WILL.I.AM's comment on Einstein

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by Mastonevich

I'm blown away at how many posts are FOR this. There are better ways to express how awesome FIRST is.

I don't necessarily think the posts are advocating for #TSIMFD to become a rallying cry told to sponsors and potential new members of all ages everywhere. People are generally agreeing with Will.I.Am's passion and clear commitment to the program.

[jee7s]

Consider that to be the inclusionary environment we all want FIRST to be, one must be sensitive to all cultures. There are many more than a handful of teams in the various FIRST competitions that are sponsored by religious organizations. Usually these are parochial schools of various sorts. Think of the impact such comments would have on those who read the following from Paul's Letter to the Ephesians and believe it to be the word of God:

But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.

What is the message sent to those who take the Bible literally and believe it is a sin to be exposed (or allow innocent people to be exposed) to such language?

Or, for those more aligned with the church of South Park, as you know we will all end up knee deep in meekrob when It Hits the Fan.

My point is that this creates an uncomfortable marketing situation. How do we market the program when people are literally prepared to print t-shirts that show the language and use the FIRST logo to bleep it out and make it legit to air? It potentially leads to a very uncomfortable situation where to preserve their image, FIRST disallows the use of the logo inside a quote delivered by one of their best champions at their premier event, live on video streams to the world.

Did it inspire a bunch of high school aged kids who can probably handle the language? Probably. Does it present an image problem for FIRST among certain populations? Yes. Is that a net positive? That's for you to judge.

[leon r]

If this was an audience of FRC/FTC students, I would have been totally fine with his remark. But there were JrFLL/FLL kids and families with small children in attendance. This was NOT a Black Eyed Peas concert, you do not expect to hear profanities from the speaker! I love the fact that he supports FIRST, but this was inappropriate!

I was glad that my FLL teams were not there. I know they are aware of all those words and probably use them among themselves, but you teach them that are appropriate places and company to use such language, THIS was not such occurrence!

[Theseusgoats]

Wow, I just saw the "my robot is better than your robot" thing and man did FIRST have support. Those were some of the most well known names on the planet : WILL.I.AM, miley Cyrus, Justin bieber, Justin Timberlake, snoop Dogg, and Jack black to name a few.

[dirtbikerxz]

Originally Posted by Theseusgoats

Wow, I just saw the "my robot is better than your robot" thing and man did FIRST have support.

FIRST stiil has support... even more in fact

[techhelpbb]

From my perspective people are people...
Very exposed people are still people.

It makes little sense to hold FIRST entire as a reflection of a single comment that seems to aggravate some people.
FIRST should be FIRST and Will a supporter.

Will should not feel like he can never be him just because he has a public relationship with FIRST.

Now, fairly, if you know Will sometimes says things you do not like your kids hearing: address that however you choose for yourself. There seems little to gain by ganging up. A discussion about this is healthy but I support individuality as much as formality.

[GaryVoshol]

I've contemplated this for a few days now. I don't think the problem is that we haven't heard the words before - in fact I've heard at least some of them in church. Probably FLL'ers have heard them before too.

My concern is not the appropriateness of the language, but the appropriateness of it in that setting. If it was just words, there wouldn't be these huge discussions going on. Let's face it, the words are being discussed because of their shock value. No one expected to hear them onstage at FIRST.

I worked at a company with a VP of Manufacturing who seemed incapable of putting more than 3 words together without including a cuss word. Maybe he "came up thru the ranks" or maybe he thought it gave him cred with the union, I don't know. All I know is that it made me uncomfortable hearing him talk in a business meeting.

I think that's the issue we have here. When we have to mark videos of it NSFW, should we have applied the same to CMP? I wonder if it will have an effect on sponsors or schools, who might not be impressed.

[mrnoble]

Originally Posted by jee7s

Consider that to be the inclusionary environment we all want FIRST to be, one must be sensitive to all cultures. There are many more than a handful of teams in the various FIRST competitions that are sponsored by religious organizations. Usually these are parochial schools of various sorts. Think of the impact such comments would have on those who read the following from Paul's Letter to the Ephesians and believe it to be the word of God:

What is the message sent to those who take the Bible literally and believe it is a sin to be exposed (or allow innocent people to be exposed) to such language?

Thank you, thank you for making this my new favorite all-time CD thread. By introducing biblical exegesis as a standard for FIRST, you have not only opened the proverbial can of worms but you have also allowed me to speak on the topic in which I am formally trained (in Seminary).

Last week I took a team that included two Muslims, an Orthodox Jew, and a Seventh Day Adventist to CMP. There are numerous ways in which participating in FRC potentially conflicts with their beliefs and practices, including having events on a Saturday (Sabbath), and serving the team cheeseburgers. They and their families make choices and compromises in order to allow them to be part of the team, and we also make some compromises as a team to accommodate them. Still it's their choice to participate or not, knowing who and what we are.

If we want to quote the Apostle Paul, here's one for you:

"For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.”
1 Corinthians‬ 9:19-22‬‬‬

Much more importantly, though, FIRST IS NOT A CHRISTIAN ORGANIZATION. Feel free to run your team as you see fit, but if you want Christian Robotics I strongly suggest you look elsewhere.

How do we market the program when people are literally prepared to print t-shirts

That would be me. They're already printing by the way, and my first customer (not really the right word, these are being sold at cost) is a team mother.

[marshall]

Originally Posted by Chief Delphi

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to mrnoble again.

[ayeckley]

Originally Posted by dodar

Because this is the internet. How you act on the internet, is entirely different then how you act in person.

Agreed that people do that, but it sounds like you are saying that swearing on the internet (i.e. on Chief Delphi) is taboo, but swearing IRL (i.e. on stage at CMP) is not? My experience has been the opposite.

[jee7s]

Originally Posted by mrnoble

Much more importantly, though, FIRST IS NOT A CHRISTIAN ORGANIZATION. Feel free to run your team as you see fit, but if you want Christian Robotics I strongly suggest you look elsewhere.

For the record, I never suggested that FIRST is a Christian Robotics organization nor that it should attempt to be one.

I'm actually not offended by the comment personally. But if we are going to talk about cultures, language, and inclusion, we need to talk about ALL cultures, languages, and inclusion.

[Mastonevich]

Is it OK when one of "your" students says those words in a public setting? What if Dean or Woody said those words?

[BotDesigner]

Originally Posted by mrnoble

Thank you, thank you for making this my new favorite all-time CD thread. By introducing biblical exegesis as a standard for FIRST, you have not only opened the proverbial can of worms but you have also allowed me to speak on the topic in which I am formally trained (in Seminary).

Last week I took a team that included two Muslims, an Orthodox Jew, and a Seventh Day Adventist to CMP. There are numerous ways in which participating in FRC potentially conflicts with their beliefs and practices, including having events on a Saturday (Sabbath), and serving the team cheeseburgers. They and their families make choices and compromises in order to allow them to be part of the team, and we also make some compromises as a team to accommodate them. Still it's their choice to participate or not, knowing who and what we are.

If we want to quote the Apostle Paul, here's one for you:

"For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.”
1 Corinthians‬ 9:19-22‬‬‬

Much more importantly, though, FIRST IS NOT A CHRISTIAN ORGANIZATION. Feel free to run your team as you see fit, but if you want Christian Robotics I strongly suggest you look elsewhere.



That would be me. They're already printing by the way, and my first customer (not really the right word, these are being sold at cost) is a team mother.

I don't think the intention of the post was to state that FIRST is a Christian organization.

However, there are people in FIRST who do take Christianity seriously and find that comment offensive. For example I had the gift of being able to mentor a phenomenal FLL team this year that won the Colorado championship and got to get a trip to worlds. After coming out of the awards ceremony a couple members and parents headed to Einstein and arrived just in time to hear will's interview. The parents immediately left with the kids and a really bad idea of what FRC really is. Recruiting this young engineers to my FRC team now involves convincing their parents that this is not "standard FIRST conduct."

I love FIRST because of the way it embraces Gracious Professionalism; should we tolerate having statement that lies far outside of GP said in front of +10,000 people of all cultures and ages?

[mrnoble]

Originally Posted by Mastonevich

Is it OK when one of "your" students says those words in a public setting? What if Dean or Woody said those words?

Depends on the context.

[mrnoble]

Originally Posted by jee7s

But if we are going to talk about cultures, language, and inclusion, we need to talk about ALL cultures, languages, and inclusion.

Sure, let's do. Are you allowing females on to your team? If yes, you are offending a significant portion of some cultures. Are you allowing students to work on Saturdays? Again, same issue. Do you happen to believe and teach that science advances humanity, and that we should embrace scientific pursuit? Does this include issues like the age of the earth, or the theory of evolution? How about corporate sponsorships for your team, which might include companies who make weapons or use fracking techniques to get natural gas out of the ground? That offends some folks.

Look, I teach in an urban environment, and the last thing I want to do is put a stumbling block in the way of my students. Cuss words are not a stumbling block here. Maybe they are where your team is. Okay, sorry about that. But FIRST probably wants to reach urban kids, and this was speaking their language. So I'm down with it. Sorry you're not.