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NASA Told to to Scrub Mentions of Indigenous People, Women from Its Websites
Glad to know my tax dollars are getting spent on the new flavor of virtue signaling. Insane this was some super high priority.
I never, and I mean NEVER, want to hear someone talk about "cancel culture" of the left ever again.
Didn’t Elon just cancel r/whitepeopletwitter?
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The point of making these traits visible is because there's a loooooong history of white men monopolizing and PREVENTING minorities and women from participating. Or, even worse white men taking credit for the work done by women and minorities.
"Accessibility" is on the list. Isn't the physical reality of needing a wheelchair ramp or scaleable web pages highly "relevant"?
This whole administration is a (very bad) joke. America was fun while it lasted.

I encourage everyone to read this: https://archive.is/g6ElI

The parallels are staggering.

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Do you know how much the FAA spent renaming “cockpit” and changing Notice to Airmen to Notice to Air Missions in all FAA publications? In the midst of a profound controller shortage, the FAA spent millions on changing words.

If people want to criticize the current changes as wasting money, then it’s intellectually dishonest not to call out other agencies such as the FAA for their nonsense.

  • jmye
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If I spend a lot of campaign time suggesting I’m the fiscally responsible one and you’re not, I don’t think “neither were you!” Is a meaningful response when you note my irresponsibility.

At some point I should be answerable for not representing myself properly without just playing little kid “I’m rubber and you’re glue” games, right?

News flash: pilots still call it the cockpit.
What was "cockpit" renamed to?
Flight deck.

Also it was just a recommendation as far as my searching can find, for example https://www.nationalreview.com/news/faa-panel-recommends-cha...

This summary of a 2024 FAA re-authorization has the word 'cockpit' 6 times, so I'm dubious that much was done with that recommendation.

That's a highly biased source. I recommend the WaPo article it links to or even the report itself I've linked below. The relevant part is on pages 108 through 135, so ~27 pages out of 217, most of which is title cards, references, and graphs. The document itself uses "cockpit" repeatedly throughout, so these suggestions weren't proactively adopted.

EDIT: Fixed link,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/faa-s-drone-advisory-...

WaPo lost my trust when Bezos stepped in and over the editorial process. It is just another billionaire owned bully pulpit now
Since asexual terms are preferred, it was renamed to chickenpit.

Joke aside, the term comes from the navy, the place where the cockswain/coxswain, the person in charge of a boat, is. Should that post be renamed to flight swain?

If we're going to make such efforts to change words, I think it's time for a new artificial non-ambiguous language as the international standard. That way, we could learn our local dialects, and the common tongue where all the historical warts are corrected. As a bonus, computers would be more efficient with a non-ambiguous natural language.

They spent None dollars.
> Do you know how much the FAA spent renaming “cockpit” and changing Notice to Airmen to Notice to Air Missions in all FAA publications?

Do you? Because I'm guessing it was virtually nothing. That does not sound like a particularly costly activity.

> If people want to criticize the current changes as wasting money, then it’s intellectually dishonest not to call out other agencies

This is the definition of whataboutism. Also, "wasting money" is not near the top of my list of the problems with government agencies being told they're not allowed to mention women.

I’m someone who was, uh, skeptical of the DEI stuff. One of my biggest complaints was that it seemed to be much ado about nothing. Re-writing laws and policies to fill them with fluff.

This is EXACTLY the same thing, it is 100% virtue signaling and we are burning so much time, money, and goodwill on fucking bullshit nonsense

Meanwhile the economy is in shambles, the executive branch is systematically destroying the rest of the government, and China and Russia grow ever stronger and ever more disdainful of us

I would elect a black trans president in a heartbeat if I thought they could win the inevitable conflict over Taiwan. It IS an existential threat and the most immediate one meaning it is the HIGHEST PRIORITY

And before anyone starts pointing fingers I did not vote for Trump in any election

It isn't quite the same thing. There is a difference between trying to empower historically marginalized groups, and trying to re-subjugate historically marginalized groups.

Improving the opportunities available to people tends to improve economic productivity, so it's hard to argue it is a total waste of money.

On the other hand, removing mentions or attempts to improve inclusion of these groups in the face of rising racism and sexism has no real upside unless you're a racist or misogynist. Purges of this sort don't have any real economic motivations, it's pure ideology.

One was more of an investment, the other is more destruction.

Of course while the DEI scrubbing is dangerous to just some people, the scrubbing of climate-related language is just genocidal.

> It isn't quite the same thing. There is a difference between trying to empower historically marginalized groups, and trying to re-subjugate historically marginalized groups.

Not really. It's all language games.

This is just the mirror image of the liberal conceit they can magically change reality by forcing people to use different words or over-elevating some story (old or new) for ideological reasons.

The lesson from this is that it's all stupid, not just my-side's version, and it should stop.

> trying to empower > tends to improve > hard to argue

Lots of weasel words there.

> On the other hand, removing mentions or attempts to improve inclusion of these groups in the face of rising racism and sexism has no real upside unless you're a racist or misogynist.

Lots of absolutism there

It’s easy to argue it’s a waste of money if it is not effective. That being said, not all DEI initiatives are created equal (hah) - some are fine, some are useless but harmless, and some seem harmful.

That’s why the guy below me

> So if DEI language was bad, then correcting it should be a good idea

Is wrong just like you are, because DEI language isn’t universally bad or good.

The point that I’m trying to make is we should be worrying more about things like global warming and the economy and the dictatorships coming to murder us all, which anyone with a brain knows for 100% certain that there is a problem and that we have options to fix it. Unlike DEI where everyone has their own definition of what good is.

> the scrubbing of climate-related language is just genocidal.

100% agree. What Trump is doing is actively splitting the country and distracting from much more important issues

> What Trump is doing is actively splitting the country and distracting from much more important issues

I don’t have a dog in this hunt (I didn’t vote for either of them), but I think its fair to say that Trump seems to be pretty much trying to do most everything he promised in his campaign (which obviously attracted enough votes for him to win). Perhaps people just believe that politicians say a bunch of shit to get elected—then do something else and never expected this level of follow through.

Either way, this is what America voted for…and are apparently what we are going to get.

So if DEI language was bad, then correcting it should be a good idea.
Every time they say they're removing "DEI", they really mean they're implementing segregation. Stop sugar coating it. They're trying to erase minorities and women from any mention. That's just the first step.
I'm not familiar with US employment laws (if it's a thing).

In Europe, if given such instructions, the employee could likely refuse to comply. Upon the likely firing, they can easily contest the decision at an employment tribunal, and likely win, regardless of who is president.

In the US, I suppose it would be GTFO, and even more so as the employee is likely a H1B visa holder.

“Other than extremely rare exceptions, you must be a U.S. citizen in order to work for NASA as a civil service employee.”

https://www.nasa.gov/careers/how-to-apply

  • lawn
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And instantly flagged, of course.
As it should be!

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#:~:text=Off...

Seems like an interesting new phenomenon to me.
TL;DR:

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

There's a gray area here, because we are obviously interested in what NASA does, but the action is political.

> harassment-free experience for everyone

Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.

Absurd, comic book villain activity. Who/what does this help?
Fascists. It helps fascists.
How does it help them?
It's intentional othering.

Watch this video: https://graphics.social/@metin/113865450624948092

We knew what to do about fascists at one point. We have forgotten.

You've conflated fascists with the anti-DEI movement. NASA employees are still free to live together, work together, free to vote, free to say what they please and go to their own churches.
  • lawn
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The road to fascism is taken by many small steps. This is merely one step in a much larger picture.
I don't think you're pulling the wool over anyones eyes but nice try anyway. If you really do believe this, then perhaps you should read up on how fascism works. You know the whole "first they came for X and I did nothing"? That's what that's about.
I'm aware how it's supposed to work. If actual rights are getting overturned you will be right. If they aren't, then aren't you wrong??
You've bought into the fascist's narrative.
I suppose hiding the contributions of minorities would make it easier to argue that they're free-loaders, non-contributors, etc. if someone wanted to scapegoat them for societal ills.
> I suppose hiding the contributions of minorities would make it easier to argue that they're free-loaders, non-contributors, etc

Agreed.

> if

I believe you mean "as our own history has shown us"

yeah I was winking to the reader when I typed that :)
Maybe I'm out of touch, but aren't women under the 'I' in DEI hires? They are a sub-target of DEI and are not exclusively being targeted?
Mentions of the terms, not the people themselves. What difference does it make what gender or heritage a person has? Shouldn’t it be about science?
Tolerance is not suicide pact, nor is it a moral imperative.

Tolerance is a peace treaty, and only extends to those who participate.

Tolerance is an agreement to live in peace, not an agreement to be peaceful no matter the conduct of others.

The Paradox of Tolerance: Karl Popper

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Care to explain how so?