There are huge differences between our current population and our population from 55 years ago. Our attitudes toward science, education, ethics, work and critical thinking were so much higher 55 years ago.
Just as one example, could you imagine 55 years ago us electing as president a man so ignorant as to think magnets would be destroyed by water.
Yet today that kind of ignorance in our leaders is just accepted.
That is why they could land men on the moon and we can't.
Further reason and proof of why it seems so difficult to accomplish today what we accomplished 55 years ago can be seen in the posts here. So many posters here rather than having a respect and trust in science, prefer to believe crazy conspiracy theories that the landing was faked.
The type of crazy thinking that used to be common in only an extreme and small minority, has become way too common. Today's America is too willing to accept irrational beliefs and to elect irrational leaders.
A large portion of our population will readily believe nonsense such as conspiracy theories and it hurts our advancement.
"respect for science" = religious reverence for what people with 'science' job descriptions say.
"Irrational beliefs" = the government lies continuously and kills millions of people all over the world. Its top 'health' shyster scientist supposedly can't remember most of the crap that he lied about continuously over the course of three years (no worries, he gets a job at a prestigious college and taxpayer-funded security). And there are all kinds of bizarre things with the moon landings - from discrepancies in astronaut testimony to lost flight telemetry to apparently faked images. Then there's the fact that nobody seems to be able to do anything similar with cutting-edge electronics and materials.
Believing the American government on any topic without a serious amount of skepticism seems to be the most massively 'irrational' thing a person could do. Doesn't mean none of it happened. But a rational person might say 'I don't know with certainty' and not 'if you don't blindly believe the government you're doing crazy thinking'.
beating Nazis - nope - that was the Soviet Union. US came in at the end and scooped up the glory.
bastion of freedom - where were you during covid?
interstate system, transcontinental railroad - huh? Do you not know what China has accomplished?
Covid mRNA - what? 17 million killed from the vax and counting.
Climate change - wow. You are young.
And before you jump to conclusions and brand me a Trumptard, I'm not American and have never voted in a US election (since citizenship apparently doesn't matter in the US, it seems important to add this).
Patriotism is programming. For most, one's nationality is nothing to be proud of since all they did to 'achieve' this was be born.
Moon landing - I'm an aerospace engineer you're wild if you think we didn't land on the moon. Why wouldn't the Soviet Union have called us out on it? They could've disproven it with a telescope from the 1600s.
Beating Nazis - The Soviet Union would have lost without the US, and the US probably would've lost without the Soviet Union.
Bastion of freedom - I was talking about things in the past. We're certainly freer than Russia or China, but we're no longer the shining beacon of freedom that we once were. Also, covid lockdowns happened because there was a pandemic, and the restrictions went away with time. Every conservative prediction (mandatory vaccines, vaccine passports, never ending lockdowns, etc) was wrong.
Interstate/Transcontinental railroad - These things were major engineering achievements when they were done. They no longer are. That's my whole point. We used to do stuff like that, and we don't anymore.
Vaccines - There have been BILLIONS of doses given out in the past 3 years. If there were major issues, we'd know by now, and there aren't.
Patriotism absolutely is programming. I recently learned about the nationalism movement in the late 1700s/early 1800s, and it was crazy learning how a few elites essentially brainwashed people into believing they were part of a nation. I also watched a Yale course on the American Revolution on Youtube, and it made me far more patriotic. I used to feel like you, where I wasn't really proud of my country, but as I learn more about our history, I do feel a lot of pride. Now I love the constitution and my country, and arguably that's programming, but also, I think you need it to have some kind of national unity. I don't think it's coincidence that we're so divided today, and so many people don't love America.
I won't brand you a trumptard, I'll just brand you a regard, and move on happily knowing you can't vote in my elections.
For someone who acknowledges nationalist programming, you sure get into the spirit of it. You're full of 'you've got to have' and 'we need' and etc... They elites at Yale and google seem to have done a number on you. Sure, the Constitution is great. When followed it allows for great freedom. Too bad it has been largely ignored, and gradually eroded for well over a century.
Your theory seems to be that there was a serious devolution in engineering ability that lead to an inability to do the sorts of projects that people once did. Does the same not apply for pharmaceutical projects? Clearly the same doesn't apply for computer science and consumer electronics. Jets are more comfortable and efficient than they have ever been (in spite of the shrinking furniture). Bikes are lighter and better than ever. Cars are twice as efficient and far safer than they were in 1969 Ieven if they are hideous by comparison).
I get that construction projects take forever nowadays, but that is largely down to issues with builders (mainly labor costs and regulations), and not engineers who are using digital tools to come up with fantastic structures. Perhaps the devolution in engineering ability is limited only to space projects? Seems like a stretch.
And there are many other leaps of reasoning in your post.
For example, covid lockdowns did not happen because there was a pandemic. That's like saying 'the US Government Bombed Iraq because of WMDs'. Yes, that's what the folks doing the lockdowns claimed in the marketing literature for the lockdowns, but the reality was that lockdowns happened because people in positions of authority decided to make them happen for reasons that we may never know. Did they knowing full well that they'd likely cause more damage than the illness they were delaying? I'm unaware of the rigorous analysis that was published in support of lockdowns, weighting the estimated benefits against the estimated costs. One would have expected that to be made available in advance, if for no other reason simply to prove that the due diligence was done. Perhaps it was all analyzed in secret so as to boost confidence in the government. Not a great plan, but maybe It worked on you...
Of course none of the restrictions made sense unless put into the context of their effects: the death 30% of small businesses, upended real estate markets, changed election rules in 'emergency' ways that would have otherwise been impossible, cause an epidemic of mental illness and suicide, and transfer over $3 TRILLION dollars from working people to the top 0.5%. This also helped bring in a government that has since restarted massive foreign wars, washing hundreds of billions out of the tax base in order to fund continuous bloodshed overseas.
Sure it isn't as bad as folks have it in in some places, but that is irrelevant. The folks in Sweden had it right from the outset and they were immediately lambasted not only by the elites in Sweden (the royalty there wanted lockdowns), but also by the corrupt US media and Trump. Of course they were right all along and it was plain to see that they would be right from the outset.
There are serious safety issues with the mRNA jabs. So far they are more dangerous than all vaccines combined, despite the fact that the illness they purportedly help with is mild or unnoticeable for the vast majority of the population. Serious safety signals have been reported extensively and we're only barely in year 3 of this experiment. Would be great to isolate the variable and see what portion of unexplained excess deaths accrue to jabbed versus unjabbed populations. Not aware of the availability of that data or if anyone is tabulating it. Remember, the way these things are calculated are their risk vs. the risk of the illness. So if there is a chance that it is more dangerous than the illness for any person or group of people then it is enough to recommend strongly against use. That seems to be the case for most young and healthy people - many of whom were kicked out of schools and jobs for refusing to use the product, and others of whom used the product when they shouldn't have. Why the hard mandates and coercive measures with anyone, let alone low risk populations? Neither fear nor greed are acceptable excuses.
Finally, labeling people 'classic conservative' as a way to side step or dismiss their comments is a bad argumentation tactic. Moreover it is divisive. Using this logic nobody needs to talk to one another, they just need to use convenient (and generally meaningless) labels to indicate their camps of choice (or in this case the camps to which they want to assign others). Meanwhile no meaningful discussion is had. No ideas are shared. It shouldn't take a rocket scientist (or an aerospace engineer) to understand that.
This thread alone is proof that landing on the moon today would not be possible anymore. Society went down a rabbit hole and will never recover from it again.
U.S. doing certain things better 50 years ago is not really a great argument for regression. The U.S. has problems but has always had problems. It’s really about talent density. When we completed the transcontinental railroad in 10 years it’s because all the smartest people were doing that. Now it takes us years to repair a road because smart people don’t do roads. They do tech, which the U.S. is far and away the best at. Smart people achieve things well before their time. Just think of Galileo.
There probably is something to the institutional culture having changed. Accounts of NASA in the 60s make it sound like some cultural combination of a a silicon valley startup and a nation fighting an existential war. That's not really sustainable long-term. It can maybe work when you're chasing some crazy goal with a defined endpoint, but no institution stays like that.
That is a really insightful point thank you. I bet morale was indeed sky high in the 60s.
As a young 20-something, I think older generations need to realize that we don't have an answer to "Why is America great?". There are incredible things the US has done (moon landing, beating Nazis, bastion of freedom, interstate system, transcontinental railroad, etc), but none really in the past 20 years. And, the great things we have done are entirely politicized. The Covid vaccine is one of the most impressive things the US has done, but half the country doesn't even think it works. Up until Biden pulled us out of Afghanistan, the US had been in losing wars for my entire life. America used to be a shining beacon of what was possible, but now we can't get anything done. Luckily, Biden got a historic infrastructure bill passed, among other things, but there's nothing we've done since I was born that I feel I can feel national pride over. I look at every other developed country, and see that they don't have homeless people littering the streets of their cities, and they don't have people filing bankruptcy because they got sick. And I'm supposed to consider my country the best?
We need a president to say "We will make it to the moon by the end of this decade, not because it is easy, but because it is hard", but about climate change. We should be leading the world in green energy, but we refuse to. It shouldn't even be political, and it doesn't need to be about climate change; We should just do it because it'd make life better. We need to use our influence to make other nations more prosperous, and build strong economic and political ties with them. But instead, we're too afraid of brown people, so we try to build $100bn walls on the border. Instead, we try to put more money into fossil fuels, even when China is dumping money into clean energy, because it's obviously the future.
I'm sick and tired of conservatives complaining about how the US was better back in the day. It could be great now, and they're holding us back.
Have an upvote. That was a stirring post. I'm not even American but I'm feeling all f'k yeah!! after reading that.
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
There are huge differences between our current population and our population from 55 years ago. Our attitudes toward science, education, ethics, work and critical thinking were so much higher 55 years ago.
Just as one example, could you imagine 55 years ago us electing as president a man so ignorant as to think magnets would be destroyed by water.
Yet today that kind of ignorance in our leaders is just accepted.
That is why they could land men on the moon and we can't.
Further reason and proof of why it seems so difficult to accomplish today what we accomplished 55 years ago can be seen in the posts here. So many posters here rather than having a respect and trust in science, prefer to believe crazy conspiracy theories that the landing was faked.
The type of crazy thinking that used to be common in only an extreme and small minority, has become way too common. Today's America is too willing to accept irrational beliefs and to elect irrational leaders.
A large portion of our population will readily believe nonsense such as conspiracy theories and it hurts our advancement.
It sounds like you're saying that people today are more likely to be critical thinkers and to not just accept whatever narrative is being told to them by government, corporations, politicians, news channels, social media, etc. Unlike you, I see this as very positive for humanity.
Further reason and proof of why it seems so difficult to accomplish today what we accomplished 55 years ago can be seen in the posts here. So many posters here rather than having a respect and trust in science, prefer to believe crazy conspiracy theories that the landing was faked.
The type of crazy thinking that used to be common in only an extreme and small minority, has become way too common. Today's America is too willing to accept irrational beliefs and to elect irrational leaders.
A large portion of our population will readily believe nonsense such as conspiracy theories and it hurts our advancement.
"respect for science" = religious reverence for what people with 'science' job descriptions say.
"Irrational beliefs" = the government lies continuously and kills millions of people all over the world. Its top 'health' shyster scientist supposedly can't remember most of the crap that he lied about continuously over the course of three years (no worries, he gets a job at a prestigious college and taxpayer-funded security). And there are all kinds of bizarre things with the moon landings - from discrepancies in astronaut testimony to lost flight telemetry to apparently faked images. Then there's the fact that nobody seems to be able to do anything similar with cutting-edge electronics and materials.
Believing the American government on any topic without a serious amount of skepticism seems to be the most massively 'irrational' thing a person could do. Doesn't mean none of it happened. But a rational person might say 'I don't know with certainty' and not 'if you don't blindly believe the government you're doing crazy thinking'.
Let me guess. Your least favourite subjects at school were Physics, Chemistry, Maths and Computer Science?
Moon landing - I'm an aerospace engineer you're wild if you think we didn't land on the moon. Why wouldn't the Soviet Union have called us out on it? They could've disproven it with a telescope from the 1600s.
Beating Nazis - The Soviet Union would have lost without the US, and the US probably would've lost without the Soviet Union.
Bastion of freedom - I was talking about things in the past. We're certainly freer than Russia or China, but we're no longer the shining beacon of freedom that we once were. Also, covid lockdowns happened because there was a pandemic, and the restrictions went away with time. Every conservative prediction (mandatory vaccines, vaccine passports, never ending lockdowns, etc) was wrong.
Interstate/Transcontinental railroad - These things were major engineering achievements when they were done. They no longer are. That's my whole point. We used to do stuff like that, and we don't anymore.
Vaccines - There have been BILLIONS of doses given out in the past 3 years. If there were major issues, we'd know by now, and there aren't.
Patriotism absolutely is programming. I recently learned about the nationalism movement in the late 1700s/early 1800s, and it was crazy learning how a few elites essentially brainwashed people into believing they were part of a nation. I also watched a Yale course on the American Revolution on Youtube, and it made me far more patriotic. I used to feel like you, where I wasn't really proud of my country, but as I learn more about our history, I do feel a lot of pride. Now I love the constitution and my country, and arguably that's programming, but also, I think you need it to have some kind of national unity. I don't think it's coincidence that we're so divided today, and so many people don't love America.
I won't brand you a trumptard, I'll just brand you a regard, and move on happily knowing you can't vote in my elections.
For someone who acknowledges nationalist programming, you sure get into the spirit of it. You're full of 'you've got to have' and 'we need' and etc... They elites at Yale and google seem to have done a number on you. Sure, the Constitution is great. When followed it allows for great freedom. Too bad it has been largely ignored, and gradually eroded for well over a century.
Your theory seems to be that there was a serious devolution in engineering ability that lead to an inability to do the sorts of projects that people once did. Does the same not apply for pharmaceutical projects? Clearly the same doesn't apply for computer science and consumer electronics. Jets are more comfortable and efficient than they have ever been (in spite of the shrinking furniture). Bikes are lighter and better than ever. Cars are twice as efficient and far safer than they were in 1969 Ieven if they are hideous by comparison).
I get that construction projects take forever nowadays, but that is largely down to issues with builders (mainly labor costs and regulations), and not engineers who are using digital tools to come up with fantastic structures. Perhaps the devolution in engineering ability is limited only to space projects? Seems like a stretch.
And there are many other leaps of reasoning in your post.
For example, covid lockdowns did not happen because there was a pandemic. That's like saying 'the US Government Bombed Iraq because of WMDs'. Yes, that's what the folks doing the lockdowns claimed in the marketing literature for the lockdowns, but the reality was that lockdowns happened because people in positions of authority decided to make them happen for reasons that we may never know. Did they knowing full well that they'd likely cause more damage than the illness they were delaying? I'm unaware of the rigorous analysis that was published in support of lockdowns, weighting the estimated benefits against the estimated costs. One would have expected that to be made available in advance, if for no other reason simply to prove that the due diligence was done. Perhaps it was all analyzed in secret so as to boost confidence in the government. Not a great plan, but maybe It worked on you...
Of course none of the restrictions made sense unless put into the context of their effects: the death 30% of small businesses, upended real estate markets, changed election rules in 'emergency' ways that would have otherwise been impossible, cause an epidemic of mental illness and suicide, and transfer over $3 TRILLION dollars from working people to the top 0.5%. This also helped bring in a government that has since restarted massive foreign wars, washing hundreds of billions out of the tax base in order to fund continuous bloodshed overseas.
Sure it isn't as bad as folks have it in in some places, but that is irrelevant. The folks in Sweden had it right from the outset and they were immediately lambasted not only by the elites in Sweden (the royalty there wanted lockdowns), but also by the corrupt US media and Trump. Of course they were right all along and it was plain to see that they would be right from the outset.
There are serious safety issues with the mRNA jabs. So far they are more dangerous than all vaccines combined, despite the fact that the illness they purportedly help with is mild or unnoticeable for the vast majority of the population. Serious safety signals have been reported extensively and we're only barely in year 3 of this experiment. Would be great to isolate the variable and see what portion of unexplained excess deaths accrue to jabbed versus unjabbed populations. Not aware of the availability of that data or if anyone is tabulating it. Remember, the way these things are calculated are their risk vs. the risk of the illness. So if there is a chance that it is more dangerous than the illness for any person or group of people then it is enough to recommend strongly against use. That seems to be the case for most young and healthy people - many of whom were kicked out of schools and jobs for refusing to use the product, and others of whom used the product when they shouldn't have. Why the hard mandates and coercive measures with anyone, let alone low risk populations? Neither fear nor greed are acceptable excuses.
Finally, labeling people 'classic conservative' as a way to side step or dismiss their comments is a bad argumentation tactic. Moreover it is divisive. Using this logic nobody needs to talk to one another, they just need to use convenient (and generally meaningless) labels to indicate their camps of choice (or in this case the camps to which they want to assign others). Meanwhile no meaningful discussion is had. No ideas are shared. It shouldn't take a rocket scientist (or an aerospace engineer) to understand that.
This thread alone is proof that landing on the moon today would not be possible anymore. Society went down a rabbit hole and will never recover from it again.
Landing on the moon was NEVER possible in the 60's nor will it ever be. Nixon talking to the actorNOTS on a landline was the height of lunacy.
Why am I not surprised Rojo believes in conspiracy theories
You shouldn't be, he's an idiot.
Funny enough, Astrobotic, the company behind the Peregine, is run by a friend of my wife from college. There are insane amounts of defense and robotics money slushing around schools like Carnegie Mellon, and that's a key difference between now and when we went to the Moon.
There are billions being awarded to institutions for missile related things, but that is primarily going to MIT LL and JHUAPL.
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