It was, on the other hand it made the undeniable achievement of sputnik deeply traumatizing to the american elite psyche. The only response they could muster was a kind of unhinged shrieking. Honestly I don't think that will ever be topped in US history; per wikipedia on the sputnik crisis:
This created a crisis reaction in national newspapers such as The New York Times, which mentioned the satellite in 279 articles between October 6, 1957, and October 31, 1957 (more than 11 articles per day).
China's on a trajectory to make the same kind of technological breakthrough, imagine the panic if China suddenly demonstrated a room-temperature semiconductor with low energy requirements or, I dunno, zero point energy
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
They're just passing around verbal cudgels and they visibly delight in people taking them seriously. You can kind of skip to an issue that will make them lose their shit though, and the facade will drop. Zionists don't like hearing anything that makes them feel less powerful or competent, they are deeply insecure and ready to book it across the Atlantic.
Do you know where this quote is from? I'm having a hard time finding it, but would love to read more.
Edit: Found the source right after typing this haha. It's "Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate" by Jean-Paul Sartre. Here is a PDF. It's on Page 13 of the book (Page 36 of the PDF)