Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees • Hacker News Board

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#291

Post by dcow » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 5:12 PM UTC

vpribish wrote: post #279

dcow wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s from TFA.

It absolutely is not. The article says no such thing and you show yourself as an untrustworthy participant in this discussion.

> Those impacted in the wee hours of Saturday morning also received emails late Friday from DOGE with the subject line, “What did you do last week? Part II.”

They were asked first last last week. And then again on Friday.

——

> According to Politico, the emails — prompting employees to list their weekly accomplishments by Monday — were widely distributed across multiple agencies, including the State Department, the IRS, and the NIH.

I’m not making this shit up…

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#292

Post by skissane » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 5:12 PM UTC

alephnerd wrote: post #235

skissane wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You suggested Australia and Canada have something in common with the US in this area that Germany doesn’t - but when challenged you can’t actually name anything specific, you just fall back on vague generalities > IMO, the only large federations structurally comparable to Germany are probably France and Italy. Unlike Australia/Canada/Germany/US (among others), neither France nor Italy are federations, both are unitar…

> You suggested Australia and Canada have something in common with the US in this area that Germany doesn’t - but when challenged you can’t actually name anything specific I didn't realize you explicitly asked for that. In this case, it's the English Law Tradition, and alignment between US and Canadian administrative norms as being part of the same common market. I recommend reading this paper about the differences i…

> I recommend reading this paper about the differences in Administrative Procedure legislation (which includes federal employment rules and norms) in Germany versus the US [0]

No, administrative procedure law (US APA, German VwVfG) is not the primary legal regime for government employees, they are governed by civil service law (e.g. the Bundesbeamtengesetz in Germany, Title 5 of the United States Code).

> In general, I think online Europeans need to stop comparing the US to their countries. The causes for our dysfunctions are different, and our entire legal, constitutional, and political traditions are VERY different because of a 300-500 year split.

The common law tradition, followed by the US and Canada, originates in Europe (England); among EU member states, Ireland’s legal system is completely based on common law, while Malta has a mixed legal system which combines Roman/French and English legal traditions. Such a mix is not unique to Malta, you can find a similar mix in Louisiana, Quebec, Scotland. Cyprus’ legal system is heavily based on English common law, but also with Ottoman and French influences (the French influence comes via Greece, since modern Greek law was modelled off France)

In terms of political systems, Canada and Germany have a lot in common, both being parliamentary federations - yes one is a constitutional republic the other a monarchy, but that makes little difference in practice. The presidential system used in the US, while common in Latin America, is basically unheard of in Europe; although, the semipresidential system used in France can be viewed as a hybrid between an American-style presidential system and the parliamentary system which is the European norm

So I think North Americans and Europeans have more in common in terms of political and legal traditions than you acknowledge

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#293

Post by alephnerd » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 5:12 PM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #281

alephnerd wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no denying that there's bloat, but going in with a chainsaw is not a conducive or efficient way to reduce bloat in an organization. If you want to use the "private sector lense" (which I do not think is valid for a govenenent bureaucracy), there's a reason why when I've participated in M&A events, we would spend a year doing due diligence and understanding the organizational and financial structure before ini…

Reduction of scope is required to decrease cost and waste. Unfortunately, reducing scope and regulation is a legislative problem, not an executive one. Having an government organization underfunded and understaffed to fulfill its mission leads to more waste, both on the public and private side. For example, the solution isnt to fire employees, it is to simplify the tax code.

> Unfortunately, reducing scope and regulation is a legislative problem, not an executive one.

Exactly!

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#294

Post by dcow » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 5:13 PM UTC

troupo wrote: post #275

dcow wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t seen the main impetus for the layoffs brought up yet: the people let go were unable or unwilling to send an email listing 5 things they accomplished in the last week, twice. People are acting like DOGE is attacking tech support recklessly with a chainsaw. This appears to be a targeted cut of insubordinate or redundant individuals.

Elon Musk is not the boss or the king to order employees to submit to his will. And yet you act like he is. Who is he to order DoD or DoJ employees to write this email?

DOGE is not equal to Elon

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#295

Post by surgical_fire » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 5:13 PM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #156

mopsi wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Ayn Rand types deserve to be reminded that she spent her final years on welfare.

I mean the easy libertarian response to this would be I imagine them saying "well, she was force to pay into it, she would have a right to partake of it" and they're not wrong. "Gotcha" hypocrisy arguments about personal behaviour I don't think are great taken from either left nor right.

> I mean the easy libertarian response to this would be I imagine them saying "well, she was force to pay into it, she would have a right to partake of it" and they're not wrong.

Which, perhaps ironically, shows that welfare works as intended, even for morons that want to see it dismantled.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#296

Post by fwip » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 5:13 PM UTC

brookst wrote: post #36

trial3 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but the core problem to me feels like “billionaires in charge of what should be government functions.” this is still that bad for that reason even if Cuban is funnier on Bluesky

This is the category / degree fallacy. We don’t get to choose a world where billionaires have no special power. The choice is whether to accept some good from billionaires, or to reject what good they can do because of the harm they do.

We sure can choose that world. Not individually, but as a people.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#297

Post by mexicocitinluez » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 5:14 PM UTC

blactuary wrote: post #51

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #19

Privatization is what a lot of people believe is the answer, thinking that there is so much waste and useless things the Federal government does. These people must have never worked at a large corporation. I have a relative in the federal government and we would share stories because the dysfunctions are basically the same. Any large organization of humans working uses a pyramid organization since like the middle age…

Yes, this exactly. Reflexive "ugh govt" is a result of decades of Reagan-ite propaganda. Govt is just people, and people are flawed and have competing incentives. I've worked in massive companies that have incredibly dumb inefficiencies.

> Govt is just peoples

Which is the original definition of the "Deep state" until it was hijacked by conspiracy theorists and Republicans who do bad shit.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#298

Post by troupo » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 5:14 PM UTC

dcow wrote: post #294

troupo wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon Musk is not the boss or the king to order employees to submit to his will. And yet you act like he is. Who is he to order DoD or DoJ employees to write this email?

DOGE is not equal to Elon

Who are DOGE to order DoD and DoJ employees to write this letter?

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#299

Post by BurningFrog » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 5:14 PM UTC

alephnerd wrote: post #98

BurningFrog wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that large organizations work similarly in government and business. The difference is that large businesses constantly competed by other businesses. This either keeps them effective enough to compete, or they get replaced with more functional ones. The accumulated dysfunction in a 20-50 year old company is large, but on a whole different scale than a 250 year old government.

> that large businesses constantly competed by other businesses and either Not exactly. Ideally, you want to use market and persona segmentation to develop a partial oligopoly. The nature of sales cycles and the fact that only a minority of organizations (F1000) represent the majority of spend, means that you essentially have 2-3 large players in an single segment, and maybe a couple smaller players that will eventua…

2-3 large players and a few smaller ones is a decent amount of competition. Vastly more than a government has.

Oligopols are less competition than ideal, but much better than nothing.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#300

Post by Centigonal » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 5:15 PM UTC

modeless wrote: post #68

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #19

Privatization is what a lot of people believe is the answer, thinking that there is so much waste and useless things the Federal government does. These people must have never worked at a large corporation. I have a relative in the federal government and we would share stories because the dysfunctions are basically the same. Any large organization of humans working uses a pyramid organization since like the middle age…

The difference is private companies that accumulate too much waste and useless things can fail and be replaced. The exception is companies propped up by government regulation. The problem with modern big companies is that the exception has become the rule. Regulation is so pervasive it's become a "what the hell is water" situation. People don't even recognize that the dysfunctional companies are protected from failur…

So why haven't we replaced Boeing? UHG? the "too big to fail" banks?

I would argue that replacing a private company that performs a critical government function poorly is actually more difficult than eliminating and reforming an agency like USAID or ICE.