| |
| ▲ | AlecSchueler 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > nobody here can say they would stand for this at any company they worked at or ran This is what leaves me incredulous about so many people here defending this. I've been on this site daily for how many years I don't know but the one thing that has been consistent is the security idea that an outside entity gaining physical access to your server means that it is irreparably compromised, and that it should be treated as a liability and re-built from the ground up. But somehow it's fine if it's public data in a federal database? | | |
| ▲ | lucasyvas 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Thank you for citing that because it is really the basis of my point. It is meant to be apolitical and to demonstrate that we are not OK with this otherwise so shouldn’t be now. |
| |
| ▲ | CyrsBel 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You are correct. And the nonchalant way in which the leaders who are supposed to oversee this thing are treating it is appalling. It will have consequences during mid-terms and beyond. It is clear that some people believe elected office to mean that they are then given authority and rights with which to increase in...being voyeurs rather than visionaries??? | |
| ▲ | hamhock666 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | barbazoo 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > They need to move fast in order to replace the old system. Why? | | |
| ▲ | mullingitover 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Pretty sure they’re doing this blitzkrieg because what they’re doing is illegal and if they don’t get it done quickly, they’ll get stopped by the courts and probably arrested. | | |
| |
| ▲ | nielsbot 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | replace the old system with what exactly? and why does it have to be done quickly? | | |
| ▲ | CyrsBel 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Upgrades should be sustainable, incremental, gradual, and reviewed. Especially for governance systems. If there's no existential risk requiring moving fast, then it's a bad idea to move fast on these things. Governments are not companies. | | |
| ▲ | hamhock666 2 days ago | parent [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | 542354234235 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Governments with almost a gigaton of nuclear weapons should not be run in "fast startup ways". Losing some VC money and reshaping the global economy or compromising nuclear safety are not the same stakes. | | |
| ▲ | renewiltord 2 days ago | parent [-] | | If the IRS has the nuclear safety codes then it’s better we find out than the Chinese. | | |
| ▲ | entropicdrifter 2 days ago | parent [-] | | DOGE fired a ton of Department of Energy employees who manage the nukes. This isn't just about the IRS or the Dept of Education. |
|
| |
| ▲ | CyrsBel 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Can is not should. Who are we trusting to move fast with our governance and why? Is this why? https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/02/17/trum... Unacceptable. | | |
| ▲ | hamhock666 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | We are trusting Donald Trumps judgement to execute on the promises he made to get elected. Nothing is perfect, and I think this whole thing is probably happening too early. | | |
| ▲ | entropicdrifter 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | He's already broken dozens of promises. Hell, he doesn't even have a plan to replace the ACA after having neutered it like 7 years ago even though he ran on "repeal and replace". To trust him is beyond folly. | |
| ▲ | Zamaamiro 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Why would I trust a serial liar with anything? Also, just because he was duly elected it does not give him carte blanche to do whatever he wants, especially when he's running afoul of the law and firing all of the inspectors general and independent monitors. | | |
| ▲ | Xelynega 2 days ago | parent [-] | | "I'm the elected president so I get to decide the allocation of government money" is basically the legal theory that Trump is putting forward to be challenged. | | |
| |
| ▲ | jgeada 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I mean, this is literally the definition of insanity: doing the same thing you imbeciles did 8 years ago and expecting different results. Electing a felon that notoriously managed to bankrupt several casinos and pretty much every business they've ever run is definitely not electing a smart man or even a vaguely competent businessman. This has always been about racism and wanting to punish "other" people because you failed at life and want a handout. | |
| ▲ | settsu 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > trusting Donald Trumps judgement Ha! Well there's your first problem. | |
| ▲ | rat87 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I wouldnt trust Trump as a dogcatcher. The man is a habitual liar and conman. He cant help himself. If you trust him I have a couple of bridges in queens on sale, cheap. |
| |
| ▲ | FrustratedMonky 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | LOL Maga: Move Fast Break Things -In other news, the US has lost track of several Nuclear Weapons after cutbacks left building empty Maga: YOLO. My Uncle Jed going to make the Oklahoma City Bomb look like nothing. Yeeee haaa. Wait and see science nerds. Taking back the country. |
| |
| ▲ | compiler-guy 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [Citation needed] |
|
| |
| ▲ | alsoforgotmypwd 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The Curtis Yarvin utopian fantasy is no government coupled with mythical "network states". An uncontrolled experiment that's cynically really to defang the government to lower all barriers for the rich making more money. | | |
| ▲ | Hikikomori 2 days ago | parent [-] | | It's their goal to destroy the federal government. They'll likely tank the tank the economy and sell federal land to themselves for cheap to set up their network states where they can be their own tech CEO kings. |
| |
| ▲ | nprateem 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Before the courts can catch up, they lose power in the Senate or those affected can organise. There's also something to be said for disorienting your opponents. Plus it gets things done faster without dragging it out. It's wins all round. GP: They absolutely will make something good out of it, but for their benefit not the average American. | | |
| ▲ | TheOtherHobbes 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Not even. At this point Musk is Wile E. Coyote. He's run out of road, so he's attempting to improvise an Acme Degovernmentizer to levitate. He's not interested in "cutting waste" but in covering his ass so US Gov can't Enron his doughy face into prison, where it belongs. But it's going to explode, like everything else he's ever been solely and personally in charge of. | |
| ▲ | nielsbot a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Sure but I wouldn't even call it "something good" at all. The government is owned by the people and must work for the public good. One critical function of that is limiting exploitation of the people by business and preventing the hoarding of wealth and power by a few. Continuing: the solution is "people power". Everyone should join a union, for starters. |
| |
| ▲ | hamhock666 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | It has to be done quickly because the administrative state is large and there is a lot to do. Institutions grow old with time and need drastic reform or replacement. I don’t know what they will replace everything with, ideally they have a bunch of smart people thinking about that. Look at how FDR used the Bureau of the Budget to similar effect. | | |
| ▲ | dTal 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > I don’t know what they will replace everything with, ideally they have a bunch of smart people thinking about that Kind of the key issue dontcha think? Maybe woulda been good to know that before burning down the government? "ideally they have a bunch of smart people thinking about that" is exactly what the government is for. We had a bunch of smart people thinking about a lot of our problems. They're fired now. | | |
| ▲ | lc9er 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | The idea that government isn’t filled with tons of smart, hard working people is infuriating. Not every smart and ambitious person wants to spend their life in a rent-seeking job, building the next subscription-based app. There’s thousands upon thousands of dedicated government workers that could earn more in private industry, but view the work as a higher calling. | | |
| ▲ | hamhock666 a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Yes you just need to reorganize those smart people into a new system. I don’t agree with everything being done. | |
| ▲ | nielsbot a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | So true. It's a damn shame what DOGE is doing to the government I paid for. Tearing it down and replacing it with something leaner, faster, better (fingers crossed) is just nonsensical libertarianism all over again. |
| |
| ▲ | nielsbot a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | This is where the libertarian approach always falls apart. "ideally" this and "ideally" that. In the real world however libertarianism is a ridiculous fantasy which will harm everyone except the very rich. |
|
|
| |
| ▲ | lucasyvas 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Big Balls, man? Really? This dude is vetted to make this change? Come on. The kid wouldn’t be an unpaid intern at most companies. He wouldn’t pass the HR screen. Regardless of politics, they don’t have the credentials. | | |
| ▲ | hamhock666 2 days ago | parent [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | scottLobster 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | No, they're hiring people with no relevant experience who in one case was fired from a previous job for leaking confidential information. Another is an unapologetic cartoonishly not-subtle racist. It's amazing to me how every time DOGE is challenged its supporters come back with "I'm sure they're doing the right thing" despite all evidence to the contrary. I'm starting to think this ends with DOGE cutting like a few hundred million dollars of random stuff, taking out even more debt to cut everyone $5000 checks, swamp every media channel with bogus "WE CUT FIFTY TRILLION DOLLARS TO GIVE BACK TO THE PEOPLE!!!" and you guys will just lap it up without question. | | |
| ▲ | chipsrafferty 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | https://www.muskwatch.com/p/doge-teen-ran-image-sharing-site He has a lot of relevant experience in criminal behavior, actually. | |
| ▲ | ModernMech 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It’s worse than that. They’re going to give themselves $4T in tax cuts for the 1%, cut Medicaid for $800 billion, and claim DOGE will make up the balance, even though it won’t make a dent. The debt will go up $3T, the savings will never come (again), poor people will lose healthcare, and when people wisen up, Republicans will revert to talking about how Democrats just want to “tax and spend”. | | |
| ▲ | TheOtherHobbes 2 days ago | parent [-] | | MAGA will blow up in their faces. When health care and benefits disappear the US is suddenly going to have millions of angry, desperate, stupid and/or brainwashed volatile people waving their 2nd Amendments at Washington. This has Musk's name stamped on it. No amount of lying and misdirection is going to change that. |
| |
| ▲ | marcusverus 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | >despite all evidence to the contrary. What evidence? Be specific. | | |
| ▲ | buttercraft 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Lots of things here with links: https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/02/10/elon-mus... | |
| ▲ | scottLobster 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | How much time you got? I'll keep it high level because I'm pretty sure I'd crash Hacker News if I spent all day typing out every last specific issue for you, and I don't have time to do that anyway. - A multitude of errors in basic math in the claimed savings, like claiming 55 billion in savings when the "receipts" posted on their own site to back up those numbers did not add up to 55 billion even assuming they were accurate. Diving deeper, they clearly misunderstand how government contracts work, claiming they saved the full value of contracts they cut despite said contracts having been partially paid out. In one case they claimed 8 billion in savings for a contract that was worth 8 million, and then apparently tried to change the data to cover up their mistake when called out. Here's a twitter thread with some more specific examples: https://x.com/electricfutures/status/1892432354016202831 - And here's all the contracts they claim to have canceled: https://doge.gov/savings
No verifiable reasons have been given for why these specific contracts were chosen. What made these more wasteful than other contracts? How will canceling them improve efficiency? Nothing more than "Trust us bro", I doubt they know themselves; they certainly haven't had the time or the staff or the expertise to investigate anything with any detail. - Elon's companies are recipients of massive government contracts and were under investigation by some of the agencies he is attempting to cut. An insane conflict of interest that has not been accounted for beyond "trust us". There is no politically independent oversight of any nature. - The shutdown of USAID was done so incompetently that employees were left stranded overseas locked out of government networks without support. - The wholesale gutting of the CFPB, a program which actually made more money for taxpayers than it cost, while claiming to care about financial efficiency. - Avoidable accidental firings of critical personnel across government agencies. Re-hiring is a non-trivial cost on top the immediate disruption and you won't get a 100% return rate. Complete waste of time of and money while disrupting mission critical activities. These are not the actions of serious people trying to curtail government waste, fraud and abuse. If they are, they're a sign of rank incompetence. These are the actions of people who, even if given the benefit of the doubt, are falsely convinced that the government does no good whatsoever and they can cut programs and grants with no consequences that matter except to their political enemies. This isn't even getting into the legality of what they're doing, but DOGE supporters have made it quite clear at this point that they view the law as the enemy, or at the very least irrelevant. |
|
| |
| ▲ | solarmist 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | No, it means having a security clearance. It has a very specific meaning. Having been thoroughly investigated by the FBI to not be an enemy or a threat to the United States. | |
| ▲ | mullingitover 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > I’m sure DOGE is not just hiring random bums off the street The fact that there isn't any transparency about their hiring process is a big flashing red light that there was no hiring process. These people are against DEI "because we should only be hiring the best, not focusing on race/etc." So be transparent and show the damn receipts to prove you hired the best. Who did they screen. How was it that Big Balls beat out a pool of qualified applicants. I'll wager they can't show their receipts because they don't have them. These anti-DEI people really just want to lazily revert back to a good ol' boys network, hiring only from their in-group or just hiring the very first candidate they personally like, regardless of their actual qualifications. The hiring process went something like this: "this kid was recommended by some billionaire's brother-in-law, and he went to an elite school so obviously he's qualified. The End." | |
| ▲ | alwa 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | What gives you that confidence? I know that I wouldn’t trust 19-year-old me anywhere near a mature, nation-scale system that lives depend on. | |
| ▲ | Zamaamiro 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | That's a definition of "vetting" that nobody else but you seems to have proposed. Feels like a strawman. | |
| ▲ | 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
|
|
|
|