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The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

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Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#811

Post by saturn8601 »

jimmydoe wrote: post #714

One thing CCP did masterfully is sending very young grads, who are newly admitted to the party, to go to different local communities and evaluate the outcome government project like poverty reduction there (because obviously Xi don’t trust local officials and party members). These young people have a lot of energy to make some impact, also too young to lie or corrupt. The result turned out to be actually effective. T…

My understanding is that local Chinese municipalities are going bankrupt due to the high amounts of debt that they have?

[1]:https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/31/economy/china-local-governmen...

They are going through a real estate crash and their demographic situation bodes a very bleak long term future.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#812

Post by chikere232 »

simianparrot wrote: post #790
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…

It’s good to read a comment of sanity amidst all this instinctual bellyaching whenever T or E do anything. But in particular when a formerly well respected publication writes a hit piece like this… I used to scoff when people said “TDS” was a real thing, but having observed the same with Elon over the years and then listening to hours long talks between him and others, I realised “EDS” is clearly also a thing. And lo…

[flagged]

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#813

Post by kelnos »

bagels wrote: post #774
jimkleiber wrote: post #739

Well I hope in the (very near) future we decide we want the executive branch to have less power, so as to protect ourselves from a unitary executive who goes rogue. Yes it may be less efficient, but more resilient. This drive for uber efficiency can 1) make government more fragile (see toilet paper supply issues during the pandemic) and 2) be a slippery slope to dehumanization (see paper clip maximizing problem).

After seeing Bush in office, the sensible thing to do would have been to reduce presidential power. Nobody bothered. Then again after Trump. Biden didn't do a damn thing to reduce presidential power, knowing what happened and what could happen. Way too late. The judiciary and congress are now both subservient to the president.

Biden didn't have the power to reduce his own power. Congress would have, but they're not interested in doing that.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#814

Post by vixen99 »

nailer wrote: post #196
breadwinner wrote: post #25

> So this feels like a hostile takeover of the machinery of governments by the richest man in the world. ... and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Checks and balances have been neutralized.

> Checks and balances have been neutralized. That seems somewhat inverted - the elected government is creating checks and balances on unelected bureaucrats.

You're in the wrong place for a comment like that. Don't even bother.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#816

Post by jaimex2 »

adamredwoods wrote: post #240

I'm concerned about my US bonds, as the way to access them is through a government website. Are these people going to block my access and steal my money? >> “We really have very little eyes on what's going on. Congress has no ability to really intervene and monitor what's happening because these aren't really accountable public officials. So this feels like a hostile takeover of the machinery of governments by the ri…

Yeah man, theyre using them to buy weed as we speak. Sorry.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#817

Post by amarcheschi »

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…

Putting a target on? They're dismantling the gears that make America run smoothly, and you say putting a target on? This is the point where people should start taking into consideration violent actions

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#818

Post by kelnos »

jimkleiber wrote: post #739

Well I hope in the (very near) future we decide we want the executive branch to have less power, so as to protect ourselves from a unitary executive who goes rogue. Yes it may be less efficient, but more resilient. This drive for uber efficiency can 1) make government more fragile (see toilet paper supply issues during the pandemic) and 2) be a slippery slope to dehumanization (see paper clip maximizing problem).

The problem is that we painted ourselves into a this corner long ago. Even if Congress wasn't generally paralyzed by bad-faith partisan fighting, the House and Senate are not equipped to do even a small fraction of what the executive branch does today.

If we removed much of the executive branch's power, it wouldn't be "less efficient". The government just wouldn't do anything.

Some people (current GOP) seems to think this would be a good thing.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#819

Post by msie »

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…

I would be weary of nerds taking care of this nation after all I've seen in the tech industry. AirBNB, Uber, Juicero, WeWork, Theranos, Tesla, crypto...

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#820

Post by ninalanyon »

medler wrote: post #3

I don’t know how this will shake out, but I do worry that these 19-24 year olds, some of whom are known to HN for other achievements, are putting themselves in real legal jeopardy. Edit: by the way, this post isn’t off-topic. It is about the activities of the US Digital Service (now known as Doge), and the exploits of young hackers who came up through top tech companies. It has implications for information systems se…

When I was in that age range (five decades ago) everyone I knew of the same age was politically aware and many were politically active. Has that changed so much that they can claim to be naively unaware of what they are doing?
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