Prolog

I wrote this in September while on an almost two-week vacation in Spain. It was a phenomenal vacation. It was very likely the best vacation ever for my wife and I. We went to five cities: Barcelona, Madrid, Granada, Ronda, and Sevilla. The grandest highlights were the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona and a La Liga match in Sevilla. It was a tour that was organized byRick Steves, which made for a spectacular and memorable trip.

As fate would have it, when I returned to work, the shit hit the fan. So, I never posted it. In short order, the blog was taken down. I decided to retire from Sandia. Before I get to explaining what went down, I wanted to give this post some air. I’ll post the details of what happened tomorrow or the day after. I’m sure many of you can imagine what happened, but I promise to provide a few surprises too.

I do remember starting this vacation a few days early. At the last meeting I attended, the management provided another jaw-dropping and repulsive remark. They declared the shock physics at Sandia to be world-class and state-of-the-art work. Neither is remotelytrue or supportable. That said, that could be true in the future with proper support and decent leadership. Neither the necessary support nor the leadership is in evidence. More on what they do have tomorrow. The prospects for world-class work are thus dim to negligible. The state of the art will continue to elude them, too. It can be foundelsewhere and seen by those with a modicum of respect for knowledge.

More on the reality of all ofthis later. For now, enjoy the time capsule that follows. I do see the shadows of the events that drove me out of Sandia here. In a deep sense, one can simply see the outcome as an inevitable outcome of what was already present. I justneeded to accept the truth and reality.

tl;dr

I have lived most of my life believing expertise is a good thing; being an expert is a very good thing. Recently, this belief has felt under assault. Today, expertise is a source of suspicion and seems almost despised. Once trusted, now experts are suspects. True, even where I work. Experts are now treated as pariahs. In the workplace, an expert is surplus to requirements and a pain in the ass. Our present workplace wants drones. People who do what they are told to do faithfully without question. Management knows best. The ideal employee is a competent and compliant servant to the management. The mantra is don’t think, don’t question, and simply do your assigned work. If you do well, you might become a manager too.

Travel is magic

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

― Marcel Proust

I spent the last 12 days traveling outside the USA, across Spain. We went through a set of glorious cities and towns. We sank into a different culture and its deep history. Travel is such a magnifying glass on home, and good god the USA is a mess. Spain is a former empire, and it spent decades under fascism. It perhaps portends America’s future. For ill. The march of authoritarian rule parallels that of Franco in horrible ways. Now seeing it recovering, there can be hope too. It is civilized in ways the USA is not today. It was great to see a nation that isn’t descending into madness. By all accounts, Spain isn’t perfect with its regional nature and healing from decades of fascism, but compared to the USA, it is lovely.

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”

― St. Augustine

Spending a few days in Barcelona, which is clean and has only a few homeless compared with the teeming masses in the USA, is the first impression. As an American, the homeless seem to be a screaming siren of societal collapse. They are the weakest and most vulnerable people, and America is failing them. It is something that should be far more troubling, but America has a cruel streak. Our societal cruelty becomes evident in comparison to what we see in Spain. The treatment of the weakest and most vulnerable says volumes about us, and we are not good people. America is a rich, spoiled nation unable to protect its most needy citizens. When viewed through the lens of another country, we should be ashamed.

In spite of this horror, Americans seem proud and believe they are exceptional. At least this is the mantra of our current leaders. We believe we are free. In Spain, people seem much freer and happier than Americans. Decades of oppression under Franco seem to have sharpened their sense of freedom. Under Franco LBGTQ people were oppressed. Now the community is out, open, and proud. They had decades of oppression, and I see the USA headed for the same. So, perspective is found in difference.

“Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.”

― Anita Desai

One of the greatest contrasts between the USA and Spain is the emphasis on the individual versus the community. In Spain, community is key; in the USA, it is all about the individual. This mentality has been amplifying for the last 40 years. It is the product of the neoliberal era and the power of the “cowboy” imagery. Both of these themes were key to the “Reagan revolution” and have amplified over these decades. The result has been an increasingly selfish and greedy culture. As noted, American culture is full of cruelty and arrogance. For me, the USA is increasingly embarrassing. It has become a source of horror as the truth of contrasts is evident.

These have also created a hierarchy in society where the managerial class has power and sets direction. This power is being harnessed towards acquiring more wealth and power. It is naturally self-amplifying. The level of inequality in the USA is approaching the highest in history. Ultimately, the decisions that create this dynamic are bad for society as a whole. Our current status is unhealthy. This will create failures and instability. Reality will eventually assert itself and probably be brutal.

America is headed for disaster. The national leadership is driving us off a cliff. Lots of “experts” are playing along because it is good for their short-term success. It is good for their bank accounts, too. Greed is good. Since we don’t prize community, fuck everyone else!

“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.”

― Oscar Wilde

Expertise is Supposed to be Good, but Experts are a Pain in the Ass

“An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject, and how to avoid them.”

― Werner Heisenberg

So, as it becomes obvious that America turns its back on experts, their value becomes obvious in Europe. Experts can save your ass. You want your tour guide or bus driver to be an expert. If you are working on nuclear weapons, you want experts. I am an expert on important aspects of the science of nuclear weapons. The observation of late is that my employer could not give a single fuck about my expertise. Any expression of expertise is treated as a nuisance and irritant. The details an expert sees are simply a difficulty that would rather be ignored. This observation seems like utter madness. The important thing to understand is why we ended up here.

My startling revelation is that the USA is turning its back on expertise everywhere. Even in a place where the institution is responsible for our nuclear weapons expertise is a liability. It almost boggles the mind that knowledge is not prized by such a place. That said, this explains what is happening society-wide. Experts are full of difficult and complicated details, and why bother? The fundamental problem with experts is that they get in the way of what managers want to do. They provide details and facts that tend to change what the managers want to do politically, or spend resources (money) in a desired manner.

What the experts often bring to the table is enormous amounts of nuance, subtlety, and detail. These aspects of any given topic are a bane to decision makers. These represent every bit of difficulty our managerial class seeks to avoid. Our managers bask in simplicity and ignorance. Thus, the nuance offered by experts is a toxin and is met as an unwelcome intrusion. The sort of complexity and subtlety is equally revolting to managers. Most often, they seek to solve problems by brute force and raw power. The deft skill offered by expertise annoys their aims and offers challenges they want to ignore.

What I’ve learned is that the managerial class wants a few things. One is power, and usually, money is power. Under any given manager’s reign, they want unbridled success; all is always well. Most problems or issues can simplybe messaged away. Their unspoken hope is that any problem’s effects will come due after they’ve moved on. If this can”t be done, the goal is to find scapegoats. Problems are never the manager’s problem. The buck never stops with them. All we see with the Trump Administration is this attitude taken to its logical extreme. The same behavior is commonplace with our ruling class. Those of us under their rule have come to accept and even expect this shit.

“The key to greatness is to look for people’s potential and spend time developing it.” – Peter Drucker

How the Ruling Class Uses Experts?

There are those who use modest expertise to gain power. The other route is one of luck, where the expertise simply assists and aligns with the whims of power. We see two breeds of successful experts these days:

1. The lucky expert who just happens to be aligned with managers, and the managerial directions,

2. The useful expert who trades their credibility as a shield of legitimacy to the managers.

In one case, you are simply fortunate that reality is with you and success is virtuous. In the second case, the expert becomes the tool of the ruling class. Our modern archetype is almost the entire Trump Administration. Worse yet, the expert is totally optional, and a simple loyal hack is substituted.

Any expert who does not fit this mold is cast aside. If you want success and to share in power, either luck out or shred your integrity. Often, the lucky are clueless about their bounty. They simply happened to align with the stars. They found or stumbled into the path to professional success in a way that resonates with the direction of society. To be blunt, there is nothing wrong with this. For me, personally, I see any computer hardware and software experts fit this mold. They were needed to fuel the push to exascale computing. They are also needed to fuel the push for general artificial intelligence. Their work is useful even if both of those endeavors have serious issues with the balance of efforts. The best version of these initiatives would use other expertise better. A balance of expertise would fuel a far greater program of achievement.

This is the perfect segue to the other type of expert. These are the sellouts. These are those who apply their expertise to support the managerial class. They sell their credibility as a way to underpin the desires of the leaders. It is a way to success. They promote the whims and desires of the leaders with an air of legitimacy. As these whims and desires become worse, their crimes become greater. Their expertise gets warped into excuses for terrible management. The Trump Administration is simply a perfect and hyperbolic example. The problem is all over, and it is eroding the Nation’s future. In other words, lots of these turncoats occupy positions of respect across our most important institutions. They make the excuse of being realistic while actually annihilating credibility.

What Happens When the Experts Disappear?

“Often a sign of expertise is noticing what doesn’t happen.”

― Malcolm Gladwell

The past 40 years have been a slow and continuous extinction-level disaster for experts and expertise. Rather than the experts being a fact-based limit on the management class, the experts are being removed. The only experts seen are the sellouts or the useful resonant ones. Their role is to provide a dash of their reputation to support the idiocy of the management decisions. I’ve seen it in the science programs supporting our national security. The end result is less security and the decline of a great Nation. Our current crisis as a nation is simply this process drawn to its natural conclusion.

A secondary effect is the reduction in expertise. There is simply less expertise because it isn’t a useful thing for those in power. Factual foundations for policy have become antiquated. A large part of enabling this process is a former largess of expertise and achievement. We have had enough achievement in the bank to make massive withdrawals. We can experience a massive decline before we drift into incompetence. My fear is that the incompetence has arrived, or will soon. Look at our National leadership, which is teeming with incompetence. The real qualification is being servile and obedient to the boss, no matter how stupid an idea is. This spirit is passed down to every level below. Those seeds have already been sewn and are blooming all over with a stench.

“Enthusiasm is more important than innate ability, it turns out, because the single more important element in developing an expertise is your willingness to practice.”

― Gretchen Rubin

Expertise and the process of achieving it work against giving in to this. Being a true expert is an immense amount of work. It is an investment of time and passion. Invariably, it also involves joy and the pursuit of truth. All ofthese characteristics work against sacrificing this to serve the idiot leaders. Nonetheless, many do trade their expertise for success and power. I often see people who spend their early years professionally gaining expertise. Then they trade their expertise for success (money) or join the management class. Today’s leaders have lost the taste for expertise, as it often works to oppose the politically determined direction. The core issue is that reality often opposes the desired political outcome.

Of course, a great deal of the idiot leader’s motivation is based on a philosophy that opposes fact. In the USA, this shows up in attitudes toward sex. American sex education is structuredto oppose reality. The emphasis on abstinence only denies every reality of sex. Young people are biologically driven to have sex. Sex can provide great pleasure if done with intention and knowledge. Sex builds the connection and intimacy necessary for relationships. American sex Ed avoids all of this in favor of demanding abstinence outside of marriage. The result is an education program that leads to worse outcomes. For sex, this means more unwanted pregnancies and sexual disease. The entire program is motivated by religion rather than any objective fact. Simultaneously, experts in sex are attacked. They are denied sources of income and support. Society as a whole is harmed, and people are denied one of life’s great joys.

It is Too Late For Me

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

― Oscar Wilde

I am not suited to be a drone. I never have been. My ability to express an independence of action and thought has grown over time. It has always been present. That said, I have always had a sense of duty and responsibility to the good of society. I am a team player, although always focused on excellence and success. Thus, the leadership today is focused on their success, not the team’s. It is the same at work and especially nationally. Take the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk, where only violence against the right was condemned. It is not about all our success; it is only the success of the boss.

I have come to the conclusion that my expertise has become a liability. If I were to trade my expertise in service to the management class, it would benefit me. On the other handmy personal integrity would be sacrificed. This is the decision offered me by our society. Deny reality and facts when they oppose the direction chosen by leaders. Do not criticize stupid decisions and directions. Do not point out when the managerial messaging is bullshit. This is the way to succeed. I’ve chosen the way of truth and the ability to like myself. It is too late for me to change.

“They’re certainly entitled to think that, and they’re entitled to full respect for their opinions… but before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience”.

–Harper Lee,

The other way to succeed today is to simply avoid the knowledge that would oppose management. Simplybecome a drone who does what is asked. Do not question the direction; simply serve the direction. Even when the directions are idiotic, you simply submit and do your job. This goes with the lack of committed careers and the job that you have for life. You are simply a commodity. The only way to avoid this is become a manager. In such a system, experts don’t naturally grow. Worse yet, being an expert is a horrible moral burden. At work, you are serving ends that are at odds with what you know is correct.

As my wife would quip, “Sell your soul.” The route to success these days is to sacrifice your integrity. There should be little doubt that this is evidence of how trust is under assault societally. We know innately that our leaders lack integrity and are untrustworthy people. It was a choice I did not make. I could not. I had to look at myself in the mirror.

“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”

–Marcus Aurelius

“It is easy to live for others, everybody does. I call on you to live for yourself”.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson