Yesterday proved to be a bit interesting for me on Twitter. I was giving my own comments on the Delta IV launch yesterday, one of which was my typical congratulations tweet to United Launch Alliance, the operators of Delta IV, and the CEO of the company, Tory Bruno. At the end, though, I left a slight jab at SpaceX in the form of comparing the Delta IV to a rocket that “does a neat little trick 😉 ”
Yes, I left a winking emoticon in there – I tend to use them heavily, and I figured that would be enough to make it obviously seem like a joke. Not long after Tory Bruno gave it a like on twitter, I had a person respond inquiring about the winking emoticon.
Obviously he could tell what I was saying there – I didn’t try to hide it, after all, and for what it’s worth, I didn’t respond. My current rule on Twitter is to not respond at all to any discussion I feel could become an argument, which is most of them – effectively all of them when SpaceX is involved.
Didn’t think anything would come of it, until another guy, out of nowhere, chimed in to say what they had to say. I found it interesting just what was said by this person, and thought it worthwhile to dissect the conversation (at least, what he said as some kind of objection to me), as I often do – tearing it down into its component elements. Haven’t done this in quite some time, so it might be fun!
Grab some coffee, we’re going to be here a while…
His replies were as follows:
“Pretty sure Mr Bruno respects the technological achievement as more than a “neat trick”, just as the community absolutely respects the ULA launch success record and Atlas/Delta/Centaur vehicle performance”
How sure are you about that, exactly? How do you know what the man actually feels, verses what front he must put up being in the position he is in. He has to play nice, otherwise, well, business can suffer. Being professional is kind of a critical thing, after all, which is funny, that’s something you’re going to give me shit for later, isn’t it?
As for the “community” respecting ULA, I’ve never heard a bigger lie in my life. The “community” insults United Launch Alliance on a daily basis. The second they upload a video, it gets some smartass making some comment about “yeah but where did it land” or “old rockets what a waste” or some other comment pulled straight out of their ass.
Hell, SpaceX themselves have zero respect for the industry – all of their social media feeds are only about their own projects – no congratulations to other companies, save for the rare one from back in the day maybe, and hell, when John Young died, while every other space agency and launch provider was at least saying something about it, SpaceX stayed silent, and Musk was tweeting some idiotic shit about roller skates at a Tesla charging station, or whatever. Zero respect shown for an absolute legend in space history. What kind of shit is that? How do you justify that. You don’t. You can’t. But oh, wait, I’m so bad for what I said, right?
Interestingly, the second someone even dares to have a single criticism of SpaceX, the fanboys are immediately defending the company with all the vigor of Football (Soccer, I should say) fans after their team loses to some upstart rival. It’s insane, and is a key reason you don’t read as much criticism on the company as you should – because most people don’t want to deal with that. I’ve, of course, been through the fires enough to know how to fight my battles, hence my comparatively innocent little “neat trick” comment with that emoticon. Certainly struck up a nerve with you, didn’t it? However, it’s okay for people to give ULA shit, right? No problems there? Sure…
This happened within about 20 minutes of this video being uploaded, and this type of thing happens with EVERY one of their uploads. Right. Tell me again how much SpaceX fans “respect” United Launch Alliance.
So yeah, I don’t see much respect being presented at all for United Launch Alliance. Period.
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But wait, it gets better! At that time, I had some of my articles scheduled to re-post to twitter, and just about an hour beforehand, my 1st article on Zuma had re-shared. It seems like he took this as an opportunity to read what I had to say and pick some parts to criticize.
“Let’s see! Our friend wrote: “makes me wonder if [SpaceX] are trying to hide something – I wouldn’t put it past them.” “of course you see plenty of SpaceX fans defending the company here. What else would you expect, honestly? I for one am sitting back, maybe having a chuckle””
Immediately followed by:
“Credibility fail.”
On twitter I actually ignored this beyond making a comment about how I exaggerate things for the fun of it – which is the truth, more on that later – but as I thought about this one more, it hit me. This guy cherry picked the article!
I actually went back and did some edits, adding in a disclaimer that the last half was a joke, and condensing a paragraph or two above that to read a bit more clearly, but then I re-read the whole article and realized – he cherry picked those points specifically to make me look bad!
Anyone who reads the article will see earlier on in it that I very clearly state that odds are SpaceX was not at fault here, but no, share the bit of a joke at the end which, in context, looks more like such, where I state “I wouldn’t put it past them to hide information.” This is actually true, I wouldn’t put it past them, but at no point in that half-joke do I claim that they actually are.
Anyone reading on in the “chuckle” comment would eventually see that I clearly address that someone messed up – either SpaceX or Northrop Grumman. I expanded on this in my update of the article, but even in original form, it was very clear that someone messed up majorly, and there is a bit of hilarity about that, given the hype over this very mysterious launch. To focus is obvious, if you ask me.
As for me mentioning SpaceX fans defending the company, it’s already in the line right there – what do you expect from them? Of course they are going to be defending the company. It’s literally in there for its own sake, stating “by the way, this group is doing exactly what you would expect” and nothing more than that. I don’t even see why it’s an issue, but given this reaction to a ” 😉 ” emoticon, well, I don’t know why I’m surprised at this point of contention.
Yep. The classic “let’s take this out of context to make the person look bad” routine.
The “Credibility Fail” comment just made me laugh. It’s as if he is treating me and my site as some kind of news authority. I appreciate the compliment, but Xadara is *not* a news site. It is exactly what the tagline says it is – a geeky blog about nothing particular. I like to write about space because I’m incredibly passionate about it. That being said, unlike a news site (beyond opinion editorials, of course) I’m free to inject whatever thoughts I want to into what I have to say. If you’re going to use that against me? Well, that’s pretty basic, now isn’t it?
One thing I noticed, now that I’m thinking about it, is a little before all this happened he had retweeted another person giving someone hell over covering Zuma with similar commentary that was, it would seem, negative regarding SpaceX. I have no comment on this article, but the fact that this person was so ardent to share a defense of SpaceX against it tells plenty – this must be a sore point with him, that anyone dares raise the quite valid possibility that SpaceX could still be hiding information for their own benefit. It’s as if massive companies never tell lies or hide anything, right?
Hell, I’m sure he would give the Washington Post hell over this article too, wouldn’t he? How dare anyone at all question what could possibly have happened to a classified payload. What horror is it that they even dare doubt what a company with vested interest in protecting their contracts says! Blasphemy I tell you, blasphemy! (that’s sarcasm, in case you can’t tell.)
That goes without saying that my actual comments were not addressed, as is standard in such (and comes close to straw manning me) but moreover, the fact he chose this as a way to try to undermine what I do have to say on the subject really isn’t too surprising, nor does it matter. He would have found another way, had this not been so easy for him to find and try to use against me.
Finishing this up, I’d like to change tense and speak a little more directly to the person in question, polishing this off and moving on about my day.
Quite simply, you automatically would disregarded anything I would say, since I disagree with you. You would have hunted for something, anything, to try to use as some reason to invalidate my opinions for arbitrary reasons. That’s how a confirmation bias like yours works, avoiding actual discussion for petty tactics like that, and it can be played the same way against you – you like sports, apparently, and since I find sports to be quite the dull thing on a whole and such is completely unrelated to space and rocketry, well, how credible are your thoughts on the subject of SpaceX, or ULA, or anything not related to a bunch of guys bouncing a ball around? See how that works, or more correctly, doesn’t?
Yeah, the difference is, I didn’t do that to you. Hell, what I said that triggered all this wasn’t even anything all that critical.
It was just a little snip comment designed specifically to infuriate people just like you, because it’s such an easy thing to do. That tribal mentality that incidentally is so key to sports being popular, seeping as deep as it has into the space community sickens me. Seeing SpaceX fans time and time again make the comments they do on United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin’s Facebook and YouTube channels is just pathetic and childish. Compared to that, my little snips at the fan base are nothing, and to have you, who isn’t anyone I’d ever have paid any attention to had you not gone for the most obvious kind of weak attack against my thoughts in your tweets try to somehow make you, and the rather toxic side of a fanbase you’re a part of look good compared to me?
That’s fucking hilarious. I only responded to you on the presumption that you might possibly be one of the more level headed people in this, but clearly, I was wrong – before I had even sent my original reply, you carried on with the second set of above logical fallacies, proving very well many many points I’ve made.
You aren’t worth the time to argue with, because it’s pointless, but your terrible attempt to somehow insult me certainly is worth tearing apart, and milking a bit of ad revenue from.
It should be noted the sheer length at which this article is is a proper demonstration of why I do not carry on discussions on Twitter or most other social media. It takes far too long to tear down stupidity than it does for the person to make the original stupid comments.
I’m not arguing with anyone on Twitter. Period.
Also note that this is one of a very rare case where I actually pull out an individual as an article subject, rather than purely an idea – however, the ideas are still the focus of this article in and of itself – the person making the statements is secondary but of course related to them.
Lastly, can I ever get back to spending some time just talking about old tech and video games?
