It's not that offensive, but it did have a bit of a jarring effect. I was all happy with the success and saw it as a human achievement. [1] The cheering was wonderful. But then the USA chants made me feel left out, because I'm not a US citizen. I guess I just wished these people would share my view of it being a human achievement and not limited to USA with its 4% of humans. It's likely plenty of them do think that, but the USA chanting sure sends a different emotional signal and diminishes the moment a bit.

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[1] I probably wouldn't think much of a USA chant during a Facebook or Google product launch. While these companies do plenty of wonderful things, I view space travel as several tiers of importance higher.

I'm not American and I think it's great. Anytime I read stories of American engineering (like about the SR-71, or the Manhattan Project[1]) I feel a kind of pride for them. Strange feeling. But they accomplish some amazing stuff and there's no reason they shouldn't express joy for their own country.

1: Granted, that had some key foreign influence.

It's a US achievement and it's an achievement that will benefit all of humanity. There's no contradiction between those two things.

America gets bashed non-stop about pretty much everything, no matter what choices it makes or what direction it goes. The criticism is overwhelming sometimes, I get sick of browsing many sites like Reddit for example because of the extremely common US bashing. Quite frankly, I'll take the cheers and USA chants on this one.

A human achievement. Competition among teams is good though, team USA is ahead. Hopefully team <your country> can push themselves to move forward.

That's kind of funny that you would find a USA chant at a Google product launch less "jarring".

In this context it didn't phase me at all (I am a US citizen though...), but at a Google press event, it would be really unsettling.

It's probably a cultural thing. From my vantage point outside of America, chanting support for your country like a sports team feels awkward and myopic. It's not something most other civilised countries do — I associate it more readily with failed/fascist/dictatorial regimes.

I think it is a cultural thing, but thinking about it now it would sound really similar to how you describe if they were chanting "America" instead of "USA".

I don't know, but the point is that I can see where you are coming from. I think that the "USA" thing has become "normalized" to me because of other things in the media (sports, wartime, etc...) that it doesn't phase me, but changing the wording makes it pretty clear.

If you're interested in reading/thinking more about tribalism and people reacting to displays like this, I found this essay really interesting: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/19/nerds-can-be-bees-too/

> it took many people from lots of different countries

In a indirect way it did, (standing on the shoulders of giants, heritage of the people working there, etc,) however, unlike the other companies you mentioned, SpaceX only hires American citizens (because of government contracts and ITAR.) So it's basically an all-American effort.

ITAR allows greencard holders, so not everyone's an American citizen.

Not only greencard holders but ITAR even has exemptions for non-US persons, that is those who aren't US citizens or Permanent Residents.

I don't work directly with anyone like this but I know SpaceX has a few, not sure of the exact number, employees who are neither citizens nor permanent residents.

From what I've heard the process of getting a non-US person ITAR cleared is extremely costly, both in time and money and is thus used very sparingly.

Yeah, I love Elon's American accent.

His maternal grandfather is American and he took the citizenship oath in 2002 -- Which is why America is pretty cool, many millions of Americans have foreign accents!

I'm pretty sure Elon considers himself thoroughly American at this point.

There are quite a few foreign born American citizens working at SpaceX, myself included. You may find this shocking, but seeing as English wasn't our first language, some of us even have foreign accents.

I don't consider them, or myself, any less American.

You jest, but being an immigrant is a very American thing. Visit it sometime if you had not, it's quite a different place from what many people imagine from media dramatizations.

Since people realized that the difference between patriotism and xenophobia is very small? John Lennon: "Imagine there's no countries.."

> Since when did being patriotic become offensive behavior?

Patriotism can have a hugely different emotional response depending on where you live. It can connote “home!” or “remember, we have weaponized drones hovering above your head”.

Imagine this video feed was from Iran, and ended in a patriotic arabic chant. Would you think, “it is good to see that they are Iranian and proud”?

It is not about being offended. It is about political undertone and tacit military implications.

(That said, I am proud, as a fellow human, of what was accomplished. Also, I live in a country pretty solidly allied with the US.)

Now this is just my opinion, but I wouldn't see any of that if any country was chanting their name for an accomplishment like this.

This is almost a universally good thing, and having pride that your country was able to do it isn't a bad thing to me! I would fully expect another nations company to be chanting their nation's name, and I would probably join along with them if I were there!

It's a celebration, not a contest.

(side note, I was born and raised in the US, so my view might be tainted by that)

I second this. Even if Iran, N Korea, China e.t.c were doing this I'd be very happy for them. Space missiles and nuclear missiles have things common to them, but if the only intention of the folks working on it was to make space exploration cheaper, I'd cheer for them.

What space X did landing in the middle of the ocean on a tiny little platform, was nothing short of genius.

Iranians are not arabic in general.

Persian, not Arabic.

I understand both sides. I expected a SpaceX chant more than a USA one. And yes nowadays patriotism is devalued it seems.

Its great if you're an American. If you're not, it just sounds like passive-aggressive bloviation.

Chanting USA demeans and marginalizes other countries. Its quite offensive to people to support one country over another.

/s

So do you think we should boycott the Olympics? Should I give the North Korean regime same level of "support" as South Korean regime?

I think you missed the sarcasm indicator (/s).

(That doesn't mean it was particularly funny, though)