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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.
It's insane to me that the so called left are going to bat to defend the status quo, when the status quo is multi-national corporations lobbying gov for their own goals of super globalist trade. Isn't "buy local" a left position? Obviously trump is a flawed character, even the most ardent supporters will admit that. But he is not a cookie cutter straight of the factory line politician.
The same goes for Elon, he is an idiot a lot of time, but he is not a lobbyist just sitting in the shadows, he is public about being an idiot for better and worse.
These are all left wing ideas, f the corruption, that's what doge is supposed to be doing, it supposed to be cutting out inefficient spending, which lets be honest, will go to friends of friends, but the left are losing their shit because they got their funding for dressing up as the opposite sex cut off.
how is someone’s age relevant? Is a 55 y.o. Software engineer who spent 20 years in a bureaucratic wheel any better than a bright 20yo mind? They both suck in a different way! Writing an entire article with ageism as a center piece is truly pinnacle of American journalism
Their experience is relevant. If they're being brought into build data analysis systems to make sense of data of various organizations there's zero chance they've worked on a project of that scale let alone do they understand all the gotchas you need to deal with working on a project of that scale. You're offering a completely false dichotomy here.
We have a minimum age on the Presidency. They work at the discretion of their employers.
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…
Those involved in the Manhattan Project who were young were doing scientific/technical work. When dealing with organizing and managing a great number of people or resources, I have never seen a young inexperienced human performing adequately, even remotely. Old age and presumed experience is not at all a guarantee that someone would be good in such roles, but from what I have seen, young age and the associated lack o…
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.
Closing USAID is idiotic from a foreign policy perspective. Gives China a huge opportunity to fill the void in countries and grow its global influence. It’s already done so in Africa due to US being so preoccupied with the “war on terror”. Not to mention that aiding developing countries - reduces chances of instability/conflicts/etc which otherwise end up costing much more. Plus it’s about access to raw materials (wh…
USAID played a huge role in the Vietnam War by supporting things like “civil defense forces” arming villages against Viet Cong, land reform and “open arms” program to get defectors from the North.
https://www.archives.gov/research/foreign-policy/assistance/...
It had little to do with no strings attached foreign aid. It’s mostly been an arm of US covert activities in other countries (providing cover) and a massive, massive slush fund for the CIA (hence the billions going to “undisclosed recipients”).
https://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...
[ https://doge.gov/ ] Sorry, you have been blocked You are unable to access doge.gov Feels like the Twitter transition again. Hey remember when there was concern that he might not have time to effectively run Tesla and SpaceX. And then Twitter. And 12 kids. Or popping ketamine and playing Diablo 4 all night. I guess he's got time to run the country too.
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.
For Congress' part, they did pass laws that make a lot of what Trump is doing now with impoundment of congressional funds, and firing inspectors general explicitly illegal. He's doing it anyway.
But the reason Trump is able to do what he's doing now comes down to the structure of the DOJ being an executive branch he controls. Combined with his immunity from SCOTUS. This means he can argue anything he does isn't a crime, no one will investigate or prosecute him, and he can pardon anyone acting in his direction / direct his DOJ to not prosecute them.
Nothing Biden or Democrats could do about this, because at the end of the day, Republicans decided they deserve this power, and they grabbed it for themselves. It was always there for the taking, they just needed to convince themselves with words and court decisions and speeches that they had the right.
I hate that in this country, everything is political and everything has only 2 sides. Is there waste and inefficiency in government spending? Yes, I think so. Should we do our best to cut and trim this? Absolutely. Is DOGE's ham-fisted, half-assed version of this "doing our best"? Of course not. But apparently in this country, you have to be either pro government waste or pro DOGE. No middle ground or common sense al…
They have interesting pedigrees: Meta, Palantir, Neuralink, xAI, SpaceX, Databricks, Energize AI. It seems clear where this is going. Data mining and algorithmic (claimed!) efficiency improvements while working on an essential and critical production system. Since these people claim that "AI" does not need to respect privacy and copyright, perhaps they'll also train a model on this. Where are the Democrats on all thi…
It's a big club...