Talk:2668: Artemis Quote

The first quote is self-referential (and confuses people, when quoted). The second plays unto the myth that the moon landing was staged. It is nice to be able to choose words, which are cited. A great opportunity to confuse people. --172.68.110.143 21:09, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

To those of you wondering why, "mankind" ,[emphasis," currently appears in the wikitext, I would direct you to explain xkcd talk:Editor FAQ#Punctuation inside quotes and parentheses. I am discouraged by such pettiness. 172.70.214.59 21:26, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Waitwhat? ...Quote-Space-Comma-OpenBracket..? Good job it isn't like that now, or I'd be rewriting it. (Probably put the [emphasis added] within the quotes, for starters, before worrying about the other punctuation.) 172.70.162.77 23:02, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps the first Artemis astronaut to set foot on the moon will prefer to come with her own idea of what to say. 172.71.142.75 21:55, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm hoping for interpretive dance. 172.70.214.59 22:31, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

The quote in the title text is factually true, adding to the confusion it would cause, as it does not actually claim that the Artemis astronaut is the first human to set foot on the Moon, only that it is a great honor to be the first. Bugstomper (talk) 22:34, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

It is not feeding trolls to acknowledge that these trolls people exist (and are exactly the kind of people Randall likes to bait. But I won't 'unedit' that. (Someone else can either restore it or get rid of the silly compromise of being commented out with a confusingly 'inline' text-comment. Only by checking the precise version dif would it even make much sense.) 172.71.178.141 22:57, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

I interpreted the second (alt text) option as being intended to cause a similar mis-hearing (or suspected mis-hearing) debate as was the case with the original man/a man quote. The word "human" could possibly be mis-heard as "woman" over a poor-quality audio transmission, leading to a debate about which was intended. (According to the comic, the intended word would in fact be "human", but if the person was female most listeners would likely assume that it is supposed to be "woman" as most people are aware that humans have been on the moon before but probably unsure of whether or not a woman has ever been on the moon.)

Questions: Has a woman ever been to the moon, and is NASA planning to choose a woman for the new mission? It wouldn't surprise me if they were planning to send a woman this time around for PC points. 172.70.91.128 23:13, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I believe Artemis has announced that they intend to let a woman of color be the 13th on the Moon, but I'm not up to date on the official press releases. 172.70.211.126 23:20, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm Hoping it will be an African-American woman chosen specifically as commander for identity purposes, who says "It's Great to be Black on the Moon!" [Obref Netflix _Space Force_]Seebert (talk) 23:23, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

[Written before two other replies, above, appeared... One maybe answering an issue I raise below about the 'twofer'...] One of the main 'selling points' has been that the first landing mission would definitely include a female crewmember, and a 'person of colour'. I've never been quite clear that this is to be the two identities of the two crew or if the intention is that there'll be one person fulfilling them both as a "twofer". So those worrying about (or applauding!) "PC points" are already happy to have their fears(/hopes) confirmed.

As a side note, I find the "PoC" term a horrible phrase, in my mind, but I'm British and I know that whatever problems we have with what terminology to use (BAME, etc) are quite different from the US. And there are near-universally undeniably worse terms to use. And "of colour" (or "color", in Leftpondian) doesn't seem to mean much except not being pure-Saxon. Apparently Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (neé Markle) is mixed-race (some even say "black") but I wouldn't have known (and, now knowing, am not at all bothered by the fact) given that tanning salons output a steady stream of darker-skinned anglo-saxon or even celtic-heritage locals.

Anyway, there'll be complaints by the anti-PC brigade regardless, not that I mind them being upset. So long as they have good individuals (no Iron Sky 'just send a model', purely as a vanity passenger) they should be able to pick and choose which of various suitable candidates works well in the grand scheme of things.

(And I don't agree with the "human/woman confusion thing", seems far too clumsy. Even as deliberately awkward phrasing.) 172.71.178.141 23:46, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

I don't understand because e.g., conflating "a" man with "mankind" is potentially self-contradictory. There's no conflation in "a man is an individual, but mankind is a group", and the issue is surely more that so seen in "man is an individual, but mankind is a group" where "man"=="mankind" in this respect so that the logic ends up as (A==B)&(A!=B) by trivial analysis... Whatever, I just don't think that explains what is 'wrong'. 172.71.178.141 23:46, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

If the astronaut removed his boot before saying "It is an honor to be the first human to set foot on the moon." He/she would technically be correct. SDSpivey (talk) 23:28, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

It's a terrible idea to place an unclothed foot on lunar regolith, not only because of the vacuum and temperature, but it's like a layer of somewhat coarsely ground glass very likely to cause laceration even from the diminished weight of any adult. 172.70.206.213 23:44, 5 September 2022 (UTC)