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Elon Musk's Demolition Crew

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Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew

#341

Post by 6510 »

afpx wrote: post #222
GiorgioG wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've learned the hard way that many people in this country do NOT actually care about democracy. Our democracy has been eroding for decades. Congress collects paychecks while gridlocking progress, even on bipartisan issues that could help ordinary citizens. Super PACs and "campaign contributions" (aka bribes) ensure the wealthy control both parties. Democrats and Republicans both spend recklessly and divide the nat…

How do you fix wealth inequality? That's what I want to know. I feel like we're so far past the point of no return. I'm sure they're all eagerly rubbing their hands together waiting to be a Duke in Peter Thiel's new global Monarchy.

The traditional method is fairly ugly but if someones actions kill enough people at some point it is reasonable to kill them too.

Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew

#342

Post by tomrod »

29athrowaway wrote: post #329
tomrod wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6% of Feds retire annually. 2.5% or so gave taken the offer. This is not wide success. I agree, the blitzkrieg on democracy really needs to stop. Per doge goals, doge is highly inefficient and lacking oversight.

In the 90s, Clinton did something similar and wasn't seen as a blitzkrieg on democracy.

I think we can both agree Clinton was neither trying to rob the government blind nor bypassing Congress completely in taking over and shuttering independent agencies. Nor was he implementing Yarvin's vision for RAGE as step 2 towards the Dark Enlightenment.

Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew

#343

Post by Quarrelsome »

Zigurd wrote: post #326
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that has just resigned because of hyper racist comments he made in the past that have come to light. Just to add clarity, "the past" in this case wasn't even that long ago, as these racist tweets that were uncovered were from June to December of 2024.

That, and the standard for rejecting racists shouldn't be set at "hyper racist." Especially since we are seeing supposedly well educated young men in an environment that has normalized anything less than "hyper."

I just wanted to distinguish that he wasn't simply clumsy with his language or casually racist but rather entirely identified with it.

Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew

#344

Post by GiorgioG »

3vidence wrote: post #208
GiorgioG wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Americans have the some of the cheapest housing and highest salaries in the world and look around and cry foul. I must be living in a different America then.

Have you genuinely tried to compare the salaries vs cost of living in the US vs other countries? You would genuinely be surprised. Financially the thing that leads most Americans to bankruptcy is medical debt. Another factor primarily lead by private industry taking advantage of people.

The US is a big place. Living NYC is not cheaper than London. If you live in the middle of the US, you're not making NYC money.

Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew

#345

Post by oliwarner »

spankalee wrote: post #261
spicyusername wrote: post #80

I want to believe these changes can be positive, but the people in charge of enacting them have done nothing but disabuse me of trust and good faith.

What changes and what's any indication that they would ever have been positive regardless of these people? Unilaterally taking a chainsaw to federal agencies, against their congressional establishment, in a rush in the first three weeks of the administration, is a terrible idea no matter who's running the show. Even if that were somehow a positive thing, the goals range from ridiculously dubious to outright evil.

I assume the rush is so these changes get made law-by-budget.

Whatever they manage to cut will stay cut once Congress sets that as the ongoing budget and assuming a fairly balanced future, it could take decades to undo.

Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew

#346

Post by andrei_says_ »

monero-xmr wrote: post #276
andrei_says_ wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sold on these actions being done in good faith, or legally. There’s a lot of evidence of forceful behavior in obtaining access to highly sensitive systems. Also, the government is here to run services, for us, with the money we give it in the form of taxes. Removing all government services in order to save money (and provide tax cuts to the 0.1% richest people and corps.) seems to be based in the belief that…

I have lived experience dealing with selling software to government agencies. I have observed egregious activity, which to my company's government salesmen, didn't cause them to blink an eye. In one case, the DoD budget ran out of money, but the DoD budget for Disabled Veteran purchasing still had money, so we added 10% to the contract and resold through a disabled veteran's LLC, the taxpayer got screwed, the LLC-own…

I posted the comment above yours.

Nowhere did I mention that accountability for government spending is a bad thing or that government spending is not out of control. Especially with military contracts.

Of course we should address overspending. Of course we should have accountability. Of course we should end the brazen insider trading, and end citizens united, and reform campaign financing.

Defunding USAID, defunding Medicare, deregulating profits on medications, defunding NPR etc. are none of these things and we all know it.

The Pentagon has been failing audit after audit. How come we are not starting with that? (Rhetorical question).

Subsidies for industries that don’t need subsidies.

Let’s not pretend that the waste is in the essential historically underfunded services.

Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew

#347

Post by metadat »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #130

Elez, the guy who pushed the changes the devs were not allowed to review to the production payment system, is the guy that has just resigned because of hyper racist comments he made in the past that have come to light. If in doubt, I recommend checking them out because they're incredibly awful, to the extent that it makes you wonder if the payment system he pushed to had ethnic information attached to it.

Some of the comments are detailed here:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/jd-vance/bring-back-vance-s...

And they're indefensibly off-color and disgusting, and it's even more insane the VP of the USA is defending Elez.

https://x.com/JDVance/status/1887900880143343633

> We shouldn't reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever.

Step 1. Discredit the media and stop the flow of information.

Step 2. Divert public funds to only your friends and allies.

Pretty straightforward.

Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew

#348

Post by tomrod »

rdtsc wrote: post #215
tomrod wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh please. Good faith requires facts, which this current administration does not use. Or perhaps you'd be surprised to learn they aren't eating pets in Springfield?

> Oh please. Oh sure, anytime > Good faith requires facts, which this current administration does not use. I don't know, the OP (or GP?) post said they were wanted to continue discussing the issue in good faith. I'll take them at their word until I see them saying something else, what else should we do, downvote and flag everyone to hell? And it seems it's not about the administration having good or bad faith or good…

Since your later comment is dead, here is a timely news update to help you remain informed.

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-polit...

Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew

#349

Post by r00fus »

spicyusername wrote: post #80

I want to believe these changes can be positive, but the people in charge of enacting them have done nothing but disabuse me of trust and good faith.

How could anyone feel positively about any changes to a codebase that are not allowed to be reviewed by anyone else?

Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew

#350

Post by ZeroGravitas »

wrfrmers wrote: post #333
Zigurd wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That, and the standard for rejecting racists shouldn't be set at "hyper racist." Especially since we are seeing supposedly well educated young men in an environment that has normalized anything less than "hyper."

It seems as good a time as any to point out that the environment in which people like this are making decisions is the one in which equal opportunity/affirmative action/DEI become tenable, if not necessary. For those of you whinging about how unfair scope-broadening to force decision makers to at least consider marginalized people for opportunities is, the problem is not these initiatives, it's these people, who make…

Elon and JD Vance are currently campaigning on Twitter to bring him back.

Amazing since Vance has an Indian wife and children that he's throwing under the bus for someone who made a public call to normalize hating Indians.

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