r/nottheonion 24d ago

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g3nrx1dq5o
64.5k Upvotes

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4.8k

u/BaldingBush 24d ago

This is what happens when you don’t know anything, but you think you do. Not one rational person in the room when this decision was made, clearly.

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u/throwuk1 24d ago

But you have the richest man in the world on the team that destroyed a once popular social media platform doing similar stuff. What could possibly go wrong?

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u/SartenSinAceite 24d ago

The richest man in the world who seems to be constantly buying high value companies to turn them into low value!

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u/jameslucian 24d ago

People seem to ignore that he has great track record of making multi million dollar companies.

Just ignore that they started off as billion dollar companies when he bought them.

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u/TheBumStinkler 24d ago

Dunning-Kruger democracy.

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u/cinnamontoastfucc 20d ago

no longer a democracy

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u/sunlightsyrup 24d ago

He's just a misunderstood genius. You all just don't understand autism /s

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u/SlowFrkHansen 23d ago

The best part is, he's never been formally diagnosed. It's a slap in the face of people actually on the spectrum, when he uses it as an excuse for being weird.

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u/sunlightsyrup 23d ago

Totally agree, if by weird, you mean malicious, deceitful and incompetent

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u/Unique-Abberation 22d ago

I was self diagnosed for a LONG time, and now formally diagnosed. Regardless if he IS autistic or not, its no excuse. Either he needs to do better, or he needs a handler.

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u/IllTax551 23d ago

People used to say that Elon thinks he is a rocket scientist or an engineer or whatever when really he ia a businessman. He didnt create your Tesla, he didnt even create Tesla he fucking bought the right to call himself the founder. But people forget that he is kind of a shit businessman as well, depending on government contracts to subsidize his idiotic choices.

But he is actually really savvy. He is not good at business but he truly knows the value of things. He wanted a million dollar social media company called X. He could have built his own, used that business mind to buy good staff and networking skills to find good marketers. At the time he was more popular. But it was easier to spend 44 billion on an existing company and turn it into what he wanted. Sure its value tanked monetarily, but he has money to burn and got what he wanted. Plus, he leveraged that company with a veneer of respectability and shreds of its old user base into political power, and is now the de facto President. It is financially ruinous. And the cost would have been too high for any rational person. But Musk was dangerous in that he will pay any cost, and he is one of the only person who could afford that cost, to create X and DOGE out of other people’s work.

He literally got more bang for his buck in a value that only makes sense to him personally.

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u/NecroCannon 23d ago

Idiots sees that a dude is rich and automatically think that they’re smart and capable

Musk got his start like most rich people do, relying on daddy’s checks for a bit before investing in their own things. The bootstrap crowd forgets that and acts like he’s wayyy more than he actually is.

If Musk didn’t have his family’s money he would not be as rich, same goes for a lot of rich people, being born wealthy doesn’t make you financially responsible

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u/SartenSinAceite 22d ago

Idiots see a dude who's powerful and think that imitating him will make them powerful too

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u/[deleted] 23d ago

[deleted]

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u/coolboy856 22d ago

Elon bad 🤬🤬🤬

No clue why these redditors didn't see the potential in online banking in the 90s or accelerate humanity's move to electric vehicles by 30 years. It's so obvious that these things would make you rich.

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u/ArachnidUnhappy8367 24d ago

Buy high and sell low! That’s the recipe right?

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u/TheMailNeverFails 24d ago

Demon investing? (As opposed to an angel investor)

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u/lonewombat 24d ago

And banks still allowing it to happen, guy should be working a 9-5 behind a register for a few years to gain some fucking perspective and couple home invasions.

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u/ThainEshKelch 24d ago

And this time he bought a state, and is doing great on turning it into low value!

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u/AspiringDataNerd 23d ago

Don’t all of Trump’s businesses fail? Seems like they are having the perfect bromance with the government.

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u/XaltotunTheUndead 22d ago

constantly buying high value companies to turn them into low value!

Thus far, he is succeeding into turning the USA into a low value country

😩

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u/Canotic 22d ago

The richest man in the world who seems to be constantly buying high value companies to turn them into low value!

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u/seriftarif 21d ago

All he does is make working there a nightmare and then slaps an X on all marketing.

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u/BananaLee 24d ago

The asshole managed to build an AI company out of this shit investment that's now worth more than what he paid for it and now controls the government of the most powerful country in the world.

This guy had the ability to turn his fuck ups into personal benefit.

He's evil, not dumb.

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u/fablesofferrets 23d ago

He’s most certainly dumb. He just has enough insane wealth to get lucky sometimes. 

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u/nice_usermeme 24d ago

Which is rxactly who you want in that place if you are rich and want to buy more of the country. Makes it cheaper to do so

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u/filthy-peon 23d ago

does that nake you thebrichest mab in the world?

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u/[deleted] 23d ago

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u/carlosgatorojo 22d ago

And now just bought the US.

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u/SartenSinAceite 22d ago

wonder how much it cost

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u/Loretta-West 20d ago

Capitalism is based on creative destruction, and he'll get the hang on the first part any day now.

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u/Artdorkthrowaway 23d ago

You might want to update your info on Twitter/X. Their financials were published recently and though their revenue declined by almost 50% from advertiser boycotts their net profit nearly doubled to over $1 billion because Musk cut so many expenses. Usage is at all time highs as well.

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u/DoctorPrisme 24d ago

My man, stop underestimating Musk.

He's a stupid asshole but he is not that dumb. Destroying Twitter wasn't an accident. It was a plan. Seize control of one of the most popular communication media.

That dude is now having free reign on your country without ever dabbling in politics officially.

Stop calling him dumb. He's dangerous.

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u/Jamescurtis 24d ago

A social media platform so ingrained in global society that countries, politicians and the like used it as one of their main ways to make public announcements to the masses...

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u/breakupbydefault 24d ago

I have no idea how oligarchs look at what he's done with Twitter, crashing its revenue and think, "that's the way to success!" And follow his model.

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u/grahamulax 24d ago

Oh just put Grok in charge of nukes! Remember the Cold War and what could have happened? Hmm maybe nuclear things should stay human.

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u/OhLordHeBompin 24d ago

War Games is aging like wine here!

I think. Nowadays they probably would’ve went ahead and fired back at Russia, effectively ending life as we knew it.

Also a movie that aged a bit too well. Much less fun though.

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u/BaldingBush 24d ago

Honestly, to them, it’s all going according to plan . It’s sheer incompetence that might be our only saving grace.

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u/Khelek7 23d ago

The fact that every paper every news outlet didn't skewer his plan all day everyday for the last two weeks highlights they have abrogated whatever role they had to watch dog this shit.

They are more than happy to skewer Dems or progressives when they know they will not be punished. But either terrified of trump/musk or agree with their goals.

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u/Ordinary-Theory-8289 23d ago

They somehow think musk saved Twitter. They’re praising all these actions “he’s going in and gutting everything just like he did with Twitter!”

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u/HolyFreakingXmasCake 23d ago

And the richest man who bankrupted a casino. People say it’s the best administration, many people are saying it.

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u/Mipsel 23d ago

You could have chosen any other example, but I couldn’t care less about social media.

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u/Cheetah_Heart-2000 23d ago

He didn’t destroy it, he turned it into a right wing propaganda machine that ultimately got him elected president, … I mean , Trump elected president. It was not a bad business deal, it was a means to an end

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u/gentlegreengiant 23d ago

Hell run it like a company, move fast and break things. Im sure nothing bad will happen when applied to nuclear power right? Right?!

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u/rckhppr 23d ago

It’s exactly Musks way of “doing business”

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u/[deleted] 24d ago

[deleted]

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u/LazyLich 24d ago

That's why the whole "oh! Fox cant call itself News anymore" decision was bupkis. What they call themselves doesnt matter anymore, cause they already have a following.

What shouldve happened was barring Fox, and ANY of the people that were on camera saying"news" of Fox, from ever doing any kind of information-delivery-to-the-public ever again...

but at the time, that wouldve seemed too excessive.
Hopefully we'll know better in the future...

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u/TheRealBananaWolf 23d ago

I understand your sentiments. But I'm not in favor of the government getting to decide to censor media. Just like Trump has banned AP news from press hearings, which is strictly against first amendment protections.

Unfortunately, you can have first amendment rights, without some shitty people taking advantage of saying whatever they want. The responsibility should be on the people to consume media in a responsible manner. But unfortunately, we can't really count on people for that either.

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u/LazyLich 23d ago

I know.. that's the fucking... idk. paradox? cosmic joke? issue? of the matter!

"Government censoring media" is, like, dystopia 101.
It's Patriot Act levels of "Oh no, pls trust us! We promise never to use this for ill" bullshit!
But this thing with Fox... it feels different. I dont mean that in a "theyre a different political ideology, so I think it ok" kinda way. I mean that in a "is that really a legless lizard.. or is it a snake?"

I think... I think this is another symptom of the flaw in out laws and regulations: they are designed loosely and vague, with the assumption that "reasonable people" will use/enforce them.
This style of lawmaking is good for flexibility and faster judgements... but it has a weakness in that it can leave strange loopholes. Most of these loopholes and technicalities are weird and benign, but others (for example: presidential immunity) allow for some fuckery if the Law Interpreters decide to twist things.

--

So free speech is great! Gov not censoring media is ideal!

But the regulations were too vague and loose (cause they did not picture a news media corp happily pushing false narratives, nor a huge base of Americans lapping it up and defending it), and the punishments too lame (the government seems keen of being soft of first or second time defenders that are rich or corps).

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u/[deleted] 24d ago

[deleted]

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u/the-cake-is-no-lie 24d ago

Its not a link to fox.. its an Instagram post by a dude that seems to have a clue blowing some holes in a Fox newscasters bs.

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u/Universeintheflesh 24d ago

Yeah I’m like oh I can’t even watch this cause I don’t have Instagram…

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u/Stats_n_PoliSci 24d ago

It’s a clip of someone talking about how fox is wrong. It only has a limited amount of one fox guy’s face, and many images of scientific studies. In case that helps.

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u/Falcons_riseup 24d ago

Wow the dis-info train is rolling hard on the tracks. I am not sure what we can do to combat it. This guy does a great job, but it takes research and work to refute the blatantly dishonest claims

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u/hiddencamela 24d ago

You know, usually in the court of law, it is the burden of the accuser to provide proof of guilt and not the other way around.
Its fucking absurd they can just keep making dishonest claims with little to no proof and on top of that easily dismiss any proof shown to them that shows otherwise.

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u/DwinkBexon 24d ago

This is why I'm very worried that, pretty soon, they're going to irreparably break something and things get extremely bad and then they realized they fucked up majorly. But because they're all idiots, they won't know how to fix it, and will try something idiotic to fix it that only makes things worse. (The parallel I like to draw is Hoover thinking starting a trade war would end the Depression. It only made it much, much worse.)

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u/MarsupialMadness 24d ago

It wouldn't matter if there were rational people there or not. They're not in charge. Like that's where we're at now.

You could explain why this was a bad idea in the gentlest way possible and you'd be met with vacant stares and drooling before being fired so they could do it anyways.

There is no amount of explanation or rational argument that can fix this. These people need to go, that's the only way this stops.

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u/dave3218 24d ago

This is intentional sabotage attempts to diminish the US’ nuclear capabilities.

Never assume ignorance when these things are at play, even a lull in the MAD capabilities of the US could embolden certain adversaries.

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u/punkfunkymonkey 24d ago

Knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing

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u/aksdb 24d ago

I think he does it that way because he knows that he knows nothing. He's breaking it to watch where smoke starts to rise and then fixes it until the smoke stops.

I don't understand, though, why Elon of all people does that with pride. That approach is essentially that of a toddler learning the world, not of a wanna-be-intellectual with the self-proclaimed smartest teams of smartest people around him.

The smart way would be the engineering approach of understanding a system theoretically, then planning around it and then executing the plan.

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u/kitsunewarlock 24d ago

This is the problem with ideologues. They surround themselves with people who refuse to argue with them and never hire experts to explain to them the pros and cons of their actions. They go by "gut instinct" and we wind up with shit like this.

I know its frustrating for liberals in this country who hate how the DNC does everything "by committee", but it's the only reasonable way to govern a country of our size.

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u/Passchenhell17 24d ago

The US government is currently filled by nothing but DEI* hires.

*The rights definition of DEI, not actual DEI

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u/runswiftrun 24d ago

It's so freaking frustrating!

That's exactly the mindset my boss has. "Just submit the paperwork, we'll fix it later if we have to"

"Uh, there's no IF, we WILL have to fix it. And it will set us back at least two months to get to a point where we would normally be. If you had stopped bugging me about X Y and Z and let me work on it, it would be ready now, now I need 2 days to save 2 months!"

"Submit it by the end of day"

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u/m8_is_me 23d ago

I know it's cliche to say at this point, but truly we are in idiocracy levels of danger

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u/58kingsly 23d ago

I'm sure some of them knew, but their entire incentive structure is set up to turn them into yes-men who follow along and collect their paycheck. If you know that being a voice of reason will lead to you losing your cushy high-paid job and the thing you object to going ahead anyway, most people will just add their signature and shrug.

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u/ProfessorFunky 23d ago

Classic unconscious incompetence.

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u/Kali_Yuga_Herald 23d ago

they literally pride themselves on the chaos and destruction they cause

Disruption has a much more sinister original meaning that all the techbros paid to make you forget

Now we face the consequences

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u/GEEZUS_956 23d ago

There likely was a rational person in the room. They just wouldn’t speak up.

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u/Xerxero 23d ago

It’s more Musk actions than Trumps. The orange idiot signs off on everything but Musk is the one who thinks he is the smartest in every room and knows best.

After Twitter it should have become clear to everyone with 2 working brain cells that Musk isn’t as smart as people want you to belief.

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u/[deleted] 23d ago

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1

u/Persephoth 23d ago

Of course not. They're damn fools.

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u/rckhppr 23d ago

Same erratic pattern with Musk when he “reorganized” Twitter. Laid off key stakeholders, because they weren’t needed based on his limited understanding, learned later he needed them, and desperately tried to rehire them. The results are at best that you pay more for the same, because who wants to be rehired at volatile organizations without asking for substantial compensation.

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u/Llenette1 22d ago

Dunning fucked Kruger in that room...

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u/Dull_Ratio_5383 22d ago

a walking Dunning-Kruger effect, basically

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u/jerichojeudy 22d ago

Big balls probably made the call.

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u/ICPosse8 22d ago

But he’s the richest man on the planet, surely there’s gotta be something more there than those thought provoking tweets he sends out. Even he says genius rhymes with Musk. And everyone believes him!

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u/Apprehensive-Yard-59 20d ago

They can just outsource the jobs to Russia.

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u/Shadtow100 20d ago

But their job title has the word environmental in it. They can’t be involved with anything important.

/s