When Extrapolation Goes Wrong

[gunhilltrain]

Unless there is a good political or economic reason to go, we won't.

We stopped going to the moon because we beat the Soviets. After that, there was no political will to go.

Now that commercial space is opening up, there is more pressure to go back, hence the Artemis missions.

As somebody mentioned here, it's incredibly expensive and difficult to send human beings on space voyages. The time and distances involved for true interstellar travel are daunting. (Robert Heinlein had an interesting solution in Orphans of the Sky.) I've heard pure speculation that if any extraterristorials ever reached Earth, they must have used some inter-dimensional method that is not linear point to point travel. The technology of that, if it were possible, is unknown to us.

Of course, that begs the question of why aliens would bother with their brief appearances in places like West Virginia or New Mexico.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Musk hasn't been pro-free-speech, though. He's been pro-speech-that-he-agrees-with, while repeatedly curtailing other speech.

Under Musk, Twitter has become much more willing to accept government requests to censor and/or surveil its users.

Aircraft tracking info is publicly available by law, but Musk suspended an account that posted this info for his personal jet for "doxxing" (after having previously talked about how he wouldn't do this exact thing, because he was such a big believer in free speech.)

He then suspended a bunch of journalists who reported on that suspension, falsely claiming that they'd doxxed him. Around the same time, Twitter also suspended Linette Lopez, a journalist who hadn't been discussing the jet tracker - but who had previously reported information critical of Tesla.

He announced that the word "cis" would be considered a slur, grounds for suspension as harassment.

(Context: "cis" is a neutral Latin-derived prefix that's the antonym to "trans". It's been around since the Roman Empire. Today it's used in geography, chemistry, and rocket science - for instance, SpaceX's "Starship User's Guide" advertises Starship's capability to deliver payload to "Earth, cislunar, and interplanetary trajectories". But because it's also used to mean "not transgender", it's a popular bugbear for people who want to portray themselves as anti-woke/anti-trans. Musk started making a big deal of being anti-woke not long after his girlfriend left him for a trans woman and one of his own adult kids who's alienated from him came out as trans.)

After Twitter introduced the paid "verification" system, Twitter suspended users who advocated for blocking people who bought verification.

Soon after Substack introduced a product similar to Twitter, Twitter blocked its users from linking to Substack and apparently even from searching for the word "Substack".

Twitter shut down its newsletter platform Revue immediately after Jack Dorsey (co-founder) posted a long essay critical of Musk.

Most recently, Twitter/X has sued MediaMatters for showing advertisers how their ads were appearing next to neo-Nazi/white nationalist content.

Probably a few others I've missed, but that'll do for starters.

I won't address all of that, but with regards to the Media Matters lawsuit, Twitter has provided evidence that the alleged "ads appeared next to racist stuff" was created by gaming the system. MM created accounts, ONLY followed extreme content, and refreshed thousands of times to get one or two examples, then claimed falsely that it was happening all the time.

And as for "cis isn't a slur".
I think perhaps we can all agree as writers that context has a great deal to do with meaning.
We retard the timing on automobile engines.
There are fins on Bombs that are retarded.
Wave plates in Optics are retarded.
Does any of that make it acceptable to refer to another person as retarded? Or do we still consider it a slur?

 

[Kelliezgirl]

As somebody mentioned here, it's incredibly expensive and difficult to send human beings on space voyages. The time and distances involved for true interstellar travel are daunting. (Robert Heinlein had an interesting solution in Orphans of the Sky.) I've heard pure speculation that if any extraterristorials ever reached Earth, they must have used some inter-dimensional method that is not linear point to point travel. The technology of that, if it were possible, is unknown to us.

Of course, that begs the question of why aliens would bother with their brief appearances in places like West Virginia or New Mexico.

I've always liked the theory that the aliens are anthropology grad students. Which explains why they fly halfway across the universe then crash.

 

[SimonDoom]

In general, I'd say one of the interesting things is that the development of technology, and perhaps more accurately how it is absorbed by and influences culture, confounds the expectations of pessimists and optimists alike. I tend to be a techno-optimist, and I generally take a dim view of dystopian future predictions. And I think I've been right most of the time in my responses to predictions of doom and gloom. But my optimistic predictions haven't been right, either. I felt confident, at the advent of the Internet and the rise of social media, that it would have a salutory effect on society by spreading knowledge at a low cost and making us more informed and more open-minded. It's not clear that this has happened at all. I didn't account for the ways in which our social media environment can be manipulated, so huge segments of the population can coccoon themselves inside particular information bubbles and remain blissfully unaware of contrary information.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Oh, wait, there’s also how he offered Starlink to Ukraine, then shut it down (or at least refused to let it be used) when it was going to be used to coordinate an attack on Russia once Ukraine was dependent on it.

https://spacenews.com/shotwell-ukraine-weaponized-starlink-in-war-against-russia/

So, they were provided a communication tool, and wanted to use it for offensive operations.

“It was never intended to be weaponized, but the Ukrainians have leveraged it in ways that were unintentional and not part of any agreement.”

 

[Gamblnluck]

We stopped going to the moon because we beat the Soviets. After that, there was no political will to go.

NO economic will either. We DID however continue space exploration at least as far as a space station, etc. Many of our developments are due entirely as a result of those efforts.

 

[alohadave]

https://spacenews.com/shotwell-ukraine-weaponized-starlink-in-war-against-russia/

So, they were provided a communication tool, and wanted to use it for offensive operations.

“It was never intended to be weaponized, but the Ukrainians have leveraged it in ways that were unintentional and not part of any agreement.”

They are at war, I'd expect any tool provided to be used to wage that war. It's not like the Ukrainians were going to use it to watch Netflix.

Musk knew what they'd use it for.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

That's sort of true, but not in the way you mean. Basically, when it came to automotive engineering, rocketry, etc., there wasn't a large enough swathe of trusted people who both got to see what was going on in the company and could intelligently critique it.

Then the Twitter debacle happened, in full view of the world's software engineers. Elon's excuses for why things weren't working made absolutely no sense, and, in fact, often the opposite of sense. The ways he talked about addressing issues also didn't jibe with reality.

The source code got released, and it showed places where Musk had recently asked for things to be done that could only be called narcissistic. Stories from former SpaceX and Tesla employees came out of the woodwork for how he'd done the same thing at those companies, but not as publicly. Then people started paying attention to journalists that had been ringing the alarm bells for a while, but that they'd been ignoring in favor of the image Musk projected, because people liked the idea of this real-life Tony Stark.

Basically, Twitter was the cause of his problems, but only because it meant so much light got cast onto him, in the same way that Trump and family probably would have never seen the inside of a courtroom for longer than it took to agree to a settlement if they'd been content running their scams in NYC and the surrounding area, instead of going for the brass ring.

If you want more documentation, here:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/spacex-musk-safety/



https://arstechnica.com/science/202...-his-spacex-employees-to-work-thanksgiving/2/

Relating an anecdote from 2003:


That's a good example of the spin that Musk got before about 2022. "Was this a terrible idea? Yes. But these kinds of terrible ideas are why SpaceX succeeded." Instead, it's more likely that SpaceX succeeds largely ins pite of him, instead of because of him.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/17/business/spacex-workers-elon-musk.html



https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-fired-dozens-more-172906651.html



As a software dev, that's fucking insane.

https://insideevs.com/news/658439/elon-musk-overruled-tesla-autopilot-engineers-radar-removal/



There are tons more articles like this, some even worse: how he pushed the Tesla founders out, his labor practices, anger management issues, willingness to push untested features to the public (and then turn around and rely on settlements and NDAs to absorb bad press), and on and on. And that's the thing: he did a great job keeping all of this under wraps for a long time because his biggest strength is his ability in PR. But then, once it started to unravel (especially on Twitter), his response was "well, I'll buy Twitter and fix the 'issues' with it," which seems, so far, to be his Waterloo.

I believed his hype for a long time, too. And I think there are places where he's been sincere, passionate, and even occasionally effective. But I also think that, at some point, he started believing his own press.

So, in a couple of huge companies you can find some people who disagree with management's decisions?
Say it isn't so!

Your "epoxy" story.
Let's break that down.
Company has a difficult technical problem, tries an innovative approach, and it turns out to not work so they try something else.
That's how things are supposed to work.
That's actually a strength of SpaceX, they are actually willing to try out of the box things, and they recognize it won't always work.

And, as for the "laying off software engineers". Yeah, remember when that happened and all the "experts" breathlessly predicted Twitter would totally crash, and there was no way they could manage without all those people?
And then none of that happened.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

They are at war, I'd expect any tool provided to be used to wage that war. It's not like the Ukrainians were going to use it to watch Netflix.

Musk knew what they'd use it for.

They made an agreement, Ukraine was working outside that agreement.

 

[Gamblnluck]

They were not predictions of future events.
Merely writers exploring their imaginations.
Some of the things imagined in those works, may or may not come to pass.
Does that diminish the writing?
I don't think so. I loved reading them. Fueled my own imagination.

Exactly. And some kid somewhere read a few and said, "That's an idea. I wonder how I can make it work."
I remember reading about something in a '30's pulp fiction novel, Doc Savage who had 'autogyrators'. Helicopters weren't really put to practical use until the Korean war.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Exactly. And some kid somewhere read a few and said, "That's an idea. I wonder how I can make it work."
I remember reading about something in a '30's pulp fiction novel, Doc Savage who had 'autogyrators'. Helicopters weren't really put to practical use until the Korean war.

The Sikorsky R-4 was used operationally in WW2, a bunch of downed pilots owe their lives to it. It wasn't in widespread use, but it was deployed operationally.

Sikorsky was working on helicopters in the 1910s.

(Free advice: don't date a wannabe helicopter pilot. One track minds.)

 

[Gamblnluck]

The Sikorsky R-4 was used operationally in WW2, a bunch of downed pilots owe their lives to it. It wasn't in widespread use, but it was deployed operationally.

I said practical use. Maybe I misspoke with widespread. The public knew little of helicopters until Korea. The early autogyros had much is common with helicopters. They appeared in early pulp fiction. My point was this was one of those inventions that went mainstream years after appearing in fiction. In the stories I mentioned, they'd take off from a skyscraper in New York described as being VERY similar to the Empire State building and fly to where they'd catch further transportation.

 

[NoTalentHack]

So, in a couple of huge companies you can find some people who disagree with management's decisions?
Say it isn't so!

Your "epoxy" story.
Let's break that down.
Company has a difficult technical problem, tries an innovative approach, and it turns out to not work so they try something else.
That's how things are supposed to work.
That's actually a strength of SpaceX, they are actually willing to try out of the box things, and they recognize it won't always work.

And, as for the "laying off software engineers". Yeah, remember when that happened and all the "experts" breathlessly predicted Twitter would totally crash, and there was no way they could manage without all those people?
And then none of that happened.

Believe what you want. I spent a while believing in the dude, too. Eventually, I realized he’s just another billionaire adding far less to the world than he takes away. Hopefully you will, too. Regardless, have a good evening.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

I said practical use. Maybe I misspoke with widespread. The public knew little of helicopters until Korea. The early autogyros had much is common with helicopters. They appeared in early pulp fiction. My point was this was one of those inventions that went mainstream years after appearing in fiction.

They built over 100 of them between 1942 and 1944, deployed them and flew combat missions in them.
How is that NOT practical use?

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Believe what you want. I spent a while believing in the dude, too. Eventually, I realized he’s just another billionaire adding far less to the world than he takes away. Hopefully you will, too. Regardless, have a good evening.

SpaceX has already added far more to the world than he could ever "take away".
Good evening!

 

[EmilyMiller]

Guys!

Politics forum!

Em

 

[LupusDei]

They made an agreement, Ukraine was working outside that agreement.

It is a little more complicated than that. It wasn't a secret Ukraine will use Starlink for military communications, and for a while, there was no problem with it.

Then... well, it was discovered, empirically (with risk of lifes) that Starlink didn't work in Russian controlled territory of Ukraine. That's in itself created a conflict. Ukraine insisted it should work, for them, in the entire borders of Ukraine, including Crimea. It was envisioned as unprecedented tool in keeping contact with behind the lines units and guerillas. It was critical (and functioned as intended, by Ukrainians) during the siege of Mariupol.

And, indeed, Ukrainians apparently had the audacity to install it as control system to their first version of maritime attack drones. It resulted in example of said drone being lost at sea, washed ashore in Crime and captured by Russians, with significantly and permanently diminished the weapon systems effectiveness and robbed any chance of first attack surprise effect.

Further, the fact that Starlink geofencing attempted to follow the front lines created (understandable, in context) difficulties at said front lines. The front line maps aren't neither clear nor public knowledge (at high level of detail anyhow), and are subject to unpredictable changes. In practice it means Starlink stopped to be reliable at the front lines.

Worst of it was that those limitations weren't communicated clearly, but manifested as mysterious outages in often critical circumstances. It is speculated that Starlink uses/d a pro-Russian mapping source, which often was very optimistic on Russian side. On Ukrainian side it manifested as troops being under attack seeing their supposedly unjammable communications turned off. No wonder pretty much all Ukrainians are convinced Musk is a Russian asset. There are other, reinforcing reasons for this. Including Musk's general beliefs, and foremost what he did with Twitter.

From what I remember it wasn't until the exploiting of Kharkiv breakthrough when the situation became apparent. Those attacking forces didn't have Starlink coms for until much later. There was efforts to establish better and more operative communication between Ukraine and Starlink, but to my knowledge Starlink remained unresponsive.

Musk, retroactively, offered technical explanation for the limitations, that it's important to deny communication from Russian controlled territory to avoid efforts at hacking or jamming. While weak and seemingly overly paranoid, it at least is superficially plausible worry, but since trust was already lost is seen as deniably malicious.

Ukrainians continued to experience occasional outages, interpreted (perhaps unfairly) as attempts of blackmail at best, direct help to Russia at worst.

Twitter.

Musk bought Twitter to kill it. He has succeeded. Twitter that continues to agony is mere dead shell of what it once was and could be by now without the sabotage.

Twitter was, in a way remain to be, despite everything, very important for Ukrainian war effort. Yes, as propaganda tool, of course, including but not limited to, fundraising and public awareness, and attitude building. Initially, they had stellar success in this front.

After the purchase, Musk almost immediately suppressed Ukrainians on Twitter, limiting their visibility. Instead, Twitter is flooded by Russian propaganda amplified by useful idiots, including Musk himself. The man is mentally gone, totally falling in the black hole of conspiracy theories dug by Russian information warfare. Perhaps some poisonous tongue had got his ear.

Twitter was uniquely positioned to become single most influential media. It was instrumental in multiple grassroots efforts around the world. Many of whom report similar difficulties, including, but not limited to, Myanmar armed resistance (who are winning btw, after more that two years of what appeared to be hopeless struggle; well, not without military junta losing trust of China that now issues arrest warrants rebellion fulfill).

It still continues to be relevant only because of lack of suitable alternatives. There may not be one for a long time (3~5 years likely), or never, because it requires rather unique blend of ease of use, popularity, expert and government level users and reliability, yes, only enabled by comprehensive moderation. It wasn't ideal, far from it, and public outcry about it was a regular occurrence, but was responsive and responsive, within limits.

Damage to mankind Musk has done by destroying Twitter may very well outweigh all his direct or indirect positive contributions. With I applaud. Tesla was a visionary success within a doubt, in sense of acceleration of the transition to electric vehicles. Without it that timeline would be (much) more stretched and stressful. What SpaceX is doing will certainly be even more consequential indeed, especially in long term, especially when (not if) they get the Starship running.

Starlink is another paradigm shift with many instant follow up ideas that likely wouldn't be seriously considered otherwise. But what we really need is a direct-to-device space coms run by true anarchists who would deniabily allow covert use within hostile countries effectively ending any government's ability for administration network blackouts or "great firewalls" anywhere.

Yes, it flaunts laws of most states, but without something like that we won't survive this century, especially if Russia is allowed any kind of success in Ukraine. The avalanche of neo-colonnial warfare that would encourage, with crazy Trump-escue crackpot dictatorships everywhere... the dystopian visions of science fiction may end up seeming optimistic.

 

[Paul_Chance]

I like the theory that Earth is just a reality TV show for the aliens. They're as awed by Florida Man (or Oklahoma Man, or New Mexico Man) as we are. "You wouldn't believe what their doing now! Holy shit, this is horrible...I can't stop watching."

 

[EmilyMiller]

It is a little more complicated than that. It wasn't a secret Ukraine will use Starlink for military communications, and for a while, there was no problem with it.

Then... well, it was discovered, empirically (with risk of lifes) that Starlink didn't work in Russian controlled territory of Ukraine. That's in itself created a conflict. Ukraine insisted it should work, for them, in the entire borders of Ukraine, including Crimea. It was envisioned as unprecedented tool in keeping contact with behind the lines units and guerillas. It was critical (and functioned as intended, by Ukrainians) during the siege of Mariupol.

And, indeed, Ukrainians apparently had the audacity to install it as control system to their first version of maritime attack drones. It resulted in example of said drone being lost at sea, washed ashore in Crime and captured by Russians, with significantly and permanently diminished the weapon systems effectiveness and robbed any chance of first attack surprise effect.

Further, the fact that Starlink geofencing attempted to follow the front lines created (understandable, in context) difficulties at said front lines. The front line maps aren't neither clear nor public knowledge (at high level of detail anyhow), and are subject to unpredictable changes. In practice it means Starlink stopped to be reliable at the front lines.

Worst of it was that those limitations weren't communicated clearly, but manifested as mysterious outages in often critical circumstances. It is speculated that Starlink uses/d a pro-Russian mapping source, which often was very optimistic on Russian side. On Ukrainian side it manifested as troops being under attack seeing their supposedly unjammable communications turned off. No wonder pretty much all Ukrainians are convinced Musk is a Russian asset. There are other, reinforcing reasons for this. Including Musk's general beliefs, and foremost what he did with Twitter.

From what I remember it wasn't until the exploiting of Kharkiv breakthrough when the situation became apparent. Those attacking forces didn't have Starlink coms for until much later. There was efforts to establish better and more operative communication between Ukraine and Starlink, but to my knowledge Starlink remained unresponsive.

Musk, retroactively, offered technical explanation for the limitations, that it's important to deny communication from Russian controlled territory to avoid efforts at hacking or jamming. While weak and seemingly overly paranoid, it at least is superficially plausible worry, but since trust was already lost is seen as deniably malicious.

Ukrainians continued to experience occasional outages, interpreted (perhaps unfairly) as attempts of blackmail at best, direct help to Russia at worst.

Twitter.

Musk bought Twitter to kill it. He has succeeded. Twitter that continues to agony is mere dead shell of what it once was and could be by now without the sabotage.

Twitter was, in a way remain to be, despite everything, very important for Ukrainian war effort. Yes, as propaganda tool, of course, including but not limited to, fundraising and public awareness, and attitude building. Initially, they had stellar success in this front.

After the purchase, Musk almost immediately suppressed Ukrainians on Twitter, limiting their visibility. Instead, Twitter is flooded by Russian propaganda amplified by useful idiots, including Musk himself. The man is mentally gone, totally falling in the black hole of conspiracy theories dug by Russian information warfare. Perhaps some poisonous tongue had got his ear.

Twitter was uniquely positioned to become single most influential media. It was instrumental in multiple grassroots efforts around the world. Many of whom report similar difficulties, including, but not limited to, Myanmar armed resistance (who are winning btw, after more that two years of what appeared to be hopeless struggle; well, not without military junta losing trust of China that now issues arrest warrants rebellion fulfill).

It still continues to be relevant only because of lack of suitable alternatives. There may not be one for a long time (3~5 years likely), or never, because it requires rather unique blend of ease of use, popularity, expert and government level users and reliability, yes, only enabled by comprehensive moderation. It wasn't ideal, far from it, and public outcry about it was a regular occurrence, but was responsive and responsive, within limits.

Damage to mankind Musk has done by destroying Twitter may very well outweigh all his direct or indirect positive contributions. With I applaud. Tesla was a visionary success within a doubt, in sense of acceleration of the transition to electric vehicles. Without it that timeline would be (much) more stretched and stressful. What SpaceX is doing will certainly be even more consequential indeed, especially in long term, especially when (not if) they get the Starship running.

Starlink is another paradigm shift with many instant follow up ideas that likely wouldn't be seriously considered otherwise. But what we really need is a direct-to-device space coms run by true anarchists who would deniabily allow covert use within hostile countries effectively ending any government's ability for administration network blackouts or "great firewalls" anywhere.

Yes, it flaunts laws of most states, but without something like that we won't survive this century, especially if Russia is allowed any kind of success in Ukraine. The avalanche of neo-colonnial warfare that would encourage, with crazy Trump-escue crackpot dictatorships everywhere... the dystopian visions of science fiction may end up seeming optimistic.

Again - we have a forum for this.

Em

 

[EmilyMiller]

Guys - we all have political opinions. I’m sure many of us view them as moral ones, or just logical ones held by anyone with two braincells.

But plenty of places to talk about that. Seems like one thing that blue and red can sometimes agree on is erotica.

That’s what this place is about.

Just sayin’

Em

 

[djrip]

Guys - we all have political opinions. I’m sure many of us view them as moral ones, or just logical ones held by anyone with two braincells.

But plenty of places to talk about that. Seems like one thing that blue and red can sometimes agree on is erotica.

That’s what this place is about.

Just sayin’

Em

 

[EmilyMiller]

View attachment 2293125

Some would say that’s disrespectful to the flag.

Not me of course .

Em

 

[Bramblethorn]

I won't address all of that, but with regards to the Media Matters lawsuit, Twitter has provided evidence that the alleged "ads appeared next to racist stuff" was created by gaming the system. MM created accounts, ONLY followed extreme content, and refreshed thousands of times to get one or two examples, then claimed falsely that it was happening all the time.

Here's the MMFA report:
https://www.mediamatters.org/twitte...x-has-been-placing-ads-apple-bravo-ibm-oracle

I don't see anything in that report that claims "all the time" or even that it's frequent - where are you seeing that?

And as for "cis isn't a slur".
I think perhaps we can all agree as writers that context has a great deal to do with meaning.

It certainly can do. But in the context of "cisgender", "cis" means exactly the same thing that it does in "cislunar", "cisalpine", "cis-butenedioic acid": a neutral "opposite of trans".

We retard the timing on automobile engines.
There are fins on Bombs that are retarded.
Wave plates in Optics are retarded.
Does any of that make it acceptable to refer to another person as retarded? Or do we still consider it a slur?

We do, because of how it's used.

In its original mental-health usage, "mentally retarded" was a technical term for specific kinds of mental disability - there are a few clinical definitions floating around, but "somebody with an IQ below 70-75" was one of the common ones.

What makes it a slur these days is that it's used much more generally, usually to refer to people who wouldn't meet the clinical definition of "mentally retarded", and almost invariably with a negative connotation. The idea of calling somebody "mentally retarded" as an insult comes from the attitude that mentally retarded/disabled people are bad. That's the slur, same as saying "that's so gay" when your sports team loses a game.

"Cis" is not used in that way. I hang out with a LOT of trans people and I've never once heard it used to mean something other than "not trans". Nobody says "that's so cis" when their pizza arrives cold, nobody says "are you cis or something?" when they're mad at another trans person. About the closest you'll hear is a trans person describing somebody as "cis" in a "they wouldn't understand this issue because they're not trans" kind of way, which still isn't a slur.

Another way you can tell the difference is that there are plenty of people happy to describe themselves as "cis", in particular those who hang out with trans folk and hear how the word is used. You won't see a lot of people rushing to label themselves as "retarded".

 

[EmilyMiller]

Please can we get back to being a bunch of maladjusted perverts? Much healthier.

Em

 

[djrip]

Some would say that’s disrespectful to the flag.

Not me of course .

Em

Me either