The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE • Hacker News Board

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#821

Post by TrackerFF » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 9:19 AM UTC

mythrwy wrote: post #331

Good. 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…

How would they know?

I've worked on billion dollar defense projects, and have supervised plenty of smart junior consultants from top consulting firms (McKinsey, etc.) - guiding them through processes, while they're digging through data.

Believe it or not, but you don't know what you don't know, and domain expertise is absolutely crucial. Slashing things you think are inefficiencies can lead to some serious footguns.

And I fully expect Musk to value speed over precision.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#822

Post by pavlov » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 9:22 AM UTC

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…

Wernher von Braun was a brilliant young engineer, one of the best minds of his generation. At age 25 he joined a patriotic party that was full of curiosity and creativity, disrupting the stale status quo of his home country.

For the next eight years he did groundbreaking work in developing rockets. In 1945 he and his youthful engineering team were actively recruited to continue their work for another country with great ambitions in space. A tremendous success for his personal career, even though the party he served fell a bit short of their goals.

He was clearly "the best of us nerds". Never mind that his genius was built on slave labor and oppression. He disrupted some governments, made good money and got to work on awesome rockets! That’s what counts in life.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#823

Post by ImHereToVote » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 9:24 AM UTC

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…

CPC

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#824

Post by TrackerFF » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 9:25 AM UTC

albroland wrote: post #652

ck2 wrote: post #13

Musk 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.

musk holds TS clearance but not SCI

Musk holding any level security clearance is farcical. It's the type of DEI that they're fighting so hard.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#825

Post by msie » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 9:26 AM UTC

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

#826

Post by jimkleiber » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 9:27 AM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #818

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…

Agreed. If government provides fewer services, companies can provide more services at a profit. Why have public (non-profit) education when you can have private (highly profitable) education? Who needs public (non-profit) health insurance when you can have private (highly profitable) health insurance?

The list can go on and on.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#827

Post by ggm » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 9:30 AM UTC

markus_zhang wrote: post #260

Well from a foreigner's perspective, US is finally getting its own version of Cultural Revolution.

I don't see the parallels. When are the academics going to be sent to the countryside and where are the self criticism sessions being held?

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#828

Post by lukas099 » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 9:34 AM UTC

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.

There are certainly sympathetic federal judges, including on the supreme court, but as a whole the judiciary is not (yet) owned

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#829

Post by pharrington » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 9:39 AM UTC

m463 wrote: post #122

Posts here talk about the legality of this, that what they are doing is not allowed, or that they're doing something naively without understanding. But what is the goal? Maybe what goal to they think they're pursuing? This is hacker news, so I'm asking for an answer without political rhetoric.

Elon Musk's goal is to gain as much power and control as possible. Line go up.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#830

Post by goldenManatee » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 9:41 AM UTC

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…

No you’re supporting treasonous actions and you must be taught and discouraged from such actions that violate the will of the people in favor of expeditiousness. Your views are a danger to a stably growing society.