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…
The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
611–620 of 1001 posts
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#612Good. These guys, in addition to obviously being very smart, are young and don't have a lot of baggage in government or industry. I think they are perfect for tracing down what has been going on and finding where inefficiencies and/or corruption has been occurring. Anyone who has issue with rooting out corruption and inefficiency isn't in the right. Of course what is done with what they find will not be in their hand…
I think part of the concern is that Elon Musk is still the CEO of or has strong financial interest in a lot of companies, some of which get government contracts (e.g. SpaceX). Finding out corruption and inefficiency is fine, but I think a lot of people are skeptical that that's the actual goal of this "advisory board". How likely is it that Elon is going to find anything inefficient about SpaceX? Tesla? What's to sto…
I read through your past comments. It's obvious to me what you believe. And I don't agree with your worldview but not sure that matters. If you don't like Musk and don't like Trump, fine, I get it. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like either of them in person either, and, they both have vested interests on that we can agree. You know who else has vested interests? The people benefiting from waste, fraud and abuse. The people who have been directing public funds into propaganda and a black hole. I'd like to see western civilization persist. If you feel differently that's a value judgement and it's fine. But hearing kveltching and ridiculous statements from liberal midwits on every single policy article is getting really really old and it's shitting up this site. This is what is going to happen. And it's long overdue.
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#613[flagged]
The Founding Fathers had 18, 20, 21 and 25 year olds in much more important positions. And just like DOGE, they were working in a team with older people too, but that sort of rational framing just doesn't get clicks. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United...
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#614Are 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.
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#615Average 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…
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#616Are 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.
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#617There are people in this thread claiming that Wired "doxxed" these engineers working for Musk dismantling things they don't understand; however didn't Musk publicly mock individual federal employees on his twitter account, drawing the eyes of millions onto random government functionaries for no other reason than to capriciously taunt them about being fired? I hope people condemning the former also condemn the latter.
Mocking != doxing.
Musk was horrid to do that, but it's a different thing.
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#618Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#619Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#620Amazed at the pushback against an effort to cut waste out of government. There is a ton of it. It's your tax dollars being wasted... let's instead discuss whether things they've identified are keep, toss, or reform and if the wrong call has been made.