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The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

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Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#191

Post by watwut »

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…

I don't believe Musk or Trum cares about "improving the lives of Americans". They would try to protect Americans if that was their goal. Their first targets are consumer protection, environmental protection and such.

they don't care about fraud either. Both are fraudsters themselves, both will enrich themselves and their families. They both surround themselves with fraudsters.

What I give to Musk is that the staggering nepotism you see with Trump is not there as much.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#192

Post by jacobjjacob »

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…

Maybe the strategy is to let it play out until there is enough of a case that the other branches can’t look away? Let Elon show himself out by inevitably crossing Trump and going the way of so many other advisors?

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#193

Post by dredmorbius »

segasaturn wrote: post #87
jonnycomputer wrote: post #32

Can't believe this is flagged.

Of course it's flagged, this site is an altar to worship at the feet of the American oligarchy. It's as rotten as the rest of Silicon Valley. As JWZ put it: "A venture capital company's fan club, finance-obsessed manchildren making the world worse" Slightly NSFW source: https://cdn.jwz.org/images/2024/hn.png

Flags are applied by users in virtually all cases, not mods.

Contentious topics, regardless of how merited a discussion might be, tend to draw flags inordinately. But again, you generally can't blame mods for this.

(HN does systemically penalise, or outright ban, numerous sites. I strongly doubt Wired is in either category, though if you want to know for certain, you can email mods. For a number of fairly evident reasons the full list isn't publicly disclosed, though pg provided some lists and extracts early in HN's histoyry, notably https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=499044> and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4984095>. There were 38,719 banned sites as of the end of 2012, a number which has doubtless increased.)

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#194

Post by arrosenberg »

bilbo0s wrote: post #177
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…

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.

> 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?

Well, we voted based on the only two options that were shoved down our throats by various groups of the wealthiest people on the planet. I don't personally think we deserve this, why would we? That said, if we don't do something, it won't get better.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#195

Post by dredmorbius »

relaxing wrote: post #35
jonnycomputer wrote: post #32

Can't believe this is flagged.

Honest question: how do things get unflagged? Do users at some level gain vouch privileges?

It's possible to vouch for stories and comments.

You can also email moderators at hn@ycombintor.com to request unflagging. I do that occasionally, with mixed results. (I've come to know which are long shots, and typically concede the point, but at least make the attempt.)

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#196

Post by nailer »

breadwinner wrote: post #25

> So this feels like a hostile takeover of the machinery of governments by the richest man in the world. ... and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Checks and balances have been neutralized.

> Checks and balances have been neutralized.

That seems somewhat inverted - the elected government is creating checks and balances on unelected bureaucrats.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#197

Post by ChicagoDave »

nomel wrote: post #135
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.

> 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…

Our national debt is directly related to the 45 years of regressive tax policy.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#198

Post by jf »

paulgb wrote: post #128
ian_d wrote: post #108

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

This is nuts, 18F was one of the few groups in the federal government that is/was good at making software! (login.gov is a good example of craft you don't generally see in commercial enterprise software, let alone government software) According to that tweet they were apparently “far left” because they also worked on Direct File, which sought to cut out the middleman (TurboTax et al.) and let Americans file taxes dir…

login.gov is amazing software. Highly tested. Expertly implemented. It might be the most tested IdP available today.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#199

Post by tpm »

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.

It's a plutocratic coup, a takeover of the country by a small group of unelected men. The goal is to own and exercise power without opposition and without any rules.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#200

Post by kelnos »

electriclove wrote: post #179
Whatarethese wrote: post #46

They 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?

They don't actually work for the federal government. That's a big part of the problem. Trump has just given them access.
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