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4k NASA employees opt to leave agency through deferred resignation program

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Re: 4k NASA employees opt to leave agency through deferred resignation program

#581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This apologia for the cuts would be more persuasive if they didn’t come in concert with record-breaking increases to the pentagon budget and historic deficits. There’s no calculation happening here with present or future value, they’re lavishly funding things they like and decimating things they don’t. You don’t place a reality TV ‘star’ as the director of any agency you care about.

> This apologia for the cut What gave you the impression I was in favor of the cuts?

Sanewashing would be better word ... it is kneed jerk tendency with anything republicans and especially Trump related. Even when what they do is clearly crap, people find ways to rationalize it and make it sound better then it is.

Sometimes better amounts to "still bad" as in here, but it is still a bunch of claims that make Conservatives lead by Trump sound much better then what they actually are.

Re: 4k NASA employees opt to leave agency through deferred resignation program

#582
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you remember when a President of the United States was impeached for an affair with an adult intern? Do you remember when a Republican presidential nominee defended his opponent from a racist question at a Republican Rally, calling him a "decent family man?" -- Then, can you think of a time when a POTUS committed a pump a security he was selling, only to dump it immediately after his inauguration, and it it was ba…

I wasn't alive but I read about how people made fun of Carter for being a peanut farmer. So much for Americans believing in hard work and salt of the earth! Now they have a NYC property developer. To understand America do not listen to what they say but watch what they do...

Churchill once said: "Americans will eventually do the right thing, after they've tried every other option."

Kind of fits the current administration's strategy.

Re: 4k NASA employees opt to leave agency through deferred resignation program

#583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you remember when a President of the United States was impeached for an affair with an adult intern? Do you remember when a Republican presidential nominee defended his opponent from a racist question at a Republican Rally, calling him a "decent family man?" -- Then, can you think of a time when a POTUS committed a pump a security he was selling, only to dump it immediately after his inauguration, and it it was ba…

[flagged]

Kind of funny that you specifically pointed out the "lying under oath" part. Becaause you know, the initial argument's current POTUS lied under oath, several times, about way more dangerous things.

And he fired the people that did their job at the FBI to investigate him. Out of pure retaliation.

Re: 4k NASA employees opt to leave agency through deferred resignation program

#584
post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a bunch of organizations already utterly swamped with eager and qualified job candidates relative to their hiring numbers So....the same challenges that everyone working in the private sector has? What am I missing here?

Imagine if Google or Apple suddenly went bust. What do you think that would do to the job market in San Francisco?

Shit happens, what can you do about it? Do you think garbage men, teachers or doctors will care about the tough job market of SW engineers? Everyone's job and everyone's lives have challenges, nobody else will cry for you, it's still up to you to deal with whatever problems life throws at you.

Re: 4k NASA employees opt to leave agency through deferred resignation program

#585

Comments about SLS miss what’s happening. SLS is inefficient and wasteful, but human spaceflight is not what’s getting cut at NASA. Instead, very productive current and future science missions are getting killed, in defiance of Congress [1]. Until this year, NASA was the world leader in space science. We’re pushing out the experts who build and operate astrophysics missions like Hubble, Chandra, JWST, Kepler, TESS, S…

> the world leader in space science. I also want to add that science is a critical investment area for anyone interested in engineering. There is this common belief of "I just want to make things work" and that science is really unimportant here and are concerned with things that don't matter. The truth is that science builds the foundation for that other stuff. It is the very ground you stand on. Engineering without…

I don't know that this is a good argument for science. We should fund science because we want to discover new things, not because we can draw a dotted line to an ROI. Similarly, we should fund the department of giving poor people money for food. Not because there's an ROI somewhere down the line. There's never gonna be a return on that investment, but we should do that because we're humans and we want to lift our fellow human out of misery.

Re: 4k NASA employees opt to leave agency through deferred resignation program

#586
post #539
post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a ridiculous statement. The Fed is a profoundly undemocratic institution that harnesses the power of the state to serve the interests of capital, and its current form is a recent development that coincides with the financialization of our economy and the decimation of manufacturing and the middle class. If you want the full argument it’s here: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/federal-reserve-independe...

How dare you be critical of capitalism on ycombinator?

What the Fed does isn’t “capitalism” it’s literally a government agency that sets prices.

Re: 4k NASA employees opt to leave agency through deferred resignation program

#587
post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This apologia for the cut What gave you the impression I was in favor of the cuts?

Sanewashing would be better word ... it is kneed jerk tendency with anything republicans and especially Trump related. Even when what they do is clearly crap, people find ways to rationalize it and make it sound better then it is. Sometimes better amounts to "still bad" as in here, but it is still a bunch of claims that make Conservatives lead by Trump sound much better then what they actually are.

And you don't think understanding how people delude themselves is good to 1) convince them 2) not fall prone to the same traps?

I'm not excusing anyone. But you are picking fights with people on your own team. So maybe pay closer attention to what people say and not just signaling. Personally I want to fix things, not pick random needless fights. I want to stop chaos, not create more. Picking fights is just what Trump wants you to do

Re: 4k NASA employees opt to leave agency through deferred resignation program

#588
post #138

NASA has been downsizing a lot. Friend of mine is a contractor for NASA who has been trained as a parts engineer for sourcing and testing electronic components that go into satellites and spacecrafts will be out of a job in a few months as her entire branch is eliminating all contractor positions. Now she has a specialized skillset that isn't very readily transferable to other local companies and industries. Sucks. C…

I know that people wanted to stay in their own country. However, she could likely get a good position in the space industry in Europe. The bottom line is, she would be very likely to get a good salary, even better than she did in the US, in China, Russia, or India, which are desperately seeking space specialists with experience in more advanced technologies. It is a shame that the US couldn't even keep their payroll,…

>> in the space industry in Europe I bet they are not willing to take a huge paycut. Also the language barrier may be an issue.
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