Category Archives: Social Commentary

Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary

It’s The Sociology, Stupid

15 Comments

So, apparently, I’m not skeptical about the need to wreck our economy to save the planet because many of the scientists promoting it have been shown to be frauds and hacks. No, it’s because I’m a threatened, “conservative white male.”

What would I do without professors of sociology to explain such things to me? I particularly love the “98% of scientists” line. Because, you know, science is all about majority opinion (and no, even if it was, I don’t buy the number).

Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Pilotless Air Cargo

25 Comments

This is probably inevitable. If it doesn’t happen by then, or sooner, it will be due to regulatory inertia at the FAA. It will probably take longer for pilotless passenger flights. Regardless of the actual safety level, I think that a lot of people are going to still feel more comfortable if there’s someone in the cockpit whose ass is on the line along with theirs.

Of course, we’ll be doing some market experiments in suborbital in the next few years. Virgin Galactic has redundant pilots, XCOR has a single-string one, and Armadillo is automated.

Media Criticism, Popular Culture, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

The Rock

8 Comments

Lileks is unimpressed:

Time was a sculptor looked at a big slab of stone and saw the figure within he would liberate with hammer and chisel; time was, people gathered to see a monolith pass because it was a gift from Egypt, and stood for the power of another culture your culture had managed to subdue. Plus, it was cool; it was exotic. Time was, you valued something for what we could make of it, not the fact that you could just drag it somewhere else and say “now walk under it, and think things about big rocks.” Feh.

I have to confess, I couldn’t figure out what the big deal was, either, but if I had gone to watch, it would have been to see the vehicle, not the rock.