I dont really care about the colour of your skin, where you were born, what religion you follow, who your parents are, whether you are male or female, I dont care how old you are, I dont care if you are gay or straight or bi, and I certainly do not care what self assigned gender-neutral pronouns you use.
For me it has always been about using the best, most highly skilled and qualified people to do the job.
Yes you do care. There are hundreds equally "best person for the job" and as long as it is not a women, it is ok to pick any guy. These are symbolic choices and as long as the symbol is a guy, people are happy - even when he is not actually the best person.
And plus a choice on whose body we make the experiment - astronauts themselves are the subject of the experiment.
That's the most rational approach. Also, I'm against racial/gender quotas. Poor people comes in any race, the same with challenged people. These should be a priority, and not races and genders as it happens in the US.
Being gay, black or a woman is not a disadvantage. You can be utterly rich, too. Meanwhile, black people in the ghetto are not that different to the white trash in trailer parks.
How come a rich British Black dude emigrating to the US has more disadvantages than the average white Joe from Detroit?
I agree with you in general. But in these specific cases, there is a woman from Grand Rapids who went to state school [1] and a guy from Pomona who went to Caltech [2].
How would it feel, knowing the only reason you got a seat on the rocket was because of your gender or color? In a way, it still keeps in place the alleged systemic issues, because the perception is that the institution is granting participation, it wasn’t earned. Kinda like when football teams let a kid come on the field to “score a touchdown.” Sure, they crossed the line, but nobody actually buys it.
And now they're being fired because they're a black man and a white woman. They're not going to reconsider Jeremy Hansen, even though it's his first space mission -- he surely cannot be the "best qualified" for a job that others have done and he hasn't.
That's no dig at Hansen, who is surely immensely qualified. But in a system where the "merits" are not precisely defined, many people can be equally qualified. So we end up defining women and black people as "DEI" hires, while white men are given a pass.
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[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 29.7 ms ] threadI dont really care about the colour of your skin, where you were born, what religion you follow, who your parents are, whether you are male or female, I dont care how old you are, I dont care if you are gay or straight or bi, and I certainly do not care what self assigned gender-neutral pronouns you use.
For me it has always been about using the best, most highly skilled and qualified people to do the job.
It really is that simple.
And plus a choice on whose body we make the experiment - astronauts themselves are the subject of the experiment.
Being gay, black or a woman is not a disadvantage. You can be utterly rich, too. Meanwhile, black people in the ghetto are not that different to the white trash in trailer parks.
How come a rich British Black dude emigrating to the US has more disadvantages than the average white Joe from Detroit?
I agree with you in general. But in these specific cases, there is a woman from Grand Rapids who went to state school [1] and a guy from Pomona who went to Caltech [2].
[1] https://www.nasa.gov/people/christina-koch/
[2] https://www.nasa.gov/people/victor-j-glover-jr/
That's no dig at Hansen, who is surely immensely qualified. But in a system where the "merits" are not precisely defined, many people can be equally qualified. So we end up defining women and black people as "DEI" hires, while white men are given a pass.