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The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

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Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#541

Post by TheAlchemist »

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.

They are playing post-URSS playbook, at 10x the speed.

It's fascinating that people still wonder what kind of goals they may be pursuing.

The President launched a meme coin 48 hours before being sworn in !!! Even crypto scammers were outraged at the audacity of the scam.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#543

Post by adamsb6 »

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…

I don't think Treasury Direct could get much worse without just being completely broken.

At least they don't force you to login with a virtual keyboard any longer.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#544

Post by alfalfasprout »

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…

Why worry? They signed onto be one of Musk's sycophants are at this point are clearly aware of their actions. You can have accomplishments and still be on the wrong side of history.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#546

Post by almostdeadguy »

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.

Young, inexperienced people have a hard time saying “no”. It’s even harder when working 120 hour weeks where you have less than 7 hours a day outside work (not even enough to get a full nights rest): https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-doge-work-silicon-...

Sleep deprivation, stress and overwork, controlling the lives of participants, targeting at risk populations, etc. are cult programming techniques.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#548

Post by krainboltgreene »

int_19h wrote: post #423
varsketiz wrote: post #359

Curious european here. Do you think we will see some serious mass protests in big USA cities if this continues? By this I mean "reckless" action by Musk and Trump.

Maybe. The first test will be on February, 5, when there are scheduled protests in all state capitols. There's also https://generalstrikeus.com .

Oh sweet, we're at the honeypot general strike stage of a Trump presidency. Glad we're just hoping trade union consciousness springs forth from the lowest union rate in american history.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#549

Post by binary_slinger »

niceice wrote: post #440

Average age of engineers and scientists in the Manhattan Project was 25. Our current gerontocracy is ahistorical. Perhaps one reason startups work so well is they are one of the few places that still let young people exert agency. The average age of NASA’s mission control team during the Apollo era was 27— they put humans on the moon. Young people bring a force of curiosity and creativity that can disrupt the status…

> The guys featured in this gross and irresponsible hit piece by Wired, by all accounts, are brilliant engineers. Top 1%.

Wheres the evidence of their brilliance? A few projects in GitHub isn’t impressive.

Seriously if they’re brilliant this is the perfect PR opportunity to highlight the highly talented people making a difference. But instead we have secrecy.

I suspect the real reason for these choices is they needed people who are young and naive, will not ask too many questions, easy to manipulate, and coerced to work long for little pay.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#550

Post by azakai »

elzbardico wrote: post #455
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.

>> The US probably hasn't been this economically dominant since after WWII. In which parallel reality do you live? Some metrics: - U.S. share of global GDP (nominal). 40% in 1960 to around 24% nowadays. - Share of global exports from the peak of 17% in 1963, to around 8.5% today (China is 14%). - Global R&D expending from the 1960 peak of 69% to 30% today with China closing the gap currently at 23%. - Reserve currenc…

True that the US's share of global GDP is lower than it has been. But there are many other ways to measure its power (and dominance), so it is easy to argue about this between reasonable people.

Rather than make any specific point, I'd recommend acoup's detailed post about the US's overwhelming dominance across a huge swath of areas:

https://acoup.blog/2022/07/08/collections-is-the-united-stat...

I think he makes a good case there, even if you are right and by some measurements the US did better in the past.

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