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Comment by Bizarro | Hacker News Reader

All the moonwalkers were men, all were American, all but one were Boy Scouts, and almost all listened to country-and-Western music on their way to the moon

These writers just can't help themselves. It's part of their hive-mind checklist.

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This is a New Yorker article, so it has a literary bent in terms of details and descriptions typical of long-form publication. That is what New Yorker subscribers want. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-form_journalism

For straight-to-the-science, Wikipedia or other publications are better.

There is a publication for most major preferences. I used to love the detail of The New Yorker when i was single and had lots of time (former paper subscriber here, and current consumer via Audm.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_the_Moon

If I have time to read about some unusual subject purely for enjoyment, it's hard to beat the New Yorker. I still remember a truly wonderful pair of articles years ago about a road-trip across Russia (written by Ian Frazier?). They allowed me to experience a place I'll never visit, and I enjoyed the trip.

If I just want information, I'll go to Wikipedia, Stack Overflow, etc., search for some keywords, skim it, and close the tab. Writing can be used for many purposes.

I don't believe parent comment is saying that the description is too literary, or not scientific enough.

I think he's saying that the article takes unnecessary pains to signal, "These people weren't 'on our side' culturally". Unsophisticated, un-woke, "problematic", etc. Parent is correct that his has become a checklist trope over the past few years.

And what, NO mention of the Corvettes most of them drove?!

It's a lengthy article and that's your takeaway? Seems rather tangential, doesn't it? I wouldn't have even noticed the remark if you hadn't pointed it out.

> Seems rather tangential, doesn't it?

I think that's the GP's point. It adds nothing relevant to the article but the author still mentions it for reasons which the GP is speculating about.

In communications that's typically referred to as an aside. It would be a bit of information the author wants the reader to be aware of (for any number of reasons including context of either the subject or the author's perspective), but doesn't want to make the focus of the messaging. It's a common device in writing.

I implied it was tangential (and consequentially implied: counterproductive) to inflate the relevance of an aside.

This is a new form of white supremacy, where the article author goes out of their way to mention the white race in association with accomplishments. I find the trend to be extremely creepy.

Edit: clarifying I mean the article author

Are you referring to the article with this comment?

Yes, the article.

To be fair the author was the one who mentioned it first. I tend to agree with the GP here. The lack diversity cred of a bunch of dudes 60yr ago is not really worth mentioning. It has no bearing on the content of the article and only serves as a distraction from the main subject. Considering who the author[0] is I don't think this was an attempt to "point out the accomplishments of the white race" or something like that.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivka_Galchen

I read it as "this is the society that it was. That's how long it was." The 60s were the decade of the space program and of desegregation in school.

It was certainly commented on at the time: https://genius.com/Gil-scott-heron-whitey-on-the-moon-annota...

The moon landing program ran concurrently with civil rights conflict on the ground.

I was also agreeing with the GP. The author of the article is the one exhibiting white supremacist behavior by mentioning it in the article when it's unnecessary.

I read it as exactly the opposite. A critique of how these people were chosen, all required to be this static template.

Lacing white supremacy with sentiments of guilt or condemnation doesn't make it any less an example of white supremacy. Perhaps the least interesting thing about the people who went to the moon is the color of their skin. Only racists care what color their skin was. Old school white supremacists say it's great that they were white, new school white supremacists are upset that the whites did so well (are/were supreme). Both are racist, and we'd be better off moving past them.

What the hell? You are reading so much into a single sentence and skipping the entire context surrounding it. According to the article the moon landing was just a political stunt that did not result in any progress toward space exploration. In fact it actually marks the end of human space travel. The fact that only a single country went to the moon is not impressive. It is damning. Space has become uninteresting and no one wants to go there.

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