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Comment by thegrim33 | Hacker News Reader

It's pretty depressing that on a corner of the internet that's supposed to be a gathering of tech/geeks/nerds/stem people, discussing topics that "good hackers would find interesting", it's seemingly impossible to have a single thread about something like this that isn't almost entirely negative or political bickering.

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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.

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.

> 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.

> 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 ...

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?

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.

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.

tl;dr depending on old you are the bootstraps >> "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."

were still there. They've been notably missing/further and further out of reach depending on where you started these past 15 years. I would argue actually closer to 20.

https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1970/demo/p60-72... https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/nrs/tables/time-ser... https://www.thezebra.com/resources/home/housing-trends-visua... https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-american-income-vs-... https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-spe... https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-repo... https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-is-spent-on-personal-... https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/life-expectancy-vs-healt... https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college-by-year https://educationdata.org/average-student-loan-debt-by-year https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/is-the-stem-job-shortage-ov... https://issues.org/what-shortages-the-real-evidence-about-th... https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2015/article/stem-crisis-or-ste... https://www.whatjobs.com/news/shocking-entry-level-job-exper... https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20198/s-e-labor-market-conditi... https://issues.org/stem-workforce-shortage-data-hira/ https://listwithclever.com/research/home-price-v-income-hist...

>> 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.

As I was typing my reply I did pause to think about whether I am being part of the problem. I still decided to reply. My excuse is that I'm not the one who brought politics into this and I feel ok pushing back against that once others do.

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

I don't think so?

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

If the majority of people around here just want to argue politics non-stop and turn everything into that there's little I can do.

> There's little I can do

I use https://hackersmacker.org to mark them with a red dot so I can skip those comments. It's like slashdot's friend/foe system (including social aspect). There are also plugins that allow blocking and filtering users.

I'm, personally, here to interact with people interested in tech. I feel no shame in curating my experience to fit that. If I wanted to be saturated in politics, I would make a Reddit account.

>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.

Choosing one (deliberately ambiguous) line to label the comment “entirely political” is the kind of thinking that explains why tribalism has been so effective.

"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.

Division and distraction are the actual issue though. And I didn’t say you have to go after anyone, only be mindful of them (see my reply to another comment). I left plenty of room in my words to project your own approach, because I care about the outcome, not how people should achieve it in their own particular world. If in your world that means “politics” you do you.

> if you’re blaming the people in the thread for this, I think you’re directing your energy in the wrong direction

Much of the current environment is driven by the SF Bay Tech Elite/Culture.

Peter Thiel funded and enabled Curtis Yarvin, whose work was the backbone of the modern alt right, project 2025, etc. Plenty of tech VCs/elite are investing huge amounts in fighting effective government, pushing models of city states immune from regulation, policing the discourse, and more. Musk gets more press coverage than most but tons of folks who are either on HN, are connected to startups talked about here, etc. are primary forces driving what America has become.

or just don't bring politics to HN. it's not hard

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.

do you think the current environment is more or less just than it was during the 1969 moon landing?

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

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.

I think the tech world is fundamentally difference, though I'm not old enough to experience it in '69. I don't believe we had tech moguls who built enormous wealth and realized they could by the influence they couldn't muster with social influence, and that has made the world net-worse.

What’s the point of focusing on one aspect of the world?

Taken as a whole, the 60’s were far more intense and violent. The Vietnam War. The draft. The Cuban Missile Crisis. Racial inequality and protests. Several major assassinations. Nixon in the White House. And that’s just the US.

The world is net-better even if certain areas still need improvement. But there’s really no point to hyperfocusing on just the things that are worse.

> I don't believe we had tech moguls who built enormous wealth and realized they could by the influence

Didn't this just describe the robber barons of the Gilded Age? Moguls and oligarchs of the day, yes. Amassed their fortunes on the emerging frontier technology of the time, I'd say so. Wielded enormous power over political discourse and essentially owned the law makers of the day. Rhymes, for sure.

It doesn't really matter whether you live in a democracy if the the very issues that are even allowed to be voted on are decided by an elite, wealthy and politically connected group.

I find it odd how reluctant you are to say it is more just today. I think it is no comparison.

I don't think is a fair question because the expectations are wildly different. The 80s and 90s transition gave us expectations of policy, peace and progress that were very different than the 60s.

69 had two things going on for it, the war was not news and on its first signs of being scalled back, Nixon had announced a retraction of force for September (but ended up extending the whole thing to 75) and this would be the first moon landing, there was nothing like it.

From 1969 to today, we're waaaaay better. But from 6 months ago there is clearly an elephant in the room taking a lot of attention.

The top comments complaining about other comments complaining about stuff really shows how negative internet discourse is hard to avoid. I don't think these comments are bad (meta-discussion is a good thing in general) but they also seems to embody that same negativity.

This comment also isn't positive and the cycle continues. I agree that people are often too negative and this is a good example of how that negativity is contagious.

Hacker culture has deep political and philosophical roots, it's intrinsic to the community.

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

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?

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

Personal emails? These aren't the kind of people to blog.

If you want a brief summary they, like many, feel this whole thing is a farce due to how the project has be designed and spec'd. I think smarter every day did a wonderful youtube video comparing what kind of documentation and planning they had for the past launches, and how it sure as shit doesn't look like they're anywhere near that right now (he's much nicer about it). NASA is doing their best, but the simple truth is the actual "landing" plan feels like it vomited out by a bunch a suits who don't understand reality and wanted headlines.

A decent anecdote from the discussion that summarizes feelings:

One of them got to spend a week in Cape Kennedy due to winning an Essay contest and met Frank Borman. To quote him

> The topic of the essay was, What is man's future in space?

> I believe that, had I written, 55 years from now we will beat the Chinese to the Moon, I would not have won.

I don’t think the criticisms on HN are related to Artemis’ imperfect concept and technical design.

They’re almost exclusively related to political reasons. “There are problems in the world, therefore I can’t enjoy this” is flawed reasoning and isn’t even something that they apply to any other interest. It’s just special pleading.

There's just so little science here though, to expect the audience on HN to get excited about redoing something 65 years later for the purpose of political grand-standing and nationalism while the world literally burns and so many are hurting... I'd be more upset if a bunch of insulated tech nerds obliviously continued to along their easy trajectories without a though of everyone else. We may not be the 1% but we're definitely the 5%

If our ancestors had listened to arguments like this, we might all be still in a small zone in Africa.

Opportunistically venturing out of Africa is one thing. Sending a couple people around a distant and desolate rock, while the homeworld burns due to unforced errors, is another.

Alternatively, if we don't become a multi-planetary species, we will be exterminated by a meteor. There's enough excess to do a bit of species saving multi-tasking.

For an alternate perspective, the development for this (which includes future launches) was only 80% the cost of ~500 miles of railway in California! [1]

[1] https://www.kabc.com/2026/04/06/high-speed-rail-cost-now-at-...

It's unlikely we'll be exterminated by a meteor for many millions of years. Life as we know it is already facing existential risks here and now.

Doubtful we'll ever establish permanent residency anywhere else when we cannot sustain ourselves on the rock we evolved on.

> when we cannot sustain ourselves on the rock we evolved on.

The population is as big as it has ever been, and growing. Hunger index is steady [1], with low scores concentrated in the usual failed African states. We are sustaining ourselves just fine, by all metrics.

There are future problems, but there are also future solutions. A surprise meteor from the blackness of space has no solution. Both are bad. Multiple efforts for multiple problems can take place at once. One does not negate or even influence the other. Corruption in our government it's a much bigger money sink, and risk to our future, than a moon mission.

[1] https://public.flourish.studio/published_thumbnails/visualis...

There are less wars than ever, and we are all richer than ever. Stop watching the news, it makes you dumb.

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.

> 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.

Clearly not looking hard enough

Go through all the positive comments and upvote them. It feels good.

I think it would have been much better, if the nation that launched that mission did not in the same time start a war... I personally simply cannot separate these two things.

Have you always felt the same way about Apollo and the Vietnam War?

Or are you considering this for the first time?

I was not around at that time, so I have not considered it. But it is a fair point.

Even with darkness in the world, it’s still healthy and moral to appreciate the good that happens. I’d say it’s actually important to do so in life in general.

Emotional maturity is balancing both the good and bad in life and not letting either completely dominate your reality.

I’m finding this a lot. I always found the scrutiny of Trump to be quite over the top and never really found him to be any more corrupt or awful than any other politician, just that he was openly anti establishment. Which is what I guessed was the reason for the hyper scrutiny. I ask some people about Iraq and Afghanistan and they never really seem to know as much or have as much detail as they do with how illegal this Iran war is. I find that odd and have maybe chalked it up to this over-scrutiny again. To be clear I actually think this is good. I feel like we might finally be looking at politicians with the amount of scrutiny we need to, but am not optimistic it will continue when the next pro-establishment character is installed. People also seem to be on board with the Ukraine war, which I also understand but find strange that fighting wars on foreign soil are sometimes “good” and sometimes “bad”? For me I have a simple rule; if they’re not at the birder of my own country I’m not interested. You can argue details and complexities but the way I see it is that wars are a fucking mess and there are lots of complexities that can be used to sell you either way. If you’re not there, you don’t know. I always wonder if France and the UK hadn’t declared war on Germany, would WWII ever happened? It’s an interesting one and more of a thought experiment but the implications are interesting and raises some very touchy moral questions. It’s basically a massive trolley problem question with lots of unknowns.

"People on board with the Ukraine war" - that reads as if Ukraine invaded another country, started a war, and people somehow support that.

Russian invaded Ukraine, and people are on board with helping Ukraine defend itself - because Russia is trying to reconstitute the soviet union, and Ukraine is just one stop along the way.

Yeh. I mean your comment kind of reads like the whole thing is simple and Russia just randomly invaded Ukraine 4 years ago for no reason. Rather than there being rising pro-Russian sentiment in the east for years resulting in an all out civil war 12 years ago when the government went after the separatists.

Then you say well they were Russian backed so Russia were involved from the beginning.

Then I say well, where were these separatists born, what language do they speak, and how do they identify?

And then you say something about propaganda, then I say something about propaganda.

Then I say what I said in the beginning which was maybe if you’re not actually there, and involved, you should stay out of other people’s shit.

> I mean your comment kind of reads like the whole thing is simple and Russia just randomly invaded Ukraine 4 years ago for no reason.

Not randomly for no reason - the reason is to bring the former soviet bloc nations back under Russia's control, to rebuild the Russian empire. Putin has even spoken openly how he does not recognize Ukraine as a real nation or a real identity and that all of Ukraine, it's land, resources and people belong to Russia. And he's on a genocidal mission to manifest that reality.

Putin is happy to use separatist movements (organic or not) as tools and thin pretexts for his expansive imperial ambitions, sure - but separatists aren't the reason for the war - Putin's imperialist ambitions are.

Ah you’re one of those people where it’s like talking to a wall. Well you seem to have an intimate relationship with Putin so maybe you can just ring him up and have a chat with him or something.

Let me put it this way. Imagine you’re at school and there are two kids that have a long history starting to shout and even throw fists at each other. You come over from the other end of the playground, try to understand the situation the best you can… and start throwing fists at the kid you think is wrong?

You’re acting like a proper ape and seem to lack any imagination or ambition for a peaceful future. You know there are other ways? Smarter ways. We have mind blowing technology that is optimised for death and destruction but you don’t reckon we can, like, maybe just ASK the people what they want? Nobody ever asks. Nobody talks.

Everyone’s sold this skewed reality that bombing people is the only way we can resolve conflict and you’ve been sold it by massive companies that make bombs.

Anyway this conversation is causing way too much negative emotion in me and it’s not like you’re even understanding what I’m saying so I’m just gonna bow out I think. At least for you there are plenty of people like you and there will be plenty more wars for you to drool over and completely understand with your big brain.

> Everyone’s sold this skewed reality that bombing people is the only way we can resolve conflict and you’ve been sold it by massive companies that make bombs.

Yes, Ukraine can only resolve the conflict by winning - which means killing lots of Russians and driving Russia out.

Russia can resolve the conflict by... leaving. That's it. They just have to go home. No bombs necessary.

> winning

That’s such retarded language, no one “wins” in a war.

Anyway you don’t seem to be actually be reading anything I’m writing so peace and love mate. Hope you realise our war waging ways are unwise one day.

It’s been fun at least!

Alas, then it seems this exchange is ending where it started - with the reality inverting insinuation that Ukraine and it's allies are the bloodthirsty warmongers here, because they continue to defend themselves from an invading army.

I do agree that waging war is generally unwise and tragic - but the people waging the war here are the Russians. The obstacle to a peaceful resolution to the war are - once again - the Russians.

How do you evaluate your own comment by the criteria you have set forth within it?

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.

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.

I was 10 in 1969. Landing on the moon was a communal and shared event for a large percentage of the population, via one of the three television networks. As was the war in Vietnam.

Many decades later, our institutions are in need of rebuild, for the common good. Maybe this event is a "small step" in that direction.

The Apollo program only barely reached 50% approval during the Apollo 11 landing. They canceled landings because people stopped caring within a couple moon landings.

The popularity of Apollo is fictional. Artemis has dramatically better popularity than Apollo.

I"m not saying it had high approval. I'm saying it had high community awareness, unlike the current mission. I was in a bookstore where they were playing the radio over their speakers as Apollo 13 reported problems. That seems different to our current fragmented, de-institutionalized world, FWIW. Maybe there are tiktok memes that I'm not aware of.

In case you're curious about US history and not just trying to make a point, "those people in the Apollo era" were the majority of Americans for most of the time the Apollo program was ongoing. Republicans argued that the large NASA budget was fiscally unwise and Democrats argued that the money would have been better used for social programs. The press referred to the program as the "Moondoggle". In 1962, the New York Times noted that the projected Apollo program budget could have instead been used to create over 100 universities of a similar size to Harvard, build millions of homes, replace hundreds of worn-out schools, build hundreds of hospitals, and fund disease research. The Apollo program's popularity hovered around 40% for most of the 1960s when it was underway. It peaked at 53% just after the moon landing, and by April 1970 it was back down to 40%. It wasn't until the mid-80s that the majority of Americans thought that the Apollo program was worth it.

This is never the problem with people talking this stuff. People don't naturally obsess about these things. It indicates that there are political problems.

Not all hackers!

Whiteys on the moon

There simply isn’t denying the political nature of this mission. Majority of statements from NASA about it specify America’s need for space dominance, thank the Trump administration, and assert American exceptionalism in some other way.

The discussion on HN simply reflects the rhetoric which comes from NASA.

Yes, but it's depressing because of the environmental factors causing the problem, not the people experiencing the problem.

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).

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

After the resurrection of Twitter, the conservative-leaning contingent left for X. This place was left to the miserable left, and as you would expect, is now mostly intolerable.

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 technological progress 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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