Re that scroll
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-21-year-old-u...
It seems to me like it really appropriate background...
The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
81–90 of 1001 posts
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#82If they're engaged in doing illegal stuff, at the federal level, I fully expect Trump to just pardon everyone involved. Maybe they're too deep in the Yarvin / Thield / Musk (Kool-Aid) sauce, but they should know better. This stuff will follow them for life.
They're directly attacking government infrastructure, including our intelligence apparatuses. Even if they escape legal consequences they could become targeted for extrajudicial killings by intelligence agencies of the US and allies.
I assume these are US citizens. The US constitution isn't set up to protect intelligence agencies if they attempt that kind of thing on US soil.
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#83Experienced enough to win this though: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39261861
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#84Some context for USAID
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#85Are 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.
Some people in the us government are very afraid of China.
Whether that fear is justified is a totally different topic
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#86Are 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.
No, they are not. This is a bizarre and highly illegal coup by Musk simply because he can, and who's going to enforce the law? Trump's corrupt DOJ?
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#87Can't believe this is flagged.
Of course it's flagged, this site is an altar to worship at the feet of the American oligarchy. It's as rotten as the rest of Silicon Valley.
As JWZ put it:
"A venture capital company's fan club, finance-obsessed manchildren making the world worse"
Slightly NSFW source: https://cdn.jwz.org/images/2024/hn.png
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#88Musk could not get US Security Clearance He cannot enter certain facilities or meetings at SpaceX because of that. Yet now he is bypassing that requirement. None of these people are elected or confirmed by the Senate and they are doing extremely sensitive things to the government That's not how any of this is supposed to work by law.
National secrets shouldn’t have been kept in a bathroom in Mar-a-Lago and, yet, here we are.
Q: Why are there (still) classified documents at USAID?
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/04/15/when-is-for...:
"U.S.A.I.D. was created in 1961 to help the United States win the “hearts and minds” of citizens in poor countries through civic action, economic aid and humanitarian assistance. As a cold war policy tool, the agency was, at times, used as a front for C.I.A. operations and operatives. Among the most infamous examples was the Office of Public Safety, a U.S.A.I.D. police training program in the Southern Cone that also trained torturers."
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#89https://doge.gov does not say anything about what the DOGE plan is, and https://www.usds.gov/ is not apparently up to date wrt DOGE. Is there something other than the Executive Order [0] that lays out concretely what DOGE intends to do? This group of engineers is doubtless skilled, but I don't seem them as the decision makers and planners here. [0] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/esta...
We went through something similar in the 1960s with the Whiz Kids, young college graduates from the RAND corporation with no experience in government or the military. 'But you have to obey us because we're so much smarter than you.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiz_Kids_(Department_of_Defen...
The Whiz Kids, for all their flaws, were duly and lawfully appointed. It wasn't this.
Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
#90Have Elon Musk and all these engineers sworn oaths as required to be a federal employee? https://federalnewsnetwork.com/commentary/2019/10/the-oath-o... If Elon is "just advising", under what statute or directive does he have specific authority?
If they are accessing TS/SCI information and places like SCIFs have they filled out their SF-86? Are any of them dual nationals and do they have any ties or vulnerabilities to hostile foreign states?
Basic questions given the enormous access they are being given, far beyond frankly any handful of people have generally had in US government history.
Also, they have apparently plugged in their own private server at OPM. Has this already been compromised by Chinese/ Russian agents? Has the NSA had a look?