Rakshaks, sorry to interrupt the ongoing discussion, but…
This post may not win me many friends here on BRF, yet it needs to be written, and this is the only place to post it.
I have not written the following with the intention to find fault with others; particularly if I have mistaken their meaning or if they have mistaken their expression. (Side Note: I recently made what I thought was a clever post in the ‘Agni 5’ thread, only to later realize that I had sloppily finished the post with the word “fusion” instead of “fission” (or was it, vice-versa?), which totally futzed-up one of my key points. Disappointingly, nobody suggested giving me the benefit of the doubt, and I was repeatedly corrected for the technical error, rather than for the typo it actually was.)
Something happened back there in this dhagga
(an ***INTELLIGENCE FAILURE***) on page nineteen, that I think bears a much closer examination. IN BRIEF: We received what constituted a “hot tip” via Rakshak ‘koti’, but because of what seems a lot like “groupthink”, the tip was never properly recognized or analyzed, not while it was current, and neither now that it is stale. As a result, the (in as much as it supposedly exists) credibility of the ‘BRF brain trust’ must necessarily be called into question. This reflects poorly on all of us; yet at the same time I couldn’t stand it going entirely unnoticed, and unexamined, so here goes….
To call this intelligence failure a failure of imagination also wouldn’t be wrong, except that imagination wasn’t necessary, because it all started with a photo, plain for all to see. Allow me….
On 06 Mar 2012 at BRF system time 08:00, Rakshak
‘koti’ coyly posted in this very same BRF thread the two lines “OMG” and “Is that what I think it is?” along with an outbound link to a Google+ pic posted by one “Anantha Krishnan M. (AK)” (who is, I believe, a journalist – correct me if I’m wrong). The pic is shown again below, under the table, enlarged and with my mark-ups, to save you the trip.
[Here's the link to koti's original post:
viewtopic.php?p=1252175#p1252175 ]
Of the subsequent 38 posts in the thread that were germane to koti’s original post; only three posts were “on the money”, IMO (and these are shown in the table below in green). Of course, even until now, these three posts are not “popularly accepted” here on BRF (I am guessing), and I am interested to see the response to this particular (countervailing) post of mine.
Sadly, most posts offered in response to koti’s question displayed hollow or no reasoning. Rather, they were repetitions of other’s unsubstantiated assertions, or even just flat out “I agree with so-and-so” without any reason given as for why they thought that way. Some, at least, tried to be creative; but unfortunately they did so in support of “seemingly accepted wisdom” instead of the available photographic evidence. (I have depicted all these posts with red text).
Only five posts even attempted to offer critical analysis of what was being posted in the thread. (These posts I have depicted with bold black text). Again, sadly, no one seemed interested to follow-up these dissenting thoughts with further examination; for if they had, maybe there wouldn’t have been such a resoundingly erroneous chorus, repeated again and again and again (re: GSLV mk3).
http://www.synerlux.com/For_BRF/response_table.gifjust to be clear about what happened:
1) On 06/03/2012 8:00:00 AM, Rakshak koti posted a link to a pic;
2) By 06/03/2012 2:01:00 PM, at least three posts suggested/asked if the picture showed an SLBM canister. This idea was drowned-out by the much more popular theory of a GSLV mk3 end stage (even though this makes absolutely no sense, and was seemingly based solely on a crude estimate of dimensions, never mind materials, construction, features, *weld lines*, morphology, etc.). Apparently, nobody even examined the canister idea, and absolutely nobody even took notice of the (very peculiar, two-halve) hoisting rig, obviously designed for substantial weight, not an SLV end-stage made of (seamless!) composites. If Rakshak “sum” and Rakshak “MN Kumar” are like me, then they offered their thoughts without reading much of what others wrote before them (which is arguably also our failure, even though we were correct about the pic showing an SLBM canister in its hoisting rig; please see my marked-up pic below).
3) After 38 on-topic responses to koti’s original post, on 14/03/2012 1:36:00 PM, Rakshak Marut posted a link to an article that appeared in the BR news feed. This article was dated March 13, and it discussed the test firing of a K-15 missile from a submerged and towed pontoon, two days prior, on Sunday, March 11, 2012.
4) In fact, we here at BRF were alerted to this potentiality five days prior to this launch date, and seven days before the news article was published, but collectively, we failed to notice (even while a few of us did indeed see what was coming).
Behold the pic in question…
http://www.synerlux.com/For_BRF/India_SLBM_Canister.gifThe misapprehension of clear photographic evidence should *not* have happened here on BRF. The reasons why it did should give pause to each of us; should temper the way we read what is written here, and how we may chose to write back (or not write back).
Jumping to false conclusions too quickly is sometimes a hazard with the things we see and don’t understand immediately. This is somewhat less of a risk with the things we learn by taking the time to listen. This is because time often helps with understanding, in part because we need time to process (particularly complex) information; and trying to do this too quickly can easily lead to mistakes. If we can concentrate our attention and “look slower” and also spend the time to “listen deeper” (and read more carefully); altogether this can only make us “smarter”, as a group and as individuals.
MOVING FORWARD: I would respectfully suggest that we should all be more careful when we find ourselves eager to dismiss a discordant idea, or keen to disregard a dissenting opinion or discard a difficult question. This is not how a confident intellect approaches complex issues, and if we, each of us, cannot at least try to get this much right, then perhaps we need to do more reading and less writing. JMT.
Thanks for your attention, Rakshaks.
I sincerely hope we can all ‘take it to heart’; although I am more certain that someone will try yet again, to browbeat me about how the pic shows a GSLV mk3 end-stage. (Actually, in a perverse kind of way; I’m sorta looking forward to it!)
Confidential to Rakshak koti: What exactly did you think it was, in the first instance? (You never clarified!)
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
.. cause they want do the shiver part of it.
