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How can anyone on the outside make all these guesses about the code and databases? It feels like a lot of speculation to try to prove a claim wrong, but without

How can anyone on the outside make all these guesses about the code and databases? It feels like a lot of speculation to try to prove a claim wrong, but without evidence.

EdwardDiego 2y ago
Yeah, exactly, and no-one can see Musk is tweeting about either. But we're generally assuming that he's clinging to anything that justifies a pre-existing narrative.
brendoelfrendo 2y ago
Indeed, how can an outsider like Musk and his DOGE compatriots make any claim at all? I think it is far more likely that Elon was mistaken, or lied, than the SSA is paying out to multiple non-existent 150 year-olds. In fact, that there are so many plausible explanations that don't involve fraud, it really behooves us to be skeptical. Elon made the claim: he is responsible for supplying the evidence. Note that the doge.gov website has a section called "savings," which originally said "Receipts coming by Valentine's Day." Now it says "Receipts coming over the weekend!", and seeing as it's 11:50pm on the East Coast of the US right now, that seems unlikely, too.
- zten 2y ago
  I’ve gone rushing to my boss in the past with similarly hastily researched claims and conclusions to what Musk is tweeting. In my experience, they were usually the result of me having performed insufficient research, and did not have nearly the impact I thought they would. However, these kind of junior level mistakes make for great propaganda. Anyone can read his conclusion and the chart and with zero critical thought, think “duh! The government is so stupid! I knew I couldn’t trust them to run a benefits program correctly!” And that’s exactly what Musk wants us to conclude. As you note, however, we cannot conclude that - there is a much, much higher burden of proof we should be demanding.
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  Given that other systems do have problems with paying out to dead people or people who are alive but faking their age, it'd be impressive if the US system had zero such cases. The claim isn't unlikely on its face, especially given what he said about Treasury never denying payments for any reason in order to minimise complaints. As to "how can he make claims at all", it's because civil servants have been told to work for him, which means he is supposed to have access to more information than actual outsiders do (everyone on this thread).
  - flir 2y ago
    I'm sure the US system has a few cases of dead claimants. I mean, it's a country of 330m people. Dead and 150? Bit harder to believe. It's an extraordinary claim, if you get my drift.
    - Panoramix 2y ago
      Why? Japan found over 200k ghost centenarians in their database. A significant amount were fraud related, relatives that keep receiving checks for example. So not hard to believe for me.
      - flir 2y ago
        > Japan found over 200k ghost centenarians in their database Weeeeeell.... https://cnrs.hal.science/hal-03478634/document https://cnrs.hal.science/hal-03478634/document > Why? 150. I already said this. The children of a 150-year-old would probably be in their ~120s. The grandchildren would be in their ~90s. You're claiming a social security account that's been passed down through multiple generations, like some kind of family heirloom. It's an extraordinary claim, if you get my drift.
      - danso 2y ago
        The SSA OIG has done a couple of investigations into this the past decade. In 2023 [0], it agreed with the SSA that "almost none of the numberholders discussed in the report [people aged 100 or older] currently receive SSA payments" (while disagreeing that the costs and risks of a mass correction effort outweigh the benefits) > While we agree that adding presumed death information to these records will result in incorrect dates of death appearing on these Numident records, we do not agree it poses a significant risk of erroneously recording death information on living numberholders’ records. For example, we see little risk in adding presumed death information to the millions of Numident records belonging to individuals born in the 1800s who haven’t worked or received SSA payments in more than 50 years. > SSA determined the estimated $5.5 to $9.7 million in expenditures to correct these errors was too costly to implement and that the effort would have limited benefit to the administration of SSA programs. We acknowledge that almost none of the numberholders discussed in the report currently receive SSA payments. However, SSA issued each of these individuals a valid SSN and these SSNs could allow for a wide range of potential abuse. [0] https://oig.ssa.gov/assets/uploads/a-06-21-51022.pdf#page10 https://oig.ssa.gov/assets/uploads/a-06-21-51022.pdf#page10
- Amezarak 2y ago
  We all know that Musk is not someone with a strong commitment to the truth. We all know he's a grifter. How long has FSD been coming now? What was the deal with the diver? But so much of these DOGE criticisms are simply reflexive "Musk bad." There is no a priori reason why it's unlikely that a small amount of people are being paid benefits out of a byzantine bureaucratic system that's almost a hundred years old. Just a few years ago, I was listening to a story on NPR about SSI fraud (also administered by the SSA) and how common it was. Now, apparently we're all convinced all government agencies contain approximately zero fraud, or at least detectable-by-Musk fraud, simply because it's the cause du jour. It's totally bizarre to read these HN stories (I flag most of them) and people are making totally unfounded claims on the processes, controls, and operation of government IT systems, apparently assuming they are just as good as what exists at Meta or Google. Well, I have personal experience, and maybe my program was an outlier, but these people seem to have extremely rosy expectations, and often have no idea how the government works even in theory ("there's an IG to find things like this!"). It's really exhausting and disappointing. DOGE can be a misguided operation run by a grifter that misreports findings and will never save the amount of money promised and a lot of stuff in the government can be awful, missing even basic controls.
  - troupo 2y ago
    > But so much of these DOGE criticisms are simply reflexive "Musk bad." I mean, these are your own words: > DOGE can be a misguided operation run by a grifter that misreports findings And that's the main issue and criticism, not that everyone believes that the government is perfect
    - Amezarak 2y ago
      But people aren’t saying that. Instead, they’re just inventing reasons why Musk is wrong, with no evidence or invented evidence, like the subject of this article.
      - troupo 2y ago
        Because Musk has already given ample evidence of how wrong he is on multiple accounts. It's on Musk to provide evidence for his extraordinary claims. So far that evidence has been in very short supply.

How can anyone on the outside make all these guesses about the code and databases? It feels like a lot of speculation to try to prove a claim wrong, but without evidence.

EdwardDiego 2y ago

Yeah, exactly, and no-one can see Musk is tweeting about either. But we're generally assuming that he's clinging to anything that justifies a pre-existing narrative.

brendoelfrendo 2y ago

Indeed, how can an outsider like Musk and his DOGE compatriots make any claim at all? I think it is far more likely that Elon was mistaken, or lied, than the SSA is paying out to multiple non-existent 150 year-olds. In fact, that there are so many plausible explanations that don't involve fraud, it really behooves us to be skeptical. Elon made the claim: he is responsible for supplying the evidence. Note that the doge.gov website has a section called "savings," which originally said "Receipts coming by Valentine's Day." Now it says "Receipts coming over the weekend!", and seeing as it's 11:50pm on the East Coast of the US right now, that seems unlikely, too.

zten 2y ago
I’ve gone rushing to my boss in the past with similarly hastily researched claims and conclusions to what Musk is tweeting. In my experience, they were usually the result of me having performed insufficient research, and did not have nearly the impact I thought they would. However, these kind of junior level mistakes make for great propaganda. Anyone can read his conclusion and the chart and with zero critical thought, think “duh! The government is so stupid! I knew I couldn’t trust them to run a benefits program correctly!” And that’s exactly what Musk wants us to conclude. As you note, however, we cannot conclude that - there is a much, much higher burden of proof we should be demanding.
mike_hearn 2y ago
Given that other systems do have problems with paying out to dead people or people who are alive but faking their age, it'd be impressive if the US system had zero such cases. The claim isn't unlikely on its face, especially given what he said about Treasury never denying payments for any reason in order to minimise complaints. As to "how can he make claims at all", it's because civil servants have been told to work for him, which means he is supposed to have access to more information than actual outsiders do (everyone on this thread).
- flir 2y ago
  I'm sure the US system has a few cases of dead claimants. I mean, it's a country of 330m people. Dead and 150? Bit harder to believe. It's an extraordinary claim, if you get my drift.
  - Panoramix 2y ago
    Why? Japan found over 200k ghost centenarians in their database. A significant amount were fraud related, relatives that keep receiving checks for example. So not hard to believe for me.
    - flir 2y ago
      > Japan found over 200k ghost centenarians in their database Weeeeeell.... https://cnrs.hal.science/hal-03478634/document https://cnrs.hal.science/hal-03478634/document > Why? 150. I already said this. The children of a 150-year-old would probably be in their ~120s. The grandchildren would be in their ~90s. You're claiming a social security account that's been passed down through multiple generations, like some kind of family heirloom. It's an extraordinary claim, if you get my drift.
    - danso 2y ago
      The SSA OIG has done a couple of investigations into this the past decade. In 2023 [0], it agreed with the SSA that "almost none of the numberholders discussed in the report [people aged 100 or older] currently receive SSA payments" (while disagreeing that the costs and risks of a mass correction effort outweigh the benefits) > While we agree that adding presumed death information to these records will result in incorrect dates of death appearing on these Numident records, we do not agree it poses a significant risk of erroneously recording death information on living numberholders’ records. For example, we see little risk in adding presumed death information to the millions of Numident records belonging to individuals born in the 1800s who haven’t worked or received SSA payments in more than 50 years. > SSA determined the estimated $5.5 to $9.7 million in expenditures to correct these errors was too costly to implement and that the effort would have limited benefit to the administration of SSA programs. We acknowledge that almost none of the numberholders discussed in the report currently receive SSA payments. However, SSA issued each of these individuals a valid SSN and these SSNs could allow for a wide range of potential abuse. [0] https://oig.ssa.gov/assets/uploads/a-06-21-51022.pdf#page10 https://oig.ssa.gov/assets/uploads/a-06-21-51022.pdf#page10
Amezarak 2y ago
We all know that Musk is not someone with a strong commitment to the truth. We all know he's a grifter. How long has FSD been coming now? What was the deal with the diver? But so much of these DOGE criticisms are simply reflexive "Musk bad." There is no a priori reason why it's unlikely that a small amount of people are being paid benefits out of a byzantine bureaucratic system that's almost a hundred years old. Just a few years ago, I was listening to a story on NPR about SSI fraud (also administered by the SSA) and how common it was. Now, apparently we're all convinced all government agencies contain approximately zero fraud, or at least detectable-by-Musk fraud, simply because it's the cause du jour. It's totally bizarre to read these HN stories (I flag most of them) and people are making totally unfounded claims on the processes, controls, and operation of government IT systems, apparently assuming they are just as good as what exists at Meta or Google. Well, I have personal experience, and maybe my program was an outlier, but these people seem to have extremely rosy expectations, and often have no idea how the government works even in theory ("there's an IG to find things like this!"). It's really exhausting and disappointing. DOGE can be a misguided operation run by a grifter that misreports findings and will never save the amount of money promised and a lot of stuff in the government can be awful, missing even basic controls.
- troupo 2y ago
  > But so much of these DOGE criticisms are simply reflexive "Musk bad." I mean, these are your own words: > DOGE can be a misguided operation run by a grifter that misreports findings And that's the main issue and criticism, not that everyone believes that the government is perfect
  - Amezarak 2y ago
    But people aren’t saying that. Instead, they’re just inventing reasons why Musk is wrong, with no evidence or invented evidence, like the subject of this article.
    - troupo 2y ago
      Because Musk has already given ample evidence of how wrong he is on multiple accounts. It's on Musk to provide evidence for his extraordinary claims. So far that evidence has been in very short supply.