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The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
171–180 of 1001 posts
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#172Are such drastic action appropriate given the current state of the US? The US probably hasn't been this economically dominant since after WWII. Feels like Chesterton fences are getting torn up left and right by people too young and incurious to possibly understand why those fences might be there.
> Are such drastic action appropriate given the current state of the US? With the debt ceiling ever increasing, approaching a trillion dollars in interest per year, nearing $6k/year per working individual, I would say the correct time to put any effort, whatsoever, into reducing spending, was 20 years ago. I think the fundamental problem is we lack adversarial systems within the government: it doesn't like to hurt it…
There is about zero chance Trump and Musk will make debt smaller.
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#173This seems broadly good. If you told me a democratic admin had recruited these people, I would think "wow! what a positive signal for the current admin!"
You should probably pay more attention to what people do rather than their credentials as it’s a more powerful signal.
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#174Posts here talk about the legality of this, that what they are doing is not allowed, or that they're doing something naively without understanding. But what is the goal? Maybe what goal to they think they're pursuing? This is hacker news, so I'm asking for an answer without political rhetoric.
The goal is to find government waste and to trim the fat. The goal is to make the US government lean, efficient, and effective at improving the lives of Americans while not prioritizing improving the lives of citizens of other nations. The view is that the government of those other nations should be responsible for taking care of their own citizens. The goal is to uncover fraudulent payouts, stop more from going out in the future, and to bring the fraudsters to justice. Overall, the goal is to do a thorough accounting of where exactly US tax dollars are going to, and to use that information to decide if they should keep going to those recipients in the future, to put it to a vote using congress to decide.
[Political bias report: I'm a liberal who has read Rand and who does not agree with The Republican Party's views in the vast majority of cases. I have been listening to Musk and Ramaswamy talking about DOGE on X. I also follow conservative meme sites to keep up to date with the way they are thinking about things.]
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#175Are such drastic action appropriate given the current state of the US? The US probably hasn't been this economically dominant since after WWII. Feels like Chesterton fences are getting torn up left and right by people too young and incurious to possibly understand why those fences might be there.
> Are such drastic action appropriate given the current state of the US? With the debt ceiling ever increasing, approaching a trillion dollars in interest per year, nearing $6k/year per working individual, I would say the correct time to put any effort, whatsoever, into reducing spending, was 20 years ago. I think the fundamental problem is we lack adversarial systems within the government: it doesn't like to hurt it…
US debt as a percentage of GDP (i.e. our ability to pay off our debt) has basically remained static since COVID. I agree that the US requires a serious debate about our fiscal priorities and the appropriate levels of spending and taxation, particularly with automatic social security cuts looming. But it is nowhere near an emergency and fiscal decisions are the responsibility of Congress, not the executive.
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#176Experienced enough to win this though: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39261861
I came in first place in my college CTF. Where do I sign up to decide which parts of the government should be shut down?
Found it. For anyone else interested https://neuralink.com/careers/apply/
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#177They have interesting pedigrees: Meta, Palantir, Neuralink, xAI, SpaceX, Databricks, Energize AI. It seems clear where this is going. Data mining and algorithmic (claimed!) efficiency improvements while working on an essential and critical production system. Since these people claim that "AI" does not need to respect privacy and copyright, perhaps they'll also train a model on this. Where are the Democrats on all thi…
Democrats can oppose, but they don’t have any votes. All 3 branches of government are controlled by Republicans.
So, yeah. I guess we got the government we voted for? And since it’s a democracy, I suppose that means we have exactly the government we deserve?
Maybe it gets better later in the administration? That’s my hope anyway.
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#178Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#179They are adults. They work for the federal government. They deserve no privacy protections.
I keep seeing a contradiction that I’m having a hard time explaining. On one hand, there are numerous comments saying that what these individuals are doing is illegal. On the other hand, there are comments saying they work for the federal government and so doxxing them is fair game.
If they work for the government, how is what they are doing illegal?
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#180[flagged]