn’t all that different from an ICBM aside from payload but I do generally feel that the US tends to over classify programs. And while I believe the US should make the process of immigration much less burdensome, I am nonetheless inspired by how many foreign born employees I meet at SpaceX. I wonder if the percentage of non EU born workers at Arianespace approaches the number of non US born workers here. I would be genuinely pleased if they were better in this regard than we are. I could be wrong but I doubt that Roscosmos, JAXA, ISRO or CNSA employ very many foreign born citizens. Having said that, I don’t mean to dismiss the very real concerns you have expressed with the difficulty of immigrating to the US, particularly if you don’t have a great deal of wealth.
Again, I’m very sympathetic to the feelings that others have expressed with regards to the USA chants being exclusionary, even if I myself don’t believe this to be their intent. My main problem with some comments in this thread have centered around equating the chants with a Nazi rally or describing those who engage in them as classless or devoid of dignity. I find those statements a tad extreme and the fact that some of those statements went unchallenged suggests to me that there may be many people here who hold similar views, which I find surprising.
Thanks again for sharing your perspective with me.
What is your source? How can you be so sure? There is absolutely no factual evidence that anything other than a fraction of viewers with thin skin are being "disturbed" by what is a group of proud workers displaying their pride.
The more space launch companies there are in competition, the better we are as a species. The chant is a call to you to get to work.
Now a days, you are supposed to understand that governments indoctrinate patriotism and purposely inflict unneeded international distrust and tensions for their own selfish agenda.
Close it down boys. HN is over. No more fun.
I work at SpaceX. I was not born in the US and although I now hold US citizenship and consider myself thoroughly American, I usually refrain from taking part in these chants. I do this not as a kind of silent protest against them, but because I simply don't like showing such outward exuberance as I have an extremely reserved personality. I’m the kind of person that would prefer to sit quietly during a sporting event rather than shout or clap. With that being said, the U-S-A chants don’t bother me and it's somewhat disheartening to see them consistently brought up as reflecting poorly on the employees at SpaceX.
I will also add that as an American even I have sometimes, particularly during my childhood living in Texas, felt uncomfortable with some of the more boisterous ways Americans tend to express feelings of national pride, so I can understand why others may find this troubling. It took me some time to realize that in the overwhelming majority of cases, there is no malice or jingoistic sentiment behind these expressions, and in fact I don’t even view them as exclusionary. It may be difficult for someone who hasn’t spent a lot of time living in the US to understand just how innocuous and widespread things like the USA chants are. Its simply something that is easy to say and catchy, while declaring pride in your country.
There are many employees here who aren’t natural born US citizens whom I see join in the chants. In fact, I’ve seen non US citizens working here join in as well.
I understand that I say this having adapted to American cultural norms, and I’m trying my best to be understanding of the opposing views. I personally don’t find it difficult to feel a sense of wonderment, respect and admiration towards the accomplishments of other countries, even when those countries view said accomplishments as matters of national pride and I am finding it hard to understand why so many others seem to be bothered by this.
It’s also important to note that the space program is, in my opinion, one of the few things that still elicit a strong sense of national pride and achievement across political lines here in the US. The American public still today seems to be aware of the broad national policies that have led and continue to lead to the achievements of our space program and rightfully feel a sense of pride in their successes. The accomplishments of SpaceX don’t exist in a vacuum and many of us working here realize a shared sense of gratitude that we owe the American taxpayer.
I also find it a bit strange that in my experience other nationalities, in particular those from Europe, tend to view Americans as rather close minded and without much understanding of foreign cultures. While I agree that in general this is definitely something that Americans need to work on, in this case I’m struck by the irony of the commenters here singling out a cultural “quirk” as has been described by others, and subsequently drawing negative conclusions about it despite the fact that I can see no way in which the U-S-A chants can possibly be misconstrued as denigrating of any other countries.
> despite the fact that I can see no way in which the U-S-A chants can possibly be misconstrued as denigrating of any other countries.
I think it's about context, right? Many countries feel some imperialist pressure coming from the USA, which makes a "USA, we're number one!" type of chant different to an "Iceland, we're number one!" chant or whatever.
I tried to make it very clear that I in fact didn't find the criticisms of the chants troubling, and that in some ways I could even understand them.
What I specifically found troubling, and feel I articulated this quite clearly, was the notion that by simply engaging in these chants, employees were automatically devoid of class or dignity. Those were the words of the parent comment, not my own, and that is what I took issue with.
With regard to your second point I can understand why countries may find the chants of USA off putting.
For us, and possibly other European countries, that kind of patriotic expression is taboo because it's associated with football hooliganism and extreme right wing politics. I suppose there are certain circumstances where you might sing 'God save the queen' in some kind of particularly old fashioned formal ceremony but it would never happen spontaneously and makes plenty of people feel a bit awkward. Out of all my friends and family I can think of perhaps one or two people that would even know the words.
I would never identify my own or my company's achievements as evidence that the UK was great as a nation. I'd be doing the same in whatever country I lived in. In some ways, we achieve things despite being in the UK rather than because of it. Crushing inequality, expensive education, corrupt politics, lack of housing. These are not very business or tech friendly and are less of a problem elsewhere.
Aside from that, feeling proud because of other people's achievements just because you were born in the same country as they were is not really very common in Europe as far as I can tell.
The UK is still working out empire guilt, in the same way the Germans tend to tamp down nationalism because of WW II. I don't find it surprising, but I don't think it's healthy either. A little bit of nationalism is good for a country.
I'll gladly take a big paycut and live in bumfuck nowhere, California to do it (my wife is another story but that's a different discussion).
But every time this USA chant comes up I just imagine what it would be like to be in that crowd and be absolutely exhilarated at each success - not just for the company but for HUMANITY (which I already do through the webcast), and feel nothing but cringe and exclusion when the USA chant started.
They really gotta reign that in because you just KNOW it's a couple of aggro-patriotic douchebags that start it and everyone else joins in out of excitement and tribal cohesion not because it's the thing that everyone feels in that moment.
There are ways to obtain ITAR exceptions for non US Persons but the process is long and very expensive so it is only utilized rarely. I will say that SpaceX does employ a fair amount of Permanent Residents as well as a few non US Persons.
You are certainly free to disagree with the chants or the overall tone that celebrations like this set within the company, but I don't think that resorting to personal insults is the best approach to having a nuanced discussion on the topic.
What a complete load of utter tripe. Its a bunch of people getting excited and happy and celebrating success. That's it. Are England supporters chanting after a soccer match aggro-patriotic douchebags? The SpaceX crowd aren't even celebrating a victory over anybody, it's purely about achievement. Good for them.
Aggro-patriotic douchebaggery isn't exactly unheard of when it comes to football stadiums. For some it's a feature, for most others it's a very well known bug.
Also, you seem to have completely missed his finer point: a nuanced distinction between those who start and those who just sing along because they are in the mood for making noise, any noise.
PS: of all the stadium noises, the "god save the queen" of England supporters is by far the most enjoyable (and I say that as a german)
That's because I don't think there is a finer point. If the only way a chant like that could happen is if it's started by aggro-patriotic douchebags, which specifically was the contention, then the chanting only exists as a result of aggro-patriotic douchebaggery. That's a slur that taints everyone involved in it, and I don't accept that at all.
My point was that Americans can claim all day and all night that "U-S-A" chants are not meant to insult or condescend to any other country. But ask around and I can tell you most other countries find it INCREDIBLY uncomfortable.
Sporting events are a completely appropriate venue for the release of testosterone and patriotism. The very nature of the event is a competition between Country X and Country Y.
I don't believe SpaceX's mission is to establish American dominance over other nations. Elon Musk spends a lot of time discussing his lofty aspirations for the future of humanity on Mars, about becoming a multi-planetary species, etc.
Yes
(Warning: contains strong language. Hilarious strong language, from The Onion)
He wouldn't pay you any mind.
I'm a other-than-singular national as well and I certainly don't care to hear I'm not American.
You may find this surprising but there are in fact many foreign born employees working at SpaceX. Some of us even have accents and unusual names to go along with certain cultural quirks.
I don't consider them, or myself, any less American.