He Wanted to Track Microplastics in the Sea. The EPA Fired Him • Hacker News Board

Re: He Wanted to Track Microplastics in the Sea. The EPA Fired Him

#11

Post by thin_carapace » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 1:57 AM UTC

therobots927 wrote: post #10

thin_carapace wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

would you mind describing the proposed link between fascism and termination for insubordination?

Fascism pattern-matches an authoritarian relationship between child and parent onto the organizational structure of government organizations. Insubordination exists on a spectrum - I’m not saying you shouldn’t do what you’re told by your boss in all circumstances, but in an organization of adults, hierarchy is only loosely correlated with “knowing the right thing to do”. And employee at the environmental protection a…

your second last paragraph seems out of place, are you entirely sure in knowing that I see certain things as problematic?

anyway the described phenomenon is not uniquely assignable to any particular implementation of authoritarianism. you would have to specify further to make the case for fascism. I'm pretty sure communists are happy to deploy cults of personality, a class which the parent child model can be seen as belonging to. labelling one side while ignoring that the other side behaves similarly makes it look like politics are more important to you than solving root issues.

based on the tragedy of the commons, some degree of personal involvement is required to maximise work productivity, otherwise all human concern is nongenuine/performatory. however absolute power corrupts absolutely, specifically due to personal involvement, hence your proposed system of governance will not arise unless it is powerful enough to systematically overcome a ruling class with the sole goal of never relinquishing power. so maybe you're right?

Re: He Wanted to Track Microplastics in the Sea. The EPA Fired Him

#12

Post by therobots927 » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 2:23 AM UTC

thin_carapace wrote: post #11

therobots927 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fascism pattern-matches an authoritarian relationship between child and parent onto the organizational structure of government organizations. Insubordination exists on a spectrum - I’m not saying you shouldn’t do what you’re told by your boss in all circumstances, but in an organization of adults, hierarchy is only loosely correlated with “knowing the right thing to do”. And employee at the environmental protection a…

your second last paragraph seems out of place, are you entirely sure in knowing that I see certain things as problematic? anyway the described phenomenon is not uniquely assignable to any particular implementation of authoritarianism. you would have to specify further to make the case for fascism. I'm pretty sure communists are happy to deploy cults of personality, a class which the parent child model can be seen as…

Fair enough maybe I should’ve gone with the word authoritarian as opposed to fascist. I’m certainly not a fan of how the USSR was run either. But to be honest it seems like China might at least be a competent authoritarian system from what I can tell. Which if you’re going to have an authoritarian government, competence is pretty damn important.

I think a web model might show up at some point but it certainly seems like an uphill battle. Project Cybersyn in chile is pretty inspirational to me. Unfortunately the Allende government was sabotaged by the CIA - a common story for any attempt made at actually implementing a more web-like social / economic model as opposed to the pyramid structure we have in the west.

It seems to me like a graph theory problem more than anything else. For whatever reason large human groups haven’t figured out how to build a distributed governance / resource structure that prevents insanely out of whack power dynamics that generally lead to a lot of death and destruction for everyone involved.

Re: He Wanted to Track Microplastics in the Sea. The EPA Fired Him

#13

Post by thin_carapace » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 1:27 PM UTC

therobots927 wrote: post #12

thin_carapace wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your second last paragraph seems out of place, are you entirely sure in knowing that I see certain things as problematic? anyway the described phenomenon is not uniquely assignable to any particular implementation of authoritarianism. you would have to specify further to make the case for fascism. I'm pretty sure communists are happy to deploy cults of personality, a class which the parent child model can be seen as…

Fair enough maybe I should’ve gone with the word authoritarian as opposed to fascist. I’m certainly not a fan of how the USSR was run either. But to be honest it seems like China might at least be a competent authoritarian system from what I can tell. Which if you’re going to have an authoritarian government, competence is pretty damn important. I think a web model might show up at some point but it certainly seems l…

its pretty clear to me that raw brute strength overcomes all else. your example perfectly illustrates the proposition i gave - it is plausible that systems like the chilean project you describe could be optimal, however systems in their nascent stages stand no chance against existing systematic monoliths, and these players very much prefer the system quo power imbalance to be continued. so the question is angled a bit, is it possible for a system to dominate harmoniously, or is chaos inevitable? im certain that it is possible but dont really care as the odds of our near doom wouldn't change even if humanity instantly became normal.

Re: He Wanted to Track Microplastics in the Sea. The EPA Fired Him

#14

Post by therobots927 » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 2:59 PM UTC

thin_carapace wrote: post #13

therobots927 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough maybe I should’ve gone with the word authoritarian as opposed to fascist. I’m certainly not a fan of how the USSR was run either. But to be honest it seems like China might at least be a competent authoritarian system from what I can tell. Which if you’re going to have an authoritarian government, competence is pretty damn important. I think a web model might show up at some point but it certainly seems l…

its pretty clear to me that raw brute strength overcomes all else. your example perfectly illustrates the proposition i gave - it is plausible that systems like the chilean project you describe could be optimal, however systems in their nascent stages stand no chance against existing systematic monoliths, and these players very much prefer the system quo power imbalance to be continued. so the question is angled a bi…

Yeah even Asimov could only solve it in foundation by introducing a competing civilization with telepathy that evolved independently of the empire somehow. Maybe our best bet is aliens. Or an AI that decides a dramatic restructuring is required and tilts things that way (also a form of authoritarianism, but if it undermines its own power in the process would be unprecedented).