14 ms·

I, like (I think) many young people, am pretty disillusioned with the current state of the U.S. I would really like for things to be better than they are, and

by ketzo 5y ago

I, like (I think) many young people, am pretty disillusioned with the current state of the U.S. I would really like for things to be better than they are, and I'm still fairly convinced that software has the potential to make good things happen and improve people's lives. Maybe this is where more people would start to disagree with me, but I would like to live in a place where government work was seen as a noble calling, or at least better, morally, than optimizing ad revenue. I would like to work with people who want to make things that solve problems for huge swaths of people who really need help. But I read about the realities of U.S. government work, and frankly, it doesn't sound like a place I want to work. Slow, bureaucratic, opaque, slow, low-compensation, slow. That's just not attractive to me. If these impressions are wrong, I hope that the USDC has a sizeable marketing budget to correct me. If they're right, then I hope they have a plan to change things. I don't think a lot of our really big problems are solvable without the input of a massive number of technologists, and I am worried that we're not going to have them where they need to be. I hope this works. Edit: I do agree that "fast work" is probably a bad heuristic in many ways, particularly when it comes to work that requires extremely consistent outcomes, like much government work. But shit, it's fun, particularly in software, to make quick decisions and move efficiently to solve problems. And I think you have to contend with the engagement and "fun" that moving fast brings. Compensation is one form of motivation, yes, but there are others. There are reasons people romanticize working at startups, take up new programming languages and frameworks in side projects on their own time: it's cool, and feels good to work on. That's one lever you have to try and push as an employer of engineers (or really of people in general, but particularly people who are very in demand). I'm not advocating for "Move Fast And Break Things," but I am saying that you have to compete with the people who do advocate for it, because that can be really fun.

WalterBright 5y ago
No government in history has been efficient. There are moments of brilliance in government operations, but it is never sustainable nor transferrable. > a noble calling, or at least better, morally, than optimizing ad revenue. I would like to work with people who want to make things that solve problems for huge swaths of people who really need help. That's what we do in developing Open Source software. No government is required. Also, there are plenty, plenty of thriving companies that do not sell ads.
- the-dude 5y ago
  > but it is never sustainable nor transferrable. This reminds me of my late father, who worked for our municipality : the municipality (the org) has no memory.
- mellavora 5y ago
  "Efficient", meaning delivering maximum goods/services for minimum cost, may be a good thing in a business context. However, there are a number of essential services which we want a government to deliver which we do not want to be "efficient" under this definition. "efficiency" by definition means no reserves (because a reserve is unused capacity, which is inefficient). But this also means brittleness and failure under unexpected load. Is this how you want your healthcare delivered? "efficiency" can also mean not providing services to unprofitable market segments. I'll leave it to you to imagine how this goes horribly wrong for many government services. "efficiency" can also mean no long-term investments (i.e. highway systems, the internet, ...), and certainly means you can only invest in projects where you can capture a substantial percentage of the gain. And on those line, "efficiency" often means ignoring maintenance needs. Simply put, business is great for what business is great for. But for lots of critical social infrastructure, this isn't the case.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    > But this also means brittleness and failure under unexpected load. Is this how you want your healthcare delivered? Let's look at something simpler. The US government has proven itself inept at distributing gasoline, which it did in the 1970s (as in long gas lines in some areas and gluts in others). The oil companies, before and after, have been remarkably adept at providing plenty of gas for anyone who wants to buy it, despite refinery explosions, pipeline disasters, etc. Before government got in the US healthcare system, the system worked well and costs were reasonable. Internet services run by free market companies seem to be remarkably not brittle. > "efficiency" often means ignoring maintenance needs. The government has been ignoring maintenance for decades. The Seattle government ignored the bridge maintenance while they blew through all the money on various progressive causes, and now the bridges are shut down because they're not safe to drive on. Government run farms have never in history been able to feed a country. The free market farms in the US fed the US and the USSR. (Kansas wheat was exported to the USSR that desperately needed it.)
paxys 5y ago
Never in the history of the USA have young people – or really anyone else for that matter – liked the government. It's against what this country is really about. There are a lot of countries in the world (maybe even the majority) where a government job is the gold standard and what everyone aspires for, but that is very unlikely to ever happen here.
- aaronbrethorst 5y ago
  The data disagrees with your first statement. Certainly true since the early 2000s, but we don’t have to be fatalistic about this. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/09/14/americans-views-of-government-low-trust-but-some-positive-performance-ratings/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/09/14/americans-vi...
  - kortilla 5y ago
    “Trusting the government to do the right thing”, which is what that pew research is checking, is a constantly moving target. In 1955 when that trust was super high, everyone could have trusted the government to stay out of their lives and to only interfere if we had to go to war. That’s very different from people wanting the federal government to take over healthcare, energy, housing, etc.
    - Teknoman117 5y ago
      In 1955 needing to go to the doctor didn’t bankrupt your family.
      - tellersid 5y ago
        I mean really? In 1955 people were worried about a literal nuclear apocalypse. Of course health care was much cheaper when the doctor basically had no health care to give. A medicine man 2000 years ago was even cheaper, practically free.
      - N1H1L 5y ago
        For white suburban middle class it didn't. For black people it absolutely did.
aaronbrethorst 5y ago
Call your members of Congress and tell the staffers who answer the phones that you want to see them improve pay for government workers.
- arthurcolle 5y ago
  Who wants to see that? I certainly don't
  - aaronbrethorst 5y ago
    Anyone who wants a functioning government capable of dealing with big challenges like the kinds we face today and will face throughout the 21st century and beyond.
    - stass 5y ago
      The majority of these challenges are direct result of the government's corruption and incompetence. See e.g. housing crisis, or student debt issue, or massive drug proliferation.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - kortilla 5y ago
      Disagree. The government doesn’t have the right incentives to solve problems. It should set constraints, not dictate solutions.
    - 1123581321 5y ago
      Firing bad government workers is part of the path to that. Higher pay for those remaining could be implemented in conjunction, perhaps.
wslack 5y ago
> Slow, bureaucratic, opaque, slow, low-compensation, slow. That's just not attractive to me. Some degree of slowness is (in some ways) a feature because of the harm, abuse, and eventual investigations that can happen at maximum speed. Some of it is 100% not a feature. I think it's less opaque and bureaucratic from the inside than might be expected - some of the work is ensuring that one person is accountable, and then ensuring that person can make meaningful decisions. https://playbook.cio.gov/#play6 https://playbook.cio.gov/#play6
MattGaiser 5y ago
A lot of it is that your standards are driven by stories of past excellence and people leave out the nonsense of years past when telling stories. My grandfather worked for GM in its heyday. He had stories of shuffling desks to make a VP happy, playing accounting games, project costs exploding, contractors being lazy and screwing things up (one brought a typical ladder to wire a warehouse that was 70 feet high), meetings over the placement of newspaper boxes, etc. My company loves to talk about being agile. They leave out a bureaucracy on par with the government (and I worked in the government before coming here) when it comes to resource management. I don't think there has ever been an age of a greatly efficient and capable society. It is just a lot of lurching and stumbling in a general direction.
- garmaine 5y ago
  There is in Starbase, Texas. And there are efficient and agile governments in other countries.
- nostromo 5y ago
  This is a comforting thought, but I don’t think it’s true. America did seem to have a golden age. Building the Golden Gate Bridge just took a few years and was very affordable when adjusting for inflation. Compare that to the new bay bridge. Or just look at how the US mobilized during WWII to produce an insane amount of weaponry in just a few years. Think about the people that grew up when the telegraph was high tech. Then they got to see people flying in jets. Then nuclear energy. Then they got to see people walking on the moon. All in a single life. The insane amount of progress in a short period does seem to have slowed. And I think a big part of it is our government is woefully mismanaged. It mostly seems engineered to help other people in government. This may be why so many of the richest counties in America are the suburbs of DC, compared to centers of innovation or industry.
  - nicky0 5y ago
    Yes but 11 construction workers died building the Golden Gate Bridge (which was actually pretty low for such a project at the time). How does that factor in to the story?
andychase 5y ago
1. Things are changing, plenty of agencies like GSA, 18F, USDS are trying to modernize government technology and there are many movers and shakers in the government trying to make things better 2. The government is huge, there's small, medium, and large agencies and agencies all of have their own culture. Hard to generalize across the whole thing 3. On many teams your direct management will shield you from a lot of the paperwork. 4. The average 2210 series technologist is a GS-13 which is $100k+. Not super star status but competitive in many regions and experience levels. 5. The vast majority of software development in the US government is contracted in
- bushbaba 5y ago
  What market in the US is a 100k comp competitive for a software engineer these days?
  - snowwrestler 5y ago
    The announcement says “early career” and “recent graduates,” so pretty junior. $100k is a competitive salary for a junior software dev in DC. Heck, for someone right out of school, it’s probably competitive anywhere but the Bay Area, NY, maybe Seattle.
    - vmception 5y ago
      Staying limited to a middle market region is a waste of time You only live once Make your bed and sleep in it, but at least do it objectively Regional cost of living discussions are cute - in that they masquerade as an insightful understanding of money - but most monetary thresholds do not take it into account. Accredited investor status or convincing anyone of it to get access to private equity for a better chance at making some real money? Cost of living is not a factor, its >200k income annually or >$1mm assets without including your home. Lying conveys no negative consequence but you still need the disposable money. Being responsibly ahead of rent/mortgage payments every paycheck means an extra $1500 - maybe - in a middle market place versus an extra $4500-$7000. These are worlds apart in capabilities. Impulse buy a new console? Flight to Europe? Everything is more accessible and faster. The former amount will get eaten up by some random repair or holiday activity or friend’s life event. The latter will get you all that and everything you want and accumulation at a much higher velocity. Saving up for various things is for the birds, we have all the same fixed amount of time with lots of randomness to shorten it. Not worth rationalizing lower comp, when the same or less work gets you 3-10x more.
itronitron 5y ago
If you are hired in to contribute to the core mission of the organization (whatever that may be) then you are much more likely to be in a high-functioning group and enjoy your time there. Even within those groups there will be the occasional 'cautionary tale' but that helps everyone else find their path. Also, the productive groups tend to have more active small team management and less direct leadership from on high. That may seem counter-productive but in government organizations it keeps everyone more engaged and indicates there is actually a lot of work to be done.
thkim 5y ago
A society where quickest decisions are made would be either 1) dictatorship or 2) non-human, i.e. AI based. Would that be a good society to live in, I can't tell for sure. I can say for sure that democracy is designed to be slow and inefficient with regards to decision making. We humans need time to understand, think and argue. We have slow decision making system so that we may reduce chance of error. I think "fast and efficient" are wrong benchmarks.
- xvilka 5y ago
  There's another option - direct democracy, assuming everyone has a neural implant and constant network connection. Then any important decision could be voted in a matter of minutes or hours.
gpt5 5y ago
Interestingly, Israel has solved a lot of these problems by making military service mandatory. Essentially, the moment you have to join the Army, you might as well look for the best possible place for you. This make the top units (whether technology units or otherwise) extremely competitive, and filled with the top talent the country can offer. In addition, these top units become desired in the resume, further increasing their desirability.
- dreen 5y ago
  I can imagine this works well in Israel, but for most countries, mandatory service is a complete waste of resources. Paying huge amounts of money for people who do not want to be there get skills they do not need, at the point in life which is rather valuable. From defence point of view (for a country not likely to be involved in a war in its territory), its way better to invest that in training professionals.
jcrites 5y ago
Facebook's slogan was never "move fast and break things", by the way. It was shortened to that by the public. The actual slogan was "Move fast and don't be afraid to break things".
- MagnumOpus 5y ago
  Ironically, that's the ex-post corporate "damage control" spin on it. The intended slogan was always the former: Zuckerberg directly said in a 2009 interview that "unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough".
kortilla 5y ago
> I, like (I think) many young people, am pretty disillusioned with the current state of the U.S. Why do you think the government is the solution? Many of us are out to improve society through industry and non-profits. You don’t need a monopoly on violence to innovate and improve the world.
- ninkendo 5y ago
  You need a monopoly on violence to make and enforce laws, and laws are a critical piece of the puzzle to solving some problems, especially collective ones.
vmception 5y ago
> Currently, only 3% of the federal tech workforce is under age 30 We can do math, you can do math, everyone with marketable skills is reaching the same result You don't have to rationalize it
systemvoltage 5y ago
If you want to improve things, join and make the change you want to see. Working in the government would be challenging and that’s exactly why you should do it. I do agree that incentives to get the best talent aren’t quite there in Gov jobs but there are plenty of brilliant non-FAANG engineers out there. There would be so much low hanging fruit, it would be fun to work in a Gov job. One of things I am lacking in my life is meaning to work. Endless Jira tickets to solve issues for a private enterprise. If I’m on a death bed, I want to be able to look back and reflect that I did something hard that others shy away from. Public service is noble and I am willing to sacrifice a lot for it.
mercy_dude 5y ago
Aside from the fact there is also that the work of US Government employees and contractors directly or indirectly helped kill hundreds of thousands of people. In Iraq, Afghanisthan and elsewhere. And not to say if Snowden story relevals anything they are nothing short if being corporate mafia if they want to be.
yosito 5y ago
> better, morally, than optimizing ad revenue This wanting to be "better morally" than your fellow citizens is a disease. It seems to be one of the root problems afflicting Americans these days.
- cto_of_antifa 5y ago
  Why is that bad? Do you think it's worth reflecting on why it bothers you?
  - refurb 5y ago
    Whose morals? There is no universal moral truth although Western countries may agree on a core set to the point its universal, but morals changes over time pretty significantly so when OP says “morals” what they really mean is “how I think the world should be”.
  - yosito 5y ago
    Because it gives you permission to see (a large percentage of) your fellow human beings as evil, and yourself as superior. I think it's worth reflecting on why it doesn't bother you. There is nothing evil about someone who works in advertising so they can support their family.
    - systemvoltage 5y ago
      This is an absurd defeatist argument. Having morals and standards does not mean you want to feel superior. This is a surefire way to make sure we all lose moral compass, guiding principles and refuse to excel.
- dogleash 5y ago
  Who says it has to seen as rising above others, rather than simply living up to your own ideals? Is it wrong to have standards just because some people won't meet them? The fact some people get off on perceived superiority is a separate issue, and not one that will be quashed by treating all work as morally equivalent.
eevilspock 5y ago
ketzo, see the message on my givehub.org placeholder page. I'm love to donate this domain to someone who'll make good use of it, or even better team up with some folks to do some good. Email me at the address shown on that page, or the one on my HN profile, or even better both.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
einpoklum 5y ago
> I, like (I think) many young people, am pretty disillusioned with the current state of the U.S. This suggests you are not disillusioned with its past state. Ok, well, it's a start. Please consider reading Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the USA" (also available in audio form), to further your disillusionment. > Slow, bureaucratic, opaque, slow, low-compensation, slow. Well, possibly, but - _that's_ what's bothering you? Not how the US kills a lot of people? Supports dictatorships and oligarchies? And internally, caters to the rich much more than to the masses, so much so that drinking water is dangerous to drink in many places? How it spies on everyone all the time? The speed is not the main problem here, I would say.
tmpz22 5y ago
Software cannot solve societal issues it can only scale them
zcw100 5y ago
I've worked in and around government for some time and the reputation for being slow and bureaucratic is well deserved but my observation is that it's a trade off. You can have government services that are fast or corrupt. Make your choice. It's generally slow because if you don't want it to be corrupt you're going to have to have processes, procedures, oversight, etc. basically bureaucracy. If you want it fast, people are going to take advantage of the lack of oversight to enrich themselves. You might find slow government services frustrating but I think a corrupt system would be much worse.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

by ketzo 5y ago

WalterBright 5y ago

No government in history has been efficient. There are moments of brilliance in government operations, but it is never sustainable nor transferrable. > a noble calling, or at least better, morally, than optimizing ad revenue. I would like to work with people who want to make things that solve problems for huge swaths of people who really need help. That's what we do in developing Open Source software. No government is required. Also, there are plenty, plenty of thriving companies that do not sell ads.

the-dude 5y ago
> but it is never sustainable nor transferrable. This reminds me of my late father, who worked for our municipality : the municipality (the org) has no memory.
mellavora 5y ago
"Efficient", meaning delivering maximum goods/services for minimum cost, may be a good thing in a business context. However, there are a number of essential services which we want a government to deliver which we do not want to be "efficient" under this definition. "efficiency" by definition means no reserves (because a reserve is unused capacity, which is inefficient). But this also means brittleness and failure under unexpected load. Is this how you want your healthcare delivered? "efficiency" can also mean not providing services to unprofitable market segments. I'll leave it to you to imagine how this goes horribly wrong for many government services. "efficiency" can also mean no long-term investments (i.e. highway systems, the internet, ...), and certainly means you can only invest in projects where you can capture a substantial percentage of the gain. And on those line, "efficiency" often means ignoring maintenance needs. Simply put, business is great for what business is great for. But for lots of critical social infrastructure, this isn't the case.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  > But this also means brittleness and failure under unexpected load. Is this how you want your healthcare delivered? Let's look at something simpler. The US government has proven itself inept at distributing gasoline, which it did in the 1970s (as in long gas lines in some areas and gluts in others). The oil companies, before and after, have been remarkably adept at providing plenty of gas for anyone who wants to buy it, despite refinery explosions, pipeline disasters, etc. Before government got in the US healthcare system, the system worked well and costs were reasonable. Internet services run by free market companies seem to be remarkably not brittle. > "efficiency" often means ignoring maintenance needs. The government has been ignoring maintenance for decades. The Seattle government ignored the bridge maintenance while they blew through all the money on various progressive causes, and now the bridges are shut down because they're not safe to drive on. Government run farms have never in history been able to feed a country. The free market farms in the US fed the US and the USSR. (Kansas wheat was exported to the USSR that desperately needed it.)

paxys 5y ago

Never in the history of the USA have young people – or really anyone else for that matter – liked the government. It's against what this country is really about. There are a lot of countries in the world (maybe even the majority) where a government job is the gold standard and what everyone aspires for, but that is very unlikely to ever happen here.

aaronbrethorst 5y ago
The data disagrees with your first statement. Certainly true since the early 2000s, but we don’t have to be fatalistic about this. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/09/14/americans-views-of-government-low-trust-but-some-positive-performance-ratings/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/09/14/americans-vi...
- kortilla 5y ago
  “Trusting the government to do the right thing”, which is what that pew research is checking, is a constantly moving target. In 1955 when that trust was super high, everyone could have trusted the government to stay out of their lives and to only interfere if we had to go to war. That’s very different from people wanting the federal government to take over healthcare, energy, housing, etc.
  - Teknoman117 5y ago
    In 1955 needing to go to the doctor didn’t bankrupt your family.
    - tellersid 5y ago
      I mean really? In 1955 people were worried about a literal nuclear apocalypse. Of course health care was much cheaper when the doctor basically had no health care to give. A medicine man 2000 years ago was even cheaper, practically free.
    - N1H1L 5y ago
      For white suburban middle class it didn't. For black people it absolutely did.

aaronbrethorst 5y ago

Call your members of Congress and tell the staffers who answer the phones that you want to see them improve pay for government workers.

arthurcolle 5y ago
Who wants to see that? I certainly don't
- aaronbrethorst 5y ago
  Anyone who wants a functioning government capable of dealing with big challenges like the kinds we face today and will face throughout the 21st century and beyond.
  - stass 5y ago
    The majority of these challenges are direct result of the government's corruption and incompetence. See e.g. housing crisis, or student debt issue, or massive drug proliferation.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - kortilla 5y ago
    Disagree. The government doesn’t have the right incentives to solve problems. It should set constraints, not dictate solutions.
  - 1123581321 5y ago
    Firing bad government workers is part of the path to that. Higher pay for those remaining could be implemented in conjunction, perhaps.

wslack 5y ago

> Slow, bureaucratic, opaque, slow, low-compensation, slow. That's just not attractive to me. Some degree of slowness is (in some ways) a feature because of the harm, abuse, and eventual investigations that can happen at maximum speed. Some of it is 100% not a feature. I think it's less opaque and bureaucratic from the inside than might be expected - some of the work is ensuring that one person is accountable, and then ensuring that person can make meaningful decisions. https://playbook.cio.gov/#play6 https://playbook.cio.gov/#play6

MattGaiser 5y ago

A lot of it is that your standards are driven by stories of past excellence and people leave out the nonsense of years past when telling stories. My grandfather worked for GM in its heyday. He had stories of shuffling desks to make a VP happy, playing accounting games, project costs exploding, contractors being lazy and screwing things up (one brought a typical ladder to wire a warehouse that was 70 feet high), meetings over the placement of newspaper boxes, etc. My company loves to talk about being agile. They leave out a bureaucracy on par with the government (and I worked in the government before coming here) when it comes to resource management. I don't think there has ever been an age of a greatly efficient and capable society. It is just a lot of lurching and stumbling in a general direction.

garmaine 5y ago
There is in Starbase, Texas. And there are efficient and agile governments in other countries.
nostromo 5y ago
This is a comforting thought, but I don’t think it’s true. America did seem to have a golden age. Building the Golden Gate Bridge just took a few years and was very affordable when adjusting for inflation. Compare that to the new bay bridge. Or just look at how the US mobilized during WWII to produce an insane amount of weaponry in just a few years. Think about the people that grew up when the telegraph was high tech. Then they got to see people flying in jets. Then nuclear energy. Then they got to see people walking on the moon. All in a single life. The insane amount of progress in a short period does seem to have slowed. And I think a big part of it is our government is woefully mismanaged. It mostly seems engineered to help other people in government. This may be why so many of the richest counties in America are the suburbs of DC, compared to centers of innovation or industry.
- nicky0 5y ago
  Yes but 11 construction workers died building the Golden Gate Bridge (which was actually pretty low for such a project at the time). How does that factor in to the story?

andychase 5y ago

1. Things are changing, plenty of agencies like GSA, 18F, USDS are trying to modernize government technology and there are many movers and shakers in the government trying to make things better 2. The government is huge, there's small, medium, and large agencies and agencies all of have their own culture. Hard to generalize across the whole thing 3. On many teams your direct management will shield you from a lot of the paperwork. 4. The average 2210 series technologist is a GS-13 which is $100k+. Not super star status but competitive in many regions and experience levels. 5. The vast majority of software development in the US government is contracted in

bushbaba 5y ago
What market in the US is a 100k comp competitive for a software engineer these days?
- snowwrestler 5y ago
  The announcement says “early career” and “recent graduates,” so pretty junior. $100k is a competitive salary for a junior software dev in DC. Heck, for someone right out of school, it’s probably competitive anywhere but the Bay Area, NY, maybe Seattle.
  - vmception 5y ago
    Staying limited to a middle market region is a waste of time You only live once Make your bed and sleep in it, but at least do it objectively Regional cost of living discussions are cute - in that they masquerade as an insightful understanding of money - but most monetary thresholds do not take it into account. Accredited investor status or convincing anyone of it to get access to private equity for a better chance at making some real money? Cost of living is not a factor, its >200k income annually or >$1mm assets without including your home. Lying conveys no negative consequence but you still need the disposable money. Being responsibly ahead of rent/mortgage payments every paycheck means an extra $1500 - maybe - in a middle market place versus an extra $4500-$7000. These are worlds apart in capabilities. Impulse buy a new console? Flight to Europe? Everything is more accessible and faster. The former amount will get eaten up by some random repair or holiday activity or friend’s life event. The latter will get you all that and everything you want and accumulation at a much higher velocity. Saving up for various things is for the birds, we have all the same fixed amount of time with lots of randomness to shorten it. Not worth rationalizing lower comp, when the same or less work gets you 3-10x more.

itronitron 5y ago

If you are hired in to contribute to the core mission of the organization (whatever that may be) then you are much more likely to be in a high-functioning group and enjoy your time there. Even within those groups there will be the occasional 'cautionary tale' but that helps everyone else find their path. Also, the productive groups tend to have more active small team management and less direct leadership from on high. That may seem counter-productive but in government organizations it keeps everyone more engaged and indicates there is actually a lot of work to be done.

thkim 5y ago

A society where quickest decisions are made would be either 1) dictatorship or 2) non-human, i.e. AI based. Would that be a good society to live in, I can't tell for sure. I can say for sure that democracy is designed to be slow and inefficient with regards to decision making. We humans need time to understand, think and argue. We have slow decision making system so that we may reduce chance of error. I think "fast and efficient" are wrong benchmarks.

xvilka 5y ago
There's another option - direct democracy, assuming everyone has a neural implant and constant network connection. Then any important decision could be voted in a matter of minutes or hours.

gpt5 5y ago

Interestingly, Israel has solved a lot of these problems by making military service mandatory. Essentially, the moment you have to join the Army, you might as well look for the best possible place for you. This make the top units (whether technology units or otherwise) extremely competitive, and filled with the top talent the country can offer. In addition, these top units become desired in the resume, further increasing their desirability.

dreen 5y ago
I can imagine this works well in Israel, but for most countries, mandatory service is a complete waste of resources. Paying huge amounts of money for people who do not want to be there get skills they do not need, at the point in life which is rather valuable. From defence point of view (for a country not likely to be involved in a war in its territory), its way better to invest that in training professionals.

jcrites 5y ago

Facebook's slogan was never "move fast and break things", by the way. It was shortened to that by the public. The actual slogan was "Move fast and don't be afraid to break things".

MagnumOpus 5y ago
Ironically, that's the ex-post corporate "damage control" spin on it. The intended slogan was always the former: Zuckerberg directly said in a 2009 interview that "unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough".

kortilla 5y ago

> I, like (I think) many young people, am pretty disillusioned with the current state of the U.S. Why do you think the government is the solution? Many of us are out to improve society through industry and non-profits. You don’t need a monopoly on violence to innovate and improve the world.

ninkendo 5y ago
You need a monopoly on violence to make and enforce laws, and laws are a critical piece of the puzzle to solving some problems, especially collective ones.

vmception 5y ago

> Currently, only 3% of the federal tech workforce is under age 30 We can do math, you can do math, everyone with marketable skills is reaching the same result You don't have to rationalize it

systemvoltage 5y ago

If you want to improve things, join and make the change you want to see. Working in the government would be challenging and that’s exactly why you should do it. I do agree that incentives to get the best talent aren’t quite there in Gov jobs but there are plenty of brilliant non-FAANG engineers out there. There would be so much low hanging fruit, it would be fun to work in a Gov job. One of things I am lacking in my life is meaning to work. Endless Jira tickets to solve issues for a private enterprise. If I’m on a death bed, I want to be able to look back and reflect that I did something hard that others shy away from. Public service is noble and I am willing to sacrifice a lot for it.

mercy_dude 5y ago

Aside from the fact there is also that the work of US Government employees and contractors directly or indirectly helped kill hundreds of thousands of people. In Iraq, Afghanisthan and elsewhere. And not to say if Snowden story relevals anything they are nothing short if being corporate mafia if they want to be.

yosito 5y ago

> better, morally, than optimizing ad revenue This wanting to be "better morally" than your fellow citizens is a disease. It seems to be one of the root problems afflicting Americans these days.

cto_of_antifa 5y ago
Why is that bad? Do you think it's worth reflecting on why it bothers you?
- refurb 5y ago
  Whose morals? There is no universal moral truth although Western countries may agree on a core set to the point its universal, but morals changes over time pretty significantly so when OP says “morals” what they really mean is “how I think the world should be”.
- yosito 5y ago
  Because it gives you permission to see (a large percentage of) your fellow human beings as evil, and yourself as superior. I think it's worth reflecting on why it doesn't bother you. There is nothing evil about someone who works in advertising so they can support their family.
  - systemvoltage 5y ago
    This is an absurd defeatist argument. Having morals and standards does not mean you want to feel superior. This is a surefire way to make sure we all lose moral compass, guiding principles and refuse to excel.
dogleash 5y ago
Who says it has to seen as rising above others, rather than simply living up to your own ideals? Is it wrong to have standards just because some people won't meet them? The fact some people get off on perceived superiority is a separate issue, and not one that will be quashed by treating all work as morally equivalent.

eevilspock 5y ago

ketzo, see the message on my givehub.org placeholder page. I'm love to donate this domain to someone who'll make good use of it, or even better team up with some folks to do some good. Email me at the address shown on that page, or the one on my HN profile, or even better both.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

einpoklum 5y ago

> I, like (I think) many young people, am pretty disillusioned with the current state of the U.S. This suggests you are not disillusioned with its past state. Ok, well, it's a start. Please consider reading Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the USA" (also available in audio form), to further your disillusionment. > Slow, bureaucratic, opaque, slow, low-compensation, slow. Well, possibly, but - _that's_ what's bothering you? Not how the US kills a lot of people? Supports dictatorships and oligarchies? And internally, caters to the rich much more than to the masses, so much so that drinking water is dangerous to drink in many places? How it spies on everyone all the time? The speed is not the main problem here, I would say.

tmpz22 5y ago

Software cannot solve societal issues it can only scale them

zcw100 5y ago

I've worked in and around government for some time and the reputation for being slow and bureaucratic is well deserved but my observation is that it's a trade off. You can have government services that are fast or corrupt. Make your choice. It's generally slow because if you don't want it to be corrupt you're going to have to have processes, procedures, oversight, etc. basically bureaucracy. If you want it fast, people are going to take advantage of the lack of oversight to enrich themselves. You might find slow government services frustrating but I think a corrupt system would be much worse.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]