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The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
- kaaskop 2y ago[flagged]
- gnaritas99 2y ago[dead]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- medler 2y agoI 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 security, especially as it relates to Silicon Valley culture.
- _DeadFred_ 2y ago[flagged]
- maxerickson 2y agoThey are identified in the linked Wired article...Good job though, you are keeping on top of things.
- _DeadFred_ 2y ago[flagged]
- maxerickson 2y agoYes, the condescending tone was intentional. I'm pretty sure that the article is widely linked on both sites, so to answer your question, "lots".
- _DeadFred_ 2y agoAnd the entire popular subreddit is now blocked after being invoked by (f)Elon, and a retweet by the Prosecutor from DC. You can f'off with your condescending bs.
- justin66 2y agoThey're not pseudonymously posting on Reddit or something, they're working in the federal government. The concept of "doxxing" does not apply.
- _DeadFred_ 2y agoWhen people are creating lists including who their parents are, their parents jobs, etc. it kind of does in my mind. My bad.
- dbalatero 2y ago[flagged]
- ian-g 2y agoIn my mind, there are a number of instances online where people (read: men) are acting like entitled princes, and the one thing that gets them to back off is making their families aware of what's going on. Considering that these six are almost certainly peak internet people, I can't say I entirely disagree with trying to make sure their families know what they're doing. And so those family members know who to blame if data is leaked, potentially like the bank account details stored in the treasury payments system.
- freedomben 2y agoJust to make sure I understand what you're saying and the underlying principle and how it might apply. You support internet mobs (and eventually IRL mobs) harassing innocent people who happen to be related to somebody else? Do you agree with everything your relatives do? Are you willing to be held to the same standard? If you brother/sister/son/father/uncle/nephew/whatever does something I don't like, can I publish your personal information and get an internet mob to call and threaten your employer?
- viccis 2y agoWhen people can't be legally held accountable, then why are you surprised that there are those trying to hold them accountable via extrajudicial means?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- archagon 2y agoI don't necessarily approve of this action, but... a key to a peaceful life is to not piss off too many people at once. If you decide spit on a hundred million people, you're not gonna like it when a fraction of them spit back. Break the social contract at your own peril.
- minimaxir 2y agoFrom a journalistic standpoint, it's entirely fair to report on these 19-24 year olds, and it is not doxxing to do so. They are quite literally now involved in the US government, and are consenting adults making the rational decision to involve themselves in real legal jeopardy.
- bko 2y agoI guess that's good. It's interesting that we're just now learning the names of the people that hope to disrupt these agencies, but we don't know exactly who, or even how many, of these agencies existed. In other words, there are these critically important agencies that I didn't even know existed, but they're basically the glue that holds together our democracy. Who runs these agencies is not important, what is important is that they continue to run as they have in the past and anyone looking to disrupt that should be thoroughly investigated.
- electriclove 2y agoIf you believe things have been run well at these agencies (that you didn’t even know existed), that would explain your position. Imagine someone who believes that things have not been run properly. Now imagine half the country feeling this way.
- __loam 2y agoThe proper forum for reforms is congress, not steamrolling your way through the federal bureaucracy.
- maxerickson 2y agoYeah, probably. Why does their jeopardy concern you more than the apparent lack of legitimate authority to do what they are doing?
- medler 2y agoIt doesn’t really. Obviously the alleged security breach is egregious and if they’re committing crimes they should be prosecuted. But given that they’re relatively young, part of me wonders if these guys are being exploited by Musk and Thiel and will be scapegoated if the political winds start blowing another way. But that makes no difference to their criminal liability.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- sebzim4500 2y agoTrump pardoned the J6 guys for trying to kill the vice president, surely he'll pardon these guys for whatever bureaucratic rules they are breaking.
- electriclove 2y agoI thought Marco Rubio is acting director and has given them authority. Is this untrue? Why do you say apparent lack of legitimate authority?
- comex 2y agoSome of the key actions taken or threatened by DOGE are at least arguably illegal without permission from Congress, such as dismantling USAID, offering "deferred resignation" firing employees without due process, unilaterally stopping payments to agencies or individuals, and some smaller ones. Beyond that, there is the FACA lawsuit challenging the organization of DOGE itself; the administration has partially mitigated that by making Musk a special government employee, but no word on the rest of DOGE.
- Tadpole9181 2y agoWhy are you concerned? They're adults and know this is blatantly illegal and are serving their lord anyway. They don't even have the pleasure of deniability since the government officials literally stepped in, physically blocked them, and told them they weren't allowed. Personally, I hope they get what's coming to them.
- jjtheblunt 2y ago> blatantly illegal genuine question, not sarcastic: what specifically is blatantly illegal, violating what law?
- afavour 2y agoThey are (according to the accounts given) accessing confidential government information they don’t have security credentials for.
- bdangubic 2y agothere’s this guy named Donald who just might pardon whoever is committing whatever crimes are being committed…
- kelnos 2y agoI'm sure he will. But that doesn't refute the assertion that what they're doing is illegal. It supports it, even.
- afavour 2y agoAll else aside I wouldn’t assume he’s going to. I doubt Trump cares one way or the other if these kids rot in jail. There’s a long, long list of people who thought “Trump owes me” would be a guarantee and got a rude awakening.
- bdangubic 2y agoI doubt Trump cares one way or the other if these kids rot in jail they are doing what he is (in)directly ordering - they ain't going to jail following the orders of the POTUS :)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- johnnyanmac 2y ago> 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. They 100% are. This is a full blackhat attack on a nation. Did they take no ethics class? (software or otherwise)?
- aswanson 2y agoThe one kid just graduated high school. So, unlikely.
- zb3 2y ago[flagged]
- electriclove 2y ago[flagged]
- __loam 2y agoThey are working for Elon Musk.
- electriclove 2y agoWho is working for Marco Rubio (Secretary of State) in this case
- viccis 2y agoMy experience with ethics classes is that they usually just teach you good ways to justify whatever you want.
- wyager 2y agoIf you get your ethics from some class you took in college, you definitely shouldn't be given authority over anything important
- beAbU 2y agoThey are 19-24. They never completed college.
- justin66 2y ago> 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. I worry that the law will not hold them accountable.
- archagon 2y agoIf not the law, then perhaps social consequences will.
- guelo 2y agoNah theyll have pardons if they ever get into trouble. That was part of the reason trump pardoned the j6ers, to let all his minions know that they have free rein to commit crimes.
- euroderf 2y agoThat's why they need OPM: So they can run off a giant listing of DOGE-droids and tear it from the dot-matrix printer and stamp every page with a big rubber stamp saying "Pardoned! D.J. Trump"
- monero-xmr 2y ago[flagged]
- afavour 2y agoI’d go as far as to say that’s the intention here. They’re fall guys and they’re too naive/arrogant to realise it. People say “oh, Trump will pardon them” but I wouldn’t be so sure, why does he care? Once this is done they’re not of any real use to him so it’s entirely possible he won’t waste the political capital pardoning them. Would be in character for a guy famous for not paying folks who have done work for him.
- latexr 2y ago> I do worry that these 19-24 year olds (…) are putting themselves in real legal jeopardy. On one side you have a handful of arrogant young adults doing the bidding of a couple of wannabe despotic man-babies. On the other you have an entire nation made up of millions of people and with major influence over the rest of the world. I’m having a hard time understanding why your concern lies with the former.
- drysine 2y ago>man-babies If only other babies could launch and land rockets. Call Musk what you want, but he is not a baby.
- nova22033 2y ago[flagged]
- Tadpole9181 2y agoMusk doesn't do that. He bought a company and claims all the credit for it, he's just a rich brat using daddy's blood money.
- theonething 2y ago> He bought a company and claims all the credit for it Dude, Musk founded Space X. It's because of these kinds of ridiculous comments that I find it hard to take the Left (at least the ones on the internet) seriously.
- BLKNSLVR 2y agoI think he's well on the path to reverting to baby status.
- latexr 2y agoA man-baby is an adult man who acts like a baby, e.g. throwing tantrums when they don’t get their way and being overly petty and vindictive, not a literal baby. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Manbaby https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Manbaby It is incredible that I have to explain this and that that is the part you object to. So you’re fine with despots, but “man-baby” is where you draw the line? Either way, your objection makes absolutely zero difference to the point.
- ty6853 2y agoLon Horiuchi could not be convicted for literally sniping an unarmed women with a child in her arms, standing in a doorway of her house threatening no one. Supremacy clause for executive federal employees. They will be fine.
- ansmithz42 2y agoThey are not executive employees, they are Musk employees, not the same thing.
- ty6853 2y agoUSDS is doge. Musk is a federal employee. Presumably they are as well, with USDS?
- dumah 2y agoLon Horiuchi couldn't be convicted because the state's prosecutor dropped it.
- ty6853 2y ago... The feds invoked supremacy clause to squash the case long enough it was too stale by the time it wound through appeals. The special prosecutor did not at all want to drop it and said as much. The supremacy clause was what ultimately killed it, by being useful enough to delay cases to the point they're dead.
- dumah 2y agoThat’s fair.
- venusenvy47 2y agoI don't see why anyone should worry about the people actually committing crimes and being in legal jeopardy. That's the purpose of the legal system. People need to learn that ignorance of the law is not a defense.
- kelnos 2y agoI really don't worry at all for these people. They're adults, even if young, and they've made their choice. Any consequences they suffer will be well deserved. I'm sure Trump will preemptively pardon them at the end of his term anyway. My worry is that these people will never be held accountable for what they're doing. Save your worry for things that actually matter.
- nxm 2y agoSame like Biden and his crew of folks he preemtively pardoned
- kelnos 2y agoSure, if you want to play the whataboutism card, go for it. While I understand why Biden did what he did there, I didn't agree with it. At the very least it sets bad precedent and allows people like you to pretend they have a "gotcha!" argument when they really have nothing.
- ljsprague 2y ago[flagged]
- cleverwebble 2y agothats a wild, and dangerous take
- alfalfasprout 2y agoWhy worry? They signed onto be one of Musk's sycophants are at this point are clearly aware of their actions. You can have accomplishments and still be on the wrong side of history.
- ninalanyon 2y agoWhen 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?
- 6stringmerc 2y agoMy experience working for Tyler Technologies in the Courts and Justice division opened my eyes to the absolutely arrogant and basically consequence-free mismanagement of public data in the hands of private enterprise. The fiasco with JudyRecords.com is absolutely important to keep in mind. If anything, I find stressing "efficiency" in government is simply a cover for "gutting functionality" because anytime something doesn't fit in "the model" of services then it simply gets dismissed. Is this a technology equivalent to burning the libraries of old? Once the data is gone, come on, do you think any reasonable efforts will be made to restore it? Frankly speaking, is the course DOGE taking a mandate by the people to be enacted by representatives in the government or is it vice-versa, that "we are changing your society whether you like it or not" is the fundamental principle. Then again, I just got out of jail after a year on a made-up Terroristic Threat charge politically motivated, so my perspective is likely skewed regarding motives and actions of those who have unchecked power at their disposal.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- nico 2y agoThis is like crypto, or rewriting the whole code from scratch. Re-learning all the lessons
- ericjmorey 2y agoThey're not going to learn anything. They're subverting the system for personal gain at the expense of everyone else.
- TrackerFF 2y agoIf 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.
- Terr_ 2y ago> to just pardon More likely Trump continue to fire prosecutors that try to do their jobs upholding the literal law. No prosecution, no pardon needed. The check on that is for Congress to impeach and remove a corrupt President from office, but that will be difficult with how many Republicans are complicit.
- nullocator 2y agoBased on what we've seen this past week it seems the next administration would have an obligation to fire them all, in much the way Trump is firing anyone who looked into or investigated him. And extrapolating to the next few months I'd say the next administration will likely have an obligation to attempt to send anyone associated with DOGE to prison for the rest of their lives. At least this appears to be the type of government Donald Trump and his voters believe America should have.
- ModernMech 2y agoA lot of people are acting like the end of history is here.
- rbanffy 2y agoIt seems clear the US turned a page in its history.
- Terr_ 2y agoDo you remember when Presidents disclosed their finances and avoided things that could look like gifts/bribes? When they didn't fire prosecutors for getting too close to their business? When trial-balloons about becoming "President For Life" were taboo? When their lawyers didn't argue they had presumptive immunity to literally assassinate the other candidate? This news item is just one more previously-unthinkable line crossed in an unambiguous trend towards more-crazy. ___________ > "But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next." -- They Thought They Were Free: The Germans The Germans, 1933-45* by Milton Meyer, published 1955.
- ck2 2y agoMusk 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.
- rbanffy 2y agoNational secrets shouldn’t have been kept in a bathroom in Mar-a-Lago and, yet, here we are.
- readthenotes1 2y agoNor in a garage, nor in unsecured university offices
- logifail 2y agoQ: Why are there (still) classified documents at USAID? https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/04/15/when-is-foreign-aid-meddling/secret-programs-hurt-foreign-aid-efforts https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/04/15/when-is-for...: "U.S.A.I.D. was created in 1961 to help the United States win the “hearts and minds” of citizens in poor countries through civic action, economic aid and humanitarian assistance. As a cold war policy tool, the agency was, at times, used as a front for C.I.A. operations and operatives. Among the most infamous examples was the Office of Public Safety, a U.S.A.I.D. police training program in the Southern Cone that also trained torturers."
- neuronexmachina 2y agoAn actual answer (linking to archive.org since usaid.gov has been taken down): https://web.archive.org/web/20250117221701/https://www.usaid.gov/about-us/organization/office-security https://web.archive.org/web/20250117221701/https://www.usaid... > The information about USAID’s development and humanitarian assistance programs is intentionally open and public; to perform the agency’s mission, USAID employees work directly with non-government organizations, contractors, United Nations organizations and host country governments. However, in order for USAID employees to effectively and efficiently carry out the agency’s programs, they often must have access to sensitive and sometimes classified information provided by other federal departments and agencies. Such information may pertain to U.S. foreign policy and relations as well as security conditions and threat data.
- troelsSteegin 2y agohttps://doge.gov https://doge.gov does not say anything about what the DOGE plan is, and https://www.usds.gov/ 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/establishing-and-implementing-the-presidents-department-of-government-efficiency/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/esta...
- ahazred8ta 2y agoWe went through something similar in the 1960s with the Whiz Kids, young college graduates from the RAND corporation with no experience in government or the military. 'But you have to obey us because we're so much smarter than you.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiz_Kids_(Department_of_Defense) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiz_Kids_(Department_of_Defen...
- ck2 2y agoAre they skilled? Or just arrogant and drunk on power? Some of them most certainly could not pass US security clearance. https://bsky.app/profile/jsweetli.bsky.social/post/3lh7nii7yyk2o https://bsky.app/profile/jsweetli.bsky.social/post/3lh7nii7y...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- DemocracyFTW2 2y agohttps://archive.ph/QYBhK https://archive.ph/QYBhK
- twochillin 2y agowhy was this flagged?
- rbanffy 2y agoHaving the word “Elon” seems to bring out the worst in us. I still believe we can have civil discussions about topics that might be considered taboo.
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago[flagged]
- chairmansteve 2y agoAnd yet..... almost all your recent are related to Musk...
- AnimalMuppet 2y agoIf you look at only one page of my posting history, that's likely true.
- LastTrain 2y agoGiven who is involved this is as relevant as it gets here.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago> Yeah, we know, tech is bleeding over into politics, but... how many Musk stories do we need in one day? You should Ask Musk to cool down then. We didn't vote him in. We didn't ask him to break the law and compromise american security. We didn't grant him access to the US treasury. "We" voted this in. Those who didn't want this are 3 months too late. And I see this excuse on every platform. I see a story I don't want to engage with... I just move on. Maybe you browse new, but I've never seen politics be "the dominant topic on HN".
- computerthings 2y ago> Some of us are sick of politics all over HN all the time. That was never the situation. > how many Musk stories do we need in one day? However many the number is, we're past it. So the number is zero. Having one story for each major separate event is one story too many. This is still what it is. The longer the rationalizations for it get, the more sad it gets.
- breadwinner 2y ago> 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.
- TrackerFF 2y agoChecks and balances were never tried in the first place. There must have been some assumption of decorum and decency, so strong that whatever loopholes are, have been left wide open. Without a competent or impartial FBI and AG, there's literally zero chance these people will be investigated. With a house and senate that fears the president, there will be no impeachment. And even if they successfully manage to impeach the president, I'm 100% sure Trump will challenge it. Yeah, buckle up and enjoy the ride. Gonna be 4 very, very long years.
- breadwinner 2y ago4 years? Trump has been talking about a third term. “It would be my greatest honor to serve not once but twice,” Mr. Trump told an audience on Saturday. “Maybe three times.” https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/26/us/politics/trump-boundaries-presidency.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/26/us/politics/trump-boundar...
- sv123 2y agoI didn't think he would live this long, but he certainly couldn't survive another 8 years, right?... right?
- breadwinner 2y agoSo basically we are down to relying on the cycle of life as the ultimate check and balance. Hopefully he won't appoint one of his sons as his successor like in North Korea.
- nailer 2y ago> Checks and balances have been neutralized. That seems somewhat inverted - the elected government is creating checks and balances on unelected bureaucrats.
- jonnycomputer 2y agoCan't believe this is flagged.
- relaxing 2y agoHonest question: how do things get unflagged? Do users at some level gain vouch privileges?
- johnnyanmac 2y agoThey 99.99999% of the time don't. I think only dang has that ability and he won't really step in unless there are some truly rouge actors.
- dang 2y ago> unless there are some truly rouge actors It's more a question of the article. What we're looking for includes: is the article not too repetitive of recent discussions? does it contain significant new information? is there a reasonable chance that it could support a substantive, thoughtful discussion, or is it too flamebaity/provocative? that kind of thing. Here's a subthread from yesterday where I went into this in depth: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42911011 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42911011. Past explanations: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20turn%20off%20flags&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... If anyone has a question that isn't answered at those links, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.
- archagon 2y agoCan you tell if there's a concerted effort to flag Musk and DOGE related threads? I've seen threads go from nothing to [flagged][dead] in the course of 30 seconds after being up for 40 minutes, suggesting very spiky flagging behavior. This has come up a few times recently, for example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42904148 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42904148 (Of course, I could just be misunderstanding how flagging works on the site... maybe the state machine has to transition in order from regular -> [flagged][dead] -> [flagged] after vouching?)
- Whatarethese 2y agoThey are adults. They work for the federal government. They deserve no privacy protections.
- electriclove 2y agoI keep seeing a contradiction that I’m having a hard time explaining. On one hand, there are numerous comments saying that what these individuals are doing is illegal. On the other hand, there are comments saying they work for the federal government and so doxxing them is fair game. If they work for the government, how is what they are doing illegal?
- kelnos 2y agoThey don't actually work for the federal government. That's a big part of the problem. Trump has just given them access.
- electriclove 2y agoI don’t doubt what you are saying about Trump giving them access. Do we know how he did that? I guess I’d like to understand how we know if it was legal or not.
- kelnos 2y agoIt's the other way around. It's not legal unless these people are under an executive branch department or agency, with department heads appointed by the president, and confirmed by the Senate. These people have not all been vetted, hired, and granted security clearances appropriate to the level of access they've obtained. All of this is illegal.
- lostdog 2y agoBeing an employee of the federal government doesn't give you access to everything. There are laws, passed by Congress, about who is allowed to do what.
- twen_ty 2y agoWhy is this flagged?
- tyrrvk 2y ago[flagged]
- ctrlp 2y ago[flagged]
- dang 2y agoPlease don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- ctrlp 2y agoThis is ridiculous. Any disagreement gets flagged and downvotes. Get control of your site, dang.
- dang 2y agoThat's not close to true, but even if it were, it doesn't make it ok for you to break the site guidelines. Commenters here need to stick to those regardless of what anyone else is doing. Otherwise, we just end up in a downward spiral, since everyone always feels like the other side started it and did worse.
- ctrlp 2y agoHN has fallen. It's infested with operatives and shills. Waving the site guidelines at me for offering a modicum of balance is the wrong way. Either ban all political commentary or let 'em cook. Putting me in a timeout for mild snark? It wasn't always like this.
- dang 2y agoHN's standards haven't changed. I think it's just that everyone underestimates their own provocations ("mild snark") and overestimates the provocations of others. This leads to an "objects in the mirror are larger than they appear" kind of effect - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20objects%20mirror%20appear&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... "Infested with operatives and shills" is a feeling that a lot of internet users have when they encounter views that are different from their own. It feels like these can't possibly be in good faith, so they must be "operatives and shills". But there is a much simpler explanation: the range of differences between people is just a lot larger than one expects it to be. I've written a lot about this over the years—here's one example, with links to others: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35932851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35932851. This is why the HN guidelines ask people "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
- HPMOR 2y ago[flagged]
- creatonez 2y ago[flagged]
- minimaxir 2y agoThis submission was submitted and flagged yesterday: the fact that it's on the front page (for now) means it was rescued from death and implies that opposite of your observation.
- redcobra762 2y agoIt implies neither, as everything that's happened to this submission could be done by users (flagging and vouching are tools available to some users).
- minimaxir 2y agoThis submission was flagged and unvouchable at the time this comment was made 11 hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42914529 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42914529 The only person that can revert that is a mod.
- dang 2y agoThat's right - I turned off the flags when I saw the article. I didn't see it yesterday. (I also edited the title to be a bit more neutral.)
- redcobra762 2y agoTIL, thanks!
- dailyplanet 2y agoReading into these weird power abusers. Scary stuff! They seem to want to take down America's liberal democracy and install an "American Caesar" https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/21/curtis-yarvin-trump https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/21/curtis-yarvi...
- vitajex 2y agoExperienced enough to win this though: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39261861 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39261861
- roboror 2y agoThat would be relevant if our governmental budgets were printed on ancient scrolls. What was the point of posting this?
- Xelynega 2y agoSince when did winning competitions require experience optimizing costs across various industries? I don't think anybody is doubting they're smart, just that they have no experience doing this kind of work and are now being trusted by the highest level of government to do it.
- ShrimpHawk 2y ago> who have little to no government experience Decoding ancient scrolls has no relevance to government procedures.
- vitajex 2y agoWhat he did to win the scroll competition had to do with data analysis, not ancient history, so of course it could be relevant. But none of us, including the author of the article, knows what they're specifically doing, so it's not possible to say how relevant it is. It's a pity the reporter didn't do some reporting about that, instead of writing a hit piece calling them lackeys.
- alfalfasprout 2y agoThat's a completely different type of "analysis" and on a completely different scale. The skillsets are not even remotely comparable.
- fastball 2y ago
- droptablemain 2y ago[flagged]
- giraffe_lady 2y agoWhy?
- Fauntleroy 2y agoWe can't exactly stop the government for a rebuild, you know.
- hotguysixpack 2y agonobody: every junior engineer talking to a senior when the code is mildly complex:
- droptablemain 2y agoThe code is not mildly complex, it's criminal.
- achandlerwhite 2y agoWhat’s your take on the role of government at the federal level?
- leptons 2y agoAmerica is the most successful country in the world, and you want to stop all that to tear it down? So that the richest man in the world can get even richer by directing the US government to his liking? Or what? I really don't understand how you think a failed businessman reality Tv host and a "dark gothic maga" troll are going to be good for America.
- dekhn 2y agoSo, uh, when you tear it down, before you rebuild, who is going to manage the military? How do we stay competitive in science? Does it seem likely we will recover from a full tear-down quickly enough to stave off permanent damage to our economy and mental health? The idea that a bunch of yokels working for lulz could tear down and rebuild a system better is daft.
- zb3 2y ago[flagged]
- fzliu 2y agoI don't understand why the editors allowed the engineers' names to be made public. What did they hope to gain by doing this other than making them magnets for harassment and possibly threats?
- minimaxir 2y agoThe identities of the engineers are now unambigiously in the public interest as they now have an impact on the government. These aren't scrappy hackers trolling on internet forums.
- rozap 2y agoThey're public servants. Most public servants have their name, position, level, salary, etc listed in public datasets. There is no "doxxing" of public servants. This isn't a usenet.
- ceejayoz 2y agoNow do @libsoftiktok. Or Musk himself: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1858916546338590740 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1858916546338590740 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1858914228624924963 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1858914228624924963
- fullshark 2y agoThe American people deserve to know what is happening in their government.
- tgv 2y agoIsn't it free speech? Yes, that is a comment in style against the guidelines of this forum, but you've got to admire the irony.
- latency-guy2 2y agoIn normal circumstances, e.g. as contractors I would agree. However, they are not, as far as I can tell they are operating as federal employees. No federal employee name is private. I do see this (article) as mostly retaliation though. Maybe deserved or not. Hard to tell at this point. But these people are public employees nevertheless, they never had the option for anonymity.
- xnx 2y agoAre 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.
- derangedHorse 2y agoBy what metric do you think the U.S. is as “economically dominant” as it was in the period after WWII?
- immibis 2y agoMost of the world's currency is backed by the currency they print? The USA has to spend a few cents to gain a hundred dollar bill, but any other country has to exchange a hundred dollars of actual goods and services (to the USA!). Losing this privilege would be devastating.
- curt15 2y agoThe economic power of the US is also largely due to its reputation for rule of law (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5zaImTF92g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5zaImTF92g) when contrasted with other regimes like the CCP. Once that image goes out the window, it becomes no more attractive to foreign investment than any other banana republic run by thugs.
- mystified5016 2y agoSome people in the us government are very afraid of China. Whether that fear is justified is a totally different topic
- psunavy03 2y agoWhy yes, let's let a totalitarian state become a superpower and start dictating the international order. I'm sure Xi Jinping will prove to be just as cuddly as Winnie the Pooh; nothing to worry about here.
- xivzgrev 2y agoof course Musk recruits young ambitious kiddos - they work hard, for not much money, and don't question authority (because they're blinded by their ambition) it's only when you get older that you see how rife this is for abuse. as a simple example, if DOGE knows influential Treasury recipients, then they could find ways to extort them. help us and you'll get your money on time. oppose us, and... heck, I'm a treasury recipient (albeit a very small one), so if I take to X and start criticizing Trump or Musk, is my money at risk? Maybe not today but maybe within his term. Scary times.
- ctrlp 2y agoIt's also only when you get older that you see how rife the existing system is for "abuse" (if you want to call it that). Maybe the young upstarts have other motives for dismantling the existing system than simply blind ambition, especially if the existing system is set up with entrenched patronage networks that are basically inaccessible to the "young ambition kiddos". Your example is pretty unpersuasive. It is already that case that "influential Treasury recipients" are called upon to "help" those in power. How else can you explain the various volte face moves by seemingly apolitical economic actors. I think the kiddos might finally be getting wise to how the game is played and how it is rigged.
- juujian 2y agoWho knows. If you happen to mention any words that are on the CDC's new forbidden words list, maybe you will fall victim to the next Ctrl+f search these guys run.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- readthenotes1 2y agoRe that scroll https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-21-year-old-used-ai-to-decipher-text-from-a-scroll-that-hasnt-been-read-in-2000-years-180983084/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-21-year-old-u... It seems to me like it really appropriate background...
- readthenotes1 2y agoSome context for USAID https://youtu.be/qe47hTyUh5g?feature=shared https://youtu.be/qe47hTyUh5g?feature=shared
- strangeloops85 2y agoHave Elon Musk and all these engineers sworn oaths as required to be a federal employee? https://federalnewsnetwork.com/commentary/2019/10/the-oath-of-office-and-what-it-means/ https://federalnewsnetwork.com/commentary/2019/10/the-oath-o... If Elon is "just advising", under what statute or directive does he have specific authority? If they are accessing TS/SCI information and places like SCIFs have they filled out their SF-86? Are any of them dual nationals and do they have any ties or vulnerabilities to hostile foreign states? Basic questions given the enormous access they are being given, far beyond frankly any handful of people have generally had in US government history. Also, they have apparently plugged in their own private server at OPM. Has this already been compromised by Chinese/ Russian agents? Has the NSA had a look?
- jeffgreco 2y agoThere are class action lawsuits being organized on behalf of federal workers against this egregious data breach and let's hope to god they succeed.
- ansmithz42 2y agoSimple answer: No.
- throw0101c 2y ago> If they are accessing TS/SCI information and places like SCIFs have they filled out their SF-86? Did the Mar-a-Lago workers who moved boxes fill out those forms? * https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/25/trump-classified-documents-mar-a-lago/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/25/... * https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/06/surveillance-footage-trump-indictment-boxes-fbi-mar-a-lago https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/06/surveillance...
- yesco 2y agoWould contractors need to do any of this? Is DOGE using federal funds? I'm not exactly clear on the situation but if they are just doing this for free and don't have access to confidential information, I could see that potentially being the key loophole here.
- kittikitti 2y ago[flagged]
- afavour 2y agoAgeism is refusing to hire someone who meets all the qualifications for the job because of their age. Refusing to hire someone whose inexperience makes them unqualified for the job is not the same as ageism. To make the objections folks have here plain: these employees literally do not have the security clearance required to access the data they’re looking at. What they are doing is illegal.
- archagon 2y agoWe can and should yell at young people for knowingly doing illegal shit and raiding our government, though. Like, that’s my money they’ve unilaterally and extracongressionally decided to reappropriate with a smirk on their faces. Fuck that.
- freedomben 2y ago> We can and should yell at young people for knowingly doing illegal shit and raiding our government, though. Why just young people? If an old person does it then it's ok? I think GP is wrong about this, but you're inadvertently proving GP's point and making me wonder if maybe there is some ageism going on... I would hope that most people recognize that different standards for people by age are not ok, but that isn't the same as different standards for different levels of experience and qualification.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- minimaxir 2y agoYou can yell at both young people and old people.
- freedomben 2y ago
- ctrlp 2y ago[flagged]
- ian_d 2y agoElon is also now claiming to have "deleted" 18F (https://18f.gsa.gov/ https://18f.gsa.gov/): https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886498750052327520 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886498750052327520
- __loam 2y ago[flagged]
- paulgb 2y agoThis is nuts, 18F was one of the few groups in the federal government that is/was good at making software! (login.gov is a good example of craft you don't generally see in commercial enterprise software, let alone government software) According to that tweet they were apparently “far left” because they also worked on Direct File, which sought to cut out the middleman (TurboTax et al.) and let Americans file taxes directly. Regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum, unless you're in bed with Intuit, this seems pretty hard to argue against!
- jf 2y agologin.gov is amazing software. Highly tested. Expertly implemented. It might be the most tested IdP available today.
- jeffrallen 2y agoThen why did it send me to id.me to send my photo ID to some low cost outsourcer?
- h197BQcV 2y agoThey 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 this? There is hardly any opposition. Are they not interrupting their enemy while he is making mistakes? That would be the only explanation.
- bilbo0s 2y agoDemocrats can oppose, but they don’t have any votes. All 3 branches of government are controlled by Republicans. So, yeah. I guess we got the government we voted for? And since it’s a democracy, I suppose that means we have exactly the government we deserve? Maybe it gets better later in the administration? That’s my hope anyway.
- arrosenberg 2y ago> I guess we got the government we voted for? And since it’s a democracy, I suppose that means we have exactly the government we deserve? Well, we voted based on the only two options that were shoved down our throats by various groups of the wealthiest people on the planet. I don't personally think we deserve this, why would we? That said, if we don't do something, it won't get better.
- bilbo0s 2y agowe voted based on the only two options that were shoved down our throats by various groups of the wealthiest people on the planet Well, we should have made a system that didn’t allow the wealthiest people on the planet to do that. Not trying to be flip, I’m just trying to point out that it still all comes back to us in the end. We just have to hope for the best at this point. Buyer’s remorse is not gonna change the actions these people are likely to take. I do agree with you when you say, something needs to be done. If these pres-vice pres pairings are the best the current system could come up with, then obviously there is a need to add some new aspects to the system that might encourage more competence in the candidates it produces.
- littlestymaar 2y agoGiven how useful USAID has been for the CIA, if the “deep state” was a real thing, Elon would have at best a few more days to live.
- spaceman_2020 2y agoAs someone from the developing world where USAID regularly funded organizations that were often divisive and insidiously subversive, can’t say that I’ll be unhappy to see this thing dismantled.
- lukev 2y agoBut that has to be an act of congress. Congress creates and funds government departments. The president can't just dismantle them by fiat. That he's (apparently) tasking people to do so who don't even have the requisite experience or clearances is just adding insult to injury.
- cjbgkagh 2y agoIt seems more like a CIA civil war to me, CIA cut outs on both sides.
- karmakurtisaani 2y agoThe recent events should finally put to rest all the JFK conspiracies. Messing up with the government at this scale should indeed put you into some 3-letter agency hitlist.
- m463 2y agoPosts 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.
- blfr 2y agoThey're cutting their opponents' access to federal funds.
- golemiprague 2y agoWhy those funds were allocated to their ops and not equally to everybody? If those government organisations were serving only one side of the political spectrum than something is inherently wrong with it.
- joshstrange 2y ago> If those government organisations were serving only one side of the political spectrum than something is inherently wrong with it. Is there? I feel like there are many cases where this is not true. Supporting disenfranchised groups for one. If you are funding protection for a group of people you don't need to be funding their attackers as well to make it "fair", the funding of the disenfranchised groups is literally you putting your thumb on the scale to try and even things out. "one side of the political spectrum" is pretty loaded and it can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. If we are talking about "funding democrats" then sure, that's not good but if we are talking about "funding women's health" then no, I'm not going to play "both sides" games. The sad thing is we live in a country where a large number of people think that "funding women's health" _is_ "serving only one side of the political spectrum".
- Capricorn2481 2y agoUnfortunately we're also talking about funding so our rivers aren't on fire. We don't have to speculate on what is left and right because even what is purely sensical is being completely dismantled. People should be fucking outraged but half the country thinks the EPA is "woke." We're genuinely fucked.
- flaque 2y agoThis seems broadly good. If you told me a democratic admin had recruited these people, I would think "wow! what a positive signal for the current admin!"
- MeetingsBrowser 2y agoHow could you not trust a 19 year old who goes by bigballs? I for one trust Mr.BigBalls to make smart and effective cuts to get our government back on track!
- masterclef 2y ago[flagged]
- throwaway173738 2y agoYou should probably pay more attention to what people do rather than their credentials as it’s a more powerful signal.
- artistic_regard 2y ago[dead]
- danso 2y agoThe Obama admin created the US Digital Service — i.e. the unit that “DOGE” has now reappropriated — which attracted and hired folks like Google’s Matt Cutts [0]. The USDS did not, as far as we know, try to sneak in fresh-out-of-college-grads by bypassing the normal hiring process. [0] https://medium.com/the-u-s-digital-service/the-next-chapter-for-usds-2eb6955065f3 https://medium.com/the-u-s-digital-service/the-next-chapter-...
- lif 2y ago[flagged]
- yapyap 2y ago[flagged]
- charlescearl 2y agoRuth Wilson Gilmore’s In the Shadow of the Shadow State, which discusses the concept of the anti-state state. https://sfonline.barnard.edu/ruth-wilson-gilmore-in-the-shadow-of-the-shadow-state/ https://sfonline.barnard.edu/ruth-wilson-gilmore-in-the-shad...
- nailer 2y ago[flagged]
- watwut 2y agoAnd have low interest in legality of what you are doing and it's impact.
- nailer 2y agoThere's no suggestion DOGE is doing anything illegal. Regarding the impact, reducing the size of government is uncontroversial for most people.
- reaperducer 2y ago[flagged]
- nailer 2y agoIt is inappropriate. It has negative educational value. > Not for dry-humping Space Karen. You're relatively new here, you should read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- subsection1h 2y ago> It has negative educational value. What information in the article is inaccurate and how did you verify its inaccuracy?
- reaperducer 2y agoyou should read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Rules for thee, but not for me. Smells very musky.
- nailer 2y ago> Rules for thee, but not for me. No, I have not personally insulted you. > Smells very musky. You should read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- billiam 2y ago[flagged]
- disqard 2y agoObviously
- tenpies 2y agoThe Founding Fathers had 18, 20, 21 and 25 year olds in much more important positions. And just like DOGE, they were working in a team with older people too, but that sort of rational framing just doesn't get clicks. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United...
- jeltz 2y agoMost of the founding fathers were old. Benjamin Franklin was in his 80s. The young ones were the exception.
- rsoto2 2y agohahaha you think any part of this is rational? Ignorance must be bliss.
- ahmeneeroe-v2 2y agoThank you! I was looking to see if anyone made this point. You are exactly right. "Inexperience" just means someone younger than you. (Note I am middle-aged)
- Svoka 2y agoIt is very strange idea to equate life experiences gained before 18 of people born in 21st century in 18th century. Also, as outsider, I would never understand US fascination with "Founding Fathers". Some folks born about 300 years ago and somehow having answers to all the questions for all the times. Back than this country was a backwater colony which barely started industrialization. Overwhelming majority of population lived out of sustenance farming and majority of trade goods were products of slave labour. I mean, it is what it is, but where this yearning for glorious past which never existed comes from? Like, life in USA became more or less good only several generations ago, after the country became giant economical winner of WW2. And it did it by investing heavily into helping allies, not building isolationist policies.
- EcommerceFlow 2y ago[flagged]
- emagdnim2100 2y agodisappointing to see so many “hacker” news comments complaining about lack of credentials or system-specific expertise. yes, existing government systems are insanely complex - that’s part of the problem! the essential complexity is not higher than that of a brain-computer interface, or an interplanetary rocket. we don’t even know what these kids’ mandate is (also disappointing). but if your general premise is “smart outsiders who are good at engineering are always the wrong people to rework complex, inefficient systems,” i’d like to think you’re on the wrong site.
- whoknowsidont 2y agoThe problem with these types of comments is your filtering reality through some sort of weird hero-complex you're clinging to. It's not realistic and it's harmful. The people involved in this are not qualified or capable in _any_ manner to be doing what they're doing. They are sycophants. Worse, it's putting an entire nation in jeopardy. This isn't "smart, young spirits defy all odds and save the day!" it's really "hitler youth comes in and starts thrashing about until daddy gets his way."
- zelphirkalt 2y ago[flagged]
- alfalfasprout 2y agoYep. You can move fast and break things in a SAAS startup or some dumb LLM as a service startup. But the stakes are much higher in what they're touching. And the way they're being brought in is selecting for loyal sycophants, nothing else. If they disagree musk will axe them in seconds.
- l0t0b0r0s 2y agoYou're making swathing character attacks and claiming that you are qualified to know who is qualified. If anyone has a hero complex its you with your emotional argument and alarmism. Very compelling argument, definitely not partisan rhetoric.
- 2y ago
- HumblyTossed 2y agoWe are watching a coup in real time. There's no two ways about it. Sigh...
- Dig1t 2y ago[flagged]
- HumblyTossed 2y agoAs others have said, this is not constitutional.
- ChicagoDave 2y agoBecause they aren’t following the constitution or our laws. Congress has abdicated it’s responsibilities, but all of this is still illegal.
- rbetts 2y agoVoting a new president into office doesn't grant that person extra-constitutional powers. What they say during an election doesn't create those new powers, either.
- tj-teej 2y agoBecause the US has a constitution. Congress (not the Executive branch) allocates funding and the Executive Branch (in this case a Billionaire who's friendly with the President) cannot decide not to spend the money Congress has already decided to spend.
- Dig1t 2y agoHow exactly is it not constitutional? All of this seems like well established precedent. He's advising the president and the president is taking actions. Isn't that well established precedent that's been going on for a long time? Also if you believe it's not constitutional it still doesn't make sense how it can be a "coup".
- deleted 2y ago
- user32489318 2y agohow 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
- PeeMcGee 2y agoWhen they're as young as literally 19 years old, then it must be the case that they lack the appropriate experience.
- user32489318 2y agoI’m not disagreeing with you but let’s ask the question “experience for what”? Is it making a couple of dashboards, extract data from legacy systems into something more queryable, or generating a couple of expense reports? Or will they be making actual significant decisions affecting millions? How likely would that be?
- PeeMcGee 2y agoRegardless, they seemingly have access to tons of financial data that they are basing brash decisions on with zero context. That combined with the fact they are reporting to a manchild that is demonstrably stupid as shit when it comes to "improving" such systems (see Twitter and the play by play of his first days there). It takes tenure to know what sorts of discretion are required when reporting to such an extremely senior "leader", and to not get caught up in the hype of being involved in something. (edit: added last sentence)
- 9283409232 2y agoExperience is an important teacher and a 19 year old doesn't have it.
- kelnos 2y agoI find it hard to believe that any 19-22 year old would have the appropriate level of experience to handle this responsibility. Sure, a 55 year old also may not have the appropriate responsibility, but at least it's reasonable to expect that they could.
- eutropia 2y agoThere are people in this thread claiming that Wired "doxxed" these engineers working for Musk dismantling things they don't understand; however didn't Musk publicly mock individual federal employees on his twitter account, drawing the eyes of millions onto random government functionaries for no other reason than to capriciously taunt them about being fired? I hope people condemning the former also condemn the latter.
- sanderjd 2y agoPeople who work at the highest levels of our government are public figures. It is the job of reporters to report on who they are and what they're up to.
- cgannett 2y agoWell if they are working on those systems I think they count then right?
- sanderjd 2y agoYep, that's what I'm saying. They don't get to take these jobs and then complain about being "doxxed". They are public servants now.
- liontwist 2y agoAny public servant is open season for doxxing? (Teachers, soldiers, IT feds)
- andy_xor_andrew 2y agoEssentially yes, because they work for you and me. Why would you expect that people who serve the public could remain unknown to the public ?
- liontwist 2y ago
- fifilura 2y agoMost Scandinavian countries are required to make any communication in public departments (including all coworkers emails) public on request by journalists or anyone interested. This is to make any doubts regarding e.g USAID public instead of making such drastic measures necessary. But also make work of an entity such as Doge transparent. They are after all funded by my money (as a taxpayer). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_public_access_to_official_records https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_public_access_to_...
- vkou 2y ago> instead of making such drastic measures necessary. These drastic measures are neither necessary[1] nor legal (Well, they are a necessary step in carrying out a self-coup...) But there's nobody left to prosecute or enforce the law. First they came for the judges and made sure that the courts were stacked... And then they could do what they want, because they have the police, the army, and the courts. [1] It's actually wild how people here are actively arguing for shredding the constitution because the country is carrying a debt. America truly is done.
- reaperducer 2y agoMost Scandinavian countries are required to make any communication in public departments (including all coworkers emails) public on request by journalists or anyone interested. In the U.S., too. In fact, it was the United States that pioneered this in the modern age. But it's all happening so quickly that nobody can keep up with it. And the people who are supposed to take care of these things have been fired. Also bad, when requests are made by legitimate parties, they are being ignored or dismissed by the new regime. Let what's happening in the U.S. serve as a warning to you that no matter what laws you pass, electing lawless people brings lawlessness. And the law you passed cannot help you against people who don't respect the law.
- writebetterc 2y ago> In fact, it was the United States that pioneered this in the modern age. This was instituted in Sweden in the year 1766. Source: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offentlighetsprincipen https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offentlighetsprincipen That's 10 years before the USA declared independence.
- picafrost 2y agoThe attributes of young men have always made them convenient to put on the frontlines.
- adamredwoods 2y agoI'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 richest man in the world.”
- justin66 2y agoThey are going to make it easier to get your money by making it available via X!
- chasely 2y agoI'm trying to download my 1099 forms from TreasuryDirect and it's coming back as unavailable. Probably unrelated to everything going on now, but the fact I thought that it could be related for a second is crazy. >>> TreasuryDirect is unavailable. >>> We apologize for the inconvenience and ask that you try again later.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- sanderjd 2y agoInvestors' faith in US bond and equity markets is, unironically, the most powerful immediate-term check on the current administration. The longer-term check is the midterm elections in 2026. If they really screw things up, as they appear to be doing, that's their deadline for fixing them.
- bloopernova 2y agoThe republicans purged a lot of people from voter rolls. They're going to do the same in 2026. If you want to vote, anticipate dozens of hours over several months making sure you weren't removed from the register. Why are they so against people voting? The number of actual fraudulent vote cases prosecuted was very, very small, but the measures taken against voter fraud have been disproportionate.
- affinepplan 2y ago“Keep calm, they said on television. Everything is under control. I was stunned. Everyone was, I know that. It was hard to believe. The entire government, just like that. How did they get in, how did it happen? That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn’t even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn’t even an enemy you could put your finger on…” - The Handmaid's Tale
- zzzeek 2y agoFortunately we have an enemy this time, Elon Musk. He's it. He's also really bad at hiding what he's doing.
- pietrrrek 2y agoI don't think that Elon Musk can be singled out as the source of these changes, he's didn't just magically appear lur of nowhere and start doing what he's doing.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- unification_fan 2y agoBut he literally did
- Trasmatta 2y agoHe bought the election and then gave himself an unelected role with extensive and unchecked power.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- niceice 2y ago
- markus_zhang 2y agoWell from a foreigner's perspective, US is finally getting its own version of Cultural Revolution.
- sockp0pp3t 2y ago[flagged]
- bytematic 2y agonice account history
- spencerflem 2y agoAre you referring to McCarthyism and the red scare?
- ahmeneeroe-v2 2y agoThink more recent than that
- spencerflem 2y ago[flagged]
- ahmeneeroe-v2 2y agoMore recent, but getting warmer.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- spencerflem 2y agoVery recent then, You must be meaning the one the Democrats were part of then- Classifying any sort of Palestinian aid group as a terrorist organization to strip them of being nonprofits, pressuring schools to expel pro-palestinian protesters? Or the other one the democrats lead- When every occupy wall street leader was arrested and the protesters were gassed by the military?
- iamleppert 2y agoThe next four years are going to be a test of the US Constitution. But when they are up -- and they will be, and people are more angry at Trump than the last time around the pendulum swings wildly back again, as it always does, what is going to happen to Musk and the rest of them?
- vermilingua 2y agoI expect we’ll see more Italian plumbers coming out of the woodwork before 4 years is up.
- drawkward 2y agoI too am a fan of mario brothers!
- CaptainFever 2y ago[flagged]
- DangitBobby 2y agoApparently predicting violence is now the same thing as encouraging it.
- tines 2y agoIt's not a test of The Constitution, it's a test of our constitution, and we're being exposed as we speak.
- siliconc0w 2y agoIf DOGE wants to be effective it really should be going after the big ticket items like medicare or defense, some estimates have medicare at 40% fraud and waste and the DoD can't even pass an audit so no one really knows what %. And that is just getting what we've paid for, not even evaluating if what we've paid for is effective. Of course to do that would require actual coalition building, hard choices that upset voters, and congressional approval. Instead they'll going to disrupt some of the highest ROI small-money grants like food or medicine to impoverished countries because they don't have any representation. It won't meaningfully reduce the deficit and means we we're signing up for warlords and global instability in the near future.
- indoordin0saur 2y ago[flagged]
- reaperducer 2y agothey have evidence that there is fraud rings of people outside the US posing as citizens and collecting medicare and other welfare. They'll release that evidence right about the same time they release all the "evidence" that Giuliani had about election fraud. Which they've promised to release hundreds of times before. But never have. Because it doesn't exist. Are there people outside the U.S. gaming the system? Sure. Are they "rings" or "gangs" or whatever scary name they're using this week? Based on past performance, I have zero faith we'll see any evidence.
- indoordin0saur 2y ago> Are they "rings" or "gangs" or whatever scary name they're using this week? As someone who is very into the "scambaiting" hobby of hunting down identity thieves, phone call scams, etc I would imagine they would look something like these operations you see in India or Russia where you get have an office full of professional thieves calling elderly people and scamming them out of their bank accounts, harvesting data or getting them to sign up for useless subscriptions. In 2023 alone there was $43 billion lost from identity theft. There was $200 billion in fraud from the various covid hardship assistance programs. These programs are huuuge and they have ballooned beyond what is logical in the past few years. Even democrats talk frequently about medicare fraud.
- whalesalad 2y ago"move fast and break things" just imagine how insecure and fucked up their solutions will be? waiting for the S3 bucket that has global read permissions on a literal "select * from usa_citizens" dump of data.
- gadders 2y ago[flagged]
- barbazoo 2y agoWhat does that have to do with "left"?
- gadders 2y agoYou think it could be rogue Republicans wanting to kill DOGE employees?
- barbazoo 2y agoWe have to stop putting everything into left/right categories. People are more complex than that as we've seen in the past. One of the recent assassination attempts was done by a supporter of the party the candidate ran for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Donald_Trump_in_Pennsylvania#Perpetrator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Don... > He was a registered Republican; his voter registration had been active since September 2021, the month he turned 18
- PartiallyTyped 2y agoThey are public servants the moment they took the job for DOGE.
- SubiculumCode 2y agoAre they the cause of the rumored fire in a NIH server room?
- quantisan 2y ago- Youth-Led Implementation - Bypassing Traditional Authority Structures - Loyalty-Based Appointments - Institutional Disruption - Limited Oversight - Information Control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
- mythrwy 2y agoGood. 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 hands.
- tombert 2y agoI think part of the concern is that Elon Musk is still the CEO of or has strong financial interest in a lot of companies, some of which get government contracts (e.g. SpaceX). Finding out corruption and inefficiency is fine, but I think a lot of people are skeptical that that's the actual goal of this "advisory board". How likely is it that Elon is going to find anything inefficient about SpaceX? Tesla? What's to stop him from using this data to haggle better deals from the government paying for his projects? It's entirely possible that SpaceX is efficient enough, but it's still a conflict of interest. I don't think a guy who owns and runs a company that competes on government contracts should be in charge of determining which parts of the government is efficient.
- mythrwy 2y agoOk, but what does that have to do with the nature of the young guys charged with the analysis? I read through your past comments. It's obvious to me what you believe. And I don't agree with your worldview but not sure that matters. If you don't like Musk and don't like Trump, fine, I get it. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like either of them in person either, and, they both have vested interests on that we can agree. You know who else has vested interests? The people benefiting from waste, fraud and abuse. The people who have been directing public funds into propaganda and a black hole. I'd like to see western civilization persist. If you feel differently that's a value judgement and it's fine. But hearing kveltching and ridiculous statements from liberal midwits on every single policy article is getting really really old and it's shitting up this site. This is what is going to happen. And it's long overdue.
- 2y ago
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Hatchback7599 2y ago[dead]
- hintymad 2y ago[flagged]
- howard941 2y agoI don't think history shows that the young are harder to corrupt. I'll grant you idealism but might that be a consequence of naivete and inexperience? At any rate ISTM that "Wild in the Streets" and "Logan's Run" weren't instruction films.
- hintymad 2y ago> I'll grant you idealism but might that be a consequence of naivete and inexperience? Very possible too. I'll add that young people have less to lose, or so in their mind. In contrast, a grown-up will have family, kids, and their own pride to take care of. Tons to lose. As for history, I'm sure there were many counter examples. It's just that I couldn't think of any. The examples I had in mind were Aung San Suu Kyi, Wang Ching-wei, and Thabo Mbeki. Wang's story is particularly interesting. In his youth, he showed remarkable courage when he attempted to assassinate a Qing's royal prince, facing death with heroic resolve. Before his expected execution, he even composed a famous farewell poem. However, in his later years, he underwent a dramatic transformation, becoming a puppet leader for the Japanese invaders. He steadfastly maintained that Japan would emerge victorious and that China's resistance was futile.
- howard941 2y agoThank you for the interesting referral to Wang Ching-wei. I'd not been aware of him.
- varsketiz 2y agoCurious european here. Do you think we will see some serious mass protests in big USA cities if this continues? By this I mean "reckless" action by Musk and Trump.
- Night_Thastus 2y agoThe vast majority of Americans either voted for this, or don't care. Will there be some protests? Sure. Nothing will come of it, though. The only thing that will enact any real change is if big corporations start losing any profits due to all this upheaval, in which case they may put pressure to get things settled down.
- accrual 2y agoA lot of voters didn't turn out, so it's not accurate to say most Americans voted for this. There's also the issue of Trump saying Musk helped him win two key states during his inauguration speech, which some consider just short of an admission to rigging the election. Only something like 3% of the population needs to actively strike and protest to start affecting corporations.
- kelnos 2y agoAbstaining from voting means "I am ok with whatever the rest of you decide". While that's not an active vote in favor, it's close enough. I don't care about non-voters. If they don't care enough to vote, they're not worth considering when we try to assign "blame" for the current situation. The American public voted for this, full stop.
- wyager 2y agoThis is exactly the type of thing that Trump said he wanted to do. Who is protesting that who wouldn't be unconditionally protesting Trump anyway? Plus, with the federal NGO money spigot cut off, a lot of the NGOs that organize protests are probably having operational problems.
- energy123 2y ago
- msikora 2y ago"between 19 and 24" - that would mean not even college educated? JFC, I was a complete dumbass in my 20s.
- kccoder 2y agoAs is very nearly every person, including these children.
- Arubis 2y agoThat's a hell of a stain to have on your résumé.
- masterclef 2y ago[flagged]
- tonymet 2y agoYoung people should be happy to see more representation in the federal govt. Among roles of authority it's probably 65+ . They're spending your & your grandkid's prosperity every minute. People under 55 should be happy about this situation.
- szundi 2y ago[flagged]
- stronglikedan 2y ago[flagged]
- srid 2y agoI had to scroll a lot to get to the first positive comment! And it is heavily downvoted. Reminds me of this submission here (ironically) asking advice on dealing with negative comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42445820 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42445820
- whoknowsidont 2y agoBesides causing chaos, they haven't done anything objectively or qualitatively for you to claim "great work." Buddy, get real.
- iAm25626 2y agoHistory doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes. Komsomol/Soviet, Red guards/China. Ideology fan the flame of youth into fanatic. Who/what is providing the necessary guardrail? God speed America. Future belong to the young. Make good/long term decision.
- yongjik 2y agoThe similarity with Red Guards is too uncanny to ignore. I guess we should be thankful that the new Red Guards aren't beating federal employees to death. Yet.
- kragen 2y agoThe Trump-supporting Red Guards might be the Michigan Militia? Or the marchers at the disastrous "Unite the Right" rally? Those are tiny fringe groups orders of magnitude too weak to carry out a Cultural Revolution. Maybe the 1500 people who got pardoned for the January 6 riot? You may not be aware of this, but the Red Guards were over 10 million people.
- iAm25626 2y agoI sincerely hope my analogy is just me being chicken little/sky is falling. In the physical world, inflicting large-scale harm requires a significant number of people wielding fists or basic weapons. The digital landscape not so much. Most techies belong to as Terry Pratchett put it "'skilled artisans', the people too low down the social scale to be movers and shakers but slightly too high to be easily moved or shook." I think I will be ok but empathized those who will be negatively impacted.
- hintymad 2y ago"Bringing in young talent with new skills is literally 'what can be unburdened by what has been' if that's a thing anyone on the left still wants" -- Lulu Cheng Meservey
- macagain 2y ago>https://archive.ph/QYBhK https://archive.ph/QYBhK why is this redirecting to lifetips.it ? did archive.today get hacked?
- macagain 2y agoThis one is working: https://web.archive.org/web/20250202235355/https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-government-young-engineers/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250202235355/https://www.wired...
- areyourllySorry 2y agowhat's your dns?
- mynameyeff 2y agoI mean, these "kids" are rockstars. Why are they being juvenilized by the Wired writer?
- masterclef 2y agoJealousy.
- l0t0b0r0s 2y agoThe institution of journalism is all partisans.
- zombiwoof 2y agoPeter Theil is running America
- gradus_ad 2y agoI applaud these guys and the work they're doing. Any bureaucracy, public or private, with access to a guaranteed income stream will grow like a tumor. The entire federal govt needs to be audited and gutted. The time for committees, reports and similar half measures is over.
- nxm 2y agoNot sure why this is being down voted. I don't want my tax money being wasted to no end
- rozap 2y agoEven taking your statement at face value, as a non-troll, this makes no sense. Have you ever optimized a slow program? How do you do that? A popular approach is with a flamegraph. It shows the hot parts of the execution; what is burning CPU cycles. If we profiled federal government, we'd find 4 big areas of spending [1]. Social security, medicare, the military, and debt interest. In our flamegraph, these are big fat sections. If you're profiling a program, would you look at this and say, "oh i'm going to spend my time optimizing this function call which takes up .01% of the execution time?" no, you wouldn't (unless you're an intern). But that's hard, which is why elon isn't doing it. Nobody wants to cut social security because then a bunch of old people would starve to death. Same with medicare. Defaulting on our national debt would be a bad look. And god forbid we give the military less money. So where does that leave us? Even if you truly believe elon cares about making the government more efficient, the approach doesn't make any sense. In the absolute most charitable reading of it, he's just incompetent and he's doing this for show to get some widely supported easy wins (let's get rid of the penny and save $86M/y!) so people will like him. But the more realistic viewing is that he's gutting programs in order to further his own agendas, which is literally the definition of corruption. There's a saying "don't attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence" but you don't become the richest man in the world by being incompetent. You become the richest man in the world through malice. 1. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
- drak0n1c 2y ago
- silexia 2y ago[flagged]
- jazz9k 2y agoHow is this different than any other private company?
- trhway 2y agoWell, Cultural Revolutions are almost always done by young and inexperienced. Btw, i wonder how many of those raiding the government offices are really DOGE people and not say Russian or Chinese agents pretending to be DOGE - if one to believe the news the security let them into the building once they threatened to call Marshals Service (social engineering DOGE style. That clearly shows couple things - 1. DOGE themselves didn't bother to get proper paperwork, clearances, etc., a "promising" start so to speak and 2. that at least the building security part of the government there got totally rotten as it failed to perform their basic duties. And the agencies' (Treasury(!), USAID,...) employees just giving their laptops and access to internal systems to the first schmuck supposedly from some DOGE - and that all after years of trainings of "don't leave your screen unlocked", "don't give sensitive info to the strangers pretending to be your higher-up or a colleague" . Really shows the effectiveness of all those trainings :)
- niceice 2y agoAverage 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 quo. If we’re serious about cutting waste in gov spending, let’s not turn away new minds. The guys featured in this gross and irresponsible hit piece by Wired, by all accounts, are brilliant engineers. Top 1%. - one decoded the Herculaneum Papyrii at the age of 20, winning the Vesuvius Challenge - another built a startup funded by OpenAI - one interned at SpaceX and got a Thiel Fellowship - another was a top engineer at a major AI firm This is who they are bullying and putting a target on. The best of us nerds. https://x.com/anothercohen/status/1886480470185001025 https://x.com/anothercohen/status/1886480470185001025
- galleywest200 2y agoAll of those people you listed as examples were legally and duly appointed/hired for their roles and not given carte-blanche over agencies without oversight.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- makizar 2y agosource ?
- valbaca 2y agoSource? and what's the median? Also, that was during WW2 which would likely skew those #s (though I would actually expect to much older, as in not most-fit-military age)
- tjhill 2y agoRichard Rhodes' introduction to Serber's "The Los Alamos Primer" suggests 24: > Despite this leavening of older men (Oppenheimer was thirty-eight), the group's average age was only twenty-four.
- arionhardison 2y agoThis is where we are, we need to stop complaining and deal with things as the actually exist. I am doing this in my own way, my fear is Elon and Co. hitting Medicare/Medicaid so I am making my own: https://medicare.dev https://medicare.dev. I think this is going to become more and more common as fed become less and less stable/reliable.
- DanHulton 2y agoThis is a prime example of a social problem that does not have a technical solution. Re-think your approach.
- arionhardison 2y agoI don't understand what you mean? Healthcare process efficiency is a "social" problem?
- arionhardison 2y agoAre you referring to Moral Hazard?
- dbbk 2y agoHow come your website doesn't even explain what it is?
- arionhardison 2y agoApologies, I am at the "embarrassed" by how early I am phase. I will update ASAP, but here is an example: https://www.youtube.com/@CodifyHQ https://www.youtube.com/@CodifyHQ It's pretty much what the name indicates. A new medicare.
- wtcactus 2y ago[flagged]
- tines 2y agoTo the people talking about how "Zelenskyy said that he only got $75 billion of the $175 billion in foreign aid we sent them, where'd that $100 billion go??? That's right, it went into the pockets of the Deep State!" and then deleting their comments: According to https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-us-aid-going-ukraine https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-us-aid-going-ukraine, "It’s important to note that of the $175 billion total, only $106 billion directly aids the government of Ukraine. Most of the remainder is funding various U.S. activities associated with the war in Ukraine, and a small portion supports other affected countries in the region." Of that $106, about $70 billion is weapons, $33 is budget support. So it makes sense that lawmakers would claim that "We sent Ukraine $175 billion!" and Zelenskyy would directly see less than $175. The the line from Zelenskyy is an attempt to clarify to the world that $X billion in a bill somewhere doesn't equate to $X billion on the ground in Ukraine directly; he's not saying there was some kind of corruption involved and that the money mysteriously disappeared.
- matwood 2y agoTo relate more to the HN crowd. It's like opening a new project and the initial reaction is everything is terrible. Then as someone understands the project better they see it's not terrible, but the problem is much more complex than they initially understood. Basically classic engineer hubris.
- DarkmSparks 2y ago[flagged]
- tines 2y agoCan you detail exactly how the OPM, GSA, and USAid are working against my interests?
- a12k 2y agoGSA houses 18F which created Direct File, which lets people file their taxes for free. This takes money out of the pockets of companies like Intuit, in which my portfolio is heavily invested. Although their stock is up 50% since the introduction of Direct File, I believe it would have been up even more without Direct File. This is taking alpha out of my portfolio and thus food out of my children’s mouths.
- tines 2y agoAh, excellent, my mistake. Carry on. --- I actually just looked up the arguments against Direct File, and the Republicans who oppose it argue that the IRS has no incentive to make sure that you pay the least taxes possible, while third parties do (in order to win your business). I believe this relies on the assumption that the tax code is so complicated that not even the IRS knows what you owe, what with all the special exemptions, tax discounts, etc. and therefore it takes a market to incentivize doing the work to navigate the tax code to get the biggest discount possible. My reply to that would be that what this really means is that the tax code is too complicated, and keeping the market involved is killing the incentive to simplify it. If it were too simple, TurboTax et al. would go out of business. If Direct File were instituted and people found that they were charged more than they should owe, then this is a pressure to simplify the tax code so that the IRS can definitively tell you the minimum taxes you should pay. What's your take on it?
- a12k 2y agoI have personally found that when the government wants more of your money through taxes, they tend to raise taxes or lower credits or do something to incentivize behavior. They don’t tend to try to confuse people into not knowing what they owe and thus only private companies can get me the lowest taxes. So I don’t find that argument persuasive. I do think the tax code is too complicated, but don’t think that’s a conscious choice by some government official or office. It’s a result of small changes by many generations of people over long periods of time. It does seem like it could be simplified, yet the IRS also seems to know how much most people owe because it’s reflected in forms like W-2s and 1099s and such. So maybe they should just send most people a transmission telling them how much the IRS thinks they owe, and provide the refund or a bill accordingly, and whoever disagrees with the assessment can file.
- daxfohl 2y agoI wonder how much of this is "I don't want to sell this Tesla I couldn't afford, so instead I'll change my whole political ideology"
- pessimizer 2y agoThere doesn't seem to be anything interesting in this article, it's simply a Red Channels style blacklist against young people who are auditing a government program. The only reason this was published is because Wired is an intelligence outlet (and has always been.) Otherwise, the publishing of random government auditors' uninteresting resumes would obviously be considered harassment (if not doxxing, like Musk barked.) Really, all this article says is that if you are an auditor for the commission appointed by the president, we will make sure that this comes up in an aggressively negative way when somebody who you want to work for googles you. It's pure intimidation, masquerading as journalism. It's somehow worse than Bill Ackman hiring trucks with the names of college students protesting a genocide being blasted as antisemites. At least Bill Ackman isn't pretending to be a journalist. edit: every single article by this "disinformation expert" has been an anti-Trump or anti-Musk article. She has no other beat.
- talldayo 2y ago> if you are an auditor for the commission appointed by the president, we will make sure that this comes up in an aggressively negative way when somebody who you want to work for googles you. You just archeologically unearthed the dictionary definition of accountability. If the people doing the auditing are a goon squad from corporate, what reasonable person should accept their results?
- gsibble 2y ago[flagged]
- boplicity 2y agoRemember, if you can vote, vote the next time you can. Convince your friends and neighbors to vote, too. Apathy has real consequences.
- barbazoo 2y agoIt sounds like you're assuming that if more people had voted, they would have voted for not-Trump. Is there data backing that up? Is there any indication that the result would have been different?
- fullshark 2y agoNo if anything the data suggests they'd go for trump or it'd be a coin flip https://news.gallup.com/poll/24655/party-images.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/24655/party-images.aspx https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/favorability/donald-trump/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/favorability/dona... https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/favorability/kamala-harris/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/favorability/kama...
- spencerflem 2y agoI wish there was a way to get better options though. A vote for Kamala would have just barely kicked the can down the road
- drawkward 2y agoWell, we probably wouldnt be in a trade war right now.
- spencerflem 2y agoYeah ik. But the discontent and conditions leading to this sort of moment would still be there at the end of the term was my point
- 2y ago
- witnesser2 2y agoThe old experienced are staying home or surviving with aids of non-engineering skills. LOL.
- gsibble 2y ago[flagged]
- drawkward 2y agoSource?
- jayshah5696 2y agoDo people know age of founding fathers or USA?
- stainablesteel 2y agoI found Bukele's comments to be eye opening, https://x.com/nayibbukele/status/1886059275174506850 https://x.com/nayibbukele/status/1886059275174506850 > Most governments don’t want USAID funds flowing into their countries because they understand where much of that money actually ends up. > While marketed as support for development, democracy, and human rights, the majority of these funds are funneled into opposition groups, NGOs with political agendas, and destabilizing movements. > At best, maybe 10% of the money reaches real projects that help people in need (there are such cases), but the rest is used to fuel dissent, finance protests, and undermine administrations that refuse to align with the globalist agenda. > Cutting this so-called aid isn’t just beneficial for the United States; it’s also a big win for the rest of the world. Their funding has been hard for Congress to vet, and it seems like they do some shady things. Kudos to Elon and his team for cutting us more than $1b/day so far!
- zb3 2y agoThis was basically Open Society Foundations but using taxpayer funds.. of course leftist groups will complain, this is expected.
- medler 2y agoIt’s not Elon Musk’s place to make spending allocation decisions for the US government. The Constitution assigns that power to Congress. It is not hyperbolic to say that if Elon/Doge can arbitrarily cut spending, then Congress has effectively been abolished, and the US Constitutional order is over. Now, if Elon wanted to review spending allocations and recommend cuts to Congress, that would be fine. I would be in favor of that, provided he accessed the data in a legal and privacy-respecting way.
- stainablesteel 2y agoif it's not Elon's place even though Trump literally ran on Elon doing this, and they not only won the electoral college but also the popular vote too, then it's not USAID's place to do so either the money they give away tends to fund extremism and terrorism, and never goes to where it's needed - Haiti: Post-2010 earthquake, $1.14 billion was spent on a port and power plant project promoted by President Bill Clinton. The project never built anything. - Cuba: A 2006 audit showed $74 million in “democracy promotion” funds vanished without oversight. - Afghanistan: Millions squandered on health scams; hospitals never built. - Nigeria: Chemonics, a major USAID contractor, was linked to a subcontractor's overbilling scandal. Hundreds of millions lost. - COVID 19 Funding: USAID sent over $40MILLION in taxpayer money to a scientist located in Wuhan to do gain of function mutations. This directly led to the creation and release of COVID-19 - $2.5 MILLION to DEI in Serbia - $70,000 onan Irish DEI musical - $47,000 on transgender operas in Colombia - $32,000 on a trans comic book in Peru - Iraq: $20M for an Iraqi version of Sesame Street to promote LGBTQ Agenda - Egypt & Tunisia: $56M for “tourism” - Jordan: $40M for “schools” - Vietnam: $11M to fight “trash burning” - Central America: $27M for deportee gift bags. - Trump Lawfare: $27M to fund left wing prosecutions of populist political opponents around the globe, including Donald Trump. Patently illegal.
- adamrezich 2y agoMan, these are some seriously impressive motherfuckers—my resume looks absolutely shameful compared to any one of them, and I'm over a decade older than they are.
- m2024 2y ago[dead]
- gunian 2y agongl when they said trump 2024 musk 2028 in 2022 i thought it was far fetched but now i'm kinda curious to see what happens
- m2024 2y ago[dead]
- angry_octet 2y agoThese are not engineers, they are not software engineers, they are brown shirts.
- fullshark 2y agoWatch some leftist billionaire now cut them blank checks to get them away from DOGE. The Cyberpunk future is here.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago> Congress has no ability to really intervene and monitor what's happening because these aren't really accountable public officials. Congress gets to make laws. They can intervene by making a law that allows them to intervene, which is the job we elected them to do. Apparently they prefer getting bossed around instead.
- fastball 2y agoThe majority of the currently elected Congress supports this – it is part of the mandate for which they were elected.
- lunarboy 2y agoUnfortunately, laws have to be signed in by the president
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoNot with a two-thirds majority--which I realize sounds to the modern ear as politically impossible, but we're going to have to change that if we want to survive as a nation. The whole "living document" aspect of the constitution is a rather important one. I don't even have much to say about which sorts of decisions that two thirds should make--that's their job--I'd just like it if they grew a spine and started making some.
- linuxhansl 2y agoIs anyone surprised? It's not like it was a secret, and a majority of voters still voted this government in. Maybe most thought it'll be better for inflation and chose to ignore or belittle the crazy. It seems we're getting the crazy now - and not, yet anyway, a single action of inflation.
- hansvm 2y agoIn Trump's first term he had one of the lowest rates of fulfilling campaign promises of any president. I was caught off-guard by him actually appearing to go through with this.
- UltraSane 2y agoElon Musk and all of these DOGE employees should be arrested and charged with multiple violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. They have no need or right to access the federal payments system and no authority whatsoever to stop payments congress has approved.
- EGreg 2y agoAnd here I thought they'd actually consider my resume. They didn't even bother looking. When DOGE first called for people to apply, they did it on X and said we can send a message to their account on X. So I actually got excited about tackling waste, and wrote this cover letter: https://magarshak.com/resume-cover-letter.php https://magarshak.com/resume-cover-letter.php Little did I know this admin was going to be shutting down datasets from data.gov and other crap. I really tried to bring something positive into it, but it's just more of the same. They sidelined Vivek too.
- a12k 2y ago> Little did I know You should have, had you done any research. This was long after Elon’s slide into anti-democratic, far right ideology. And as we now know merely weeks before he did multi Nazi salutes on stage. This feels like people who are surprised that Trump is ticking boxes on Project 2025 despite it being out for multiple years. There’s a pizza shop in NW DC with a basement you should investigate.
- EGreg 2y agoWell, it's refreshing that you're doing an "I told you so" about Musk, rather than getting on my case about my suggestion to use Blockchain to "increase public transparency and accountability", which is what I thought was more likely to happen on HN. I think there are actually good use cases for blockchain and smart contracts, and DOGE was finally going to be one of them.
- a12k 2y agoI didn’t think any of your suggestions were worth evaluating on their merits.
- melbourne_mat 2y agoDid you find a legit use case for blockchain? Nice work bro!
- etchalon 2y agoIt is deeply telling that DOGE is relying on inexperienced anyone.
- chmorgan_ 2y agoAmazed at the pushback against an effort to cut waste out of government. There is a ton of it. It's your tax dollars being wasted... let's instead discuss whether things they've identified are keep, toss, or reform and if the wrong call has been made.
- emddudley 2y agoYou've been fooled.
- a12k 2y agoSetting aside the issue of the public’s PII and PHI in the hands of the most odious individuals, your post is a mischaracterization of what’s going on. They’re not identifying things and creating a report for evaluation; they’re identifying things and using illegal thuggery to shut things they don’t like down. This is illegal and unamerican.
- dontparticipate 2y agoIf only there was a group of people that were given the legal rights to make that decision... We could call them like... A Congress and we could like write those processes down. Maybe call that document a Constitution.
- Take8435 2y agoI want to down-vote you, but I seemingly cannot. This is incredibly dangerous. A select few, having such control over so many millions? Are you nuts?! This is a serious question, as a new member of this community, is this a normal type of comment I can expect on HN?
- drooby 2y agoYou've encountered a rare political thread that the moderators have allowed to stay up. The physics are different here
- lunarboy 2y agoI'm almost certain this thread is being targeted by bots. Comments in support are always cookie cutter talking points like "cutting waste and fraud", "what's wrong with executive branch auditing itself", etc
- megous 2y agoWhat naive person does anything voluntary for the richest man on Earth?
- silexia 2y ago[flagged]
- sam345 2y agoHN Comments have really deteriorated. Dang is AWOL i guess.
- pinkmuffinere 2y agoThey really really have deteriorated. I’m not sure that dang’s efforts alone would be enough to hold back the tide though. I worry this is a culture shift :/
- nojonestownpls 2y agoNot necessarily a culture shift - assuming you mean IRL culture, not HN culture - but rather a sign of HN's much increased popularity in recent years, outside the thoughtful nerd circle.
- pinkmuffinere 2y agoI did mean HN culture, but you make a really good point either way. Maybe I need to find a yet-more-secluded corner, where the rest of the world can’t encroach so easily
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y agoThe moderation team does a good enough job already; they will and should continue to stick to their guns about "good faith" discussions and that will be enough of a frustration to people repeatedly posting thoughtless or incurious comments that most discussions will continue to be reasonable and sensible. There are still pockets of that here. I think the other commenter nailed it about this being a result of increased popularity but I also think that will cool down as the less curious learn to prefer different communities.
- sam345 2y agoWhat evidence do people have that anything damaging is happening? Because these people are assumed to be conservative and not progressive? How is this any different than an internal audit whose work would be kept confidential? Or even a third party vendor who presumably would be covered by confidentiality agreements? The allegations in these comments are completely without evidence and are outright politically biased. All the wired article can say is there are a handful of young presumably conservative engineers doing their job. That about sums up the scandal.
- kccoder 2y agoNothing about this is normal, goes by standard practices or procedures, and is being led by a capricious man-child who wasn't elected to office, nor confirmed by the senate, with extraordinarily dubious intentions and conflicts of interest, who has brought in a bunch of near-children to clandestinely infiltrate huge swaths of our government, none of which have the appropriate security clearances, training, ... to engage in any of these activities. Have they explained what they are doing? No. If you ask them, would they tell you? Is there any kind of oversight available? No. As a matter of fact, prior to these actions, Trump dismissed the inspectors general responsible for this oversight, in violation of the law which was passed to prevent him from doing just that, again. Who in their right mind would assume that everything "above board"?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Capricorn2481 2y agoWe have his last "audit" of Twitter, where he repeatedly and publicly embarrassed himself with half hearted explanations for his clearly personal firings as he carved the platform into a racist hellhole. Some of us know people that work for him, confirming he is that boss that will fire anyone giving him bad news on the spot because he wants to push his dumbass unreachable deadlines. And mostly because he thinks it's cool and has reveled in his ability to fire people like any small human would. We have the evidence of the family, that everything Musk says about his presence in raising his own kids is a lie. He was not around, and seems to only push the narrative because he knows being an absentee father would be unpalatable to the conservatives he's courting. They're hiring interns to fire people because they're molding their ride or die sycophants. It's completely natural to assume when they're telling us they're being thoughtful, they aren't. That when they say it's for you, it's for them. It always has been. That you choose to stick your head in the sand is your problem.
- kragen 2y agoInteresting note: > On Sunday, CNN reported that DOGE personnel attempted to improperly access classified information and security systems at the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and that top USAID security officials who thwarted the attempt were subsequently put on leave. The AP reported that DOGE personnel had indeed accessed classified material. It's attracted a lot of attention that killing USAID has been such a high priority for these guys despite only being 1% of the budget and having a seemingly innocent humanitarian mission. But what's USAID doing that involves classified data? Distributing humanitarian aid shouldn't require any information whose disclosure would seriously disclose national security, should it? Presumably this means USAID has been used as cover for covert operations around the globe. Paranoid conspiracy theory? Maybe, but it's also a well-known fact; see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Agency_for_International_Development#Political_operations_abroad https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Agency_for_Int...: > William Blum has said that in the 1960s and early 1970s USAID has maintained "a close working relationship with the CIA, and Agency officers often operated abroad under USAID cover. (...) From 2010 to 2012, the agency operated ZunZuneo,[199] a social media site similar to Twitter in an attempt to instigate uprisings against the Cuban government. Its involvement was concealed in order to ensure mission success. The plan was to draw in users with non-controversial content until a critical mass is reached, after which more political messaging would be introduced. At its peak, more than 40,000 unsuspecting Cubans interacted on the platform.[199] (There's a lot more there. Check it out if you haven't heard of this.) So, if it's been a key part of the US's overseas covert operations for decades, why did it go into the wood chipper in a weekend? Did Elon Musk just fail to realize its importance to the US's worldwide influence? With no evidence beyond the above, I think USAID was targeted because it's been a nucleus of the Intelligence Community's resistance to Trump consolidating his power.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y agohttps://www.economist.com/united-states/2025/02/03/elon-musk-is-shredding-americas-government-like-he-did-twitter https://www.economist.com/united-states/2025/02/03/elon-musk... "They have apparently installed sofa beds in the office of the OPM." "Government employeees in various agencies report that staffers from DOGE are turning up at this offices, plugging in servers and running "code reviews"." "What the DOGE people seem most keen on is access to personnel records and as much information as possible about what employees actually do. According to one civil servant interviewed by DOGE personnel, the questions include, "Which of your colleagues are most expendable?"" Sounds like a scene from Office Space.
- tomrod 2y agoThanks Dang for letting this political conversation persist!
- fsckboy 2y agothe dogs bark. but the caravan continues on. -- proverb
- shipscode 2y agoThe moral arguments against what the left or right do are exactly the same. Suddenly the left is all concerned about doxxing or unelected bureaucrats in government. Truthfully politics in America is not about any moral compass - it’s about individual preference to see certain political ideas win or lose. Instead of pretending politics is based on a set of moral issues, just accept that it’s a set of opinions. Some simply like certain causes, people, or businesses more than others do.
- ayakang31415 2y agoI see things done by DOGE are getting noticed. I vaguely remember that DOGE will be decommissioned around 2026 independence day I believe? I have no confidence in judging what the outcome might be at this point, so I will wait till the last day of DOGE.
- jondwillis 2y agoAccelerationism, everyone. I'm not excited to see this play out.
- jimmydoe 2y agoOne 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. There are quite some admiration for CCP from the american new right like moldbug and musk, It seems either they took a page from CCP, or happen to think alike.
- turbojet1321 2y ago> too young to lie or corrupt In my experience, youth has little to do with honesty or corruptibility.
- jimmydoe 2y agoI mean their social experience is usually not enough to conduct sophisticated rent seeking or reach some comprise with local officials. Young grads from big urban usually don’t do well with local mid aged bureaucrats. That type of human nature tension is what’s being leveraged here.
- DanielHB 2y agoMakes sense, I also imagine the incentives were different. These young grads had no incentive to lie while local gov officials had plenty. The only one would be for the grads to take bribes from the local gov officials, but if the central government sent enough grads it would be too many to bribe.
- willvarfar 2y agoIt seems that when push comes to shove right now its the young people who are simply removing people who don't kowtow. Of course it is easy to imagine that the people they are removing are those who made principled stands rather than the corrupt who keep their heads down. As in they are removing the people who thought their job was to serve the public rather than line their own pockets? It is not clear if that is the effect the chiefs want or not.
- cod1r 2y agoI fully support young folks being put in those high pressure situations. Lets them learn and showcase what young people can do. I think there are huge benefits when you put together a team of people that usually don't have distractions like kids, intimate relationships, health problems etc that can hinder productivity. Even more beneficial to a team when you combine the wisdom and experience of older folks with the passion and energy of the youth.
- tnt128 2y agoor young folks are passionate, idealistic, lack real-world experience, and idolize heroes, which makes them perfect foot soldiers for carrying out tasks without questions.
- WillyWonkaJr 2y agoThis is exactly what happened when Obama was elected, btw. Cult of personality is a dangerous thing from either end of the political spectrum.
- pixxel 2y ago[dead]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bagels 2y agoLet them create some startups, not coup the government.
- nullbyte808 2y agoIm sure as you read this article, they're already dumping TBs of classified documents and storing it on Musk's servers.
- yearzeroagain 2y ago[flagged]
- jimkleiber 2y agoCan we please call it DGE so as not to pump the crypto coin?
- jimkleiber 2y agoWell 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).
- XorNot 2y agoToilet paper supply issues were not an example of an efficiency problem, they were misinformation creating a demand shock. Your average supermarket has limited shelf space and stocks to the level that it will reliably clear shelves before new supply turns up, or things spoil. If a whole much of people just buy one extra pack that week, this can easily empty the shelves... Which then gets posted to social media to imply a supply problem, which then prompts people to increase their buying rate. There's no solution to this other then education: there was no supply issue, and never was. Any "solution" would be concluding that a supermarket should devote an absurd amount of shelf space to toilet paper, just in case misinformation goes viral again.
- jimkleiber 2y agoFrom my understanding, toilet paper is produced for commercial and residential purposes. As people stopped going to the office (and restaurants and malls, etc), people stopped using commercial toilet paper and started using more residential toilet paper. What I read at the time also said that it's very hard for a plant to shift from making commercial to residential toilet paper, that the margins are paper thin (pun intended) and so it would take a lot of time and money to retool.
- XorNot 2y agoThat's the explanation for why they couldn't just "order more toilet paper" to refill the store shelves. But that wasn't the cause of the problem: the cause of the problem was people thinking "oh I'm not sure about a shortage, better buy an extra pack" (I know we did) for just one week...and then someone posts an "empty store shelves!!!" image on social media...which in turn prompts another group of people to do the same at another store, and then the idiot-brigade scalpers get involved. There's still no actual shortage though! The amount of toilet paper being produced is the same, the consumption rate is the same, people have just changed their stockpiling preference and the rate at which they do is spreading faster then any conceivable supply chain adjustment. But the actual consumption rate hasn't changed at all. The idiot-brigade scalpers are worth commenting on because IMO there's a second factor which usually turns up: it's kind of fun to "buy out the supermarket" of some good. Like there's a child-like glee of going "I'll totally buy all of it" but most people don't consider that you can do this for any one item in the supermarket for like, $300 on the spot. It's just there's no reason too - partly because it's the most expensive possible way to buy almost anything.
- mldqj 2y agoThey are operating outside of their circle of competence, because they are not working on an engineering problem.
- pinoy420 2y agoIf you have ever spoken to a 16-20yo you will understand just how good these people are.
- windowshopping 2y agoWhat? Unclear whether you're trying to say they are very good or not very good.
- pinoy420 2y agoVery good. Able to absorb information so much quicker than people their senior. Also incredibly eager to learn and please.
- malthaus 2y agoso musk re-invented mckinsey?
- qwertox 2y agoHow high are the chances of these young engineers getting highly lucrative offers from China and Russia just to tell them what they saw? They are set for life, and Elon Musk does not recognize that he enabled this.
- hoseja 2y agoAdvance Publications needs to be stopped.
- amitrip 2y ago[dead]
- jaimex2 2y agoOh this sounds like it'll be a balanced, well researched article based on merits. I'll then leave a comment here about a guy that knew a guy that heard from another guy that Elon almost ruined a company his aunt worked at.
- msie 2y agoMove fast and break thousands of Chesterton's fences.
- tjpnz 2y agoWould be fucking terrified knowing that my personal employment records were in reach of these children. Who's the responsible adult in the room stopping them from "losing" a backup they've made or maintaining the non-compliant equipment they'll have brought in.
- zfg 2y agoSave America: don't buy Tesla.
- dapf 2y ago[dead]
- andyjohnson0 2y agoIn pondering the mindset of these people, I was reminded of a very different submission on hn yesterday [1]. Quote: "Avoid, at all costs, arriving at a scenario where the ground-up rewrite starts to look attractive" Seems to me that in their narrow, reckless arrogance they're doing something similar to the mechanisms of government. This is all broken and people who built it were idiots. Lets just scrap it and built it again with a modern stack. Chesterton's fence, metacognitive ability, overconfidence effect, those who do not learn from history, etc. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42920285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42920285
- dvh 2y agoI think rewrites are popular in part because during rewrite it is possible to drop features, either voluntarily or because of deadlines, while it would probably never fly to drop feature from working, existing implementation. Also your theory doesn't hold up for cases when you rewrite your own code. I've rewritten my old code hundreds of time because I was "idiot" in a sense that it was unmaintainable with new changed requirements. Rewrites are sometimes necessary.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- silvestrov 2y agoRewrites of other peoples code/laws also allows you to think "I'm much smarter than they are". Governance has a lot more "unknown unknowns" than you expect.
- indigo945 2y agoA rewrite enables dropping features including, but not limited to: checks and balances, due process, a government for and by the people, and certain inalienable rights. And just to make it clear: I am not being facetious, I am very concerned that all of these are under serious attack. Checks and balances are already broken because of DOGE, because the Department of Justice simply ignored a court order to stop the funding freeze, and because the firing of FBI career employees was probably illegal [1]. Due process is coming under serious threat due to the building of camps in Guantanamo and El Salvador, where detainees will likely have insufficient access to legal counsel. A government for and by the people will be replaced by fascist "network states", sovereign territorial entities under authoritarian control by a "CEO", i.e. dictator [2]. The goal is to enable ultra-wealthy individuals to freely "exit" democracies, to live and govern without any rules. Inalienable rights are explicitly under attack by the ultra-libertarians in Musk's circles. Nick Land, one of the main thinkers behind this neo-fascist brand of thought (branding it as "Dark Enlightenment"), quotes Patri Friedman, who runs Pronomos Capital, the corporation that builds these network states for Peter Thiel and others: > Patri Friedman remarks: “we think that free exit is so important that we’ve called it the only Universal Human Right.” [3] Id est, building a privately-owned, corporate-controlled, dictatorial "network state", which is exactly what "free exit" means, justifies abolishing all human rights. The worst thing is that this all sounds like an insane conspiracy theory, but this is operating completely in the open. The statements of Peter Thiel, Patri Friedman and others are freely available, and they make very clear (Peter Thiel): > Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible. [4] [1]: https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/watch/-totally-illegal-andrew-weissmann-on-trump-s-effort-to-dismantle-the-fbi-purge-career-employees-230983237629 https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/watch/-totally-il... [2]: https://www.vcinfodocs.com/venture-capital-extremism https://www.vcinfodocs.com/venture-capital-extremism [3]: https://keithanyan.github.io/TheDarkEnlightenment.epub/TheDarkEnlightenment.pdf https://keithanyan.github.io/TheDarkEnlightenment.epub/TheDa... [4]: https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian/ https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...
- rayiner 2y ago“Inexperienced.” Reflexive deference to credentialism and tenure coming from Wired is wild.
- BigParm 2y agoElon is stealing any and all data to train AI. His padawans are AI guys. At least he's going in personally with a crew like a proper heist.
- bestest 2y agoIt is AI related, but I don't think it's only "train". I believe Musk is a real visionary (villain?), and he's going to replace the whole government apparatus with AI. POTUS included.
- greenie_beans 2y agoin the RFPs, they are gonna replace DEI clauses with AI clauses. which reveals what they think about labor and people
- xezzed 2y agoThis article appears to be a fictional piece that imagines a scenario where Elon Musk has gained control over certain federal government agencies through a project called the "Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)." (c) Claude :)
- alp1n3_eth 2y agoThere's probably going to be a flood of lawsuits, complaints, etc. following this. Cleaning up inefficient gov processes and waste would be good, but this is the completely wrong way to go about it. A single team, made up of extremely young people, some of which haven't even finished college yet, is not qualified in the slightest to do so. This is on top of them having no gov experience, and experience with how things work on the individual teams they're trying to clean out. Not to mention they've probably already accessed Secret and up levels of classified data without a clearance, which would get any normal gov employee fired and potentially thrown in jail depending on the offense. I also want to highlight that OPM is the backbone of workers rights for the government. Most skilled positions working directly for the gov are already underpaid. OPM was one of the few pros they had to offer; robust worker rights that are required across the fed.
- stormfather 2y agoSay what you want, but if we don't drastically cut spending, our way of life will collapse. It would be nice if Congress itself would reign in spending and downsize the government, but everyone knows that has a 0% chance of happening. This is better hyperinflation or a violent revolution, at least, which is what it avoids for us. Anyone who doesn't see that hasn't done the thought experiment of extrapolating out our spending for a few more decades. It can't continue, period. Period. Our only choice is how to change it and our democracy (congresspuppets controlled by lobbies) fundamentally cannot fix this. Does anyone have a better idea that will actually work?
- ModernMech 2y agoI would agree with you if the people slashing spending indiscriminately on things that poor people rely on, also didn't have a history of and weren't currently planning to yet again give the rich and corporations massive tax cuts that have and will balloon the federal deficit. My idea? Raise taxes. I know, it's radical and literally no one has ever thought of it, but we tried lowering taxes and the deficit goes up. So maybe if we raise taxes the deficit will go down.
- stormfather 2y agoDo you see a popular mandate for raising taxes materializing? Do you see Congress enacting that? I don't. Like you said, you're not the first to think of it, but it never happens. As imperfect as DOGE is, its the only measure I can see actually happening that has a shot at cutting the deficit. I would love to think of another one.
- ModernMech 2y agoYes, I see a popular mandate materializing, absolutely. There are very few but absurdly rich people standing in the way. It's happened in the past, and it will happen in the future.
- stormfather 2y ago
- Jiro 2y agoNaming these people this way is a blatant invitation for harassment by signal-boosting their identities, even if technically their names are already known. This is one step away from doxing and we should not support it.
- babycheetahbite 2y agoGosh, many of the folks at HN seem to be deeply invested in things remaining status quo with the administrative state.
- th0ma5 2y agoNothing to me shouts the absolute failure of AI technology than needing this team and also in some kind of emergency way.
- tqi 2y agoI 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 allowed.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago> I hate that in this country, everything is political and everything has only 2 sides. > But apparently in this country, you have to be either pro government waste or pro DOGE. No middle ground or common sense allowed. Take a close look at who is creating two sides. Perhaps there is more nuance to the points being made by the people who do not seem to be pro DOGE.
- tqi 2y agothey are certainly leading the dance, but it takes two to tango
- blast 2y agoIt's the other side! They're the ones creating two sides!
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y agoIf we can define what "pro DOGE" means and say that anyone who does not fall under that definition is therefore not "pro DOGE", then we've got two mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive groups. Failing those two things, we've got what's called a "false dichotomy". OP is saying there are two groups: those who are "pro government waste" and those who are "pro DOGE". Who do you think is creating that false dichotomy? edit: Just adding that I realize the parent comment is making a joke, just expanding on my thoughts with this one.
- ThatMedicIsASpy 2y agoI am sitting here in EU and asking myself why does DOGE need access to data. All you need is access to the data structure to build software around it.
- craftsman 2y agoLet's open their repos and see their PRs. Then nobody will need to make assertions about their brilliance or irresponsibility. D.O.G.E.: Make your repos public. Let's see what you are doing. And if you don't have repos, write a script to mirror the codebase and your diffs.
- dani__german 2y agoLuke Farritor Deciphered an ancient scroll using AI, he seems to be pretty smart.
- craftsman 2y agoCool. So anyway, let's see what he (allegedly) is doing with the codebase. Given that these systems are part of the public trust, we should all want to see the code and the DOGE team's PRs as they make improvements.
- reaperman 2y agohttps://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1ijbtqf/this_is_a_doge_intern_who_is_currently_pawing/ https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1ijbtqf/this_i...
- adonovan 2y agoWhat would that prove? Great coders are not necessarily competent leaders of the civil service.
- craftsman 2y agoWe can all watch the DOGE team in action and not speculate as to their brilliance or irresponsibility.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jdubz79 2y ago[flagged]
- dang 2y agoYou can't post like this, or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42937462 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42937462, or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42713493 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42713493 here. We've banned the account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 2y agoIt's going to be a field day for China and Russia state hackers.
- justonenote 2y agoI have never seen a thread on this site so full of vitriol, hatred, threats of blacklisting for life, threats of violence and general hysteria. And that kind of rhetoric is entirely coming from one side. (or at least the not dead comments of that nature are coming from one side) Regardless of where you stand, I think a lot of people who have been commenting on here about blacklisting or worse about the named individuals need to check themselves, these are young men who have lives and families.
- justonenote 2y agoThe reason trump won is that is he authentic. He is following through on his promises. He doesn't have 20 speech writers corralling his every word to be completely neutral and say nothing at all. 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.
- oblio 2y ago> The reason trump won is that is he authentic. He is following through on his promises. He doesn't have 20 speech writers corralling his every word to be completely neutral and say nothing at all. I find it absolutely incredible that people believe this. Trump LIES about everything, all the time. He just lies in all directions. He lies that the sun is blue, he lies that the sun is red, he sometimes that the sun is pink. Then a decent chunk of the population chooses the lies they like and ignores the rest.
- Slava_Propanei 2y ago[dead]
- ryg465wert 2y agoIt's time to read The Great Leveler. Maybe...
- patrulek 2y agoTwo sentences? This is the whole article or am i blind?
- abvdasker 2y agoIf I was a foreign adversary of the US I would be salivating at the idea of several unvetted 19-25 year olds with unlimited access to classified government computer systems. The security implications are apocalyptic.
- tosbalok3 2y ago> unlimited access to classified government computer systems. What makes you think they have access to classified government computer systems, let alone unlimited access? It's my understanding that classified data is on a completely separate network called SIPRNET[1] and that basic accounting data (e.g. USAID grant data) (a) isn't classified and (b) access to USAID data doesn't imply access to SIPRNET [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIPRNet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIPRNet
- alluro2 2y agoI 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.
- arandomusername 2y ago> 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.
- nomendos 2y agoInteresting 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.