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The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

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Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#231
Most Scandinavian countries are required to make any communication in public departments (including all coworkers emails) public on request by journalists or anyone interested.

This is to make any doubts regarding e.g USAID public instead of making such drastic measures necessary.

But also make work of an entity such as Doge transparent. They are after all funded by my money (as a taxpayer).

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

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#232
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.

When reality doesn't agree with logic, question your assumptions.

Why does an alcoholic crash their car and ruin all their personal relationships?

Why does someone with impulse control problems make a self destructive statement?

Why does a tech billionaire who is clearly intoxicated by his own power and a cocktail of legal and illegal drugs behaving erratically?

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#234
post #95
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.

[deleted]

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#235

disappointing to see so many “hacker” news comments complaining about lack of credentials or system-specific expertise. yes, existing government systems are insanely complex - that’s part of the problem! the essential complexity is not higher than that of a brain-computer interface, or an interplanetary rocket. we don’t even know what these kids’ mandate is (also disappointing). but if your general premise is “smart…

I'm open to outsiders improving inefficiencies. The concern is that these are kids, barely out of college. They don't have the domain-specific knowledge required to rework these complex systems, no matter how smart they are. Plus, given Musk's track record, they were likely chosen more for their loyalty to Musk than for their technical acumen.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#236

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.

The courts are just now beginning to order injuctions and restraining orders, for the stuff that happened last week. The process seems to lag by 2-3 business days. So hopefully we'll be seeing a lot more this week.

How the administration responds to those is going to define how this constitutional crisis unfolds. And it is a constitutional crisis: congress unambiguously has the power of the purse, not the executive.

If Trump gets away with this, it isn't clear that Congress has any power at all.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#238
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.

Isn't this just the Dark Enlightenment that Curtis Yarvin has espoused and Thiel, Musk, and JD Vance have also endorsed? TL;DR - Dictatorships are superior to democracy, and quick executive actions that replace legislative responsibilities with the tacit endorsement of judicial and legislative branches are functionally the same. The foundations for this were laid when Trump got so many Federalist judges approved last term and the Supreme Court endorsed the anything goes if President does it theory.

https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2008/11/patchwork-2...

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#239

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…

The democrats have effectively no power. They control neither the house, senate, or presidency, the courts have become more conservative, etc. They can only talk. The filibuster will prevent new laws, but that isn't much when the federal government acts according to the presidency, and the filibuster does not prevent government appointments

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#240
I'm concerned about my US bonds, as the way to access them is through a government website. Are these people going to block my access and steal my money?

>> “We really have very little eyes on what's going on. Congress has no ability to really intervene and monitor what's happening because these aren't really accountable public officials. So this feels like a hostile takeover of the machinery of governments by the richest man in the world.”

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