I just don't get why people think they, upon examining a problem for mere moments, think they can dismiss something as unnecessary or frivolous.
I trust the NASA engineers to know more about this problem than you (random commenter on the Internet) or I. Should I not?
Can you explain to me what your thinking is regarding your belief that you can glance at an issue like this and trump the thinking of dozens of field experts in moments?
I'm happy to criticize many NASA design decisions, like the entire Space Shuttle concept. (Which honestly has a lot to do with political requirements but are still bad decisions.)
But what do you think I've said in the comment you replied to that trumps NASA's design decisions? That sterilization is unimportant? I think NASA sterilizing the equipment it uses to detect life is obviously the right design decision. There are results from the Voyager program that are still uncertain because of incomplete sterilization.
I'm referencing specifically around your comments related to sterilization ("If colonization were a matter of just moving from one to the other, it would have happened already.").
It's simply baffling to me, that a person could sit in front of a computer with absolutely no education or understanding in a topic and call a litany of experts in a field all wrong within the same hour as learning of the specific problem in the first place, or even claim to know what is "obviously the right design decision".
It ought to be surprising to me that a total stranger would accuse me of having "no education or understanding of a topic", and then proceed to shit on me for daring to agree with NASA's practice of -- seriously, of all things -- sterilizing the equipment used to detect signs of life.
Firstly, this is about what you did, not about you. Relax, we're just folks talking about stuff on the Internet, I'm not calling you Satan or accusing you of treason! No one's going to die if we can't agree.
Secondly, you said this, "If colonization were a matter of just moving from one to the other, it would have happened already." I'm trying to understand why you feel you're qualified to make a statement like that. Are you an expert on this topic? If not, that's okay!
You say you're agreeing with NASA's practice, but I guess that's just the flip side of the same coin, isn't it?
What I'm trying to get at is why people (not just you, and you've hardly "sinned" at all here) do this broad stating of opinions on scientific topics like this. It seems to lend credence to the idea that all thoughts are equally important, when we all know that's not true.
To me, this feels like the same kind of thing that we get on the news, when we see "experts" deny climate change by pontificating broadly with the same level of apparent airtime as actual experts who argue in favor of it using their expertise and their experimentation results.
I think it should be clear by now that a lot of people think that their expertise in software automatically qualifies them to make authoritative statements on behalf of every other field of science and engineering.
I think there is a 'meta' aspect to software development. We almost work one layer above other branches of engineering.
Which is what gives that feeling that you can ideally work on any problem and solve it. Because that is exactly what we do, look at the diverse domains that benefit from the use of computers and software.
I didn't mean to say that NASA or the Indian engineers know more or less than one another, even if they disagree. It's just not for us, the folks who don't actually know much about this topic, to make determinations.
Or maybe it is. I was hoping to discuss that point.
I trust the NASA engineers to know more about this problem than you (random commenter on the Internet) or I. Should I not?
Can you explain to me what your thinking is regarding your belief that you can glance at an issue like this and trump the thinking of dozens of field experts in moments?