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Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt here. DOGE needed to hide its activities while it collected data for the president so that the private citizens chosen

by bix6 2y ago

Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt here. DOGE needed to hide its activities while it collected data for the president so that the private citizens chosen by his associates can run analytics on it offsite and decide which cases to pursue. And Russia has a login because they are friendly to the new era of American interests. It sounds so stupid, I can’t believe people still support this madness…

bangaroo 2y ago
at what point does it make sense to say “maybe you don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt” because it sincerely feels well past that point by all measures.
- lenerdenator 2y ago
  > at what point does it make sense to say “maybe you don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt” Eh. June 2018.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  I read that comment as a steelman of the position that this is genuine anti-corruption activity, and pointing out via doing so that even if you give them an incredibly unwarranted amount of good faith, it still doesn’t make any remote amount of sense.
  - bangaroo 2y ago
    perfectly reasonable read of it, honestly. i think i'm just very tired by all of this.
Dumblydorr 2y ago
Sorry, I don’t follow? Why did it need to hide its activities to run analytics? What statistical analytical purpose is served by wiping logs and removing logging? Since we’re spitballing, Why not try giving them the opposite of benefit of doubt, as well? Something like, the administration is clearly compromised by Russia and hired a bunch of low status hackers, and we’re seeing massive bombs being dropped all over our cybersecurity defenses?
- dummydummy1234 2y ago
  I'm pretty sure that was /s
- swarnie 2y ago
  We really need to come up with a commonly understood "sarcasm" character that doesn't also ruin the intended statement.
viraptor 2y ago
With everything that's going on now, explicitly adding /s helps a lot. Because I've seen worse takes written seriously...
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  Yeah I've seen a few HN people try and defend undefensible things, citing they are "steelmanning"... but nobody asked them to. Same with "playing devil's advocate". It's fine in philosophical debates I suppose, but it's not necessary in a lot of cases. Second, if you are the "playing devil's advocate" type, make sure your post contains your real, own, personal opinion. You can't just go say morally objectionable things and brush it off as that.
tmountain 2y ago
It's all terrible, but it pales in comparison to the fact that the government can now disappear people to a gulag in El Salvador with no due process. I know that comparative suffering isn't a good litmus test for one situation vs another, but I'll take my data being stolen over a life sentence in an offshore prison without a trial any day of the week.
- zimpenfish 2y ago
  > the government can now disappear people to a gulag in El Salvador with no due process To be wafer-thin fair to Trump et al, that was started by Bush with Guantanamo.
  - DrillShopper 2y ago
    On the gripping hand, just because Bush, our greatest war criminal (derogatory), did something doesn't mean that Trump should. If anything, he should have learned why it's a bad idea.
    - int_19h 2y ago
      The point is that what we're witnessing is the logical end result of the preceding decades of giving the federal executive more and more unchecked power (it didn't start with Bush, either). Trump is indeed uniquely bad in many ways, but the reason why he can do so much damage is because he was given access to the tools accumulated by previous presidential administrations. I hope that we'll learn our lesson once this is over. But I'm also skeptical.
  - potato3732842 2y ago
    It's almost like all those people who said the federal government's post 9/11 power grabs set a bad precedent and moved us incrementally further down various slippery slopes were right.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - 2y ago

by bix6 2y ago

bangaroo 2y ago

at what point does it make sense to say “maybe you don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt” because it sincerely feels well past that point by all measures.

lenerdenator 2y ago
> at what point does it make sense to say “maybe you don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt” Eh. June 2018.
ToucanLoucan 2y ago
I read that comment as a steelman of the position that this is genuine anti-corruption activity, and pointing out via doing so that even if you give them an incredibly unwarranted amount of good faith, it still doesn’t make any remote amount of sense.
- bangaroo 2y ago
  perfectly reasonable read of it, honestly. i think i'm just very tired by all of this.

Dumblydorr 2y ago

Sorry, I don’t follow? Why did it need to hide its activities to run analytics? What statistical analytical purpose is served by wiping logs and removing logging? Since we’re spitballing, Why not try giving them the opposite of benefit of doubt, as well? Something like, the administration is clearly compromised by Russia and hired a bunch of low status hackers, and we’re seeing massive bombs being dropped all over our cybersecurity defenses?

dummydummy1234 2y ago
I'm pretty sure that was /s
swarnie 2y ago
We really need to come up with a commonly understood "sarcasm" character that doesn't also ruin the intended statement.

viraptor 2y ago

With everything that's going on now, explicitly adding /s helps a lot. Because I've seen worse takes written seriously...

Cthulhu_ 2y ago
Yeah I've seen a few HN people try and defend undefensible things, citing they are "steelmanning"... but nobody asked them to. Same with "playing devil's advocate". It's fine in philosophical debates I suppose, but it's not necessary in a lot of cases. Second, if you are the "playing devil's advocate" type, make sure your post contains your real, own, personal opinion. You can't just go say morally objectionable things and brush it off as that.

tmountain 2y ago

It's all terrible, but it pales in comparison to the fact that the government can now disappear people to a gulag in El Salvador with no due process. I know that comparative suffering isn't a good litmus test for one situation vs another, but I'll take my data being stolen over a life sentence in an offshore prison without a trial any day of the week.

zimpenfish 2y ago
> the government can now disappear people to a gulag in El Salvador with no due process To be wafer-thin fair to Trump et al, that was started by Bush with Guantanamo.
- DrillShopper 2y ago
  On the gripping hand, just because Bush, our greatest war criminal (derogatory), did something doesn't mean that Trump should. If anything, he should have learned why it's a bad idea.
  - int_19h 2y ago
    The point is that what we're witnessing is the logical end result of the preceding decades of giving the federal executive more and more unchecked power (it didn't start with Bush, either). Trump is indeed uniquely bad in many ways, but the reason why he can do so much damage is because he was given access to the tools accumulated by previous presidential administrations. I hope that we'll learn our lesson once this is over. But I'm also skeptical.
- potato3732842 2y ago
  It's almost like all those people who said the federal government's post 9/11 power grabs set a bad precedent and moved us incrementally further down various slippery slopes were right.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- 2y ago