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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

#521

Post by ericvolp12 »

The article doesn't really do this justice, it's not really "opting to leave" it's that entire divisions inside the Science side of NASA have had their projects defunded and so all the work the people in those labs were doing is now gone. They're being asked to leave voluntarily so they don't have to be "fired" but all their work and resources are gone and they couldn't stay if they wanted to.

A friend of mine had her division's headcount cut by >80% that was all research focused and building instruments for deep space observation. No one is hiring people to do that in the private sector. Dozens of astrophysics PhDs in that division alone are now without work and with no real prospects doing anything related to what they've dedicated their entire lives to (and accepted modest salaries as civil servants to do).

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

#522

Post by aerostable_slug »

const_cast wrote: post #449
aerostable_slug wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you on about? Government work is a wonderful career opportunity for the non-HN crowd. These are often people of at best average intelligence and near zero ambition who want a cushy career that you can't be fired from unless you punch a supervisor (and even then it's tough). There are wonderful people in government, I've worked with them. But there are a ton of people along for the ride and it's absolutely in…

No It's not. The pay, job per job, is significantly lower across the public sector. You take a massive pay-cut. I don't know what lied to you and told you it's "cushy", but it's definitely not. Also, you can absolutely be fired for performance. In fact, across the public sector probationary periods are typically longer than in the private sector. Meaning, it's actually easier for you to get fired. These are the types…

I've worked in government. Have you?

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

#523

Post by godelski »

jacobolus wrote: post #491
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a way of hitting back at "the elites" who have the temerity to call GOP politicians and donors out for their lies and bad behavior True for academic institutions. No evidence this is the motivation at NASA. Simpler: science costs money and leadership believes that money is better spent giving folks like me a tax cut than paying for poor folks' healthcare or basic research. Fortunately, it looks like Beijing is read…

The cuts to NASA as well as NOAA, NIH, USGS, USDA, FWS, DOE, etc. are not really saving that much money, but are destroying literally trillions of dollars of future economic value (not to mention all sorts of work whose value can't be easily quantified). Maybe "smashing things and ruining people's lives and work is fun per se" is a better explanation than anything more complicated. Pretty shitty for the rest of us th…

  > The cuts to [...] are not really saving that much money, but are destroying literally trillions of dollars of future economic value
I think everyone (or at least the parent) understands that. I mean there's a part that's deeply connected to what I said in another comment[0]

The real issue is essentially: which would you rather have, $1 now or $10 tomorrow?[1]

People see it as savings because they have that money now. That's the way JumpCrisscross used it (and I very much don't think they agree that this is how the gov should be working). But the way you're using it is "I'd rather have the $10 tomorrow".

I'm pointing this out because now people are talking past one another. I'm pointing this out because it is a really common pattern ("now" vs "later") that is used and frequently causes miscommunication due to different assumptions about what we want (e.g. "maximize money now" or "maximize money during x period of time"). Though it doesn't always have to do with money.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44705004

[1] Be careful to not trivialize this. The numbers are abstract as well as the points in time. Also consider that $1 now might be far more valuable than $10 tomorrow. For example, if you get $1 now you might be able to afford a bus ticket to a location where you can get $1m, but only if you get there today. That's worth a lot more than $10 tomorrow. So we have to be mindful of what conditions actually exist if we want to actually communicate. Unfortunately, these are usually assumed and not communicated... The people that want to just take the money are well aware of this tendency...

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

#524

Post by jacobolus »

msgodel wrote: post #510
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> federal government now accepts donations if you don't want the money This is silly. I prefer the money be spent on things that have a larger ROI, collectively, than I can attain individually. Destroying the money doesn't achieve that aim.

Well, the rest of us disagree. You need consensus for public institutions and no one on the left or the right has been willing to build that.

Actually, the "rest of us" largely agree, as reflected in the laws our elected representatives have established. We have collectively appropriated the money and set up the institutional framework for spending it. Folks smashing down that system are doing a significant part of it illegally, with no credible justification or public support, in several recent cases in contemptuous violation of direct court orders.

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

#525

Post by [deleted] »

gammarator wrote: post #441

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…

[deleted]

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

#526

Post by elcritch »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #509
jacobolus wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cuts to NASA as well as NOAA, NIH, USGS, USDA, FWS, DOE, etc. are not really saving that much money, but are destroying literally trillions of dollars of future economic value (not to mention all sorts of work whose value can't be easily quantified). Maybe "smashing things and ruining people's lives and work is fun per se" is a better explanation than anything more complicated. Pretty shitty for the rest of us th…

NOAA, NASA, NIH, FWS, and DOE all regularly push how bad the situation is around global climate change. That's likely why they're getting targeted. The GOP's position on climate change is sticking their fingers in their ears and screaming LALALALALA and having credible government agencies pointing out the ongoing effects is detrimental to this strategy. Meanwhile the USDA, FWS, and DOE do those pesky regulatory thing…

> Meanwhile the USDA, FWS, and DOE do those pesky regulatory things

True and that’s awesome. However to put up some of a counter those agencies also over-regulate. Bureaucracy tends to over-expand.

Musks example of SpaceX having to calculate the likelihood of a rocket hitting a shark in the pacific. Musk is certainly exaggerating a bit, but is speaking to a real issue for many businesses struggling to keep up with absurd regulations.

My grandfather fought for years with USFWS to be able to re-build infrastructure for a small town near a popular wilderness area. A small bridge upstream washed away one year and they refused to allow rebuilding it.

The claim was that rebuilding the small bridge would disturb some endangered fish species. So instead hundreds or thousands of vehicles every summer would drive through that small river instead to get to the wilderness area beyond. That created a lot more destruction and impact on the fish. Trucks and vehicles wash off a lot of oil and chemicals like that.

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

#527

Post by mikeyouse »

godelski wrote: post #523
jacobolus wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cuts to NASA as well as NOAA, NIH, USGS, USDA, FWS, DOE, etc. are not really saving that much money, but are destroying literally trillions of dollars of future economic value (not to mention all sorts of work whose value can't be easily quantified). Maybe "smashing things and ruining people's lives and work is fun per se" is a better explanation than anything more complicated. Pretty shitty for the rest of us th…

> The cuts to [...] are not really saving that much money, but are destroying literally trillions of dollars of future economic value I think everyone (or at least the parent) understands that. I mean there's a part that's deeply connected to what I said in another comment[0] The real issue is essentially: which would you rather have, $1 now or $10 tomorrow?[1] People see it as savings because they have that money no…

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.

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

#528

Post by anigbrowl »

hopelite wrote: post #88
Yeul wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

You may not realize this because the vast majority of people don’t realize it, but there are far deeper things going on with both those situations, i.e., how Reagan became what he did and why Carter was so attacked and for so long. It takes immense understanding of history and geopolitical matters beyond what the system’s education system can impart, which makes it challenging to understand things properly. Think of…

You know there are people on HN who come from or live outside the US, right? Instead of ruminating on how incredibly hard it is for mere mortals to understand the historical forces in play, you could just make your attempt at articulating what you think the key drivers were. Granted, a HN comment only allows for so much depth and references to books or academic papers involve work to generate and read, but as it is you've advanced no thesis whatsoever.

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

#529

Post by [deleted] »

godelski wrote: post #466
gammarator wrote: post #441

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…

[deleted]

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

#530

Post by JumpCrisscross »

msgodel wrote: post #510
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> federal government now accepts donations if you don't want the money This is silly. I prefer the money be spent on things that have a larger ROI, collectively, than I can attain individually. Destroying the money doesn't achieve that aim.

Well, the rest of us disagree. You need consensus for public institutions and no one on the left or the right has been willing to build that.

> the rest of us disagree

Irrelevant to the silliness of suggesting destroying money as a solution.

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