This kind of shit isn’t surprising, occasional exercises in self awareness and depreciation are a clever way for people to come off as more good faith than they actually are. Often people in power will preformatively cop to their own faults and hypocrisies in order to lend themselves an air of humility.

I will never be as cool as teenaged Chinese communist rock guitarist guy. Nobody ever will.

Uh, if I remember the episode they’re referring to correctly it’s just the space around this one planet that effected by FTL travel so the speed limit it only enforced there.