dotgov
With regards to the guilt question: I did make the honest mistake of misquoting the history of another inmate before, what stands out to me and what I wanted to point out: I don’t think it is a coincidence that both of those inmates grew up in an environment of poverty. We do have the specifics of what happened in childhood in the first case, the second one I can only infer from the fact of teenage drug use and of growing up in a certain environment, which are both things I would expect to have a high correlation with childhood trauma.
This is not to say that Milton is not guilty of a crime, in the legal sense. But to expect someone who has been beaten, abused and has gotten the short end of the stick all their life to take full individual responsibility for something he didn’t have a choice in does seem inhumane to me. In a way like Melanie, he was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
And what purpose would such an admission of guilt serve? Would it take make it easier to believe that tragedies like this are fully the individuals responsibility and that the environment the individual grows up in has no influence on the outcomes?
“Milton dropped out of school after the 8th grade and worked as a cook, mechanic’s helper, and laborer before his arrest. Milton abused alcohol and drugs as a teenager.”
In another article he was being referred to as having “low IQ”. Combined with the fact that the murders happened in a crack house, I infer that he probably lived in a similar environment and had a comparable upbringing and childhood.
What sticks out to me the most: the column with the title “race” I find incredibly disturbing.
Hard to say, personally my experience is that the junkie lifestyle seems less hollow and more appealing than it is, no matter the quality of the substance.
To me the downside of marketing results aggressively to justify one’s funding is that the quality signal can become inversely correlated. Is this valuable research or is someone who knows to play the DOE game inflating a metric to secure their next round of funding and/or expand their turf? Does this negatively impact researchers who do not have access to a comparable marketing apparatus?
I entered the workforce a bit earlier than 2015 and I would have expected HR to be a neutral arbiter as well. My experience at different employers has proven my expectations to be wrong or at least naive. On every occasion I needed to interact with HR, information (eg. applicable laws) was selectively filtered to make it look like my only option was the one that was beneficial to the business.
YMMV, but for me this is good advice and a welcome reminder.
This problem occurs precisely because foreign tech workers are being treated differently. You are also glossing over the fact that those tech workers are on their path to become citizens.
Agreed on the physical infrastructure and that those things will be done locally, I do not consider those things as a competitive advantage on the global market, compared to strengthening the local semi industry by doing an “Euro ARM” chip or some such.
No doubt that some of that money will benefit the European economy, with regards to the effectiveness and long term strategic view I do have my doubts, especially compared to what the US/Japan have been able to pull off.
I’d imagine the Japanese Fugaku system which is based on ARM and built by Fujitsu a more effective way to directly support a nation’s economy and engineering capabilities.
I could be wrong, of course, nevertheless I find it puzzling.
Relevant quote:
As part of a new science and technology “risk matrix,” which has not been made public, the Department of Energy also said it would not fund joint research or support “sensitive country foreign nationals.”
- I have seen the same woman get invited to countless hiring panels, as hiring panels need to be "diverse". Hiring panels are multi-hour endeavors and take away from her productive time, but she is afraid to say no as she feels she'd be contributing to an inequitable workplace otherwise.
- I have seen a black woman invited to a hiring panel and when it came to ask the "DEI question" (to check for a commitment to DEI in an applicant), all of the eyes in the room were on her, her being the only "diverse" person in a room with people of four ethnicities.
- I have seen a white man close to retirement afraid to ask questions about the diversity initiatives as he was afraid to be labelled a certain way and was "not willing to take the risk of repercussion".
- I have seen DEI informally used to justify hires, as the hires had the right gender and/or skin color and supervisors get evaluated on their commitment to DEI on the yearly performance review.
- I have been asked to acknowledge my "white privilege" in a DEI seminar. Attendance to those seminars is not required. At the same time there is a minimum threshold for hours spent on DEI activities on the yearly performance review.
- I have heard of a case at another national lab where white male employees were asked to "[...] recite a series of "white privilege statements" and "male privilege statements." It concluded with its white male participants writing letters of apology to marginalized people whom they may have harmed" . After an employee protested, his protest was taken as a lack of commitment to DEI. This got picked up by right wing media and the Trump white house and was used to justify a, since retracted, executive order banning such trainings [1] [2].
- I personally have been asked to acknowledge that "Being antiracist is different for white people than it is for people of color. For white people, being antiracist evolves with their racial identity development. They must acknowledge and understand their privilege, work to change their internalized racism, and interrupt racism when they see it. For people of color, it means recognizing how race and racism have been internalized, and whether it has been applied to other people of color." [3]
- I have been called a "plantation owner" by a colleague because I did not support the DEI initiatives in the form that they were being taught.
- I have seen people victimizing themselves and ascribing behavior of colleagues towards them to their own gender or skin color. I had experienced similar behavior in my career as a white male and now attribute it to things I needed to learn when dealing with people.
I also believe that teaching people that how they are being treated is solely because of their skin color or gender leads to self-victimization, which takes away their power and agenda and leads to suboptimal outcomes for the individual.
There are a lot of assumptions being made about my person at my workplace. It is important for me to mention that I am an immigrant. I am white and I am male, but I did not grow up in this country. I constantly and repeatedly feel my lived experience being discredited. I am being shoved into a category based on my skin color by people that can not imagine that there might be differences in culture and worldview despite me being white, just so that they can feel morally superior. Please do apologize this emotional outburst after an overly long rant, but I an assure you that this is not some academic exercise to me.
[1] https://reason.com/2020/08/13/sandia-laboratory-nuclear-whit...
[2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/09/25/trump-execut...
Still, Mason says, she’s encouraged by the initiative. “I’m an optimist,” she says. “I believe that the vast majority of physicists—even the vast majority of white male physicists—want a more diverse and representative community.”
I left. The colleagues I left behind could handle the situation better than me and still work there. And I don't fault them either, the on-call schedule as well as how it was run was defined by management. Down the line that experience made me violently advocate for my current team not to be on-call, and with a bit of luck and support I was able to pull it off. The result was demonstrably more stable services and a team that can spend more time on high value work. Which is to say: change is possible. Sometimes.
I do disagree with your cherry-picking assessment, I am relaying my lived experience. The people I know of that take SSRIs are either in an unhealthy environment or are masking trauma. Or a bit of both.
And speaking from personal experience: I was never suicidal, more like burnt out and depressed. What helped me was an exceptional therapist that assisted me in making sense of what I am feeling and gently worked with me to build a framework to cope. That involved a spiritual component and helped me regain my creativity.
My point being: I can not imagine that SSRIs would have enabled me to do that. I am glad they helped your friends. Out of curiosity I would be interested in what they had going on at that time. I also do understand that this is deeply personal and none of my business.
Which makes them telling me to use sunscreen even more grating. The reason I find it so off-putting to tell employees to wear sunscreen in an all hands meeting is that I do not see this as the role of my employer. What I do in my private life is my responsibility and my choice. This might be a cultural difference too, I remember being alienated by the possibility of drug tests. The copious amounts of cocaine I might or might not do in my spare time are none of my employers business.
And about cloaking things in "good": I have yet to see a bureaucracy that does care about "good". In my experience bureaucracy cares about risk mitigation and liability. My personal risk assessment works differently than that, it takes things like my human experience into consideration. So I get cranky when I feel my employer is encroaching on my personal space.