I don't see a cause for outrage here. They never promised to abide by the results of the vote, and drawing parallels to the political system feels like a complete non sequitur.
Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy
221–230 of 268 posts
Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy
#222The code name for Apple's Power Macintosh 7100 was "Carl Sagan", an in-joke that the mid-range PowerMac 7100 would make Apple "billions and billions". Sagan asked Apple to rename the project, so they chose "BHA", short for "Butt-Head Astronomer". Sagan sued Apple (twice) and lost. Apple eventually renamed the project "LAW", short for "Lawyers are Wimps".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Macintosh_7100#Codename_...
Also, the "Sosumi" alert sound introduced in MacOS 7 is short for "So sue me", referencing the Apple Corps v. Apple Computer lawsuit.
Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The solution is simple. Continue calling the boat Boaty McBoatface. Ignore all references to the government's preferred name. This is good advice. In Toronto we have a baseball stadium called the Rogers Center ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Centre ). It was originally called the SkyDome but it was bought by a company called Rogers and renamed. Everyone still refers to it as the Skydome. Corporate branding b…
Habit is a powerful thing. It's been nearly a decade since Austin's "Town Lake" was renamed by the city council as "Lady Bird Lake" (in honor of Lady Bird Johnson). To this day, I'm not sure I've ever heard it referred to as anything other than Town Lake. I certainly can never remember to use the new name.
Useful for spotting transplants though. (Not meant in a negative sense)
Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy
#224To avoid this isssue, they should have asked people to vote from a list of pre-approved names.
Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see much fun in that. The funny thing about getting the ship named Boaty McBoatface is that it would be painted on the ship and would be named as such in official documentation. The ability to casually refer to the ship by that name does exist, obviously, but how often do people refer to specific government ships by name anyway?
The problem with this "joke" is that it's a mildly amusing story at best. Having it painted on the boat is just prolonging something that never really made it to the amusement level of a joke with legs. I hope the officials hold firm. Long after the easily entertained public has moved on, they can do their job without being reminded of how poor the sense of humor in the general populace actually is.
> I hope the officials hold firm. Long after the easily entertained public has moved on, they can do their job without being reminded of how poor the sense of humor in the general populace actually is.
How is the a bland, inane government-issue name it will no doubt end up with going to be any better?
Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy
#226The solution is simple. Continue calling the boat Boaty McBoatface. Ignore all references to the government's preferred name. They can choose what's painted on the side, but the name depends only on what people call it. If enough people call it Boaty McBoatface its name really is Boaty McBoatface. If your job depends on calling it the government's preferred name then subtly alter the timing of your speech to make it…
The marketing opportunities alone are insane. I am amazed that they are turning down the name. This ship had the opportunity to be as well known as the Titanic (but for better reasons)
Agreed. Especially if they do something funny with the paint, like a giant happy face on the front or something. Maybe some cartoon arms on the side. Suddenly it goes from a soon-to-be-forgotten research vessel into an iconic mascot.
I'd buy a Boaty McBoatface toy and I'm not even British.
Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy
#227The solution is simple. Continue calling the boat Boaty McBoatface. Ignore all references to the government's preferred name. They can choose what's painted on the side, but the name depends only on what people call it. If enough people call it Boaty McBoatface its name really is Boaty McBoatface. If your job depends on calling it the government's preferred name then subtly alter the timing of your speech to make it…
> The solution is simple. Continue calling the boat Boaty McBoatface. Ignore all references to the government's preferred name. This is good advice. In Toronto we have a baseball stadium called the Rogers Center ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Centre ). It was originally called the SkyDome but it was bought by a company called Rogers and renamed. Everyone still refers to it as the Skydome. Corporate branding b…
This happens a lot. There's a nightclub in Cambridge called Ballare (since 2003), but it is almost exclusively refered to by students as Cindies. There's another club, and I can't even recall what its "real" name is as "The Place" and "Life" were used interchangeably for it.
Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy
#228I don't agree with a lot of the conclusions of this article. E.g. they propose that voting "probably" works the same way in all other countries as the US. There are plenty of objections to be made against that. E.g. 1) the US being a two party state means that getting representatives which represents the great variety of voter opinions is exceedingly difficult. 2) US elections are so dominated by advertisement, expen…
Why do some people think it's such a bad name? It sounds like a perfectly fine name for a ship.
Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy
#22910 years ago, I got elected to our local parliamant and I learned that democracy does not work very good for searching names. That's just something which somehow is not a good fit for the political process. Perhaps other methods how votes are counted (Condorcet or other methods) could work better.
Similar issue: when the new Wembley stadium got a new bridge, there was a voting for the name of the bridge. The german football (soccer for my american friends) player Dietmar Hamann scored the last goal in the old stadium, and german football fans tried to overrun the election to force the englishman to name it "Dietmar-Hamann-Bridge", a slap in the face for every english football fan. Although Hamann won the vote, the bridge got the name White Horse Bridge (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Horse_Bridge)
Re: Boaty McBoatface and the False Promise of Democracy
#230The author has conflated democracy with voting. Sortition - the selection of Government at random from the citizenry - is a far superior mechanism, and results in a Government that is genuinely of the people. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
There's a system that, in my opinion, is even better (fairer, less prone to corruption) than sortition, and that's liquid democracy (a.k.a. delegative democracy): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_democracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg0_Vhldz-8 The idea being, you can let people vote on your behalf, or you can vote directly, and you have the freedom to choose between these on an issue by issue basis.
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