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The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

wired.com

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Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#681

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

nailer wrote: post #650
eutropia wrote: post #224

There 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.

There’s a difference between mocking the general function of government employees and specifically calling for violence against individual engineers.

These are not "individual engineers". They're government officials with seemingly vast powers which aren't yet fully understood by the public. As the article details, they seem to have the authority to demand access to most if not all of the government's computer systems; we don't yet know which of them have this authority, or what limits there are, or what review processes are in place.

That doesn't mean it's OK to call for violence against them! But Wired isn't doing that. It does mean that news outlets need to report on who they are and what they're doing, even if they fear (even if they know) that third parties might issue death threats.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#682

Post by drooby »

Take8435 wrote: post #633
chmorgan_ wrote: post #619

Amazed 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.

I want to down-vote you, but I seemingly cannot. This is incredibly dangerous. A select few, having such control over so many millions? Are you nuts?! This is a serious question, as a new member of this community, is this a normal type of comment I can expect on HN?

You've encountered a rare political thread that the moderators have allowed to stay up.

The physics are different here

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#683

Post by crabmusket »

siliconc0w wrote: post #277

If DOGE wants to be effective it really should be going after the big ticket items like medicare or defense, some estimates have medicare at 40% fraud and waste and the DoD can't even pass an audit so no one really knows what %. And that is just getting what we've paid for, not even evaluating if what we've paid for is effective. Of course to do that would require actual coalition building, hard choices that upset vo…

Great recent article which explores how to actually cut $2T of federal expenses (though if course a tally doing so very quickly would cause a recession):

https://prospect.org/economy/2025-01-27-we-found-the-2-trill...

Most of what's been discussed so far is culture war dog whistling which won't save any money- or just cutting entitlements and hang the consequences.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#684

Post by jasondigitized »

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.

I was literally going to quote Chesterson's fence. How are people this smart and also this dumb?

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#685

Post by crabmusket »

chmorgan_ wrote: post #619

Amazed 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.

They have made the wrong calls at every step. I posted a link to an article in a sibling comment; have a read of that.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#686

Post by ChuckMcM »

eutropia wrote: post #224

There 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.

I mean "mr free speech absolutist" has already tweeted that anyone complaining about the government would have their account suspended. Kind of on brand for a nazi.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#687

Post by lostdog »

electriclove wrote: post #179
Whatarethese wrote: post #46

They are adults. They work for the federal government. They deserve no privacy protections.

I keep seeing a contradiction that I’m having a hard time explaining. On one hand, there are numerous comments saying that what these individuals are doing is illegal. On the other hand, there are comments saying they work for the federal government and so doxxing them is fair game. If they work for the government, how is what they are doing illegal?

Being an employee of the federal government doesn't give you access to everything. There are laws, passed by Congress, about who is allowed to do what.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#688

Post by icameron »

indoordin0saur wrote: post #330
siliconc0w wrote: post #277

If DOGE wants to be effective it really should be going after the big ticket items like medicare or defense, some estimates have medicare at 40% fraud and waste and the DoD can't even pass an audit so no one really knows what %. And that is just getting what we've paid for, not even evaluating if what we've paid for is effective. Of course to do that would require actual coalition building, hard choices that upset vo…

[flagged]

Obama’s last budget was 4.2 trillion. Trumps budget two years later was 6.5 trillion. Before COVID. Maybe that’s what you’re saying though. [1](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget)

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#689

Post by bamboozled »

tsunamifury wrote: post #320
ian_d wrote: post #108

Elon is also now claiming to have "deleted" 18F ( https://18f.gsa.gov/ ): https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886498750052327520

He clearly wants to replace the US government technology platforms with X/XPay/etc

He said wants X to be an “everything” app like WeChat a few years back. Nice an authoritarian.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#690

Post by goldfish3 »

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/…

Is this supposed to contrast with the US? You just explained the US Freedom of Information Act of 1967.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Information_Act_(...

That DOGE is not transparent is because the Musk/Trump administration has moved beyond the rule of law.

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