It's not the devil we memed it into, there are better tools for categorizing and rejecting candidates based on objective-ish traits but this wasn't the purpose according to thr article.

That's what I've been told by fellow meshnet hobbyists anyhow ;)

Surely it can't be a coincidence. Though the weather thing might not be either, but if so this was a very well coordinated response.

I think many comments are missing the point though, people care about Kuhn because of his epistemological innovation and the implications of his work on the very idea of science, not because of its reception by science historians, however great it may have been.

And of course Kuhn isn't opposed to the idea of progress, he's simply raising the question "what really is progress and how can we know". This was necessary at the time, but the trivialization of "advanced" technology has made his point outdated in my opinion (if still perfectly valid in a logical sense). It's almost unthinkable (to me) that Kuhn would've written his famous book in the current era.

Interpreting Kuhn is an art unto itself, but I find rather that he is saying progressed can't be measured and therefore can't be inferred. He wouldn't be much of a relativist otherwise! I'm not sure but I think he uses the word "incommensurability", which implies an absence of indicators of progress (if not him then certainly some interpretations of his book use that very word).

This is not to say that I agree, but it's the cold logic of it that makes him hard to refute. Rather, pragmatists like me have resolved to ignore him and enjoy our iPhones and lasers.

Or do you not expect the car to detect puke and/or a passed-out passenger? Seems like a trivial problem compared to all the recognition software that would be needed for self-driving.

If you're asking why they've never been contacted: we know that doing so would be irreversible, and anything we could learn from observing them would be tainted with our own culture as it inevitably seeps through.

Even if this wasn't the case, morality is not universal and we have no basis on which to judge them.

Most likely I'll stay in the mental health field though, as I doubt I'll find passion for anything tech again. I mostly lurk on this forum because I'm still a geek at heart :)