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The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

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Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#991

Post by croes »

tqi wrote: post #931

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…

Of course their is a middle ground.

The problem is what is classified as waste. It won’t be the projects of the GOP‘s donors.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#992

Post by amitrip »

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…

[dead]

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#993

Post by wnc3141 »

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.

It's hard to unwind that clock. The next admin will may leverage that consolidated power to undo trump harms, but also see the benefits of keeping that power. I pray congress mandates the political independence of certain federal agencies (FBI, doj etc)

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#994

Post by trod1234 »

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).

How would we protect ourselves when the rule of law is non-functional?

This definition is quite literally the only check to balance power available to the average person, at least when it worked. There is no longer equality under the law which is dependent on the other components which have also degraded.

Congress is non-responsive to their constituencies.

We are stuck in a positive feedback loop, eventually when the abuses are great society will fall back to the natural state prior to the social contract. These will not be peaceful times.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#995

Post by alluro2 »

I find the whole discussion around power of government branches and what different events mean and how will this or that branch react a bit surreal.

The guy has been impeached twice, exposing it as laughable, which it is. He has then been convicted as a felon, which hasn't slowed him down a bit in becoming a president again. He has then installed people of ridiculous backgrounds as some of the highest ranking officials in the country. He has then let Elon run amock within the government, accessing confidential data and doing things with absolutely no scrutiny or oversight. He has then already started nibbling at FBI, CIA and dozen other government agencies. It's been THREE. WEEKS.

I'm just not sure what mechanisms, checks and balances, and measures some people expect will be employed or will have any effect to control this. The government as was known up till now is no more. As long as people STILL try to frame Trump within traditional accountability mechanisms of the government, they will be floundering around the scandal or crime no. 3232, while he's committing no. 12768.

Once this slows down, there will be maybe 5% of tools and power left to revert things (and it would take decades), control the rich to any extent, and have any semblance of democracy, if they even bother to maintain it.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#996

Post by arandomusername »

alluro2 wrote: post #995

I find the whole discussion around power of government branches and what different events mean and how will this or that branch react a bit surreal. The guy has been impeached twice, exposing it as laughable, which it is. He has then been convicted as a felon, which hasn't slowed him down a bit in becoming a president again. He has then installed people of ridiculous backgrounds as some of the highest ranking officia…

> and have any semblance of democracy, if they even bother to maintain it.

Isn't this democracy? People voted for Trump and this is pretty much what he ran on.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#997

Post by alluro2 »

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.

Since the goals are not clear for now, let's give Trump and Elon the benefit of the doubt, that what they're doing is from the good of their hearts, for the benefit of all the American people.

It's not like they're openly corrupt, narcissistic egomaniacs with history of screwing up people for their personal gain or something. Up till now, especially Trump, they've made huge strides in bettering the country and wellbeing of the people, let's let them cook.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#998

Post by ric2b »

xdennis wrote: post #452
TrackerFF wrote: post #11

If 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.

> If they're engaged in doing illegal stuff, at the federal level, I fully expect Trump to just pardon everyone involved. Not trying to both-sides this, but the fact that Biden did that makes it more likely that Trump will do it too. It's a terrible precedent.

As if Trump cares about precedent. It makes no difference.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#999

Post by nomendos »

Interesting inversion of priorities? In the age of huge increase of abuse of power by secrecy over-classification and already unearthed arguably up to criminal abuse of power and waste of our money (with all crimes that it caused here and in the world), invasion of the country and countless other hybrid attacks how does secret clearance of few efficient engineers look compared to all of the results already shown and more to come? Is it ideal, no but there was not other known way or all would be open to hear it and cutting the power of executive branch is bureaucratic dream where they could grow like cancer up to killing the host, which they were arguably close.

Re: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

#1000

Post by fennecbutt »

h197BQcV wrote: post #114

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…

Where it's going is largely irrelevant I suppose. The only reason the "doge" thing is going on is because Elon needed a way to insert himself into the government, and everybody else involved is too technically inept to realise (or care).

But the effects don't really matter because this is what the American public voted for. As an outsider who's read Daemon and Freedom when are you yanks gonna start the darknet already?

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