Space Cynic

I've been debating off and on whether I should post about Shubber Ali's new blog, Space Cynic. I have a fair deal of respect for Shubber--he's a smart guy, and has been doing some interesting space related things down in Australia as part of his work with AstroVision. As I understand it, his work has mostly been focused on the space markets side of things, which unfortunately tends to get neglected by a lot of space enthusiasts. Shubber has always been annoyingly cynical, but usually in a thought provoking way. I have a lot of respect for his coblogger Tom Olsen, who has been trying to put together the Colony Fund for the past several years. Putting together a space related venture/mutual fund thing like what Tom is trying to do has to be an amazingly complicated project, especially with the legal environment that exists these days regarding securities and investment. I wish them luck in getting that venture off the ground, unfortunately he'll likely need it.

Anyhow, I think that it's a good thing that Shubber started his blog. Discussions in the alt.space part of the internet can sometimes tend to be rather one-sided, and echo-chamberesque. Far too often one or two regulars in the alt.space community will say something enough that the rest of us just repeat it as an article of faith without taking the time to actually questioning if we might be missing something. As one of my favorite poems, written by my grandma goes:

Say you thus and say you so--
Tell me, do you really know
What it is you speak about?
Does there never come a doubt
As to the validity
Of the things you say must be?

Blogs like Space Cynic could potentially play a useful role, as Devil's Advocate, forcing us to reanalyze our positions occasionally, study things out more clearly, look at problems from a different angle. Such a blog might also potentially be a good place to point out specific issues that the rest of us are overlooking, maybe a place to offer some sound advice or constructive criticism that might help some of us Kool-Aid drinkers do a better job of making a space development a real, solid, professional industry. Unfortunately, if you were looking for such a blog, Space Cynic isn't it. Not yet at least. So far, most of Shubber's blogging has dissappointingly been of the shallow, snarky, substanceless sort of name-calling and insult hurling that is all-to-common these days in the blogosphere.

I'll admit that writing well thought-out, interesting posts or articles on a consistent and frequent basis is tough. My criticism of Shubber's snarkiness, and occasional shallowness is partially a case of pot-kettle comparative chromatography. I guess I'm just dissappointed that someone as intelligent as Shubber, and one who has as much potentially to offer to the community, has so far failed to rise to the occasion. I hope he can do better in the future, and I will try to comment on and link to articles on his site as time permits. I just hope he'll do a better job in the future, because somebody needs to play the Devil's Advocate in this industry.