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

341–350 of 1001 posts

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#341

Post by kristjansson »

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…

You’re describing the independent Inspectors General. That were summarily fired. Could they have had more power and independence? Sure. But there were real independent offices doing what you describe.

The problem is EM and DOGE are equating “fraud and waste” to “I think it’s wasteful”, which is a judgement the adversarial auditor should not be allowed to make.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#342

Post by dml2135 »

daedrdev wrote: post #239
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…

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

And the filibuster is nothing more than a polite restriction that the majority of the senate places on themselves — they are free to remove it if they wish.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#343

Post by sanderjd »

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.

I don't think it's possible to answer this apolitically because their goals are political in nature.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#344

Post by maximilianburke »

bee_rider wrote: post #228
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 t…

Sure, but there's other things they can do. They can all stop trying to achieve bipartisan support on things, as the republicans do when they're in the minority. Senators can withdraw their unanimous consent. They can vote against everything. They can drag a bunch of reporters over to Treasury and start loudly asking questions

It sounds like some are finding a clue, like the ones who stomped down to USAID with reporters in tow today. They need to do more of this.

Just because they can't pass legislation doesn't mean they are out of ideas.

What you can do is write to or call them. Ask them to vote no on every senate confirmation. Ask them to not provide unanimous consent. Ask them to make a scene. Demand answers!

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#345

Post by ljsprague »

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…

[flagged]

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#346

Post by yesco »

strangeloops85 wrote: post #90

Have Elon Musk and all these engineers sworn oaths as required to be a federal employee? https://federalnewsnetwork.com/commentary/2019/10/the-oath-o... If Elon is "just advising", under what statute or directive does he have specific authority? If they are accessing TS/SCI information and places like SCIFs have they filled out their SF-86? Are any of them dual nationals and do they have any ties or vulnerabilities t…

Would contractors need to do any of this? Is DOGE using federal funds?

I'm not exactly clear on the situation but if they are just doing this for free and don't have access to confidential information, I could see that potentially being the key loophole here.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#347

Post by FactolSarin »

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…

> Where are the Democrats on all this? There is hardly any opposition. Are they not interrupting their enemy while he is making mistakes? That would be the only explanation.

This is the kind of thing that someone who's on TikTok a lot says. The line being fed to people by the Chinese government to make the Democrats look bad as well. But the truth is the Democrats have no power. None. They can't do anything to stop this. Elizabeth Warren and AOC have just as much power as I do to stop Elon Musk and Donald Trump.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#348

Post by Nasrudith »

kelnos wrote: post #132
troelsSteegin wrote: post #16

https://doge.gov does not say anything about what the DOGE plan is, and https://www.usds.gov/ is not apparently up to date wrt DOGE. Is there something other than the Executive Order [0] that lays out concretely what DOGE intends to do? This group of engineers is doubtless skilled, but I don't seem them as the decision makers and planners here. [0] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/esta...

Of course not. Getting all of this done requires overwhelming amounts of surprise. Trump signing a flood of executive orders is a part of this: it takes time to figure out what's going on with each one, and how to combat it. And in that time, the damage can already be done. Musk and his coup team aren't really accountable to anyone but Trump, and have no direct legal authority. The way that they get things done is by…

Didn't they already do exactly that with Project 2025?

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#349

Post by BryantD »

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.

It's referred to as Elizabeth Warren's Direct File project.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#350

Post by sanderjd »

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…

Those may be the stated goals but I don't see any reason to believe those are the goals. Trust is earned.
Post reply on HN