India Loses Contact with Probe Just as It Prepares to Land on Moon • Hacker News Board

Re: India Loses Contact with Probe Just as It Prepares to Land on Moon

#91

Post by rjf72 » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 3:22 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #77

nafey wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well let's revisit this statement in 500 years. Every decade has brought the world closer. Even the recent developments (brexit, trump) are reactions to increased pace of integration. You can find kfc, coca cola in socities as diverse as Mongolia and Madagascar. It will be extremely difficult to turn the clock back on this and this will only keep on intensifying in my opinion.

I love the fact that people always bring stuff like: > hey you can find McDonalds and Starbucks even when you don't expect it, so it means the world is closer than it has ever been right? You could find pottery exported in multiple places even in antiquity, that did not mean they had a single culture or single belief system in place. Do not equal exchange of goods with the assumption of a mono-culture.

Tea is also a phenomenal example here since it's been so globally traded that it no longer even has a cultural identity. And then when you get into the age of sail you suddenly see a massive intercontinental trade of sugar/cotton/tobacco/coffee/etc.

I also never understood why people seem to think that a multinational corporation selling stuff to different cultures is somehow doing anything but increasing the corporation's profit margins.

Re: India Loses Contact with Probe Just as It Prepares to Land on Moon

#92

Post by Razengan » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 3:24 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #71

nafey wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well let's revisit this statement in 500 years. Every decade has brought the world closer. Even the recent developments (brexit, trump) are reactions to increased pace of integration. You can find kfc, coca cola in socities as diverse as Mongolia and Madagascar. It will be extremely difficult to turn the clock back on this and this will only keep on intensifying in my opinion.

> Every decade has brought the world closer. Well, (1) there are more sovereign nations now than ever, (2) all the big empires (from Babylonian, to Alexander's, to Roman, to Byzantium, to Persian, to Incas, all the way to the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, British and French colonial empires, USSR, and more) -aside from the Chinese and Indian who are more homogenous racially/culturally - have collapsed (3) there is way m…

> aside from the Chinese and India

Do you know how many different empires, rulers, internal wars and government systems China and India have gone through in 2000 years, and how many "races" and "cultures" they have?

Re: India Loses Contact with Probe Just as It Prepares to Land on Moon

#93

Post by shripadk » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 3:26 PM UTC

thewhitetulip wrote: post #5

I read that the maximum experiments are in the orbiter so this is a successful mission. The only thing for which it 'failed' was to let the ruling class do chest thumping by saying 'we are the fourth country to land a rover'. The ruling party had planned a great celebration today for it's 100 days in office, a date coinciding when the rover would land! They wanted to milk it for their nationalistic purposes while the…

You are being disrespectful to the scientists who have been working on this project for 12 years with this asinine comment. Absolutely shameful and disgusting!

Re: India Loses Contact with Probe Just as It Prepares to Land on Moon

#94

Post by naravara » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 3:26 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #44

JohnStrangeII wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post has "false dichotomy" written all over it. Of course, space exploration is an international endeavor and most space missions are highly international. Planning international space exploration missions doesn't force anyone to give up their nation, just as global trade does not imply that. Moreover, if mankind ever expands into space, it would be rather naive to think that earth's nations would play a role th…

The post I’m responding to went beyond international cooperation to address the concept of exploring space as a “single human race.” As to your second point—no government today is as large in scope as say Rome, the British Empire, the Persian empire, etc. The long-term sustainability of the EU and US are also far from certain. As we saw with both, federalism doesn’t work. As soon as you have a single voting polity, p…

>s to your second point—no government today is as large in scope as say Rome, the British Empire, the Persian empire, etc.

Utter hogwash. In terms of scale and intensiveness if state powers even small nations can easily outstrip the bureaucratic complexity of any ancient empire. The challenges of maintaining a welfare state is no small thing.

And plenty of countries manage incredible amounts of diversity. India has 50 official languages on its own, and that’s ignoring dialects and weird subgroups. If things seem more similar in spite of that it’s because nation-sized economies are inherently homogenizing through creation of national languages and bureaucracies. But this is itself part of the complexity. Modern governments literally aim to educate ALL the children born within them. This would have been insane to a Roman.

Re: India Loses Contact with Probe Just as It Prepares to Land on Moon

#95

Post by karpodiem » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 3:28 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #10

dragonsh wrote: post #7

It's a good effort by ISRO and it's scientist. Just can't understand why so many countries reinventing the wheels. Space missions should be multi-country efforts continuously as it belongs to all. We should not extend our tribal nationalistic thinking to space. Best scientist can be in any nation and more diverse the group and experience the better chances of success. I know I am just dreaming, but hopefully we can c…

No. We’re different groups of people with different interests, different values, different ideas principles cultures histories views of the world. It’s good for us to be competing to explore space (and in trying to develop technological advantages in general). For countries like India it’s critical to develop their own technologies on this front. Otherwise they’ll remain eternally dependent on America, etc., for acce…

+1 for escaping the group-think.

Re: India Loses Contact with Probe Just as It Prepares to Land on Moon

#96

Post by coldtea » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 3:42 PM UTC

Razengan wrote: post #92

coldtea wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every decade has brought the world closer. Well, (1) there are more sovereign nations now than ever, (2) all the big empires (from Babylonian, to Alexander's, to Roman, to Byzantium, to Persian, to Incas, all the way to the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, British and French colonial empires, USSR, and more) -aside from the Chinese and Indian who are more homogenous racially/culturally - have collapsed (3) there is way m…

> aside from the Chinese and India Do you know how many different empires, rulers, internal wars and government systems China and India have gone through in 2000 years, and how many "races" and "cultures" they have?

>Do you know how many different empires, rulers, internal wars and government systems China and India have gone through in 2000 years, and how many "races" and "cultures" they have?

Yes. Still more homogeneous and stable than most other empires...

Re: India Loses Contact with Probe Just as It Prepares to Land on Moon

#97

Post by coldtea » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 3:46 PM UTC

selimthegrim wrote: post #88

coldtea wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every decade has brought the world closer. Well, (1) there are more sovereign nations now than ever, (2) all the big empires (from Babylonian, to Alexander's, to Roman, to Byzantium, to Persian, to Incas, all the way to the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, British and French colonial empires, USSR, and more) -aside from the Chinese and Indian who are more homogenous racially/culturally - have collapsed (3) there is way m…

Kashmir would like a word with respect to 2)

Kashmir, and Pakistan and Bangladesh, and co...

Still, India as of today remains huge (1.4 billion people) and mostly homogenous and more long lived than most other nations, the claim wasn't that it was a monolithic thing that never had any splits/ethnic issues...

The comparison I explicitly made was to e.g. the Babylonian empire (now totally gone), the Roman empire (now totally gone), the British colonial empire (now almost totally gone), Austro-Hungarian empire (now gone), and so on...

Re: India Loses Contact with Probe Just as It Prepares to Land on Moon

#98

Post by mayankkaizen » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 3:56 PM UTC

sbmthakur wrote: post #87

mayankkaizen wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am anti Modi but I so much wanted this mission to succeed. ISRO is the only organization in India which is doing great on global level. It was really irritating the moment Modi turned this mission into his PR gimmick. Had this mission succeeded, the public euphoria would have been something unparalleled. Recently public reactions to Pulwama attack (months of protesting, candle light marches), article 370 issue (peo…

Are you implying that rest of the anti-Modi folks wanted this mission to fail? That's somewhat sad. ISRO is funded by the Government and PM heads the Department of Sapce. So, what did you expect him to do? Nod off and go to sleep. It's actually good to have a PM who stands by country's scientists even at the time of failure(and not just at the time of success).

No, I am not implying that. Read the GP comment. He was asking if that might be the case.

You see PM standing by the ISRO (regardless of the outcome of mission) and I see a PM doing drama for PR exercise. Otherwise he doesn't care a bit about science or education.

He doesn't even know the difference between Chandragupta Maurya and Chandragupta Vikramaditya. He thinks Takshashila was in Bihar. He has the audacity of telling a bogus "tea made from sewer gas" in IIT. He lied about his DU degree. He believes people in ancient times knew genetics because of how Karna was born (or some bullshit like that). He appointed Smriti Irani as HRD minister who has zero experience. She even claimed she is Yale educated. Modi's followers are hell-bent on revising the history. They have coined the terms like "urban Naxalite", "intellectual terrorists", "khan market gang" and countless other such terms. They are openly anti-secularism and muslim-haters. His followers openly threaten historians, intellectuals, social workers.

Even Modi himself is accused of being responsible for murders of so many muslims. He favored Pragya Thakur who is accused of terrorist attack. She openly cursed Gandhi.

I can go on and on but it is pointless.

These might be casual things for you but not for everybody else. Your hero is demon for other. Your nationalist is fascist for other.

Re: India Loses Contact with Probe Just as It Prepares to Land on Moon

#99

Post by iagovar » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 3:59 PM UTC

nilsocket wrote: post #80

dragonsh wrote: post #7

It's a good effort by ISRO and it's scientist. Just can't understand why so many countries reinventing the wheels. Space missions should be multi-country efforts continuously as it belongs to all. We should not extend our tribal nationalistic thinking to space. Best scientist can be in any nation and more diverse the group and experience the better chances of success. I know I am just dreaming, but hopefully we can c…

When situation is out of hand, people suffer a lot. MasterCard and Visa have stopped there services in several countries, in-order to be complaint with American law (Laws which are specifically made, to hurt certain countries). When a Democratic government is controlling private companies, when needed let alone your suggestion of believing in government companies. In 1999, during Kargil War (between India and Pakista…

I agree with you. Deal with your stuff and then you'll be respected as a country. And know who are you real allies, sometimes it isn't that clear.

Re: India Loses Contact with Probe Just as It Prepares to Land on Moon

#100

Post by saimiam » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 4:02 PM UTC

JohnStrangeII wrote: post #33

rayiner wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. We’re different groups of people with different interests, different values, different ideas principles cultures histories views of the world. It’s good for us to be competing to explore space (and in trying to develop technological advantages in general). For countries like India it’s critical to develop their own technologies on this front. Otherwise they’ll remain eternally dependent on America, etc., for acce…

Your post has "false dichotomy" written all over it. Of course, space exploration is an international endeavor and most space missions are highly international. Planning international space exploration missions doesn't force anyone to give up their nation, just as global trade does not imply that. Moreover, if mankind ever expands into space, it would be rather naive to think that earth's nations would play a role th…

> With a federal structure, it would be no problem.

In fact, you don't even have to look beyond India to see a country which is doing pretty well for itself (all things considered) despite each state being a quasi nation with distinct cultural and language mores.