Here's my attempt at contributing something meaningful to this discussion, since I'm tired of seeing the same kinds of responses to these threads over and over again. Feel free to disagree, the idea is to try to move the conversation past knee-jerk reactions.
This is an FAQ of sorts.
Q1: What's wrong with making the government more efficient? My tax dollars are being wasted by Agency X, spending billions of dollars a year on who knows what.
A1: There's nothing wrong with making the government more efficient, but (1) there are good and bad ways of cutting spending (and DOGE, IMO, is really bad), (2) the federal budget is massive [1], 1B or even 10B USD is practically peanuts, so a real cost-benefit analysis is critical while knee-jerk "that's too much money" reactions are usually short-sighted, and (3) the Trump administration is planning to spend FAR MORE on massive tax cuts - a government that's serious about reducing the deficit would not spend 5-10 trillion USD on tax cuts.
Q2: What's wrong with how DOGE is trying to cut spending? Government is filled with red tape, and they're taking a hacker approach to circumvent the things that prevented past governments from fixing things.
A2: Any time a large group of people need to agree on something, it takes time. Small-d democratic governance doesn't prioritize getting things done quickly in normal times, it prioritizes reaching consensus and respecting individual liberties. Occasionally war-time governments will temporarily suspend normal procedures (and rights), but there's good reason why things (mostly) go back to normal after the war ends. And whatever you may be seeing in your news feeds, America is NOT AT WAR.
A2 (pt. 2): The HN community usually (and rightly, IMO) gets very upset and concerned when companies or the government infringe on our privacy. The situation this article brings to light seems analogous to a big tech company bringing in consultants who are later found to have cybercriminal connections, without any safeguards or auditing around access of employee or user data. If that happened, there would be a huge uproar.
A2 (pt. 3): Except, it's worse, because the government is not the same as any old company. The US government was designed with checks and balances precisely to avoid concentrating too much power in the hands of any individual, including the president. Remember, America was establishing a democracy in a time when most countries were monarchies - a monarchical president was something the framers desperately wanted to avoid. There's too much to get into here, but this ongoing story is not just about privacy/security, but also about breaking legal and constitutional safeguards.
Q3: You admit that the federal budget is massive, so it's obvious that it's spending too much money. Sometimes it's hard to fix an old system with lots of parts - we need a ground-up rewrite! Cut first, then add spending back later - what's wrong with that?
A3: What's wrong with that is that people will get hurt. Ordinary people (no, not "woke leftists" - they're real people) will lose their jobs. People who were getting HIV treatment will stop getting treatment. Poor children will lose school lunches. And on it goes. To play along with the analogy, even if you think the only option is a ground-up rewrite, you don't run around the data center unplugging machines that you don't like. But that's also buying into a false premise. The federal budget as a percentage of GDP really hasn't grown all that much [2], and a huge part of that spending is on things that are really hard to cut (because most people don't want to cut it): social security, Medicare, defense.
Q4: Well, tax cuts aren't spending, it's just giving money back to the people! It's too bad you want the US government to spend so much, but that's my tax dollars you're talking about.
A4: Well, unfortunately, we live in a society, one that has historically agreed through democratic processes to care for its elderly, (sometimes) its sick or disabled, and (occasionally) its poor, because our ancestors wisely realized that those are elements of a stable societ where its people can flourish. Feel free to disagree.
Q5: Why report on the identities of these young people? And what's wrong with being young - many startup founders are college dropouts, right?
A5: Founding a startup isn't the same as running a mature company, and even running a mature company isn't necessarily the best preparation for civil service IMO. Youth has its advantages - fearlessness, energy - but wisdom comes with age. On the other hand, youth are impressionable, and can be easily led (or rather, misled) into doing illegal and/or immoral things. That's a pattern we've seen throughout history, and I see no reason to believe that the folks at DOGE are any different. As for making their names and identities public, they were the ones who made the decision to participate in actions that affect millions of people. Anonymity is for Internet commentators, not for supposed public servants cutting off funding to aid workers or scientists (you know, the actual public servants).
Q6: Why is this on Hacker News?
A6: See A2, pt. 2. There's no surprise that a news about hackers in on Hacker News. Also, should Elon Musk only be on Hacker News when it's about Tesla or SpaceX, and not when he's off trying to shut off funding to half the government? If you agree with him, fine - let's have a discussion. Don't flag kill everything that's reporting on what might be one of the most consequential events of this century. (Thanks for giving this a chance, dang.)
[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FGEXPND
[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S