NASA Needs to Rename the James Webb Space Telescope | Hacker News Reader

NASA Needs to Rename the James Webb Space Telescope

scientificamerican.com

17 pointsthinkingemote20 comments

I feel that we miss the point when we try to inspire people with other people - they are messy, complicated and often problematic. We cherry pick a portion of a person and represent it with the whole. This also tends to distort perception of value over time - choosing a single person to celebrate never tells the full story.

I really wish we had more monuments and tributes to ideas - they can be much more expressive and create a sense of community and shared values.

Agreed. But even ideas change throughout the course of time.

It's better to learn from the failures of an individual than to hide and forget.

Good point, I meant to say something about that. Ideas certainly aren't immune, but should have more momentum and weight, and should be more resilient to change, reducing "cultural churn".

I rather liked the Fourth Plinth project, for highlighting alternative approaches to celebrating heroes and ideas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_plinth,_Trafalgar_Squar...

Why is it that so many people classify each other as a bad person based on one attribute?

Do people spend all day searching for people with monumental impact to discredit them for having beliefs that don't stand the test of time?

It seems quite obvious that the crap we do now will be looked down upon in a century's time. So silly.

Crab mentality, also known as crab theory, crabs in a bucket (also barrel, basket, or pot) mentality, or the crab-bucket effect, is a way of thinking best described by the phrase "if I can't have it, neither can you". The metaphor is derived from a pattern of behavior noted in crabs when they are trapped in a bucket. While any one crab could easily escape, its efforts will be undermined by others, ensuring the group's collective demise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality

Sex is the only thing that matters. Views on sexuality are the highest our morals go right now, the test of how much you care about the world all comes down to what you believe people should do with their penises and vaginas. Obama kickstarted drone bombing warfare, but he also repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell, so therefore he is Good.

(I'm being sarcastic... I think...)

If we try to purge everyone who did or supported things we now view as wrong we will have very little history left.

It may be so, but we are naming this telescope so people alive today can talk about it. We should name this telescope for what words mean to us.

On another note, do we need to name this telescope after a person? Why not go with a descriptive name like the LHC has? Then you literally cannot go wrong.

> Some argue that if Webb was complicit, so was everyone working in the administration at the time. We agree.

Literally everyone is or will be guilty of this. We all associate with something that someone will eventually condemn some aspect of. Absolute purity is a standard no person can meet. If that's the measure, all awards and honors really ought to be abolished (or ritually withdrawn with condemnation immediately after being awarded).

You're only as good as your worst moments, they are the ones that define who you are. As times change the people of the past look worse and worse.

You’ve got to “do the work”—the axes won’t grind themselves.

But don't work to hard at it--don't be part of the "White Savior Industrial Complex."

Let's just not name things after people anymore, we all suck.

Will the canceling ever end?

IKR, It started with conservatives canceling the Dixie Chicks, even Mitt Romney has been "canceled" by a lot of Conservatives.

Hell, those who cherish the confederacy and the flag that represents it tried to cancel the entire United States, those at the seditious uprising in January tried to do it a second time.

Trump tried and tried to "Cancel" Obamacare, he also tried to Cancel lgbtq rights in military/etc.

Those on the right even canceled "All in the Family" because oh no, there was an interracial couple.

A few days ago those on the right tried to start a hashtag #TaylorSwiftIsOverParty which backfired and got the hashtag: #TaylorSwiftIsLovedParty trending instead.

The witchunts for anything relating to Communism/Socialism is another prime example of Americans cancelling an entire political ideology they didn't agree with at the time.

You act as if this is something new. Cancel culture is as old as the world. Romans canceled Greek Deities by changing their names to Romanesque ones.

Christians canceled Pagan Holidays by co-opting them for themselves Saturnalia -> Christmas for example.

You might as well just ask Humans to stop be human.

When we disagree with something we boycott them, we shun them, singly or collectively (if there's enough people who agree with the collective body).

If the new name uses the Roman alphabet, it's not Woke enough.

NASA does not “need” to do anything, the mob wants them to do this.

What "mob?" Four authors at Scientific American publishing an article? Is everyone who holds an opinion with which you disagree part of a "mob?"

It didn't start with SA, it started with the blog post they cited and continued with studies about "feeling safe".

The blog post cited[0] explains the history and context around allegations of bigotry IRT James Webb, in an even-handed and well-researched way, far from being the product of a "mob" mentality. It even winds up defending James Webb against those allegations and his name being attached to the telescope.

And as far as the studies[1,2] go... unless you're claiming these studies were falsified or manufactured to further some kind of agenda, these seem to be evidence cited by the authors to back up their thesis and provide a rationale for their argument. And they mention that this controversy goes as far back as 2015.

Again, i see no evidence of a "mob" at work here. I see professionals attempting to convince an audience of their point of view through rational, civil, evidence based argument.

[0]https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e4d8bb5d77f6c7ec5f96...

[2]https://www.aps.org/programs/lgbt/upload/LGBTClimateinPhysic...

[3]https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/3/eabe0933.full

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