371–380 of 1001 posts
> So this feels like a hostile takeover of the machinery of governments by the richest man in the world. ... and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Checks and balances have been neutralized.
> Checks and balances have been neutralized. That seems somewhat inverted - the elected government is creating checks and balances on unelected bureaucrats.
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…
Yeah, and why don't we build concentration camps again? They're super efficient in term of work per unit of food. Colonies are also super nice, lots of free stuff!
Some people should open history books, life isn't about refactoring everything, making things as simple as possible, &c. It would be comical if it wasn't the very first thing you learn as an engineer
If you think a rocket is more complex than hundreds of years of infinitely complex people making decisions and compromises through democracy you're completely out of touch with reality, and if you genuinely think we can just burn it all down because some nerd unilaterally thinks he found a better way to do it you're just plain dumb.
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 think there's a fear they'll end up on the Kash Patel FBI enemies list:
https://newrepublic.com/article/188946/kash-patel-fbi-enemie...
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.
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…
> 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. They 100% are. This is a full blackhat attack on a nation. Did they take no ethics class? (software or otherwise)?
JFC, I was a complete dumbass in my 20s.
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At any rate ISTM that "Wild in the Streets" and "Logan's Run" weren't instruction films.
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.
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 ba…
This was instituted in Sweden in the year 1766. Source: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offentlighetsprincipen
That's 10 years before the USA declared independence.