19th Cent. Image of Comet Tearing Earth Apart

These are exactly the type of rebuttals I am talking about. This
forum promotes groupthink through harrassment.

I would be totally ok with someone posting an accurate warning about a
computer virus. All the extra stuff I see as unnecessary.


~ CT

Considering the problems at NASA that have time and again led to
tragedy, it would be curious if they were to work on their own culture
issues by increasing the use of profanity during communications and
setting up a killfile system to block out messages that express
minority opinions.

But I'm glad to see NASA taking steps in the other direction.

What saddens me about the culture often found in Usenet is that
certain members express a *desire* for squelching minority opinions.


Please, by all means, if you like using killfiles then lets use them.
But there's no need to repeatedly announce that you're doing so,
particularly *while continuing* to engage in posting responses.

My ideal is for all members to feel uninhibited in expressing their
opinions. From that, a healthy process is for errors to get critiqued
(or ignored, to die off) and for solid ideas to withstand scrutiny,
perpetuate, and form the foundation for further progress.


~ CT

Having a real rocket scientist as one of my best friends, I can tell you
that things really are changing within NASA, but it is awfully slow. Heads
rolled, but the new managers are facing one hell of a bureacracy.

The problem is that the culture that launched Mercury and Apollo didn't turn
into the culture that doomed Columbia overnight. And it could be even
tougher changing it back into "the right stuff." NASA is full of civil
servants, with typical civil servants' work ethics and attitudes. Even many
of their contractors act in a similar fashion.

The shuttle is a perfect government program: They built the Shuttle to
build the International Space Station -- They built the International Space
Station so the Shuttle would have something to fly to. It's true.

That's why you've seen so many of their upper-level managment embracing
"privitization," hoping corporate America would use the entreprenureal
spirit to re-blaze the trail back into true space exploration.

The only thing that can save NASA as an effective institution for space
exploration would be for exemption from civil service protection for their
myriads of employees, and an executive vision of landing on Mars within 10
years.

-- Stinger


"Stuf4" wrote in message
om...
Considering the problems at NASA that have time and again led to
tragedy, it would be curious if they were to work on their own culture
issues by increasing the use of profanity during communications and
setting up a killfile system to block out messages that express
minority opinions.

But I'm glad to see NASA taking steps in the other direction.

What saddens me about the culture often found in Usenet is that
certain members express a *desire* for squelching minority opinions.


Please, by all means, if you like using killfiles then lets use them.
But there's no need to repeatedly announce that you're doing so,
particularly *while continuing* to engage in posting responses.

My ideal is for all members to feel uninhibited in expressing their
opinions. From that, a healthy process is for errors to get critiqued
(or ignored, to die off) and for solid ideas to withstand scrutiny,
perpetuate, and form the foundation for further progress.


~ CT