NASA advisor quits after the agency keeps telescope named after James Webb
businessinsider.com
businessinsider.com
Don't even start on other historical figures.
I think we need to be able to live with some facts because if we start erasing every person that has ever said anything racist or sexist then we would pretty much have to contend with the fact that in the past almost everybody was guilty (or we don't have enough knowledge).
Sensibilities were different in the past. Do not treat historical facts as if it happened today.
It doesn't mean it was right. But denying everything isn't very useful framework through which to look at the past.
Pretty much ALL of military was both sexist and anti-gay through entire history. So I guess remove all military names from everything?
If you go far enough back in time pretty much EVERY parent or teacher beat their kids. I am talking about abuse but about using physical pain as a teaching aid. This would be unthinkable today. Does this mean all these people were evil or is it that they grew up in a culture that made it ok to beat the kid a little bit if it was in the name of teaching him/her a lesson? And even made it a virtue... ("spare the rod, spoil the child")
Think about it, maybe future generations will look at eating animals the same way we today think about slavery?
Do people forget what NASA was for in the 1950s? we were in a cold war with a nuclear power, and NASA was working on ICBMs
It doesn’t really matter what James Webb’s personal opinion of homosexuality was - anything that you have to keep secret is a vulnerability to blackmail.
When Jack Tramiel of Commodore was asked how he manages to do business in Germany, the country that held him in Auschwitz during the war, he replies, “I live in the future”, I wish more people would take that tack.
So... you're saying we shouldn't be naming a satellite after a guy who's been dead for 20 years?
Because that's where the history part comes in. We could have given it a forward-looking name like we used for the Mars probes. Instead, we named it after a dead guy... which means talking about the dead guy.
Hmm, this controversy doesn't seem present at all in his wikipedia page. I wonder if there's a secret "Wikipedia Edit War" going on for control of this page
The Name McNameface thing was stupid hur-durr humour, IMNSHO.
But trying to witch-hunt someone because they worked somewhere when something happened, fucking hell. I'm quite a left person (give everyone social welfare, redistribute wealth!), but the SJWs really are alienating people...
Will be interesting to see what kind of images the telescope can produce, i.e. shifting the focus to the science aspect.