# The term moonshot is romantic bullshit When you’re not literally going to the Moon, the term “Moonshot” is a [[Suitcase Handle Word]]. People try to impose different technical meanings to it (“it involves a lot of engineering”, “it needs to have knock on effects for economies”, “it needs to be inspiring”) but it doesn’t actually mean anything besides “ambitious project.”  There are two reasons the heavy use of the word “moonshot” is bad. First, moonshot inflation is real. The term has become diluted to the point that it really had no specific meaning besides “I think this project is ambitious and I want you to get as excited about it as you got about the space race.” However, when so many people are using it in so many different ways about so many projects that aren’t particularly exciting, ambitious, or successful, it just makes everybody so jaded that we can’t evaluate what to get excited about. Second, and more subtly, it encourages us to look to the past instead of looking forward. When we call everything a moonshot, we implicitly look to the past instead of the future. In a way it’s setting up a yardstick that turns even space exploration into a relative game. [[Relative vs absolute games]]. ### Related * [[Bullshit Ideas]] * [[Stagnation]] * [[Nobody grades moonshots on effort]] * [[Google X]] * [[Alphabet shuts power kites moonshot project]] <!-- #evergreen --> [Web URL for this note](http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/The+term+moonshot+is+romantic+bullshit) [Comment on this note](http://via.hypothes.is/http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/The+term+moonshot+is+romantic+bullshit)