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!
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The labs have largely avoided this stuff and does the standard virtue signaling but there is very little effect on the workers. The only thing I hear is that unqualified people are promoted to managers and when it is a women they claim they only go the job because they are a women. I do not buy this since we generally always have bad managers and the women seem to about the same as them men. Take the LLNL director, she is certainly better than some of our recent past lab directors both in qualifications and outcome.
In general I think the labs have done pretty well in the wok department, we do not have mandatory month long trainings, people are being fired by the truck load for having an American flag on their doors, I do not see people starting off talks with land acknowledgments. There are some talks but these are voluntary in terms of attendance.
“Little effect on the workers”, yes, by failing lab workers most of the time, and in some cases to be frank, just outright selling them out.
LLNS and UC/LLNL used to have full time “diversity managers”, primarily to virtue signal, interface with the OFCCP, talk up their toothless AAP, make huge salaries, and became more and more disconnected from the lab employees they claimed to ensure would get a fair shake.
A contractor that has a full time “diversity manager” is analogous to a used car company that has a full time “honesty manager”. Nice PR, but otherwise accomplishing very little in terms of root causes and solutions.
This suggests multi-source anonymous information sent outside to officials (around LLNL?) like DOE, DOE IG, or others with DOE oversight, meant LLNL could not smooth over this very obvious security clearance employee violation.
As posted all over LLNL
DOE IG “hotline”:
Toll free: (800) 541-1625
E-MAIL
ighotline@hq.doe.gov
Sen. John Barrasso stated, “The Department’s inability to respond to my concerns regarding the DOE’s clearance process is indicative of an egregious inattention to potential insider threats within the Department and the greater safety of the American public”.
Sexual behavior, in reference to the “sleazy” comment, is not typically a cause of clearance denial or clearance suspension unless it involves an undisclosed extramarital affair OR, or if the subject went to “great lengths” to conceal the sexual behavior.
“Great lengths” could be sneaky behavior, alibis regarding one’s whereabouts, or threatening coworkers or others to keep quiet about their sexual behavior. Not cool.
That would be the fox guarding the hen house
Or the fox upper echelon guarding the fox pup from straying.
I would assume, that the current atmosphere is just too intolerant to promote diversity and a good workplace, that attracts talented applicants.
Not really. Workplace “inclusiveness” to be sustained and embraced, must also include inclusiveness in workplace conduct consequence. Double standards for workplace conduct take us backwards, and can create entitled and consequence immune predators. You don’t ever want your wife, sister, or daughter, working for a lab manager immune from their conduct toward subordinates. I hope we can agree on this point.
Also a lot of the security has become nonsensical, as it would be far easier for a terrorist to create a bioweapon than to somehow engage in nuclear terrorism. Even in WWII Japan's unit 731 killed far more than the nuclear attacks, I would point out. Our funding to the Wuhan lab (which was alleged but not proven to have created the COVID pandemic) was through a fly-by-night startup company Eco Health Alliance, and was in the millions of dollars -- not billions or trillions. It would have been of course, even cheaper to perform the research without even a pretense of the proper precautions or security, and so on.
I do think, the labs could attract a more diverse workforce, by overlooking issues relating to sex and drugs, and through a reduction in security to take into account, the actual fact that much more dangerous WMD are now quite easy to create, and the information regarding this is not regulated.
As you've pointed out, there could be a potential issue relating to conduct towards subordinates, but with less security and more openness, these concerns would naturally diminish. And money would be spent more efficiently, enhancing national security, and the labs would be more in tune with trends in society, towards an increase in individuality and freedom, and against following legal restrictions on that.
Further deregulation and privatization, could allow the national labs to pay top dollar for talent, hiring people of Nobel laureate character, or top AI talent from silicon valley, further contributing of course to national security, by creating positions where various shortcomings would be overlooked, this would of course be easy to arrange since universities have become highly politicized.
The best way of course, to reduce the nuclear danger to our population, is through effective civil defense, and this should become a primary mission of the lab, to educate the public, and build an effective program for the future when nuclear war is perhaps all but certain.
Impressive and professional slow motion pivot from the topic question. Very well done though, but a red herring nevertheless.
7/12/2023 6:48 AM
Don't you agree that scientists need more funding, more scientific freedom, and more respect in general? The problems with particular scientists being treated bad, subordinates or whatever, is simply but a part of the problem that all scientists are treated badly. That is, everyone is treated badly in the United States, compared to places like Europe, and in particular intelligent people are looked down upon unless they also have money or a prestigious position.
A lot of our industries have been hollowed out, for example Intel or Boeing versus foreign competitors, have fallen behind, our nuclear industry has fallen far behind the Russian Rosatom, and Elon Musk's exploding rocket is a copy of the failed Soviet N1 moon rocket. Meanwhile China leads in electric vehicle production and Green energy, and the US life expectancy lags behind all developed countries, and many parts of Latin America.
Scientists of course, are censored and fired for having their own opinions, and there would be little reason to pursue a scientific career when machines will soon exceed human intelligence and productivity, especially in an atmosphere where humans are already treated with such little respect.
What does any of this rant have to do with LANL and LLNL.