Some people, naturally, feel that the norms spelled out in the rust CoC makes them feel excluded. To which all I can say is, yes, it's true: the rust CoC focuses on behaviour, not people, but if there's a person who cannot give up those behaviours, then implicitly it excludes such a person. If someone just can't get their work done effectively or can't enjoy themselves without stalking or harassing someone, or cracking a sexist or racist joke, or getting into a flame war, or insulting their colleagues, I suggest they go enjoy the numerous other totally viable language communities.
Or heck, fork the community if you like. Make the "rust, but with more yelling" community. Big internet. Knock yourself out.
They aren't asking that you change your beliefs. They're asking that you avoid toxic behavior in their community. And that is something I fully support.
I'm thinking more along the lines of "profoundly wishful thinking". I do think they're making an effort, but I fully expect it to collapse at some point.
The claim that no new technology is needed is, at best, a very creative interpretation of the facts. More likely, it's an outright lie made because they think they can get more money by convincing people that it's a done deal. Of what money they've managed to raise, most has gone towards "conceptual design studies". Now, it's possible that these consist of just adapting existing technology, but it's still R&D.
In the end, lack of funds will kill the project. Even if we assume that the plan is practical and that the absurdly low $6 billion they're aiming for would get the job done, there's still a major disconnect. They've stated that reality TV would make up the majority of the funding. If they could jump straight to the actual mission, that might actually work. But they can't. Their own plans include a number of preparatory missions starting 6 years before the first manned one. Those will require a lot of money that no one will be willing to invest at that point.
That episode was a total rip-off/tribute/remake of the short story Leningen versus the Ants by Carl Stephenson. This story was in my elementary school reading book the same year that episode originally aired.
That's a good story. It also made it into the collection one of my high school English classes used.
We've also all seen the classical antidepressant commercial. Some guy "hurts everywhere" and "everyone". Then he pops a couple cute little pills and "everywhere" and "everyone" magically stops hurting - whatever problems he may have had with his health or his career or his relationships or his dog are magically cured by those cute little pills.
Do most of us recognize that this is a marketing fantasy? Probably not. Sure, antidepressants are prescribed to people with depression and people do recover from depression. But the idea that a couple pills will solve every single problem you have in your life is solidly in the realm of fantasy.
You're right. But to take it a step further, even the people recovering from depression are more than likely not doing it thanks to a particular pill from a TV ad. There are a lot of anti-depressants on the market, and often someone needs to try several of them at various dosages to get a combination that works for that person. Even when found, that combo might not work forever. The commercials don't just show problems being solved by a pill, but problems being solved by their pill.
What drug companies want is for their drugs to be prescribed over those of a competitor. But that's often not in the best interest of the patient. A good doctor would be one that took whatever they heard from a rep as information about one option and then did what was best for their patients.
All this wheeling and dealing around, why, it isn't for money, it's for fun. Money's just the way we keep score. -- Henry Tyroon
