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The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

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Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#561

Post by boringg »

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…

You cant compare manhattan project, NASA to a bunch of good software techs ripping apart the government. The first two projects required high levels of intelligence and new concepts.

These guys are the modern equivalent of name any destructive revolutionary group looking for stuff they don't agree with.

I don't however refute that you can be a brilliant mind and active contributor at any age. Just that these guys aren't anywhere close to the same page as our greatest minds.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#562

Post by yibg »

iamleppert wrote: post #274

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?

This assumes there will be a next time. Sometimes once momentum is allowed to build it's very hard to stop or even slow things down.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#563

Post by Clubber »

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.

Cut spending.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#564

Post by rahimnathwani »

reaperducer wrote: post #275
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 ba…

  In the U.S., too. In fact, it was the United States that pioneered this in the modern age.
In practice, at least one San Francisco (city/county-level) department and at least one California (state-level) department deliberately makes it difficult to get responsive records, even though the law requires them to not only provide those records, but help the public identify which records might answer the questions they have.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#565

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

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…

Replacing the government with unaccountable middlemen is sort of their goal, isn't it? Think of the efficiency we could gain once we do away with all of that accountability nonsense...

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#566

Post by drawkward »

spencerflem wrote: post #508
boplicity wrote: post #484

Remember, if you can vote, vote the next time you can. Convince your friends and neighbors to vote, too. Apathy has real consequences.

I wish there was a way to get better options though. A vote for Kamala would have just barely kicked the can down the road

Well, we probably wouldnt be in a trade war right now.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#567

Post by Clubber »

reaperducer wrote: post #275
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 ba…

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

The hack in the US is to just label everything "SECRET," and it's excluded from FOIA.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#568

Post by colechristensen »

afavour wrote: post #95
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.

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.

>The actions are entirely unconstitutional.

At this point, who cares? The democrats in power have proven themselves wholly incapable of doing anything for many years now.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#569

Post by linuxhansl »

Is anyone surprised? It's not like it was a secret, and a majority of voters still voted this government in. Maybe most thought it'll be better for inflation and chose to ignore or belittle the crazy. It seems we're getting the crazy now - and not, yet anyway, a single action of inflation.
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