Voyager
9d ago
If setting the facts straight "reflects poorly on people", that's a major issue with the conversation that's important to push back against. Pointing out something is incorrect is always a valid addition to the debate, and tabooing the truth is never justifiable.
"An 18 and 16 year old having a sexual relationship should not be discouraged" is one thing. "It is ephebophilia not pedophilia"is quite another and makes it sound like what he really wants is for himself to have sex with 15 year olds without risking punishment.
Or maybe he just doesn't want to be shamed for his perfectly normal sexuality? "It's not pedophilia" is just correct, and implies nothing about what kind of relationship should be appropriate. You can perfectly well be aware that a normal heterosexual man will find 15 year old girls attractive, and this is not inherently a problem, but still think he should wait until she's older, and if he doesn't, then it becomes a problem.
Voyager
26d ago
As for the space operations of SpaceX, it's not really clear to me what kind of innovation you expect here. In 2025, SpaceX already launched more rockets than the rest of the world combined. They've established a reputation as being cost effective and very reliable, which is great but also means it's hard to drive costs down further or become even more reliable.
They've achieved the cost reductions through partial reuse of rockets, the next step is full reuse via the Starship program, which (although estimates differ) is expected to driver cost down another order of magnitude. Starship has seen lots of R&D investment and appears to be close to deployment.
What's your evidence for this? Because I don't think you need an agenda to want to set the facts straight, especially if the wrong claim unfairly demonises you.
Declaring something sacred and therefore any opposition to related claims automatically invalid and evidence of bad faith is not valid epistemics. You can be wrong while thinking it's for a good cause, and people can correct you without being motivated by a bad cause. I don't believe in taboos. If the reasons for the taboo are good enough, the position will be able to withstand counterarguments and the taboo isn't needed.
It's not like the age of consent is a law of nature either. In Germany, for example, it's 16 (with the exception of power-imbalanced relationships like teacher/student), and it's a priori not clear that's a worse solution. Or the 17 in some US states. If you want to argue 18 is the right number, that needs to be based on facts, not bulverism.
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