Even Scott Adams gets into it!
an anonymous poster said...
How ridiculously juvenile....
then later...
Do you really think ridiculously juvenile blog entries with silly pictures and a fake memo has a net positive effect on anything related to what you are railing against? Of course not. That was my point. All it does is help paint the picture that Congress is right about us scientists at LANL. It simply propagates the general picture. We are losing the perception war that we just don't get it and stuff like this does not help. Sorry I did not spell it out with silly pictures and fake memos for all of you. Nice job giving the enemy more fodder for their canon.
and then after a little more back-and-forth with other posters:
Kind of right back to the beginning of the comments on this blog posting, aren't we?
Perhaps you should reflect on my original question and ask yourself if you think blog posts like this one and the inane comments (including my own of course) that follow help or hurt the laboratory. The blog post itself does not irritate me. And it is kind of funny, but (in my opinion) it is also harmful. Perhaps I just don't understand the purpose of the blog. If it is to blow off steam and make fun of folks and assign blame to people we disapprove of like a bunch of preening middle school kids, great! Looks like it is hitting that mark perfectly. And it does make for fun reading at times.
Unfortunately it also serves those aligned against the laboratory, but at least it's fun. But I guess nobody said we can't have fun while we feed fuel to those trying to burn the place down. I'm sure all of those "C students" that pay our bills can't stop laughing at our non-stop self-annihilation.
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, eh lads?
The Good Doctor wants to open the question: To Blog or Not to Blog?
What are the merits of a public forum like this?
Do we need a place to discuss things anonymously?
Does dark humor and satire (and juvenile humor?) have a place in any public forum?
Does this forum have any value beyond "venting"?
Are we doing more harm to ourselves, to our cause, than good?
Do our critics and detractors get what they want through our public self-examination?
Is what we are doing too important to have this kind of open discussion?
Is what we are doing too important NOT to have this kind of open discussion?
We have asked "anonymous" to compose his (or her) own post... to open a serious discussion on this topic right here.
This may or may not be the right forum.
- Doc
19 comments:
8:18pm
I think the blogs are valuable and so are the silly pictures. Satire has been one of the best tools used by intelletuals over the years. The blogs have been very good in this regard. I shows thinking people in the public and the Congress that LANL still has some smart and witty people who question authority and will point out nonsense when it appears. Any institution is only as good as the people that comprise it.
"And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh."
Nietzsche
May 02, 2007 10:31 PM
Doc wrote: Does this forum have any value beyond "venting"?
I guess, for me, that's the central question. It speaks to relevance and purpose and answers to most of the other questions flow from this. It certainly feels to me as if blogs should be a venue for serious discussion beyond venting. I just don't think we have reached that phase yet.
There is cartainly a lot of non-fact based material out here on the blog(s), however due to the Gestapo like tactics employed by the lab/NNSA to show that "what, me worry?" facefront to congress. However, there are a ton of folks trying to get a message out about just how FUBAR'd both NNSA and LANL are (certainly from a business standpoint)...
I could if I chose, blow open a big chunk of corruption and gross mismanagement in the LANL facilities operations and construction activites but I choose not to (once bitten, twice shy I suppose)...
So beyond the obviously sarcastic, it seems to me, is a bunch of (albeit seemingly watered down) innuendo, that is from folks who WANT to get it out there, but are anally challenged from the last time they suggested a better, leaner, more honest way of doing business.
That being said, there's no way I'd put my money on LANS/NNSA changing direction unless they are "blogged" into it...There simply is no other way.
Good luck and good night....
Are these blogs associated with government-funded laboratories whose primary functions are to deal with nuclear and other weapons created to kill, main, and destroy, but most of whose employees hope are never used to do so, of any value? Answer a few questions:
Is there value in having a few people who understand how nuclear weapons work so weapons can perhaps one day be dismantled safely?
Is it a valuable human endeavor to try to understand climate change and its causes and effects?
Is it valuable to know that polygraphs are useless except as a form of intimidation?
In a free society, is being able to vent without excessive fear of reprisal a value?
Even if 95% of what has appeared since the Roberts/Holian blog started is of no value (and it's not nearly that high, in my opinion), it's worth scanning for the useful 5%.
Is there value in demonstrating to those in the PRC, FSU, and anyone else with internet access that elected officials in the USA do not have full support of those who elected them? And that unelected bureaucrats can be a problem everywhere?
Is truth, even if a lot must be read through to find it, of value?
Long live blogs!
A couple of things said above struck me:
* there's no way I'd put my money on LANS/NNSA changing direction unless they are blogged into it
* Is truth, even if a lot must be read through to find it, of value?
I agree that blogs can be very effective in altering the focus, providing pressure for change (good and bad), and so on. I guess what I am asking is how could we make this more effective, and improve the signal-to-noise ratio a bit? Not everyone will go through the effort to parse the serious from the silly -- particularly those with agendas working against the laboratory. Increasing the effectiveness of the various blogs and providing some real pressure for positive change requires them to be taken seriously, not just a playground to blow off steam. It is hard for me to take things seriously amidst the sophomoric humor, as funny as it might be at times. I imagine it is difficult for those whom we would like influenced by opinions and ideas posted here to do the same.
I should lighten up, I guess. This is the go nuclear blog after all and it is meant to be fun, funny, with a serious undertone. I guess I am just thinking/writing out loud about trying to find a method to unleash the so many good folks at the laboratory that would like to change things for the better and have ideas, but have difficulty finding a venue of expression. I'm just not convinced this is it and, worse, I think it is quite harmful at times to the institution.
I wish I had some answers...
To blog or not to blog, doc? I say YES.
It's a great place to let folks know about
this book, or to ask people to read this report especially page 20 for Bechtel & BWX and page 25 on WGI. Also, page 27 on St. Pete, Barton and others.
After living in Los Alamos twenty years I've come to recognize the Lab (like the community) is more closed than a containment vessel. Heck...it's better shielded than a nuclear reactor. Without a blog there'd be no pressure valve, which then could lead to another Columbine or worse. Maybe now the "mature" members of the audience can understand.
Just got polygraphed. One of the questions asked was whether I'd ever participated in any of the LANL-related blogs? I asked why that was relevant and was told this was one of the key Homeland Security questions on the test. I pleaded the fifth then went home and guzzled one. Tell me a blog doesn't have an impact ;)
So without a blog we'd kill each other?
3:30 PM
Seriously... did you really just get Polyied?
Has the process already, literally commenced?
What do you mean when you say "one of the key Homeland Security questions on the test"?
What were the consequences of pleading the 5th?
Hope you enjoyed the guzzle... and I think you are pulling our leg from start to finish...
But seriously, it seems like someone (This or LTROS?) needs to start a log of urine and poly tests. Would anyone participate?
Hard to say.
Am I serious? Did I really get polyied?
Let's just say you don't want to know where they attached the electrodes.
ooh!
how did it feel?
tell us more!
Whoa there, this is the satire blog. If you want the porn blog, please click on lanl-the-throbbing-story.blogspot.com.
Doctor, the Dilbert strip is so dead nuts accurate it made me pee my pants. I think we know what to post in all the Golden Retriever cubicles now.
Something I've been pondering lately: All conference attendance requests now have to be signed by the AD's. All contractor hiring actions, even short term temp positions, have to be signed at the Director's office. Weapons program procurement over $5K, AD level and sometimes higher. The list goes on and on, every decision no matter how trivial has to have AD approvel.
Who's really signing all these forms? Is this the Revenge of the Chiefs of Staff?
There is a certain sado-masochistic thing going on here (the larger here of our country/culture, the only-slightly-smaller-here of the DOE complex, not-too-large-here but still huge here of LANL, and the pretty darn small-minded here of the LANL blogs and this one and this post in particular (I mean that as a complement to you Doc!)).
Fascism is a tendency all human organizations tend to eventually. The needs of the "system" exceed the actual goals of the organization and the needs and rights of the individuals who comprise it.
I have offered Doc for a top post: Naomi Wolfe's Ten Steps to Close and Open Society. I believe this is a good deal of what we are fighting... a larger war to close our open society in the interests of an elite few through the mechanism of an all-encompassing self-serving system.
Fascism is a metastasizing cancer and it always kills it's host.
Oncologically yours,
Oncologist -
I think you mean "Ten Steps to Close AN Open Society" you juvenile whiner (FYI, being called a juvenile whiner is a high compliment on this blog).
- A. Good Speller
All right boys and girls, we are having a good time here (as usual) but we careened off topic almost immediately.
I suppose that is one thing blogs are good for, communal free-associative thinking (careening?).
Here's our thinking (careening?):
Pro Blogging:
1) An open forum for free speech is hard to find these days.
2) Many of us are more articulate in writing than in-person.
3) Some of us are more courageous in writing than in-person.
4) There are huge moves afoot at many levels of government/society which we have a stake in.
5) The LANL community includes an inordinately gifted group of people who may have an important "voice" if it can be encouraged and maybe amplified.
Anti-Blogging:
1) We are putting our dirty laundry out to air in a semi-public venue.
2) Those who participate in Blogs are not representative of the whole in detail, though our general sentiments may be widely shared.
3) Anonymity breeds irresponsibility.
Our Interim Conclusion:
1) Free Speech.
Free speech has always been "inconvenient" for some... it is always "easier" if there is no open dissent. But w/o open dissent and commentary, change is likely to only be for the worse. This leads to a downward spiral that ends in collapse or revolution. Free speech is a tonic and an elixer, no matter how bitter it tastes at times.
2) Figurative Speech
Metaphor, Hyperbole, all forms of figurative speech and thought have an important value in general and here in particular.
They support interpolative, extrapolative and analogical thinking. By definition, we are experiencing something completely new, no matter how much deja-vu we may be feeling. This is NOT nazi Germany but there are some interesting parallels.
We are operating on sparse data. LANS (and UC before them to a lesser extent) do not share much of their decision making with us. We have to guess (interpolate and extrapolate and consider analogical situations) at the real meaning and intention of their policies and selective enforcment of policies. There are forces at work much larger than the personalities of folks like our good Admiral Nanos.
To consider and explore and perchance to understand these forces requires a certain amount of creative thinking.
3) Humor
While we have chosen a satirical tone for our humor, much of what you read here is intended to be taken with a grain of humor. The humor is dark because the times are dark. The events behind the scenes are ominous and shadowy. Our weak attempts at responding with ominous and shadowy humor are a response to this.
Good Doctor -
I submit that your blog is quite inflammatory. I do not approve of some of your potentially libelous statements and general rudeness in the guise of satirical humor.
On the other hand, these are trying times and it is good to see someone speaking up. I am a proponent for free speech and will live with the rudeness I see here if it leads to the truth.
For those who feel this is not the right blog to discuss thoughtful, deliberate, productive ideas, I offer my own:
http://whatwouldoppydo.blogspot.org
I am not practiced at this and having to interface with the Internet through a Ouija board and a medium is cumbersome, but I am willing to make my blog available for this kind of discussion.
- Oppy
The answer to the question "to blog or not to blog" may depend on whether our new corporate managers are as corrupt and intolerant as the Egyptian government is....and whether anyone in ours would care if they were. This appeared on the London Telegraph's website today:
Egypt's blog rebels silenced by jail
By Charles Levinson, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:31am BST 06/05/2007
A popular Egyptian blogger known for his withering criticisms of the government has given up writing after becoming the latest victim of a state crackdown on dissent.
The blogger, known as Sandmonkey, signed off last week, writing that he had noticed state security agents on his street and heard clicking noises on his phone. "There has been too much heat around me lately," he wrote.
In recent months, the Egyptian regime has jailed several bloggers, ending a period in which it had taken a more relaxed attitude towards internal critics. Human rights activists claim the about-turn follows the US administration's decision to relax pressure on Middle Eastern governments to enact democratic reforms.
During Sandmonkey's three years on the internet, his was one of the most widely read Egyptian blogs, popular especially among Western readers for his unconventional opinions about his country and the Middle East. "Cynical, snarky, pro-US, secular, libertarian, disgruntled" was how he described himself.
He is a 26-year-old American-educated investment banker, and his mother is a member of Egypt's ruling National Democratic Party.
Be careful Doc, your Nom-de-Blog is nearly as colorful as Sandmonkey's. Any strange sedans parked outside? Does your phone make clicking noises?
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