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US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

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Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#101

Post by eesmith »

michaelscott wrote: post #48
TZubiri wrote: post #19

What's the biggest difference between a startup and a country? Aside from the obvious distinction, Musk has no experience running existing corporations with lots on the line to lose, he comes from move fast break things, great for a social media app, who gives a shit, great for literal moonshots, go big or go home. However when you manage something big, any upside from improving is weighed against its risk of degrada…

The American right has (always?) been anti-government overreach traditionally. I don't actually think Trump or Musk are particularly conservative or right wing (they'll say and do what gets them the support) but on this topic they are actually very much in line with political tradition. I think they're overshooting here and will need to correct, but I get the impression as an outsider that the American people who vot…

The American left has also (always?) been anti-government overreach too.

It's all a matter of who gets to define the "over" in "overreach".

Laws which enforce racial segregation are overreach, for those in the American left who support equality.

Federal laws which override state segregation are overreach, for those in the American right who support structural racism.

Marijuana prohibition laws - overreach, or not?

Anti-mask laws - overreach, or not?

Required prayer in school - overreach, or not?

Anti-pollution laws - overreach, or not?

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#102

Post by xg15 »

tossandthrow wrote: post #60
PaulRobinson wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is, it’s not backfired - the example you cited “worked”, because it rapidly identified key personnel without weeks or months of subjective analysis and political posturing by workers and their supervisors. I think in federal government the risks are much higher, and Musk is being an idiot by exposing the America public to those risks, but the feedback loop for him on these previous experiments has been positi…

It only works because you allow yourself to sorely disrespect human beings, their livelihood and their feeling of safety. A strategy that seems to be hot in the US, but is an utter ethical abomination and shameful.

Yeah, I mean that's pretty much at the core of Musk's (and Trump's) philosophy.

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#103

Post by nobunaga »

Its hilarious. Americans dont realise they are being played. All this BS from the MAGA people and trump are just shift attention away from the conversation to tax billionaires. You guys had been going in the right direction when it came to having the rich pay their fair share. Now look at what you are all talking about? Your fighting each other. What a shitshow.

I really dont think America will recover from this and while the world will suffer as a result, I think in the long term, things will work out. There will be some major suffering but thats the way the world works. WW2 happened, a lot of suffering then peace. We had peace for too long, people forgot about suffering and now look at the world. Thanks America, you played yourself and are now bringing the rest of the world down with you. Rather than focusing on the right things, you are being played to argue with each other.

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#104

Post by baggy_trough »

nobunaga wrote: post #95
somenameforme wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A difference with government is that you and I pay the salaries of these people. With Twitter a lot of it was just schadenfreude. Many of the employees were acting in a way perceived to be partisan and vindictive, which left a rather sizable number of people somewhat less than upset when the tide turned. It's one reason we should all endeavor to treat each other, perhaps especially those we disagree with, with some d…

If a company gets too big, its not the employees fault, why should they be the first on the chopping block? If a government is too big, is it again the employees fault? Or is it someone elses? The concept that some dude with more money than another can make screwups, then happily go off and impact thousands of lives thinking this is the way forward with no impact on them is utterly mind boggling. Similarly, we, the p…

Employees with zero to negative productivity should be on the chopping block because we want the employer to survive.

The United States has an highly progressive tax system where the rich pay the vast majority of the taxes. Why isn't that already their "fair share" (a propaganda term)?

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#105

Post by jimnotgym »

pjmlp wrote: post #71
vasco wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't much of a point because federal employees are much more likely to return than Twitter technical staff. Interesting approach, specially because it's not my country.

The problem with ongoing US "experiments" is how much the rest of the planet is dependent on American companies, related economics and politics, regardless of it not being our country, the schockwaves will be felt.

And this is the thing, the rest of the world has agreed to be dependent on American companies, because they believed in the legitimacy of the US and free international trade. If belief in that legitimacy goes away, we will see that dependence shift quickly. Let us begin with Mastercard and Visa where the US taxes every payment transaction in much of the world. Do we really believe that Europe couldn't run its own card schemes?

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#106

Post by nobunaga »

adtac wrote: post #100
nobunaga wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason you think he isnt wrong is because you think it wont impact you. I hope one day you find yourself in the same situation, even worse, then I hope you remember this comment.

If I do, whether or not I remember my comment, I'll certainly remember yours :(

Sometimes people like you need to go through what others do to realise how wrong you were. Some people have empathy to know. You seem like the former. Its not too late to see that Elon is nothing but a fraud though if you wish to.

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#107

Post by somenameforme »

suzzer99 wrote: post #53
adtac wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should read Elon Musk by Walter Issacson. Here's an excerpt from the chapter on his "algorithm": > [Step 2] Delete any part or process you can. You may have to add them back later. In fact, if you do not end up adding back at least 10% of them, then you didn't delete enough. He thinks this is a feature, not a bug. Is he wrong? I don't think so.

If we fired 25% of the federal govt workforce, it would save 1% from the federal budget. This has nothing to do with trimming waste and everything to do with replacing the government with loyalists from top to bottom. What comes after that isn't going to be pretty.

The "federal budget" is something people often mention, but it's quite misleading. At least in terms of what we think of.

The reason is that the overwhelming majority of the budget is spent automatically - pensions, medicare, social security, and all of these expenses are unavoidable and in a mandatory expenses category. The remainder of the budget, including military, is considered discretionary. That discretionary spending is the thousands of pages that Congress creates (and fails to read) each year. And it's in that budget that most of the things we associate with government came from - everything from education, to roads, to infrastructure, and also the military.

So by the numbers in 2024 the discretionary budget was "only" $1.7 trillion and after military spending "only" $900 billion was left. "Only" obviously needs to be in quotes but that's indeed only about 13% of the e.g. $6.7 trillion total budget in 2024. And so each time you cut something the amount of money left for the things we generally associate with government skyrockets. So for instance USAID was "only" $50 billion, but that was more than 5% of the entire discretionary budget!

US Federal Workers cost $293 billion [1], and contractors amounted to $760 billion. This is excluding secondary costs/benefits, which are extremely high for government workers, and only direct payments. It also excludes budgeted expenditures that would have been performed by those employees. So that's already $1.05 trillion and we're clearly substantially lowballing the figure. Yet that's already more than the entire discretionary budget excluding military, and certainly far more than 4% of the entire budget (as would be required for cutting 25% to only result in a 1% cost saving, as proposed).

[1] - https://www.afge.org/article/afge-continues-to-debunk-miscon...

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#108

Post by jimnotgym »

adtac wrote: post #27
boricj wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only "worked" because the key personnel decided to come back. Had they decided to move on to greener pastures, the end result would've been very different.

> Had they decided to move on Why didn't they?

I don't live there, but weren't other tech companies laying off at a similar time?

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#109

Post by jimnotgym »

cgcrob wrote: post #30
PaulRobinson wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is, it’s not backfired - the example you cited “worked”, because it rapidly identified key personnel without weeks or months of subjective analysis and political posturing by workers and their supervisors. I think in federal government the risks are much higher, and Musk is being an idiot by exposing the America public to those risks, but the feedback loop for him on these previous experiments has been positi…

This is horribly naive. It’s not twitter. There are safety outcomes which need to be considered in safety critical agencies. I mean can you even claim to make the assumption that the actual key staff were rehired? Can you make the assumption that they are working safely with the resources they need? Can you make an assumption that they have covered the entire scope of the organisation? Probably not. Chess is played o…

Unless you are playing against a selfish child who can't bear to lose.

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#110

Post by wruza »

nobunaga wrote: post #73
PaulRobinson wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is, it’s not backfired - the example you cited “worked”, because it rapidly identified key personnel without weeks or months of subjective analysis and political posturing by workers and their supervisors. I think in federal government the risks are much higher, and Musk is being an idiot by exposing the America public to those risks, but the feedback loop for him on these previous experiments has been positi…

[flagged]

Another perspective on that is if some highly-ranked agent may do so, maybe the system itself is wrong. This is basically allowed and works. Why someone who remains in practically legal limits to blame if clearly your ideas are based on morals and not these limits?

I’m not justifying him here, it just seems naive to make the rules which produce (and most of the times promote) ones like that and then blame them for doing what’s effing effective within it. I mean, as a hi-tech american(?) you’re eating a cake baked in the same oven. Maybe it wouldn’t be as tasty if the oven had different settings, and you’d have different life experiences and opinion then.

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