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

bbc.com

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

#621

Post by totallynothoney »

trescenzi wrote: post #300
yeyeyeyeyeyeyee wrote: post #254

The US is busy making the biggest own-goal one could imagine. From a position of world-wide dominance and respect, it is being destroyed at a rate that is too quick for most to even start to comprehend what the outcome of these actions will be. I suspect the consequences of these actions will be carried for the rest of our lives, as they are not so easy to turn back. Lots of other countries are standing by watching w…

It’s like the “fish don’t know they are in water” saying. As an American if you weren’t educated to be aware of Pax Americana you very much struggle to understand it. The current world order is far from perfect and many suffer as a result but the people in charge of this effort absolutely benefit from it far more than they seem to understand.

As a non-American cinemagoer, I wonder who will be the Chinese equivalent of Michael Bay.

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

#622

Post by danpalmer »

Musk will see this as working as intended.

There’s a segment in one of his many Starship interviews with Tim Dodd the Everyday Astronaut, where he talks about simplifying the machine. He says you’ve got to cut and cut and cut some more until it’s radically simple. His rule of thumb is that if you’re not adding back 10% of the stuff you got rid of, you didn’t get rid of enough in the first place.

This might be fine for greenfield engineering projects, where there are no “Chesterton’s fences”, where there are not yet any other people or things depending on success, but it’s wholly inadequate for people problems or brownfield systems and processes. The fact Musk doesn’t understand this just suggests ignorance, and suggests that it’s not an idea he really understands at its core. To understand an idea truly, means to understand when it applies and when it doesn’t, and why.

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

#623

Post by totallynothoney »

rayiner wrote: post #493
enraged_camel wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s instructive that you mention only USAID. Based on past conversations, you were born and raised in Asia, right? So maybe you have an ax to grind. What about all the other agencies that are being gutted?

It’s more than that I’m Asian. The same arrogance and disregard for popular sovereignty in other countries that you see at USAID/State/NED has metastasized and been turned inward. “Deplorables” is how Acela types see Iowans and Bangladeshis alike. As the parent of a kid who got put in a “BIPOC” affinity group, I’m thrilled about the cuts to DOEd and the hammer coming down on teaching race consciousness ( https://www.…

Buddy, Amtrak is gonna be gone in a decade if Trump remembers it exists.

https://www.reddit.com/r/transit/comments/1f1vdz8/trumps_rec...

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

#624

Post by TeMPOraL »

cloverich wrote: post #573
TheJoeMan wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Scream test is very valuable for time efficiency, in general. In this application though, I think they’re realizing sometimes it’s difficult to reverse, such as firing the new blood who just moved to DC and have been there only a year… like I would feel so abused, why go back?

If they tell you it was a scream test, and it turns out your team was actually pretty important and also gives you a raise, you might. Especially if you have nothing else lined up.

And especially if you're not a tech worker, so you can't exactly chill out and wait for a better gig to fall on your lap.

(Though recently, even in tech changing jobs is much more precarious than it ever was.)

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

#625

Post by TeMPOraL »

LunaSea wrote: post #602
TeMPOraL wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla is not in advertising business, though. They are affected by the whims of public opinion, but not as much, as they're established company selling a quality product worldwide. Musk used to dabble much more in Tesla directly than he's now, I wonder whether the ups and downs of the company correlate with his involvement, especially before he started going off the rails so badly? That would be informative and help…

> Tesla is not in advertising business, though. Tesla is absolutely in the advertisement business. Their marketing and image is the only thing holding the company up (for now).

What I meant is: they buy ads and care about their opinion. They're not a platform selling ads, and they're not an ad delivery vector (like e.g. publishers) either. The latter two kinds of businesses have particular dynamics that are highly sensitive to public opinion, much more so than for any other kind of business.

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

#626

Post by jjk166 »

derangedHorse wrote: post #190
itronitron wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> federal employees are much more likely to return Not necessarily. It's generally understood that federal employees accept a lower salary in exchange for career stability. If a career as a federal employee now has higher risk then at least some people will be expecting a higher salary.

I think that incentive is part of the problem. Federal employees should get paid more with a reasonable expectation of being fired. The amount of people I know in government positions who give 0 consideration to the quality of their work because they know they won’t be fired astounds me.

None of these people were let go because of the quality of their work. What incentive would they have to do their job well if their continued employment is not based on merit?

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

#627

Post by cynicalpeace »

sour-taste wrote: post #2

This is LITERALLY the twitter layoffs playing out again. They fired people who had credentials and other things they needed so had to hire them back. Everything else aside why repeat the same mistakes? Just go a little slower and give agencies time to compile accurate lists of necessary employees

It worked with twitter though. The site did not implode like all the naysayers predicted, it's at least as good, if not better than it was, just going off of usage statistics.

This is basically 0 based budgeting, where you get rid of everything and then only add back what you deem to be absolutely necessary. I expect good results.

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

#628

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #315
enraged_camel wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes they did? Is this a joke? Or have you not been following the UK’s descent into poverty and irrelevance?

The UK’s GDP per capita trajectory diverged around the end of the Great Recession. That was before the Brexit vote (2016) and long before the actual Brexit (2020). France and Italy have been stuck in more or less the same doldrums since the same time: https://datacommons.org/place/country/FRA?utm_medium=explore...

[deleted]

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

#629

Post by [deleted] »

grandempire wrote: post #612
lgdiva wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can explain how firing the nuclear experts isn't utterly stupid, I'm all ears, bucko.

If you think this decision is dumb, that’s ok. The implication here is that people vote for trump because they are stupid. Which is a political non-starter. If you can’t explain what they think in words they would agree with, you just don’t understand them. But sure I’ll try to take the other side. Is every person in an organization associated with the word “nuclear” essential? Will nations start blowing up if a sing…

[deleted]

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

#630

Post by suzzer99 »

grandempire wrote: post #298
suzzer99 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we are a profoundly stupid nation.

“They are my enemies because they are evil and stupid” is why we are here a second time.

I'll give the people deep in the cult a pass. I'm more thinking about the normies who saw Jan 6th, saw Trump repeatedly say Covid was going away with one or two cases, saw Trump lie about the election being stolen, saw 90% of campaign ads be nothing but attacking immigrants and trans people, and saw a million other things--and said, "Yes please, give me more of that."

That takes a level of willful ignorance I can't comprehend.

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