US wants to un-fire nuclear safety workers can't figure out how to reach them | Hacker News Reader

US wants to un-fire nuclear safety workers can't figure out how to reach them

nbcnews.com

146 pointsbelter78 comments

Geez, it's almost like Russia handed them a priority checklist of organizations that needed to go toothless as soon as possible. CIA influence in Europe, aid to Ukraine, nuclear strike capability...

This is all according to Aleksandr Dugin's playbook for russian supremacy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

elon musk literally cut off 80% twitter employees at 2022, he literally doing the same thing

while he think he can get away with twitter and some left over engineer manage to keep SLA in check

but for an entire federal employee in 1 country???? too much complexity for that

And flagged within seconds on HN...

It blows my mind how quickly everything even remotely critical of the trump administration gets flagged since they've taken office. While I'd expect some to get flagged, the speed and throughoutness of it is really unusual for HN.

I'm not American so the discussions were always interesting to read for me - but this time around, every thread I click on is dead by the time I see it. Never been like that since I've started frequenting HN in 2012

Conspiracy to me but it seems like coordinated flagging.

I've noticed on a local US subreddit any political action or protest is immediately swarmed by people criticizing it or calling it useless. The comments might end up down voted but the level of engagement far exceeds a typical thread.

Then looking through their comment history they're doing it across many other city subreddit. No trend of them being an active participant in any one location.

People have pointed out they flag politics here because it violates the rules. Simple as that

There won't be a "here" anymore because of the politics, at least not a recognizable here. That's the absurdity of trying to ignore the 800 lbs. gorilla in the room when he's bashing your head in. Sometimes, the rules need to change to adapt with unusual times. Because silence gives consent.

I don’t understand your comment and the new user status makes it suspect.

Either way, it’s against the rules. Discuss politics on Reddit they say, not here

Politics has been discussed here for as long as I can remember.

And I’ve been a member for a pretty long time now.

I don’t say that it doesn’t happen (it is right now). I said it’s against the rules and that’s why the flags happen

On HN we discuss tech, which was mostly apolitical until Elon decided to make it very political. So yeah, politics is now in. I don't like it either, but you'll have to take it up with him. Flag all you want, it's not going away until that situation changes.

Technology was never apolitical.

Silicon Valley sprung up from the military industrial complex.

One of Tesla’s main driving forces was to ease the burden of the common man.

I said “mostly” , and that was a different era.

The military-industrial complex is well supported by both parties (sadly) so not really a “political issue” in today’s sense.

everything is politics

Sure, but the US president and his latest asinine crusade is more political than the 3D printed robot arm that's a few links ahead of this one currently

It's a gradient, where everyone has an individually-set line, I won't disagree with you there. Some things cross a majority of people's line though, and other topics do not

Yeah, that's BS. Which rule specifically is this post violating?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I didn’t flag I’m just addressing the comments

There's so many prolific posters here debating the same simple facts over and over, pointing out they don't care about a discussion without contributing any of it. But surely all that weird stuff we see cannot possibly ever influence flagging, because the people who state their motivations for flagging are the only people who flag. If anyone did anything fishy they'd just say it, obviously.

You cannot "point out" an internal motivation anyway, you can only claim it. At this point, the question "why should I believe you?" seems an appropriate response, since not a single one of them I've seen could explain why why they don't click "hide" instead of "flag". Or allow people to opt-in to a view that ignores flags. Can you?

And hey, there's a link in the footer of every page to something that mentions Musk of a group of "the world’s top AI experts", to garner interest in a "100% free conference and every attendee is hand-picked." But that has nothing to do with anything, either.

I'd say some people bank on fascism winning but also don't want to be seen in case fascism doesn't win. Trapped between two kinds cowardice. Simple as that.

much handwringing and I have no idea what your point is? There’s guidelines and people flag when they think it violates the guidelines? I did t flag but am just sharing what I’ve seen. If you don’t like the guidelines, send your political monologue to the mods and see if they care

> send your political monologue to the mods and see if they care

I already did, they also got nothing ^^

you disproved your own point. Congratulations

Nah. Politics happily stays when it comes to promotion of home schooling and what not.

> Geez, it's almost like Russia handed them a priority checklist of organizations that needed to go toothless as soon as possible. CIA influence in Europe, aid to Ukraine, nuclear strike capability...

Trump and Musk have a penchant for Alpha men - Putin and Xi. Have you ever heard them talk against any of them? There was minor criticism of Xi from T during COVID-19 though, but that's it. Whatever they are doing is very strategic! First they wiped off all the credibility of the media and during that process - bought conservative political YouTuber commentators to get the Stag votes. Now, pick any YouTube video about Trump or republicans, it almost has all the positive comments about them; Meta has mixed though now, before swearing-in, it was all positive though there as well.

They could have taken a methodical approach to federal purge, not sure what's the rush. Whatever they are doing, it has all the ingredients to start a civil war. It's not going to end well.

It's possible that the Dems will get a backbone and shut down the government in March when the budget needs renewing. That's why I think the rush is on.

Firing an employee and then begging them to come back because of how essential they are? Art of the deal.

Also, completely expected: it all happened already at Twitter. I’d have hoped that they would be a bit more careful with nuclear safety, though.

I think that's basically the Elon playbook. He did it with the supercharger team as well at Tesla.

He did it at Twitter also

"If you don't find yourself in need to add back at least 20% of what you removed, you didn't remove enough". Elon's word. Sounds like an excellent engineering principle, with some caveats of course.

> excellent engineering principle

Imagine structural engineer thinking like this.

I talked to a McDonnell Aircraft structural engineer in the 80s. He said something like Old Man McDonnel told us to design for a 0.85 factor of safety on the F101. If anything broke during testing, we'd redesign it.

I'm not sure if that was how it really worked out.

I'm looking forward to Elon applying the same strategy to aviation. I wonder how many crashes it'll take for him to realize that this is a horrible engineering principle?

That's as much as an "engineering principle" as him thinking minimum character level of an item is more important than the actual attributes of the item in PoE2. He's just saying stuff his target audience thinks are smart, and whenever checked on it he lashes out. He's got nothing.

> Sounds like an excellent engineering principle

Then you are wildly mistaken about the field of engineering.

Imagine needing to add back 20% to a bridge because you removed too much, or a rocket ship, or a team of nuclear scientists (like is actually the case here).

> Firing an employee and then begging them to come back because of how essential they are?

Typical Elon style - Fired entire Supercharger team, then hired right back. Maybe for PR. Same stunt with Tesla stores and Twitter. He fired Twitter's 80% team is a lie.

I wonder if the former employees' salary expectations have changed.

Too bad it wasn't Tony Schwartz, the actual author of that book, that was elected.

I once got let go from a company, and then, 2 weeks later, they offered to re-hire me. They acted like they were doing me a favor, boasting that they'd even pay me the same salary. I declined, as I was planning on quitting anyway. Then, a few days later they sent me a threatening letter, claiming I stole company proprietary data, and they were gonna report the situation to the district attorney if I didn't contact them. I didn't respond and never heard from them again. I heard from former colleagues that no one knew the admin passwords for their critical systems except me. That's true. I told management, over and over, that the whole sysadmin operation revolved around me, which was doomed to fail. That's actually why I was planning on quitting. Oh yeah, when they let me go, I offered to stay on for a short time to cascade to whoever was gonna replace me. They declined and rushed me out the door.

Impeccable job guys. Move fast, break things, nuclear edition.

The missing Duke Nukem xpack

This is one of those clueless new executive who thinks he knows better than everyone type situations.

Except for nuclear security.

Probably they just read "safety" and thought this is one of these things they are supposed to cut down.

The administration claimed that the first year or two of employment is part of the "application process." We all know that's nonsense. A generation of skilled workers is learning to distrust and avoid government service at all costs, precisely the people government should want to attract. Wrong move, DOGE bros.

The goal of DOGE is to dismantle the Federal government, so they consider the loss of trust a feature, not a bug.

Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43055119

How does this shape employment sentiment in the US? Has there been any change in how people behave at workplace as result of mass layoffs?

The beatings will continue until morale improves!

They can hire Homer Simpson.

>> that speed has resulted in complications, including firing people agencies actually want to keep.

No shit, Sherlock. If the agencies didn't want to keep them they wouldn't be there.

Also, 'probationary' employees are most likely to be new hires, which the agency has actively invested time and money into recruiting and hiring.

They are probably also younger and have more voting years ahead of them :)

I saw on linkedin a federal nuclear safety engineer was looking for work. Good job government.

Just got someone on LinkedIn asking to connect from one of these national labs with their status set to Looking for Work. Had a sinking feeling, saw the story online, looked for the articles here, didn't see any, then searched and found they were all (like the current one) flagged and hidden.

With friends like these we don’t need enemies.

Is the US basically defenseless at this moment in time from a nuclear attack?

Graebers “bullshit jobs” books feels so relevant right now

Not because he’d say that the nuclear safety officers are the bullshit jobs, but the ones who fired and then unable to rehire them are

Really worth a read (or listen!)

I love being on Reddit

Why is this propaganda on hacker news?

Your comment adds nothing to this discussion! Perhaps you shluld read up on the site's posting guidelines.

It violates the guidelines as off-topic.

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I mean, civil nuclear is the main topic that drew me to HN (that and cybersec), isn't this about civil nuclear safety? Or did I misread the article? Also, it reads like a Dilbert strip, which is pretty much on-tone with HN.

No, this isn't about civil nuclear safety. This is about the safety of nuclear weapons.

The would suggest it is even more important a topic, no?

calling propaganda spam propaganda is against site posting guidelines?

How is this propaganda? Please explain. The story is factual about what the government is doing and comes from a reputable source, corroborated by other journalists.

Strictly speaking anything can be demonized as propaganda by people that don't want to hear it. I don't love or hate Musk but this seems like a perfectly level-headed assessment of the issues with spending cuts at a federal level.

Can you add content to your claim?

As a non-American, what's wrong about that article?

Because it violates the guidelines?

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I find it very interesting that oversight of nuclear power and weapons was gutted without thought. That's a serious public interest story.

Try letting go of partisan emotions and viewing it in a non partisan light.

well, lets see. These events are previously unheard of, and therefore "new", and a "phenomenon" due to their significant impact, which therefore makes them "interesting".

So yeah, it fits.

thanks to Musk, there's about one of these every day, thus the number of HN posts

Is being against the rules propaganda now?

So the biden administration had no way to contact them except by showing up at their job? lol

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