“The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.” — John W. Gardner

Sometimes something really interesting and thought-provoking happens when it is least expected. This happened last night at our local concert amphitheater. My wife and I had shown up early for our very good seats to see Rüfüs Du Sol, an Australian EDM band. Great show and performance that kept me up well past my bedtime.

I’m working on a technical piece, but between events in my life, such as putting our house together after the plumbing disasters. In addition, a trip to Mexico and then Europe in September. I’ve got writer’s block, and the ability to focus on that content has simply not availed itself. This event at the concert was interesting and contextually informative for me (and hopefully the reader).

As fate would have it, there was a strong to mildly severe thunderstorm bearing down on the amphitheater, and we had a rain delay. While milling about getting ready for the storm to strike, we took in the vendors. Finally, we were told to take shelter in place in the restrooms adjacent to the venue. I noticed a guy there who looked very familiar, but way out of context here. As the storm began to drop rain and vivid lightning on us, he walked towards me, and it turned out it was indeed who I thought it was, a guy I worked with at Sandia, Chris. He was there with his kids.

“Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”— Václav Have

We piled up into the men’s room to avoid getting dumped on by the storm. Chris told me that he regularly read the blog, but he had some questions for me. The deepest question is: why are you doing this? Why not simply fade away and do other things? Why do you even care?

It’s a pretty fair question.

I told them that the work the labs do and the mission are extremely important to me. I’m concerned about the behavior, competence, and ethics of those chosen to lead that effort. People are using the relative secrecy and security there to do bad things. Those actually turn important work into meaningless activities. The Nation deserves better.

I still care about the research, the mission, and the work that’s done. He inquired about how bad things were, and I told him yes, it’s everything I’ve written, but actually a good bit worse. While most of the managers at the lab are good people who do a good job, there is a relatively large cadre of them that do terrible jobs and are unfit for leadership. It’s still something very important to me. Why should they get to do this? Moreover, the number of them that do the sorts of things that I saw has grown. It’s a real threat to the legitimacy and good work of this institution.

The storm began to subside. Chris made his way over to his kids, who he was attending the concert with, and we went our way. Still, I found his question to have some depth and genuine traction worth considering. Why not simply quietly go away and let the things dissipate and fade.

“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” — Elie Wiesel

In the end, the situation that I have dealt with is relatively unimportant and small potatoes. It fully demonstrates the irresponsibility of those entrusted. They decided to use the weapons of secrecy and the trust placed in them wrongly. They sought both retribution against me and a cover-up of the incompetence with which they were carrying out the work they were entrusted with. This should be offensive to everyone.

Rather than put some effort into dealing with genuine problems, they instead put all their effort into personal retribution and the cover-up of the issues that they failed to take action on. This alone should fill people with anger, given the importance of nuclear weapons. Worse yet, they expect to simply get away with it. By virtue of the authority, secrecy, and position they have been given. The reality is they probably will, and the problems identified competently will simply go unaddressed and unanswered for the foreseeable future.

“Responsibility is a unique concept: it can only reside and inhere in a single individual. You may share it with others, but your portion is not diminished. You may delegate it, but it is still with you. You may disclaim it, but you cannot divest yourself of it… Unless you can point your finger at the man who is responsible when something goes wrong, then you have never had anyone really responsible.” — Adm. Hyman G. Rickover

Getting back to the piece that I need to finish: the issues discussed there can’t even be envisioned to be pursued while the situation persists.

Here we have an example of relatively common and well-understood problems with code doing important work. Management, rather than producing something better, refuses to even address or solve the problems in the existing software. These problems are akin to patching drywall in a house or redoing the roofing. You don’t get anything new, and instead you’re simply fixing the thing that’s old with no change in functionality.

“The result… is not that the lies will now be accepted as truth, and the truth be defamed as lies, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world — and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end — is being destroyed.” – Hannah Arendt

For the most part, this isn’t even doing research. This is simply maintenance. Yet management stands utterly and completely opposed to this preventive maintenance. We can’t even conceive of doing anything more substantial than that. Sandia could be a great institution again. With the current leadership and the tolerance for their bad behavior, this won’t happen. It will continue to decline and fall into disrepute as these leaders will earn the sort of status they deserve and bring the institution down with it.

The biggest part of the reason is this betrayal of trust that the behavior showed people given positions of authority and trust, then misusing those positions to simply stay in power and actually subvert the work of the laboratory. This should make everyone incandescent with rage. Yet, it’s sort of the banal and ever-present corruption across society that’s now become commonplace and almost expected in those in positions of authority.

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.” — W. B. Yeats