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

I'll respond to both comments in just this daughter comment:

> 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.

With the feds, it's not easy to do this. You can, of course, but it'll take some very large wringing to do so. Think: this will need to be stuck as a rider into some bill that congress passes, and not before that happens. DoE/D pay is very rigid.

Still, it's not like a 2x salary bump will make a difference at all. As I said, these folks can make a lot more than just 2x going into tech or a lot of other private sector jobs.

Now, for the comment I'm responding to:

> It's not about money for government jobs. It's about the mission and, for many, the previously perceived stability + pension.

This X1000. These folks have dedicated their lives to nuclear science and non proliferation.

It's a delicate point, but one that I think needs stating: You know in a Bond/Bourne/Spy movie where a scientist gets recruited by the BBEG and then the hero needs to go save them or take them out? These are those scientists.

I am saying, without any doubt here, that these people would never do such a thing as betray their life's mission and engage in nuclear proliferation. But, if you ever wanted a nuke, these are the people that you'd get to make you one in ~5 years. You'd only need one of them, and they just tried to fire 3000 of them. Again, not a single one of them would ever do so. Clear?

And I don't mean 'theoretically' build a nuke. I mean that these are the people that have the hands on experience with fissile material. They know the weight and smell of these bombs because they are the ones that have held them in their hands and have custody over them. They know the torque specs of the exact grade of steel bolts you have to use. That level of knowledge.

This agency is why RU's nukes are falling apart. They don't have an agency that does what the NNSA does, and it shows.

> People in these roles are not fungible. That is a big logical error. People who can pass a background check with a PhD in Nuclear engineering aren't being pumped out every few months.

Precisely. It takes a long time to educate these people, and then it takes a longer time to have the older greybeards begin to trust them enough to actually get them working on these devices. It takes then even more time to get them to know the little things that aren't written down about how the nukes work. These people, again, are invaluable. And, to be clear, it's not just any background check that they go through. A simple SF86 is just the start. We're talking $250k+ in gov time and resources per person just to get started on the checks.

Look, some of the folks that got fired are going to leave. They're mostly going to Europe and then working and doing the exact same job, just for the EU countries. Mostly in non-proliferation work, and some basic nuclear science. But they are going to be paid a lot more and they're all going to live in Nice or Florence too.

The US is going to have to sweeten the deal a lot more to just get them back. This little move likely sent our nuke programs back at least a decade, if not 30+ years.

Again, pardon my French, this is a big fuck up.

>5% different, almost everyone is online.

We at best get 70% participation in voter representation. Online wise, I'd wager we get at best 20% "public" participation in terms of who bothers to participate online as opposed to lurking. And that 20% is spread amongst hundreds of subjects.

And we know these aren't created equal. The internet is disproportionately on the younger side, is very slightly biased by "middle class", educated workers, and the gender demographics vary site to site, despite being overall even (e.g. disproportionately male on Reddit, female on Pintrest). There will definitely be a different resuts online compared to making physical surveys.

I invalidated it because it was tried and spectacularly failed in a complex system.

Trump also ruled out plenty of (admittedly high risk) interventions and solutions before the negotiations.

Why would he make concessions for nothing in return? I thought he was meant to be a great negotiator and businessman.

As someone from LATAM who is more aware than they should be about the US system of government, I agree that the statement and lack of pushback is catastrophic for what it says about the current climate, but rule of law has been as weak as gypsum board for decades. The US system is full of shiny toys for a populist to cement power, and the only safeguards are decorum and the threat of eventual impeachment (good luck with that!). These issues exist because the American system is old and full of incremental cruft; newer democracies have had the advantage of starting with better safeguards, and there's an inability to actually change the system due to the legal system and Congress being a mess.

Practically speaking, common law is the judicial branch using moonlogic upon moonlogic to create pseudo-laws (Roe v. Wade, Citizens United v. FEC) that may be good or bad but should be made by Congress. If the Constitution is unclear, it should be modified through a democratic process that can actually pass, not be continually reinterpreted in absurd ways by a 9-person court that can be corrupted and has no term limits. Congress is unable to fix itself; the unlimited filibuster in the Senate proves that, and the "pro-forma" session is simply embarrassing. Clear systemic change is excruciatingly difficult, so actions must be taken through fuzzy emergent messes without guardrails like executive orders.

"Is outrageous thing X from this EO illegal? Idk, let's wait months to check with the courts."

The popular comment I see is that institutions are people at the end of the day, so "strong institutions" is just a buzzword, and the current crisis comes from cowardice and inaction. But if the mechanisms aren't there to stop a bad actor in the executive, the best they can do is make some noise (which they should). If they truly bend the rules, the executive can always just write a more unhinged EO, so it all reduces to who has control over actual enforcement.

The problem is widespread; for example, the election system is simply dysfunctional, like Flint water tier. From the basics of gerrymandering, to the electoral college creating absurd things like "swing states" (if you want to give more power to some states, just weight the votes), no real universal national ID, voter suppression, voting by mail is a horrible idea that invites conspiracy theories and is a crutch for the lack of accessibility, voting machines are bad and a crutch (see the French). Not even the schizophrenic rules-set is actually followed; the 2000 election was decided by Supreme Court fuckery. Trump would've been stupid not to try to interfere in 2020; an election was successfully stopped 20 years ago and nothing happened. The most basic democratic institution failed and the priority wasn't "let's fix this immediately, oh my fucking god." So yeah, rule of law has constantly been chipped away for some time, good luck with the midterms.

To be fair to the average American, the idea that "gradually, then suddenly" also applies to the state is something people learn firsthand and hopefully teach their descendants. The history of outsiders only goes so far.