They are operating outside of their circle of competence, because they are not working on an engineering problem.
The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
741–750 of 1001 posts
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#742Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#743Average 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…
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Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#744Average 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…
There were at least a couple of guys on the Manhattan project giving information to Russia as well.
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#745If you have ever spoken to a 16-20yo you will understand just how good these people are.
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#746Average 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…
> Perhaps one reason startups work so well…
Startups as a whole produce a lot of innovation because there is this extreme Darwinian process where the vast majority fail and a few succeed but you have a huge amount of risk-taking in parallel in a very compressed time frame.
Government generally doesn’t have the luxury of failure because the consequences for people’s lives are too extreme. So by definition government is going to be slower-moving and more risk-averse. They are essentially paying to reduce the standard deviation of possible outcomes because they can’t afford the risk of the extreme negative tail.
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#747Average 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…
First, there's hardly any evidence that these are anywhere near "brilliant engineers" let alone 1%. Their claims to "fame" were being interns or working on tightly scoped greenfield projects. Some might be interesting, sure. But it's hardly relevant to operating in a complex organization. But more importantly, the real issue is regardless of how old they are an unelected individual is doling out hyper-privileged acce…
Probably still better than the non-technical people usually governing things.
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#748Average 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…
First, there's hardly any evidence that these are anywhere near "brilliant engineers" let alone 1%. Their claims to "fame" were being interns or working on tightly scoped greenfield projects. Some might be interesting, sure. But it's hardly relevant to operating in a complex organization. But more importantly, the real issue is regardless of how old they are an unelected individual is doling out hyper-privileged acce…
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Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#749Average 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…
I think it's really cool they have the Herculaneum Papyrii guy working for them! It's a shame Wired is behaving this way.
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Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#750Average 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…
Not just that but you CAN train people. It's possible for juniors to learn >.>