Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

steveblank.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 527 posts

Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#371

Post by jwithington »

BirAdam wrote: post #209
Hizonner wrote: post #67

The United States does not have a "Department of War".

That was actually the original name. Edit: from 1798 until 1949

Negative, the Department of War was the predecessor to the Dept of the Army. There used to be a Secretary of the Navy and a Secretary of War, both of whom rolled up direct to the president.

Following post-WWII reorgs, the DoD was created and the Secretary of War became the Secretary of the Army, reporting to the Secretary of Defense.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_th...

Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#372

Post by Y-bar »

kragen wrote: post #365
Y-bar wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure, JD Vance created a company called Narya after Gandalf's ring and Viggo Mortensen has more than once had to call out far-right groups trying to co-opt the fandom or litterature: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-48187786 https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/1litq7h/viggo_mort... https://www.brego.net/article/viggo-mortensen-interview-3/

Narya was a Thiel investment vehicle; Vance is a Thiel employee.

> James J.D. Vance and Colin Greenspon have co-founded a new venture firm called Narya Capital and have already raised $93 million toward a target of $125 million.

That's not employee status.

Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#373

Post by helloooooooo »

stackskipton wrote: post #47

As someone who has some familiarity with this process, just like safety regulations are written in blood, Federal Acquisition rules are written in misuse of money, sometimes criminally. Yes, we have swung too much towards the bureaucrats but I'm not sure throwing out everything is solution to the issue. Move fast works great when it's B2B software and failures means stock price does not go up. It's not so great when…

The goal of these rules is to reduce corruption and theft. A lot of these rules go out the window when there is a need for speed. The goals have obviously changed: the US Gov believes the world is on a path to war again, and is reforming on that assumption.

Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#374

Post by kragen »

Y-bar wrote: post #372
kragen wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Narya was a Thiel investment vehicle; Vance is a Thiel employee.

> James J.D. Vance and Colin Greenspon have co-founded a new venture firm called Narya Capital and have already raised $93 million toward a target of $125 million. That's not employee status.

Officially he's an employee of the US government now, of course.

Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#377

Post by spacebanana7 »

mmooss wrote: post #247
Y-bar wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s up with Maga people using LotR names for their military/panopticon companies? Anduril, Palantir, Lembas have I seen so far.

It's especially interesting because their philosophy is the opposite of Tolkien's. They seek power at all costs, trying to create 'rings' and dallying with bad people. One common rhetorical tactic, commonly used by their political allies, is to use their (perceived) enemies' most powerful words and ideas against them, to disarm and counter-attack. 'Woke' was a term on the left; racism became descrimination against wh…

> One common rhetorical tactic, commonly used by their political allies, is to use their (perceived) enemies' most powerful words and ideas against them, to disarm and counter-attack. 'Woke' was a term on the left; racism became descrimination against white people, diversity becomes affirmative action for conservatives, banning and mocking and even embracing discussions of Nazis, etc.

Heresy is at truth taken too far, or a virtue emphasised to the detriment of others - paraphrasing Chesterton whom Tolkien almost certainly read given their similar locations/religions. It's a theme you see with Sauron's love of order in particular.

I think a lot of the Maga people pretty much take this view of DEI or Nazi hate. That diversity was originally good when it was about helping minorities but not when hurting whites, however tricky those are to separate in zero sum environments.

Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#378

Post by Centigonal »

Y-bar wrote: post #372
kragen wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Narya was a Thiel investment vehicle; Vance is a Thiel employee.

> James J.D. Vance and Colin Greenspon have co-founded a new venture firm called Narya Capital and have already raised $93 million toward a target of $125 million. That's not employee status.

Thiel gave Vance his first real job. Thiel introduced Vance to Colin Greenspon (who was the managing director at Thiel's VC firm and now runs Narya with Vance). Thiel supported Vance's book. Thiel supported Vance's governor run. Thiel introduced Vance to Donald Trump. Thiel supported Vance's VP run.

It's not an employer/employee relationship, so maybe patronage is a better word.

Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#379

Post by herewulf »

nateglims wrote: post #158
stackskipton wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of time, this delay is in peacetime, it makes sense to do a ton of testing, wait until testing results then go to full production. Your primary concern is not spending a ton of money and not getting a bunch of people killed. It's basically waterfall in fighter development. Wartime is more agile, you quickly close the loop but downside is sometimes does not work and when it does not work, there might be a people…

I think this is the crux of it. The article discusses Ukraine but they weren't making millions of drones, the private capital wasn't there and the bureaucracy that coordinates it wasn't primed until the war.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#380

Post by hereme888 »

Loughla wrote: post #115
Hizonner wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad news. Trump and Hegseth do not have the authority to rename the Department of Defense, no matter what they put on a Web site. That requires an act of Congress, which hasn't happened. And probably won't, because even if they could convince Congress to do it, that would require them to ask ... and their whole modus operandi is based around pretending to have authority they don't have. Calling it the Department of W…

The ada.gov website has a banner that reads, "Democrats have shut down the government. Department of Justice websites are not currently regularly updated." Trump is the king. Edit: To be clear, I think it's complete and utter garbage. I'm assuming people think I think it's a good thing? It's not a good thing. At all.

It is a fact the democrats shut down government because they wanted to hide irrelevant provisions in the funding bill. Enough shady business from democrats!
Post reply on HN