rocknor

"They do this all the time"? The ignorance of generalizing a large country with a big population is astonishing. The problem is your employer paying peanuts as developer salaries. You'd get the same bad code if you paid peanuts to hire shitty developers in the US or EU.

Absolutely. It's the same in case of climate change, easy to criticize other countries about their emissions when you've already had your industrial revolution. I mean, just look at this graph:

https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$state$entities$show$countr...

I also agree with your point that sometimes space achievements are used for jingoistic purposes. But if you see the bigger picture (which most people don't sadly) you realize that it is a net positive overall for science and humanity. The jingoistic aspect is just a consequence of political reality.

I think you should focus on the huge amount of garbage and carbon emissions produced everyday in the USA (biggest contributor to climate change), which is objectively a much bigger problem than this one-off event which media portrayed as some sort of catastrophe. It's "glass houses" all over again. Why should a nation of 350M people have ASAT capability in the interest of national security, but not a nation of 1.4B people? We're seeing what happens when power is concentrated in the hands of a few (Trump/Parler bans) and it cannot be allowed to happen at a geopolitical level, in the interest of world peace (it sounds crazy but it has worked post WW2).

Meanwhile USA has 25x the debris (as of June 2019). Glass houses...

https://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/quarterly-news/pdfs/odqnv...

https://www.businessinsider.in/us-russia-china-and-india-sta...

Unfortunately in 2021, lifting people out of poverty still always implies increased carbon emissions (historically that's how rich countries got to where they are). After the death of colonialism, poor countries also naturally want to have the same luxuries rich countries already enjoy. But now we realize that with our current scientific advancements these luxurious lifestyles are not sustainable for such a large global population.

What you said is 100% right, just the tone was a bit harsh. Since this site mostly has people from rich countries who refuse to learn history and accept any blame, you will be downvoted.

They probably know about all the things you mentioned better than you, since it's their livelihood.

> you want to have a rational reaction to the data, you need to have both numbers in mind

That's exactly what Hans Rosling says in "Factfulness", always be wary of lonely numbers.