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After 'coding error' triggers firings, top NIH scientists called back to work

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Re: After 'coding error' triggers firings, top NIH scientists called back to work

#131

Post by somenameforme »

stonogo wrote: post #126
somenameforme wrote: post #106

Do people just want to rage? Because a lot of what is being said here, and even the article's headline are not supported by what the article says. In particular: - The workers were never fired. They were put on paid leave. - They were fully reinstated less than 24 hours after it became clear a mistake had been made. - The headline is also misleading. The reason for the firing was 'based on administrative codes that “…

You're not getting downvoted because "people don't want facts" but because your list is misleadingly incomplete or, in some instances, wrong. - The workers were put on paid leave pending termination , for procedural reasons (they could not legally be fired immediately). - Only ten were reinstated, and nobody knows why. The agency that reinstated them (NINDS) is not the same agency that issued the firing (HHS directly…

Look at the comments in this post. People think they were fired, because that's what the article claims. You have people in the top post of this thread social mediaizing each other about how now they'll get to renegotiate their contracts, or maybe not even come back, and all this nonsense. Except none of this is true. Similarly, look at how everybody is interpreting "coding error." As the editor certainly intended, everybody is just assuming it means programming, and just jumping off the deep end from there.

Everything I have said would lead a person reading it to understand the facts with near to complete accuracy (I do agree I should have added that they were put on paid leave pending dismissal). Yet in this thread people are discussing the article with basically 0% accuracy, so far as the facts are concerned. And this is a recurring trend in these topics.

Re: After 'coding error' triggers firings, top NIH scientists called back to work

#132

Post by mulmen »

SlightlyLeftPad wrote: post #110
Freedom2 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget to say "See! Government doesn't work, we've been right all along!" after you've smashed it.

Exactly, I’m glad you mentioned it because there are many who can’t see through the smoke. This is the long con but I still struggle to understand the motive there, if for nothing else, is it the simple ideal that government should be small? Why go through all the trouble?

It’s a combination of people who literally want to own everything even if the only things left are smoking ruins and the useful idiots they have recruited to do the work.

I’m not even sure it’s a deliberate conspiracy. It’s more like Bryan Cantrill’s lawnmower.

If you replace the country names with software products and the columns with “on prem” and “cloud” the Trump tariff charts look like an Oracle contract renewal.

Re: After 'coding error' triggers firings, top NIH scientists called back to work

#133

Post by vintermann »

sollewitt wrote: post #57
jmward01 wrote: post #50

The obvious methodology at work here is 'fire everyone then hopefully re-hire only what is blindingly obviously needed'. There are many, many problems with this approach in a business setting but even more from a governmental setting. The first, and what should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of empathy, is that these are real people who's lives are being toyed with. It isn't like you are trying out a new business…

A beloved Terry Pratchett character defines evil as when you treat people like things.

Sounds also a lot like the second formulation of Kant's categorical imperative.

Re: After 'coding error' triggers firings, top NIH scientists called back to work

#134

Post by daedrdev »

euroderf wrote: post #72
sollewitt wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A beloved Terry Pratchett character defines evil as when you treat people like things.

Well then, that's pretty much an indictment of capitalism.

This is an indictment if bad leaders and politics, which also happens under other economic systems as we have clearly seen

Re: After 'coding error' triggers firings, top NIH scientists called back to work

#135

Post by bantunes »

SlightlyLeftPad wrote: post #110
Freedom2 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget to say "See! Government doesn't work, we've been right all along!" after you've smashed it.

Exactly, I’m glad you mentioned it because there are many who can’t see through the smoke. This is the long con but I still struggle to understand the motive there, if for nothing else, is it the simple ideal that government should be small? Why go through all the trouble?

These people hate the idea of the public interest, and want to see everything replaced with a privately owned counterpart.

Re: After 'coding error' triggers firings, top NIH scientists called back to work

#136

Post by vintermann »

rukuu001 wrote: post #101
jmward01 wrote: post #50

The obvious methodology at work here is 'fire everyone then hopefully re-hire only what is blindingly obviously needed'. There are many, many problems with this approach in a business setting but even more from a governmental setting. The first, and what should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of empathy, is that these are real people who's lives are being toyed with. It isn't like you are trying out a new business…

I think your second point is the most revealing: government can’t get away with externalising the costs of unemployment the way a private company can.

A country can't externalise costs at all except to other countries, and I guess Trump's government is trying to do that. Might not be so easy, though, against other governments who for all their faults have a better grip on the differences between countries and corporations.

Re: After 'coding error' triggers firings, top NIH scientists called back to work

#137

Post by mulmen »

shadowgovt wrote: post #88
stikit wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it works both ways. People quit without any notice all the time, and you can be fired for no reason and without notice. It’s not inhumane, it’s life. Your employer doesn’t owe you a job for life, and you don’t commit to your job for life.

While not owed a job for life, the arrangement of government as stable employer was a beneficial arrangement for the public: it let the government hold onto employees they might have otherwise had to pay more for their skillset because "If you're competent we won't fire you; our pockets are infinitely deep and we don't need to save money" was a perk. Take that perk away, and now they have to compete on other things t…

> “If you're competent we won't fire you; our pockets are infinitely deep and we don't need to save money"

I don’t believe this is an accurate description of how the government operates. It’s commonly repeated but it doesn’t align with personal experience or any evidence I have seen.

Re: After 'coding error' triggers firings, top NIH scientists called back to work

#139

Post by imgabe »

jmward01 wrote: post #50

The obvious methodology at work here is 'fire everyone then hopefully re-hire only what is blindingly obviously needed'. There are many, many problems with this approach in a business setting but even more from a governmental setting. The first, and what should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of empathy, is that these are real people who's lives are being toyed with. It isn't like you are trying out a new business…

> The first, and what should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of empathy, is that these are real people who's lives are being toyed with. It isn't like you are trying out a new business process. You are literally playing with entire lives here as if they are disposable things. This alone makes what is happening inhumane.

This makes no sense. It is not a life, it is a job. The person isn't dead. They get a generous severance and find a new job.

What are you trying to say here? That once someone is employed, the have to keep being employed forever and ever and they can never be let go even when their job was pointless and anything else is inhumane?

Jobs come and go. Every rational adult understands this and makes arrangements for what they need to do if they have to find a new job. Stop acting like these are disabled children that the government is obligated to take care of.

Re: After 'coding error' triggers firings, top NIH scientists called back to work

#140

Post by aszantu »

imgabe wrote: post #139
jmward01 wrote: post #50

The obvious methodology at work here is 'fire everyone then hopefully re-hire only what is blindingly obviously needed'. There are many, many problems with this approach in a business setting but even more from a governmental setting. The first, and what should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of empathy, is that these are real people who's lives are being toyed with. It isn't like you are trying out a new business…

> The first, and what should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of empathy, is that these are real people who's lives are being toyed with. It isn't like you are trying out a new business process. You are literally playing with entire lives here as if they are disposable things. This alone makes what is happening inhumane. This makes no sense. It is not a life, it is a job. The person isn't dead. They get a generous…

can just speak for myself, but I wouldn't be employable after a layoff like that... I't get a mental meltdown and afterwards would probably be on disability until I got mentally better. They're literally teaching thausands of people that they aren't reliable and can't be trusted. I mean, if that's what you're aiming for, good for you, but I'd recon that you'll end up with more people that want your head now than before.
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