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The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

wired.com

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Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#221

Post by [deleted] »

xmprt wrote: post #207
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 have bigger fish to fry and DOGE isn't a real department so it doesn't have a whole lot of authority to do things on its own. It can only advise the government so in the end, until an executive order is signed or some other action is taken, there's nothing to be done.

[deleted]

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#222

Post by huijzer »

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.

> The US probably hasn't been this economically dominant since after WWII.

Where do you base that on? China’s GDP is huge. It overtook the whole EU’s GDP.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#223

Post by PeeMcGee »

user32489318 wrote: post #210

how is someone’s age relevant? Is a 55 y.o. Software engineer who spent 20 years in a bureaucratic wheel any better than a bright 20yo mind? They both suck in a different way! Writing an entire article with ageism as a center piece is truly pinnacle of American journalism

When they're as young as literally 19 years old, then it must be the case that they lack the appropriate experience.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#224

Post by eutropia »

There are people in this thread claiming that Wired "doxxed" these engineers working for Musk dismantling things they don't understand; however didn't Musk publicly mock individual federal employees on his twitter account, drawing the eyes of millions onto random government functionaries for no other reason than to capriciously taunt them about being fired?

I hope people condemning the former also condemn the latter.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#225

Post by riskable »

tyre wrote: post #157
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 dismantle as much of the government as possible. Where possible, they can replace the existing people with their own people, then steer government contracts to themselves.

The way they're going there might not be a government much longer. I really do believe they're that stupid.

The entire stock market is premised on the stability of the US government. Without it all their wealth would disappear overnight. All the luxuries they love would cease being produced. They wouldn't be able to fly their private jets anywhere.

In the past the rich could stockpile easily-tradable goods like gold in order to maintain a luxurious life even if their government collapsed. When it comes to billionaires that's not possible. The logistics of keeping and moving that much physical currency/gold/etc don't work out in their favor.

If they keep this up they're going to lose almost all of their wealth as the world destabilizes. They're also setting themselves and their families up to be assassination targets for the rest of their lives (far, far beyond what they are already). There's people everywhere that will be severely impacted by their actions. There will be nowhere for them to go because the US really is the pillar of the world's economies.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#226

Post by brtkdotse »

afavour wrote: post #95
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.

Never appropriate. The actions are entirely unconstitutional. If the US decided to disband USAID it would have to be an act of congress, unelected friends of the president don’t come close to being able to make that call.

> The actions are entirely unconstitutional.

For all the fetishization of the constitution popular media has led me to believe Americans engage in, when push comes to shove it doesn’t seem to be worth the paper it’s written on.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#227

Post by tines »

Dig1t wrote: post #209
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.

[flagged]

> The founding fathers were all younger than these guys.

Who do you consider to be the founding fathers? Franklin was 70 in 1776. Washington was 44. Adams was 40. Jefferson was 36.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#228

Post by bee_rider »

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…

Like Democratic elected officials? They lost. They have no power. They don’t control any branch of government.

They have as much ability to pass laws as you or I personally do. They have as much ability to hand down a Supreme Court or direct law enforcement as you or I personally do. None. Where are we? Complaining on social media I guess.

I’m quite frustrated why my elected officials as well but it is kind of hard to blame them when we don’t give them any actual power to wield.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#229

Post by kelnos »

jacobjjacob wrote: post #185
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.

Direct File competes with Intuit and other tax prep companies. Of course they're against it; DF threatens corporate profits.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#230

Post by tehjoker »

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.

What are you talking about? The whole reason this is happening is because US economic dominance is being eclipsed and dedollarization is occurring at a rapid pace. This is a freak out and reorganization of foreign policy and the economy to cope with that situation.
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