Here is the video
http://www.space.com/32811-spacex-rocket-landing-jcsat-14-la...
Hopefully we won't have the typical hacker news discussion about why the employees chant USA.
http://www.space.com/32811-spacex-rocket-landing-jcsat-14-la...
Hopefully we won't have the typical hacker news discussion about why the employees chant USA.
There. See. No harm, no foul.
Anyways, as a non-American living in the US since 2001, I fail to see an issue with chanting USA, one way or another.
It is an American company, with majority US employees, running this project (mainly) for an American entity (NASA), on US sovereign territory (or ocean?), using a significant chunk of US resources. So, it is their company and their country. I say, let them do what they want with it. And if chanting USA is what they wish to do, I have no problem with that.
Whether the USA is worth praising for this particular success, I'm not as sure. But damn, congrats to everyone involved. You just landed a fucking space ship. Good job.
The company embodies everything that makes America great. Chant away.
I know, I know - Americans have a right to be proud, and they do. But expressing it with a cult-like mechanism that is, essentially "our group is great, nobody else can/has done this" is just .. revolting.
I say this, knowing full well I'm going to get down voted for it, but I really do wish you Americans would think about it from the other side of your dark mirror. Can't we come up with a chant that includes all of humanity? After all, America wouldn't be the nation it is today without all other nations on Earth, including the ones that America has invaded, and destroyed completely, wantonly, for decades.
EDIT: Feel how this post detracts from the main article, and is a distraction from the feel-goodness of SpaceX's accomplishments? For us non-Americans, thats how the USA-cult chant feels - a total distraction. I wish I could down vote the chanting when I see it on TV, too.
edit: Reply button showed up finally
I also despise it when it happens at sports events. Its just demeaning to whoever doesn't fall in line and start the goose-step.
Second "Its just demeaning to whoever doesn't fall in line and start the goose-step". I have never seen anyone that is somewhere people are chanting it and be ridiculed for not joining along. It is completely up to anyone whether they want to participate.
I think space exploration/achievement is a very big point of pride for Americans. Ever since the moon landing, everyone has fell in love with the space program. Chanting USA! doesn't mean give up all rational thought and blindly follow the countries leaders. It means a bunch of Americans just did something amazing. I'm glad to be a part of this country that is doing great things. It also doesn't mean go USA fuck Europe. Sure there is a little bit of a competitive undertone, but so what. If SpaceX says look what we did, I dare you guys to do better well then good. Competition is the reason why space programs are where they are. Sorry you don't like how one country likes to celebrate. Luckily everyone is free to do whatever they want.
What disturbs me about something like the chanting at SpaceX is that it's something that does matter, and which I feel strongly about. Seeing their great technical achievement turn into exclusionary tribal posturing makes me very sad.
I'm sure there's a long way to go before SpaceX fans and STS fans start beating each other up in the street... but it is one step down that path.
I continue to find the notion of SpaceX employees chanting USA to be analogous to the rallies of a man who thought it a good idea to send several million people to the gas chambers as suspect.
I suppose I'll just chalk this up to me not being as enlightened as you.
Hey, "Sieg Heil!" started off 'harmless enough' too, yo. All the cool cats were doing it .. at first.
So .. Who knows where all this is going to go .. we may well be on the precipice of an enormous catastrophe, all for the whim of wanton displays of pride, prejudice, nationalism, and awe-/fear-inspiring technology. All I'm saying is, it took a lot of nations for America to get where it is today. It didn't do it alone. And some of those nations were seriously broken in the process ..
(Besides which, there is no such thing as 'USA'.. it is a fiction. Gravity doesn't care about your fancy flag. In space, nobody can hear your chant..)
That would really do justice to this kind of historic event. A chant like this would celebrate progress and claim this for what it is, an accomplishment of/for humanity. After all, space travel does focus our attention on how we are all humans and on earth.
In that context, the below seems at least somewhat relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalism_(politics)#Mo... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_citizenship#World_citiz...
NASA is the largest customer but so far they account only for about 50% of the launches. This one in particular was for JSAT (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSAT_Corporation), a Japanese company.
I'm a little uneasy with the chant mostly because I (want to) perceive it to be largely a commercial enterprise and this win should belong firstly to the company and people working there. Too bad that "SpaceX" just doesn't sound that great as a chant.
It reminds, a little, of certain systems where the state is held above all else, where patriotism is a requirement and a virtue in itself, and where there's no division between government and economy.
WATTENBERG: I got to think a lot of illegals add a lot of value to the United States. You have been quoted as saying that you are nauseatingly pro American.
MUSK: Yes, that’s true.
WATTENBERG: What do you mean?
MUSK: Well, I mean, I think the United States is the greatest country that’s ever existed on earth. And I think that it will be difficult to argue on objective grounds that it is not. I think the facts really point in that direction. It’s the greatest force for good of any country that’s ever been. There would not be democracy in the world if not for the United States. We’re obviously falling in the recent few occasions -- maybe three separate occasions in the Twentieth Century -- democracy would have fallen with World War 1, World War 2 and the Cold War, but for the United States.
WATTENBERG: And perhaps the threat of terrorism would be much greater if it were not for the United States.
MUSK: Yeah, absolutely. I think it would be a mistake to say the United States is perfect, it certainly is not. There have been many foolish things the United States has done and bad things the United States has done. But when historians look at these things on balance and measure the good with the bad -- and I think if you do that and -- on a rational basis and make a fair assessment -- I think it’s hard to [unintelligible] that the United States -- is there anything better [speaking over each other]
WATTENBERG: I have a reputation of interrupting my guests. But when they say exactly what I believe, I just let them talk and talk. I think you’re 100 percent right.
MUSK: And -- you know I wasn’t born in America -- I got here as fast as I could.
By saying this, you have now guaranteed that there will be. Well done.
(And my own, being a third-order effect, is too weak to affect the outcome.)
Makes much more sense, should be good for years. You saw it here first. :D
Maybe it's just a cultural difference but there is something unsettling and cringey about seeing those employees act so enthusiastic.
Is it genuine? Maybe for some employees. But the camera setup makes me think there is some expectation placed upon the employees that they will be there to cheer. It's not natural.
I have seen that level of excitement over a soccer match.
I think your priorities are personal, and you should maybe not project them to other human beings. Not everything is objective.
Or, you could see it like this. Europe has seen enough of nationalistic pride and of masses chanting in the streets. It didn't end well, and we know it. The USA don't happen to have made the experience yet in first person, though they certainly have a second hand knowledge of it.
Pride in the accomplishments of your own nation is a good thing. However often it clouds your perception of its faults and wrongdoings.
Or... they launch rockets into space, and land them back on a small platform.
It's the same reason why foreigners are baffled by, for example, the Pledge of Allegiance.
I choose to view the chants as a showing of pride in the acceptance that despite the hard work being done by the employees at SpaceX, none of this would be possible without the pioneering work of NASA and other governmental research organizations, as well as the myriad of universities that educate our workforce, largely supported by the American taxpayer.
As the child of immigrants who sacrificed a great deal for the opportunity to come to the US and as someone who grew up poor, not particularly bright, and with no formal education beyond that of high school, but who now has the opportunity to work on hardware that is launched into space, I always try and maintain a sense of appreciation for the country, and its people, that I now call home.