Monday's Most Active Threads

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "Schedule F Memo is Out" and posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forum. The original poster linked to an Office of Personnel Management memo regarding the reclassification of career civil service employees as essentially political appointees. As has happened before, the original poster's link has stopped working. The MAGA crew into whose hands cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump has placed the future of our government is supposed to revolutionize federal service but can't manage to keep a web link operational for more than 24 hours. This is a repeat, on steroids you might say, of an action Trump took during his first term. Career civil servants are supposed to be non-political and enjoy job protection. Trump reclassified certain positions as so-called "Schedule F" which removed normal civil service job protections, making the employees easier to fire. Those positions could then be filled with political loyalists. Among the avalanche of executive orders Trump issued during the first days of his new term was one reinstating the Schedule F reclassification. The OPM memo fleshes out that EO and provides more detail about the positions to be reclassified. As the original poster says, "It is very broad". Not surprisingly, a number of posters are not happy about the changes. Some question the legality of the effort. It is very likely that this move can be legally contested but it is equally likely that Trump doesn't care. As I have commented in multiple recent blog posts, Trump is clearly breaking the law on a near-daily basis without any real pushback. Therefore, we can expect him to continue doing so. It is understandable that many posters are upset because their jobs are at risk. But, while that is obviously, and justifiably, an important issue to them personally, it is not really the most important issue here. A non-political, professional civil service is critical to a stable government. If Trump removes experienced professionals and replaces them with loyalists, it is almost a sure bet that the next president will do the same, especially if that president is a Democrat. Does anyone believe that a nearly complete change of management every four years is really the best way to run the government? Trump's move will transform a professional service into one in which the upper — and in many cases, middle — echelon is simply a patronage system filled by those chosen for their loyalty rather than competence.

Yesterday's next most active thread was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum and titled, "DeepSeek shows Chinese STEM supremacy". As almost everyone surely knows, tech stocks were rocked yesterday by news that a Chinese startup firm released artificial intelligence models that rivaled, if not exceeded, the capabilities of the best AI that U.S. firms have been able to produce. Moreover, these models are able to run on much cheaper hardware than the U.S. products and were released as open source, meaning that anyone can get the code and use it free of charge. This caused somewhat of a chain reaction. The AI efforts by U.S. tech companies have been based on spending money on hardware and infrastructure. The companies are building huge data centers filled with servers. The best chips for AI operations are those produced by Nvidia, and tech companies have lined up to purchase all that Nvidia can produce. That has rocketed Nvidia's stock to the moon. However, the Chinese code shows that remarkable results can be achieved without the necessity of those expensive chips. This caused Nvidia's stock to take a nearly 17% haircut yesterday. This was a nearly $600 billion loss in market capitalization. If you will indulge me, I feel the need to go on a rant at this point. When I first became involved in tech many years ago, there was an expression that "software is cheap, hardware is cheap, people are expensive." Over the years, events have conspired to change that reality. Non-compete agreements, secret (and illegal) agreements between tech companies not to hire each other's employees, extensive use of H1-B visas, and other factors have suppressed wages. Moreover, tech leaders have increasingly seen employees as little more than commodities that are hired and fired as needed. Money has been increasingly invested in hardware rather than people. Hence, the tech mindset has become "throw hardware at it". If one server is not enough, use 10, if that is not enough, build an entire data center. The Chinese, unable to obtain Nvidia's chips due to U.S. export controls, focused on building more efficient software. Doing that requires human talent rather than data centers. This thread is full of people complaining about everything from elementary schools to diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. In their minds, the U.S. has list out solely because we have not taken education seriously enough. I disagree. I think that there are plenty of talented Americans. However, tech lords would rather build a new data center than invest in these talented individuals. Again, to the tech lords, people are commodities, not investments. Don't forget that a primary goal of AI is to replace people. The Elon Musks and Marc Andreessens of this world hold the average worker in contempt. Replaceable by some software and a server. It is really amazing how many of the original fundamental components of the Internet — one of the most revolutionary developments in human history — were developed by university students and professors.  Andreessen's roots, for instance, lie in the development of a web browser while he was at the University of Illinois. This was a time when knowledge, inspiration, and foresight mattered. The Chinese developers of DeepSeek may harken back to that time. Sadly, in the U.S., our tech leaders are focused on accumulating wealth and using the government to protect and increase their ever-growing portfolios.

Next was a thread titled, "So many regrets" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster says that she sees kids with lower stats than her daughter getting into more prestigious colleges. This has made her regret restricting her daughter to in-state schools due to financial reasons. The original poster's family is in the notorious "donut hole" in which they earn too much money for need-based financial assistance but not enough to easily afford expensive colleges. But now the original poster feels that her daughter "worked so hard for absolutely nothing" and wonders if she should have been willing to spend more for a more prestigious school. Many posters reassure the original poster that she made the correct choice. Regret is not unusual, but the original poster should reassure herself that as long as her daughter is happy and getting a good education, she has nothing about which to feel sorry. The discussion then morphs into one about the actual costs of colleges and whether conventional wisdom about costs is actually correct. For instance, contrary to the belief that in-state schools are always cheaper, several posters argue that private colleges often give greater amounts of aid, resulting in comparable costs to attend. Another poster pointed out that a school that has a wealthy student body may necessitate additional expenditures in order to keep up with the other students socially. In other cases, universities with higher tuition rates covered a lot of expenses that at other schools would be "extras". The message is that it is important to consider the total cost of attendance instead of just tuition. Posters also urge the original poster to take a broader view of things. Her daughter may be attending a lower-ranked school to save money, but that leaves more money available for other educational opportunities such as study abroad or graduate school. There is some suspicion that the original poster is trolling, and that is possible. If so, the original poster wasn't trying too hard, but the original post mentioned Tulane University. That resulted in repeated disputes about the quality of Tulane, something a troll might have enjoyed.

The last thread that I will discuss today was posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum and titled, "Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT - False Light claims". As I mentioned in yesterday's blog post, I locked an earlier thread about Blake Lively and Jason Baldoni that had been among the most active for weeks. That provoked considerable consternation among some users. Moreover, my opinion that the earlier thread was stupid and a waste of time was considered insulting by some posters who argued that the thread was among the best of DCUM. I can't promise not to further insult those who are invested in this thread. To the contrary, I should probably warn you that it is likely. At any rate, the new thread was created by a poster who had listened to "a random podcast" and heard "a Fordham Law professor" discuss Justin Baldoni's lawsuit against the New York Times. This resulted in her being confused about the case and asking for clarification from lawyers. The immediate reaction from posters was to complain that they didn't have enough information but then to engage in a general discussion of "defamation" versus "false light" claims. Far from the intriguing legal discourse that the earlier thread's fans had promised, the discussion in this thread is, in my opinion, somewhat shallow and repetitive. Posters disagree about the significance of the two types of claims and which might have a greater chance of success. Some posters have very strong opinions about the preferences of judges, perhaps forgetting that judges are ultimately individuals and not likely to act exactly alike. There are repeated references to Sarah Palin along with caveats that her lawsuit against the New York Times has almost no relevance to Baldoni's case. Then, as was the case in the earlier thread, discussion devolved to simply making personal attacks on the two actors. I am not sure why criticism of one or the other's looks or acting ability is considered the peak of DCUM content. Admittedly, it’s not the worst that DCUM has to offer, but the best? There is also a contingent of posters who are completely convinced that anyone who is not in full agreement with them is a public relations shill working for one of the two personalities, if not one of the actors themselves. Eventually, the discussion lost almost all connection to the legal case and simply became an argument about the actual versus expected roles of Lively and Baldoni in the production of their film.