Comments by "Nicolae Crefelean" (@kneekoo) on "US Military UNDERPAYS SpaceX u0026 Starship / Super Heavy Test Update" video.

  1. So what was wrong with "Eskimo Nebula" and "Siamese Twins"? I looked into it. Here's what NASA [1] says: «“Eskimo” is widely viewed as a colonial term with a racist history, imposed on the indigenous people of Arctic regions.» Here's what Canada [2] says: «"Eskimo" is the term once given to Inuit by European explorers and is now rarely used in Canada. It is derived from an Algonquin term meaning "raw meat eaters," and many people find the term offensive.» Ok, that makes sense. It's not a racist word, though. But being non-sense and tied to nasty wrongdoings, I see why they stopped using it. As for the "Siamese Twins", NASA didn't say anything but Wikipedia [3] says this: «Chang and Eng Bunker (1811–1874), Thai brothers born in Siam, now Thailand, traveled widely for many years and were labeled as The Siamese Twins. Chang and Eng were joined at the torso by a band of flesh, cartilage, and their fused livers. In modern times, they could have been easily separated. Due to the brothers' fame and the rarity of the condition, the term "Siamese twins" came to be used as a synonym for conjoined twins.» There you go, I learned something new. I never knew where that word came from. Now I see why it makes no sense to use it for conjoined twins. But for a pair of galaxies, why not? That would be an honor for the actual Siamese twins. What am I missing? [1] https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-to-reexamine-nicknames-for-cosmic-objects [2] http://www.publications.gc.ca/collections/Collection/R2-236-2002E.pdf [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjoined_twins
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  2. The trap we risk falling into is dismissing everything just because it comes from the "politically correct culture". It makes sense to acknowledge inappropriate words and only dismiss the proposals who are indeed bad (and sometimes blatantly stupid, unfortunately). Otherwise it shows zero interest in improving ourselves as people. Yes, it can be viewed as whitewashing. And it can also be viewed as simply growing up. Just imagine yourself being verbally abused, and then the mayor thinks one of those words are funny enough to name the new school being constructed. People will still mess around with others, antagonize, insult, bully and even humiliate each other, but that should be kept on a personal level, not used as source for official names. Had that nebula gotten a normal name in the first place, there would be no reason to waste anyone's time with renaming it. Why do people even need bad words? Because they're better than physical responses. But how would we avoid such verbal responses? By improving our behavior towards others - the root cause of all of these names. Can we improve? Are we willing to live in a nice society where people smile more, where we don't have to constantly keep our guard up and instantly react to bad behavior? It seems quite hard to achieve, but we can only hope we will get there, because the prospect of a nice and friendly society looks quite appealing. But we can't get there if we keep our ways. It's like promising to stop making a mess in our homes, but never cleaning up the mess we already had there. It takes effort to get there, and it's a pain, but it's worth the trouble. Just my opinion, of course.
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