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

The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 1001 posts

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#181

Post by caspper69 »

jimmydddd wrote: post #113
xnx wrote: post #73

Are 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.

US National Debt Adds $1 Trillion Every 100 Days.

Who holds the vast majority of the debt of the government of the United States?

Hint: it's not China, the UK or any other foreign government.

It's us silly. We owe ourselves. :)

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#182

Post by archagon »

justin66 wrote: post #44
medler wrote: post #3

I don’t know how this will shake out, but I do worry that these 19-24 year olds, some of whom are known to HN for other achievements, are putting themselves in real legal jeopardy. Edit: by the way, this post isn’t off-topic. It is about the activities of the US Digital Service (now known as Doge), and the exploits of young hackers who came up through top tech companies. It has implications for information systems se…

> I do worry that these 19-24 year olds, some of whom are known to HN for other achievements, are putting themselves in real legal jeopardy. I worry that the law will not hold them accountable.

If not the law, then perhaps social consequences will.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#184

Post by salve-for-tears »

MeetingsBrowser wrote: post #146
vitajex wrote: post #83

Experienced 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?

[dead]

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#185

Post by jacobjjacob »

ian_d wrote: post #108

Elon is also now claiming to have "deleted" 18F ( https://18f.gsa.gov/ ): https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886498750052327520

Looking at the quoted post, what do they have against Direct File? It is really hard to keep track of their positions which I believe is intentional.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#186

Post by ceejayoz »

fzliu wrote: post #63

I don't understand why the editors allowed the engineers' names to be made public. What did they hope to gain by doing this other than making them magnets for harassment and possibly threats?

Now do @libsoftiktok.

Or Musk himself: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1858916546338590740 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1858914228624924963

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#187

Post by viccis »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #42
medler wrote: post #3

I don’t know how this will shake out, but I do worry that these 19-24 year olds, some of whom are known to HN for other achievements, are putting themselves in real legal jeopardy. Edit: by the way, this post isn’t off-topic. It is about the activities of the US Digital Service (now known as Doge), and the exploits of young hackers who came up through top tech companies. It has implications for information systems se…

> I do worry that these 19-24 year olds, some of whom are known to HN for other achievements, are putting themselves in real legal jeopardy. They 100% are. This is a full blackhat attack on a nation. Did they take no ethics class? (software or otherwise)?

My experience with ethics classes is that they usually just teach you good ways to justify whatever you want.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#188

Post by riskable »

xnx wrote: post #73

Are 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.

You said it! How long before a lot of small countries start leaving treaties like the Berne Convention? Why would they bother protecting other big countries copyrights when they're no longer getting support through programs like USAID and there's no longer any guarantee that the US will protect them in any way.

The first country to pull out has the chance to make like $100 billion by creating the next TikTok competitor that never takes down content for violating anyone's copyright. It'll be like Edison moving to Hollywood all over again! Let the gold rush begin!

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#189

Post by PhunkyPhil »

h197BQcV wrote: post #114

They 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…

I guess Elon believes that long wait times for government services is because of an O(n^3) function somewhere...

> Where are the Democrats on all this? There is hardly any opposition

I think because this is so unprecedented the structures to oversee simply don't exist. The article mentions that congress has no mechanisms for oversight, and Elon is moving too quickly in this area for any checks to take place.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#190

Post by avs733 »

novia wrote: post #174
m463 wrote: post #122

Posts 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…

>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.

Lets be clear, that is not the goal - that is what they say the goal is and reality shows it is not. The goal is grift and theft adn destruction. Properly naming things is going to continue to matter more and more. Because no matter your bias or perspective, repeating propaganda is an act of propaganda.

Post reply on HN