Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

571–580 of 839 posts

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

#571

Post by insane_dreamer »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #89
ben_w wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He thinks this is a feature, not a bug. Is he wrong? I don't think so. Twitter lost 84% of its revenue. Do you want the USA GDP to shrink that much over the next few years?

> Twitter lost 84% of its revenue. How much of that is because of politics? Already at the point of takeover, Musk was so hated by half the US for various reasons that it became profitable for major publishing platforms to abandon Twitter/X "on principle". When you're in that situation, nothing on the object-level can help you - neither good management nor technical competence. Revenue depends indirectly on the publi…

> Already at the point of takeover, Musk was so hated by half the US for various reasons that it became profitable for major publishing platforms to abandon Twitter/X "on principle"

No, Musk became hated by half the US __because__ of the way he took over Twitter. That lost him a great deal of good will.

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

#572

Post by ty6853 »

specialist wrote: post #547
ty6853 wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less than 19% knew what the nuclear safety team was, so be careful with the point you're making. There was probably more informed consent for DOGE than many eliminated positions.

I don't follow. Is there a constituency in favor of eliminating governmental nuclear safety?

I don't follow. Are we moving the goal posts yet again from the above of what % knew what something was? Because the constituency generally did not know of the nuclear safety team. I don't even know their was a constituency calling for their creation, although there is an argument as to why reps might make them exist anyway.

Are you suggesting their creation was improper? Or suggesting constituency advocation would make it proper?

Either way you might draw uncomfortable conclusions.

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

#573

Post by cloverich »

TheJoeMan wrote: post #404
TeMPOraL wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes sense. And isn't this the ol' military trick, that in software dev / project management parlance is now called a "scream test"? I.e. if your unit feels like it's doing nothing but endlessly filling out all kinds of reports, and no one knows which ones are important, the solution is to stop submitting any reports at all - and wait until calls and angry letters from higher-ups begin. That will quickly reveal whic…

The Scream test is very valuable for time efficiency, in general. In this application though, I think they’re realizing sometimes it’s difficult to reverse, such as firing the new blood who just moved to DC and have been there only a year… like I would feel so abused, why go back?

If they tell you it was a scream test, and it turns out your team was actually pretty important and also gives you a raise, you might. Especially if you have nothing else lined up.

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

#574

Post by rayiner »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #539
rayiner wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The damage to the US’s global influence and stature. Whether that’s morally a good or bad thing is a separate question. There is no question the US has screwed over a lot of countries. But be aware that the Chinese will step into the void as they already have in Africa. And those countries may find themselves out of the frying pan and into the fire. As bad as the USA is (and it’s pretty bad) it’s still better than Ch…

But why should Americans care about any of that? Do you think the Chinese care what we think of them?

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

#575

Post by insane_dreamer »

halJordan wrote: post #361
1970-01-01 wrote: post #345

They certainly can name their new price due to urgency but struggles is a bit of an overstretch. They certainly know where they live. A knock at the door with flowers and a big bonus check will do.

Can you just please read the article? The bbc writes to about a sixth grade standard. They literally do not have contact information after they deleted the .gov email addresses Edit: and they cant "name their price" because unlike the private sector there is legally mandated pay scale. Which is just another reason why firing g-men to save money makes no sense

Their contact information will be in the payroll, assuming they know the full names of those they fired.

But yeah, there are pay scales. Anyone who knows they can get a job for more elsewhere (the most talented among them) is likely to say "fuck this shit".

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

#576

Post by rayiner »

woooooo wrote: post #505
rayiner wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also refers to a political faction in the electorate, comprising about 11% of voters, that has interests and values aligned with that group: https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/ncr-voices/what-if-we-had-... . E.g. knowledge workers who benefit from globalization and upper middle class people who benefit from cheap labor provided by illegal immigrants.

The republican core of exurban/rural ownership class benefits far more directly from immigrant labor than the liberal professional class. Professionals might have a housekeeper or get their lawns done, but they're not employing a kitchen or construction site full of people.

What percent of republicans do you think employ illegal immigrants lol. This isn’t 1980.

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

#577

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

grandempire wrote: post #447
redserk wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK is becoming a destination country for hiring low-cost services labor. Not exactly an endorsement of future success.

Low cost compared to what? California and New York? That’s also true of many states where finance and tech companies have smaller offices.

I live in Texas and contract for a company based in Europe. Comparable UK software engineering salaries are about 1/3-1/2 of what my salary expectations are.

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

#578

Post by cloverich »

Balgair wrote: post #403

So, my SO had a fellowship with the NNSA here. As in, the NNSA paid for their grad school. I'll speak to my own experiences here though as the spouse. The NNSA is, like, bonkers important. I'll just copy-paste wikipedia here: "The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is ... responsible for safeguarding national security through the military application of nuclear science. NNSA maintains and enhances the sa…

What if they offer 2x the salary to come back? Some are suggesting that is the strategy. I know of one example where this was done but in a private company with lower stakes, so i know the concept at least exists.

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

#579

Post by drawkward »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #560
drawkward wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is Russia driven. Its right out of Aleksandr Dugin's playbook for Russian political dominance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

It's not Russia driven. It's driven by Trump and Musk egos. It's Nero watching Rome burn, to bring about his new greatness.

It does seem quite implicating that both Musk and Trump have had multiple reported private calls with Putin. I dont recall other ex presidents meeting with Putin so frequently.

Missing dossiers of Russian Intel from Mar-a-Lago...which of course we never got to hear the full story of thanks to Judge Cannon and SCOTUS.

This is so on the nose it would be rejected if someone wrote it as a novel or film.

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

#580

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

rayiner wrote: post #315
enraged_camel wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes they did? Is this a joke? Or have you not been following the UK’s descent into poverty and irrelevance?

The UK’s GDP per capita trajectory diverged around the end of the Great Recession. That was before the Brexit vote (2016) and long before the actual Brexit (2020). France and Italy have been stuck in more or less the same doldrums since the same time: https://datacommons.org/place/country/FRA?utm_medium=explore...

I'm not disagreeing with your main point (by a host of metrics, the UK and EU have stagnated economically compared to the US since the end of the great recession), but I also don't think GDP per capita is the best metric to use here given widening levels of inequality. Median income levels taking into account government transfers are much more informative in my opinion.
Post reply on HN