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Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

krebsonsecurity.com

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Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#841

Post by bfrog »

DanielHB wrote: post #815

I just want to highlight one thing about this whole government takeover debacle. The reason you have the separation of power (legislative, judiciary, executive) is not to be efficient, it is to prevent generational abuse. Even a well intentioned benign autocrat if given power would not part ways with said power voluntarily. So even if the current administration is "good" there is no reason why this kind of power coul…

This only works even remotely if the politicians agree to work together on some level. Modern US politics went all in on Newt Gingrich’s blockade method to ensure the big bad democrats can’t look like they ever do anything.

And here we are with only slightly less broken healthcare with the ACA, a plan originally from GOP, which is constantly hounded on for being terrible. All while drug and medical prices fleece every dollar from every pocket.

So this is what it comes back to when congress can’t do their job of helping the American people or balancing the budget. A populist comes in and smashes the norms.

Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#842

Post by UncleMeat »

jdross wrote: post #803
Aurornis wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Versus whatever the media is reporting Where? The lack of transparency from DOGE has been a pain point even for advocates. I haven’t seen anything more than generic “we’re doing good work, trust us” PR The media is reporting the history of some of these people and their actual actions. Of course these people aren’t going to discuss their past membership in script kiddie DDoS groups or their highly racist Twitter ra…

Honestly it seems to me like a shock and awe PR campaign combien md with a daily grind. It’s been like 15 days, what thoughtful work do you think it’s being announced that happens that fast from a cold start (including hiring!)

Wait.

"It hasn't been enough time to produce thoughtful communication" cannot possible coexist with "it has been enough time to justify shuttering entire organizations, firing shitloads of workers, calling people back from overseas, and telling the entire government to take voluntary layoffs."

I'd say that writing up some clear communication is considerably easier than distinguishing useful and efficient government organizations from overstaffed organizations or organizations that are operating outside of their mission.

Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#844

Post by jccalhoun »

Ignoring the age of the people involved, the idea that what is happening is in the name of "efficiency" is laughable.

Maybe these departments are all wasteful but there are better ways achieve "efficiency" than just shutting down departments without having plans about what is going to happen afterwards.

What is efficient about shutting down departments without notice or without looking at the impact or having alternatives besides just not providing those services. How about seeing if there are better ways to do the same things before just shutting down departments? Or looking at the areas of the government that have more significant budgets? Or considering that there is more to efficiency than money?

Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#845

Post by grahameb »

DanielHB wrote: post #815

I just want to highlight one thing about this whole government takeover debacle. The reason you have the separation of power (legislative, judiciary, executive) is not to be efficient, it is to prevent generational abuse. Even a well intentioned benign autocrat if given power would not part ways with said power voluntarily. So even if the current administration is "good" there is no reason why this kind of power coul…

cleric here, so excuse me for getting theological: but there should be (and at times truly has been, even if flawed) a shared understanding of the dignity and worth of every person. if we have that, then when one party or another is in power, they know that they are expected to care for minorities and for the stranger, and for the 'other side'.

we should be willing to vote for that.

that seems to be breaking down, throughout the western world.

we should never denigrate or infringe upon the personhood of anyone. we should take the higher road. and I'm not arguing that the oppressed should accept their oppression: I'm arguing that the oppressors should listen to the oppressed, and change.

I live in Australia – our constitution is a strange mashup of the UK model (which is certainly the primary influence), and things gleaned from the US. Something I observe is that we're more willing to admit the possibility of non-partisan spaces. For example, rather than electoral commissions being bipartisan, they're non-partisan, with partisan input. It is a serious matter if an official of such an organisation is found to have publicly stated political views. We have some people who make it their profession to be boring, and to simply uphold the precepts of society: including the rights of minorities. That's a serious sacrifice, made routinely by judges and senior public servants.

I find myself quite terrified that this is being eroded. I don't know how we turn it around: but I certainly speak up for the dignity of all through my ministry. We all ought to speak up.

Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#846

Post by wat10000 »

DanielHB wrote: post #838
red-iron-pine wrote: post #835

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is really the same reasoning with dictatorships, even if the dictator is good, competent and capable his successor most likely won't. Democracy is the best form of government because there are clean, regulated ways to transfer power. Not a scramble for dominance that once settled is meant to last in perpetuity. You're assuming that there will be a successor, in a democratic sense.

I see no reason why it wouldn't, they don't seem to be trying to dismantle the voting system. I am not super familiar with the US system but my impression is that a most of it is handled at the state level, not the federal level.

There’s plentiful talk from the right about allowing state legislatures to ignore the presidential vote in their state and appoint the electors they want instead, about only allowing heads of households to vote, and how it was a mistake to allow women to vote. We already saw multiple attempts to overturn the previous election, with lies about vote totals, fake electors, and finally outright violence.

There will certainly be elections. It’s pretty much required for basic legitimacy these days. Even North Korea has elections. Whether they’ll be free and fair, however, is a whole different question.

Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#847

Post by fooqux »

jc_811 wrote: post #830
DanielHB wrote: post #815

I just want to highlight one thing about this whole government takeover debacle. The reason you have the separation of power (legislative, judiciary, executive) is not to be efficient, it is to prevent generational abuse. Even a well intentioned benign autocrat if given power would not part ways with said power voluntarily. So even if the current administration is "good" there is no reason why this kind of power coul…

Completely agree. Being slow and not able to be flipped upside down on the whim of someone (or some party, or some group, etc) is a feature not a bug In my opinion incremental change with a common passage toward a better future is the best way to have long term functioning democracies

> incremental change

I think this is key for other reasons as well. A country, especially a global superpower like the US, has an incredibly slow turning radius. Even more so when you need to stop and consider ripple effects, as politicians should be. For some reason, politicians like to sell that they'll be able to fix everything in a short term, and people continue to buy it. When really, anybody at a podium saying they can "fix the economy" in timescales measured in anything but decades should be a red flag.

I mean, I get it. If your adversary is promising to fix everything in months, you're going to look like a fool for saying it'll take you decades. I just find it interesting how the populace continues to buy into the fantasy.

Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#848

Post by regentbowerbird »

skrebbel wrote: post #761
romeovs wrote: post #756

tesla.sexy contains the following text, which is slightly concerning: love your fate become your own ubermensch you are the master of your soul be kind there is so much to love, so much to live for follow your heart, ok?

Why is this concerning? Note, it seems to me like their reference to "ubermensch" is to the Nietzschean definition [0] and not the Nazi remix. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Übermensch

None of us live in an ideal vacuum and this word has been tainted by its use in nazi ideology. Whomever wrote that has a responsibility to know what the words they use mean.

The combination of symbols is not random either. For example: taken individually, I'm willing to believe we're talking about Kantian Weltanschauung, Nietzschean Übermenschen, Nordic runes, medieval wolfsangel, Roman salute, or east-Asian swastika. But if I notice several at once, I will become quite suspicious.

Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#849

Post by nomdep »

dang wrote: post #684
dang wrote: post #37

All: if you're going to comment here, please make sure you're up on the guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html , and don't post low-information / high-indignation comments that could just as easily appear in any related thread. Such generic comments make discussion less interesting and more activating. That's not what we're trying for here. Rather, we want curious conversation. I know that's n…

I spent all day responding to the replies here, and then detaching them in order to save space at the top of the thread. But I just had a better idea. This is a stub comment so we have a single root to collapse the replies. This way (1) replies can stay close to their parent (the top comment) without flooding the screen with offtopicness; and (2) we can all re-experience the timeless truth of https://en.wikipedia.org…

@dang Considering how many are ready to label one of the “other side” as evil, I think it’s very irresponsible of you to allow articles about US politics in the front page, specially an article like this that it’s really an smearing attempt

Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#850

Post by firstlunchables »

DanielHB wrote: post #838
red-iron-pine wrote: post #835

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is really the same reasoning with dictatorships, even if the dictator is good, competent and capable his successor most likely won't. Democracy is the best form of government because there are clean, regulated ways to transfer power. Not a scramble for dominance that once settled is meant to last in perpetuity. You're assuming that there will be a successor, in a democratic sense.

I see no reason why it wouldn't, they don't seem to be trying to dismantle the voting system. I am not super familiar with the US system but my impression is that a most of it is handled at the state level, not the federal level.

I don’t understand giving liars the benefit of the doubt. I mean, there are tens of thousands of documented lies and your like “I trust him”. Your mind is broken.
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