Have the LANL and LLNL for-profit contractors, improved or undermined diversity efforts compared to UC/LANL or UC/LLNL?
Tri-Valley Cares needs to be on this if they aren't already. We need to make sure that NNSA and LLNL does not make good on promises to pursue such stupid ideas as doing Plutonium experiments on NIF. The stupidity arises from the fact that a huge population is placed at risk in the short and long term. Why do this kind of experiment in a heavily populated area? Only a moron would push that kind of imbecile area. Do it somewhere else in the god forsaken hills of Los Alamos. Why should the communities in the Bay Area be subjected to such increased risk just because the lab's NIF has failed twice and is trying the Hail Mary pass of doing an SNM experiment just to justify their existence? Those Laser EoS techniques and the people analyzing the raw data are all just BAD anyways. You know what comes next after they do the experiment. They'll figure out that they need larger samples. More risk for the local population. Stop this imbecilic pursuit. They wan...
Comments
The better question is.
Have the LANL and LLNL for-profit contractors, improved or undermined capabilities compared to UC/LANL or UC/LLNL?
Diversity is our strength!!!
I agree. It's good to have goals. Follow through however, can be problematic.
Diversity awareness talking points can be very beneficial to appointed diversity "poster children" (those that are too often literally bought off), or essentially have guaranteed career long diversity "tickets to the show".
In contrast, diversity awareness can be very devastating to ones career to those who openly and sincerely speak out about diversity career inequalities. This is how the game is played. Understand the rules and proceed accordingly.
I saw the Expanding Horizons outreach begin and that was certainly before the contract change. More minorities were hiring onto the lab than what were present when I started. That is probably a combination of more minorities getting into the scientific and technical fields and the lab having an incentive to hire them, both before and after the contract change.
For the most part in my career I saw qualified folks from the minority population. I saw a few idiots, but I can say the same for male WASP folks as well. I saw phony public relations stuff both before and after the contract change.
5/30/2020 8:42 AM asked had the greater emphasis on diversity had a negative effect on the mission. That is a question that can't be answered unless you can show that more qualified people were passed over in many instances.
5/31/2020 4:10 PM
A bit of understatement.
5/31/2020 6:26 PM"
That was not my point. The point I was making that the for profit model was probably bad for everything, diversity included. I would imagine that UC would actually be much better for diversity since the universities are generally more progressive and motived by other things beyond profit, things like excellence, diversity, science and so on. Bechtel is motived by money and influence.
Now it could be argued that Bechtel would make a claim of doing diversity while not doing anything but the portion of Livermore I worked at was thankfully not being driven by Bechtel and I saw diversity fully in practice. The idea of profit vs non-profit being the difference is not the driving force, it is WHO is running the show. Do remember that UC is part of the for profit organization and supposedly THEY are the majority "owner" in the new regime. If you want to make the claim that UC lost its moral compass when they became part of the for profit team, so be it. In my experience at Livermore I didn't see that problem. I did see UC let Bechtel ruin Plant Engineering but that was regardless of race, creed or color. They foul everything.
Very truthful!!!
Diversity at LANL is apparent. Advance opportunities are biased and many are given
to those who can be manageable. Because yes if your opinion differs from that of your
manager you become a persona non-grata. Requirements for promotions are applied in full
to some while to others management ignores the requirements. The same goes for employment
is mostly based on who do you know not what do you know and that goes either for
regular employees and students.
to those who can be manageable. Because yes if your opinion differs from that of your
manager you become a persona non-grata. Requirements for promotions are applied in full
to some while to others management ignores the requirements. The same goes for employment
is mostly based on who do you know not what do you know and that goes either for
regular employees and students.
6/05/2020 7:55 AM"
This is correct but in many ways the system is fair. There are a clear set of rules for success. These rules are not the same rules found in most other places in the real world but they are our rules and they are applied fairly. Anyone can have the same opinion as their managers, anyone can go out and get to know the right people. These are the skills you need and hone. If you are dumb enough to think technical skills are useful that is on you. The opportunity to succeed is up to you. If you don't like the rules you can leave and find some other place more to your licking.
6/05/2020 11:32 AM
Interesting slip of the thumb.
to those who can be manageable."
Unfortunately true. So basically, the technical management of the labs are run by the white ex-military and their hand picked obedient diversity managers that are "manageable". That about sums it up.
6/06/2020 5:15 PM"
Way overthinking it. Look all these problems could be solved by testing or by really getting ready for actual test. In these cases technical merit will be what matters or what will matter going forward after the test is done. They will want people how can do the jobs regardless of being buddies, sex, age, who you like to date, region, creed, hair color, and so on. At least in principle. Right now there is simply no way to measure whether the labs are healthy or not. We could try scientific productivity but you get cries that we are not a university and scientists suck. We could try other things like competency tests but people will freak out about that saying that test suck or something. There are many things we could try but someone will find problem with all of it. LANL/LLNL is just another fat deep state organization that hides in darkness. Such organizations played a role at some point like during the cold war but now what do they do other than exist to protect themselves? Unless a system is changed in some way it decays.
Can we have a blog rule that if it isn't relevant to the LLNL/LANL or NNSA mission, it gets deleted?
This person expresses their opinions as a "Karen" (although likely a white male), that just can't accept other "skin color and genitalia" beyond his own clear past and current privileges.
I sense that you are not comfortable with what you are seeing. This is a good thing because you see your unearned power slipping way as society moves to become fair and equitable. You do not want to compete in world where your unearned privilege no longer exists. You have thought yourself as patriotic supporting a system of oppression not just for the people of the United States but the world as a whole. How many nations has the US used as pawns to enforce its power? The world is changing and changing for the better, sure the quality of life for the few like you will decline and you will a small taste of how much of the world feels. On the bright side the world will slowly improve. Like or not part of NNSA mission has always been about keeping power for certain groups so yes all these posts that you find so distributing are relevant, now more than ever.
Hey, I earned my power and privilege by very long and hard work. What else is hard work for? What did you do to earn what you want?
False your privilege was unearned and given to you at birth. From this unearned privilege you than attained power. You power was not earned and that is why you abuse it.
You never had to worry about being killed unjustly by the police, you never had to be followed when you went into a store, you never had to defend yourself against crime because you knew that calling the police was not option for you. You have no idea what life is like for people without privilege. It is time for you to sit down and shut up and listen. Other people also have worked had but are denied any benefit, others simply give up early knowing that there is no point.
6/07/2020 6:28 PM
No I just don't think it is relevant to nuclear weapons production. Its really that simple.