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The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

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Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#271

Post by bende511 »

KerrAvon wrote: post #86
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.

No, they are not. This is a bizarre and highly illegal coup by Musk simply because he can, and who's going to enforce the law? Trump's corrupt DOJ?

In a just world, these kids will end up in jail for a long time, and Musk for the rest of his life. In a less just world, well, I don't want to get banned

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#272

Post by justin66 »

adamredwoods wrote: post #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 ri…

They are going to make it easier to get your money by making it available via X!

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#273

Post by ianburrell »

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…

My brother works for 18F.

18F might also be "far-left" cause it was created by Obama folks. I also wonder if it is also bad in his mind cause conflicts with taken over Digital Service.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#274

Post by iamleppert »

The next four years are going to be a test of the US Constitution. But when they are up -- and they will be, and people are more angry at Trump than the last time around the pendulum swings wildly back again, as it always does, what is going to happen to Musk and the rest of them?

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#275

Post by reaperducer »

fifilura wrote: post #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/…

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

In the U.S., too. In fact, it was the United States that pioneered this in the modern age.

But it's all happening so quickly that nobody can keep up with it. And the people who are supposed to take care of these things have been fired.

Also bad, when requests are made by legitimate parties, they are being ignored or dismissed by the new regime.

Let what's happening in the U.S. serve as a warning to you that no matter what laws you pass, electing lawless people brings lawlessness. And the law you passed cannot help you against people who don't respect the law.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#277

Post by siliconc0w »

If DOGE wants to be effective it really should be going after the big ticket items like medicare or defense, some estimates have medicare at 40% fraud and waste and the DoD can't even pass an audit so no one really knows what %. And that is just getting what we've paid for, not even evaluating if what we've paid for is effective.

Of course to do that would require actual coalition building, hard choices that upset voters, and congressional approval. Instead they'll going to disrupt some of the highest ROI small-money grants like food or medicine to impoverished countries because they don't have any representation.

It won't meaningfully reduce the deficit and means we we're signing up for warlords and global instability in the near future.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#278

Post by sangnoir »

littlestymaar wrote: post #118

Given how useful USAID has been for the CIA, if the “deep state” was a real thing, Elon would have at best a few more days to live.

> if the “deep state” was a real thing

If it wasn't, he made it real. Elon is the deep state. An unelected individual who has set up a no-oversight machinery with hands on the levers of state power, and using them to his own ends, independent of public benefit. Every accusation is a confession.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#279

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#280

Post by khold_stare »

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.

This will sound like a conspiracy theory, but this is the playbook of Curtis Yarvin, specifically the "RAGE" step - Retire All Government Employees. Some references:

Watch the whole video (posted months ago predicting all these actions), but here is the relevant section: https://youtu.be/5RpPTRcz1no?t=1201

NYT interview: https://www.nytimes.com/video/podcasts/100000009910862/curti...

Gil Duran did a lot of the reporting on this. https://www.thenerdreich.com/the-network-state-coup-is-happe...

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