Actual post from Dec. 15 from one of the streams. This is a real topic. As far as promoting women and minorities even if their qualifications are not as good as the white male scientists, I am all for it. We need diversity at the lab and if that is what it takes, so be it. Quit your whining. Look around the lab, what do you see? White male geezers. How many African Americans do you see at the lab? Virtually none. LLNL is one of the MOST undiverse places you will see. Face it folks, LLNL is an institution of white male privilege and they don't want to give up their privileged positions. California, a state of majority Hispanics has the "crown jewel" LLNL nestled in the middle of it with very FEW Hispanics at all!
Comments
6/24/2021 5:32 PM
You see, the labs work on nukes. Biden was essentially saying that his administration would use nukes to stop an insurrection. We had an insurrection already. This sounds like an issue that that is relevant to the labs. One of course could say that Biden was not serious and exaggerating this for effect. One thing for sure is that if Trump had said the same thing there would be weeks of this all over the NYT, CNN, MSNBC and so on, going on about how Trump was either crazy or a Fascist for saying something so crazy and unpresidential, and no other President would ever say such thing.
More to the point the labs are and have always been at the forefront of politics. Like or not when Presedents make this statements it can be relevant to the labs.
It is odd that so much money is being spent on DOE labs that ensure the stockpile. The only real threat that we could use nuclear weapons is from Russia who hacked our election in 2016. The biggest threat to the US right now is right wing domestic terrorists and white supremists. The FBI and homeland defense even came out and said this. Biden is right but realistically we cannot use nuclear weapons against them. The real issue is then are we spending way to much money on nuclear weapons instead of using that money to fight a real threat which is the portion of the American people that are dangerous. The labs should be retooled to start fighting domestic terror. This is information, educational and political war. I do not think that our the founders of the nation envisioned just how dangerous aspects of freedom of speech could be because they did not know that that something called the internet would arrises which would allow anyone no matter how dumb or bigoted to find information to confirm their point of view.
The founders not only envisioned free speech being repressed, the saw it as the first order of the day to ensure that the government did not do it.
So dumb or bigoted people are not allowed to express their opinion? And who is the arbiter to say who is dumb and bigoted? You? Me?
And how should the labs be retooled to fight domestic terrorism? Micro-Nukes, and who decides the target, and surly those are political decisions depending on who is in charge. Once again, is that You or Me?
In case you did not remember we come to the very edge to losing the entire nation on Jan 6, during the insurrection and coup attempt that was fueled by false information on the internet, conspiracy theories and the so called free speech people. It was almost by dumb luck that they did succeed with their plans. Do you you have any doubt that if they had succeeded it would have led to millions dead and concentration camps?
Freedom of speech should not be an excuse to allow for out and out lies to be propagated. Who decides you ask, well we should use some common sense it should be educated people, non-bigoted, people who are not getting false information. If we allow for technology to be used freely for anyone no matter how stupid or bigoted to get information or communicate with with others than we will just have another insurrection that could succeed next time. That is what we risk, it is time to rethink freedom of speech in the age of mass communication.
Yes the labs can help, it is not juts nukes. I am saying we need to reduce the funding for nukes and use that money to better control the internet, track dangerous people, detect hate speech, facial recognition, and how to identity people who should not have access to the internet. If such thing could be done that they could have arrested the insurrectionists before they even organized their coup attempt.
6/26/2021 5:08 PM
Everyone from 1945 on has understood that nuclear weapons are not there to be "used." Your outlook is juvenile at best, dangerously naive at worst.
The 21st century version of tatooed arms and yellow stars.
As to the coup attempt, they didn't bring any of those nasty AR-15's which fire 1000 rounds per second, they knew they really needed F15's and Tactical Nukes. They didn't bring firebombs or pitchforks either. But it was really close, Nancy Pelosi had a laptop stolen.
They had bear spray and hand restraints. They killed a police officer, many others died. Many people where afraid for the lives.
Enough with the hyperbole. An unarmed rabble led by a guy dressed as a shaman had exactly zero chance of “taking the entire nation.” Just like the insurrectionists in Seattle have exactly zero chance of taking the rest of the city, state, or nation.
Politicians on both sides are gaslighting the issue, and Biden invoking nuclear weapons is the same — although that particular bit of blarney threatening US citizens crosses a red line with any responsible member of the national nuclear security enterprise.
6/27/2021 10:53 PM
Wrong on both counts. Do you actually understand anything? Or just listen to your favorite partisan "news" source?