Honestly, I'd give Musk the benefit of the doubt if he would even say that it was a joke or he didn't mean to make that particular motion. His refusal to say it wasn't intentional and it wasn't a nazi salute means, IMHO, that he ment it that way and it wasn't a joke, but a power play.
Isn't it concerning to have someone in the highest offices of power who thinks that's a funny joke, someone who has the lack of taste to find it funny in that context, the lack of diplomacy to think it an acceptable thing to do in such an important situation, and the lack of fear of consequences because he's in an almost completely untouchable position, and the unwillingness to say anything to excuse or apologise for it? Only the President can really do anything to him, and it's quite likely that he funds the president such that that can't/won't happen.
Trump has set a precedent of pardoning the January 6th insurrectionists - people who break the law doing what he wants get pardoned.
The supreme court is majority Republican, and he's been dismissing senior department heads and replacing them with people who have been pre-vetted for their Trump loyalty.
And he's possibly setting the precedent of ignoring court rulings he doesn't like; it's at least being accused by Republican nominated federal juste John Coughenour[1], JD Vance has spoken about ignoring supreme court rulings[2].
And The Whitehouse has announced that Elon Musk will police himself over his own conflicts of interest[3].
For reference: JD Vance said that another DOGE staffer, who resigned after it was reported that he'd publicly come out in favor of racism, eugenics, and normalizing hate against Indian people on Twitter, should be rehired because it was just "stupid social media activity".
It's not a lie. "I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life" does two things: characterizes endorsements of racism and eugenics policies as "stupid social media activity", and asserts that exposure of such activity should not lead to someone losing their job. The part about not rewarding journalists who "destroy" people does not exist in a vacuum away from his downplaying of Elez's abhorrent racial views. If journalists had revealed Elez, for example, was a secret left-wing antifa supporter on Bluesky, I think we can reasonably doubt Vance's reaction would have been the same.
Edit: Now that you've brought Vance's tweet into focus, it's also interesting that he does not think Elez is currently a "bad dude" when he's expressly stated a desire to normalize hatred against an entire ethnicity
Follow-up: "How is Elez both a child who shouldn't be held responsible for his actions from as recently as 2 months ago, but also the right person to be trusted with extensive access to government systems?"
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
The doge boys are in-group, so they are protected, and the law will not be brought to bear against them. Simple as that.
“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you. I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before,” Trump said.
Funny, I don't see those extra qualifiers in there.
No journalist is going to ask him this because they’re afraid of retribution and a loss of access. If they do he’s going to deflect - nobody will press him on a genuinely galling statement of values.
"I don't think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid's life" is incredibly dishonest and Vance should be held to account for this incredibly dishonest statement.
The phrasing is intended to create the impression that the posts were made years ago, by some angry teenager, and it's not relevant to the person they are today. It's a way of downplaying the acts, creating distance between the person today and the acts at some unspecified point in the past.
But we know these timeline details. Elez is not a "kid" now, he's 25. These posts were not made when he was 13, they were made last year when he was, I suppose, 24 going on 25.
There are two conflicting perspectives being promoted by Musk, Vance, etc which IMO are in direct logical conflict:
1) This person's actions last year (going up to December 2024! Just 2 months ago!) are the actions of an irresponsible child and we shouldn't hold them accountable for those actions because they're not responsible enough to be held accountable for them.
2) This person is responsible enough right now to be operating at the highest levels of government.
> What is so egregious about this that he needed to be pushed out
You are cherrypicking. There are dozens of other posts, ranging from benign to South Park edgy to outright indefensible. In any case, they were shameful and he should be taking great efforts to apologize and prove he's a changed person if he actually regrets posting them.
Compared to what is daily being said about 'white men' in particular and 'men' in general those posts seem to be mostly par for the course. If the things he says about ${identity_group} are bad then so are the same things being said by people in high places about the aforementioned so a sizeable fraction of 'progressives' should [take] great efforts to apologize and prove [they're] changed person[s]. If you don't agree I'd like to know where the difference lies.
I don't know what to tell you. It's racism, whether or not he's a white man or an Indian woman. If racism is "par for the course" then guess what, it's still racism.
> If the things he says about ${identity_group} are bad then so are the same things being said by people in high places about the aforementioned so a sizeable fraction of 'progressives'
Please, point to the spot where the progressives are being racist. Are you going to accuse Democrats of being racist against Krasnodar Krai for supporting Ukraine in their racist and illegal defense of Russian homeland? Accuse them of hating Palestinians more than Trump?
Or no, you're going to cherry pick racist Buzzfeed columnists who are (somehow) an analog for an appointed government employee with privileged access to private data.
> For reference: JD Vance said that another DOGE staffer, who resigned after it was reported that he'd publicly come out in favor of racism, eugenics, and normalizing hate against Indian people on Twitter, should be rehired because it was just "stupid social media activity".
I’m amazed at the mental gymnastics I’m witnessing from people trying to defend 100% of what’s happening.
When people were criticizing the age of the people on the team, the narrative was that they are young and energetic adults and that it’s offensive to bring their age into question.
As soon as one of them (age 25!) was discovered to have written some blatantly racist remarks, the narrative flipped to pleas to forgive them because they’re just kids.
Not to mention how quickly this all went from shining a light on the situation to insisting that we blindly trust claims of corruption with no evidence or even independent review.
It’s all so absurd to watch. Regardless of where you fall on the political side, the intellectual dishonesty and hypocrisy is so blatant that you can’t possibly ignore it unless you’re resigned to being so hyper-partisan that anything goes as long as it’s done by your team.
They have a competent skin tone and sex. All these questions about "competence" and "merit" come up if a woman or black person have a professional career but look at recent hires for DoD head, Andreessen Horowitz partner, or DOGE and you see what they really mean
> As soon as one of them (age 25!) was discovered to have written some blatantly racist remarks, the narrative flipped to pleas to forgive them because they’re just kids.
Yeah, you just made that up. The "narrative" about the 25-year-old's remarks was not based on his age. This is the narrative, from JD Vance the vice president himself:
"Here’s my view:
I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life.
We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever.
So I say bring him back.
If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that." [0]
Obviously the operative line is the central one about not rewarding journalists who try to destroy people, "Ever". That means regardless of who the target is or their age.
>intellectual dishonesty and hypocrisy is so blatant that you can’t possibly ignore it
"forgive them because they're kids" sounds like a pretty accurate paraphrase of "I don't think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid's life"...
It's interesting that JD Vance should invoke that defence considering this particular "kid" with a fondness for racist edglordism was tasked with the responsibility of firing tens of thousands of other people...
And it "I don't think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid's life" was the entire thing JD said that would matter, but it's not everything he said.
You're literally just deleting the important part of the message to pretend a supporting comment is "the narrative".
It's hypocritical intellectual dishonesty to pretend JD's point was something other than what it obviously was.
If this is your argument, don't be surprised when people look up the facts, note that you're dishonest this way, and tune you out.
The stance that we should never reward a journalist for “trying to ruin someone’s life” seems effectively to mean that we should never hold people accountable for their own words or actions, if those are reported by a journalist?
What if we didn’t worry about whether we’re “rewarding” the journalist, and just evaluated people’s actions and deeds when we decide how much public trust we want to extend to them?
Nothing I said was inaccurate, and the fact that Vance also whinges about journalists accurately reporting the publicly expressed views of a person in a position of responsibility does not change the fact he referred to the twentysomething who resigned from that position as a "kid" somehow more deserving of a government job than the thousands of blameless individuals he was originally tasked with firing.
I appreciate that people who concur with Vance's objection to journalists reporting the truth are going to tune me and most things out, but that says more about your own lack of intellectual honesty than anyone else's...
> If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that.
Saying things like "Normalize Indian hate" and "I was racist before it was cool" are statements that pretty well support a "bad dude" classification, especially in the context of a role where he'll be responsible for firing people and removing "DEI hires." Even if you agree (with Musk, Elez, etc.) that DEI is a problem, hiring a self-avowed racist to deal with it seems pretty idiotic.
Calling him "a kid" is also pretty disingenuous. He was 24 or 25 when he made those posts, hardly a kid. And they weren't ancient history, they were last year. I'm also for forgiveness if time has passed and people show that they deserve it, but it isn't ruining his life to hold him accountable to things he said last year, as an adult.
> Obviously the operative line is the central one about not rewarding journalists who try to destroy people, "Ever". That means regardless of who the target is or their age.
Does that apply to politicians or billionaires as well? Considering Musk's history of doing that?
On a more general note, if it's racist remarks everyone is coming out with "lets forgive them", "they were young", "lets not destroy people because of some innocent remarks", but god forbid they say something that is being perceived as "leftist" ... burn them!
> and yet the absolute frustration is that there is nothing that anyone but the judiciary system can do.
Why would there be? The people hired Trump to be the CEO, the CEO hired Musk (personally, I think it is mostly to serve as a distraction while real personal/political goals are handled elsewhere), but regardless, any government only works when most leaders (and voters) have mostly good intentions.
It is not feasible to have a check and balance on every decision, everything would grind to a halt.
It’s more like Trump is the chairman of the board of directors representing shareholders interest (voters, loyalists, contributors) and Musk is the CEO.
The United States isn’t supposed to have a “CEO” in the sense that a corporation does. For countries, that job description is called a “monarch”, and the Constitution is specifically designed to make sure we don’t have one.
The difference in job duration isn’t the point I was making. The President is merely the head of three equal branches that are supposed to keep each other in check, and has significant limits on his/her powers. A CEO has essentially limitless powers as long as they have the job.
As one obvious example, a CEO controls the company budget. A President can merely suggest a budget to Congress.
Their next move - and the Rubicon none of us can uncross - will be defying the court orders that are inevitably issued to stop the flagrant criminality
Once they defy those, it’s done.
The enforcement of federal laws including court orders requires the Trump justice department to act. And his first moves (naturally) were to fire all oversight people, install extremist hardcore loyalists at the top, and fire anyone underneath who was not equally loyal. Anybody who thinks any other administration has done anything remotely comparable in the modern era is just uninformed
All of us should take a moment to acknowledge all the Peter Thiel-adjacent folks in this community who drove us directly to this moment
That's what worries me the most despite generally agreeing with the goals of DOGE.
The Supreme court has only a few armed police, basically no teeth. There is nothing really holding the executive to listen to them, and the legislators won't check any fouls either. There is surprisingly little beyond tradition to stop them going off the rails.
Indeed. The collapse of the "mos maiorum", the unwritten set of social norms, was a big part of what dragged the Roman republic to collapse.
Norm violations have a way of accelerating in a tit-for-tat way, because once your opponent does it you will lose if you don't respond in kind. This didn't start here, and it definitely won't end here.
"John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it."
The thing is, even if Trump said something similar, I think we'd still keep going about things in the same ho-hum way we are now. Left-wing newspapers will have headlines, Fox will have nothing, and Democratic congresspeople will have some kind of protest. Maybe there will be marches in a few big cities.
I honestly think nothing will rise to the level of an actual crisis until the military is ordered to do something that some percentage of officers refuse to comply with.
Trump ignoring court orders is the last straw, really. And he's doing that today. We have a president hell-bemt on destroying America, and no, that isn't hyperbole. I'm not sure how you think we'll have business-as-usual with the dismantling of the US government.
> I'm not sure how you think we'll have business-as-usual
Are you seeing general strikes? Chaos in the streets? Democratic congresspeople being successful at stopping anything? The Supreme Court stepping in?
No, none of those. Trump went and had fun at the Superbowl last night, and some editorials wrung their hands over Vance saying that Trump doesn't need to obey the courts. Most people in the country are ignoring what they see as some typical partisan bickering.
The only reason Brown v. Board of Education was enforced was because the President sent troops from the 101st Airborne Division to ensure black children were able to go to school.
The administration need not defy court orders. Federal judges can be impeached and removed, with loyalists installed. Already, there are enough Trump-appointed judges on the bench where it won't take long for a judgment in the administration's favor to be reached.
"All of us should take a moment to acknowledge all the Peter Thiel-adjacent folks in this community who drove us directly to this moment"
This is why this community in particular needs to be talking about these things instead of flagging them as irrelevant to the hacker ethos, as if we don't have direct responsibility for what's going on right now.
"Move fast and break things" is a culture we promulgated. Yes, me, you, everyone commenting here. The people we looked up to for years - mentors and thought leaders - are the ones planning and directing this effort. Hackers apparently are the ones implementing it. If we want to talk about it in our cultural terms, these guys are imo acting like black hats and we need to grapple with that.
Clearly we as a community are not ready for these conversations, but flagging them and burying them isn't going to make the need for them go away.
Yes my main takeaway from the musk flagging discussions on here is that tech people are no where near capable of taking responsibility for their central role in this mess. If I call all my sins "politics", say discussing politics is off the table, then magically you can't say anything bad about me!
It's because there's this pernicious meme throughout the tech world that political aloofness is a sign of intelligence. It was pathetic years ago and repugnant today.
Wow, haha. A real one. Never imagined I'd see a comment like this in the wild. I do think it's a stretch to, say, blame the community, but what breaks my head is how everyone is acting like this is normal? Kids going in and Ctrl-F'ing "dei" and "gender," deleting the former and replacing the latter with "sex." Making false claims about government spending about things that have been online for years and available to see... Never realized what a cult was until now!
Agreed, except I am more on jwz’s side with regard to the “hackers” here. Despite the name and occasionally intelligent discussion, HN isn’t really about hacker culture. It’s about Silicon Valley venture capitalism, with hacker-relevant topics largely used for tech cachet and recruitment. Real hackers are, on the whole, aligned with anarchism and socialism and are generally incompatible with SV culture. They would certainly want nothing to do with Thiel’s ridiculous politics.
Indeed. The problem is and has been for awhile that the "other team" is not willing to purposefully acquire and wield power. They seem to have a very confused view of what politics actually is, to the point where it's not clear if what they are doing even qualifies as politics.
There are abundant ways to wield power even when not in direct control of branches of government. For example, the unions that are suing to stop some of this have hundreds of thousands of members. They could shut down just about anything they want and wield enormous amounts of pressure.
Air traffic controllers could stand in solidarity to fellow fired federal workers and ground every airplane in the country indefinitely. Teamsters could completely immobilize Tesla, SpaceX, and everything else Elon Musk cares about in hours.
If you don't like my examples, come up with your own, but these concepts aren't fantastical at all they're just core ways to wield power in society. The Scandinavian countries do stuff like this all the time it's not even a relic of the 1930's or something.
There is a power struggle to determine what our society's goals are, how it accomplishes those goals, and for the benefit of whom. The "MAGA" side has a clear conception of this concept, and they're trying to grab as much power as they can get away with.
There is a massive amount of power that could be brought to bear against that. There always is whenever it's an attempt at rule by rich oligarchs, as they're always wildly outnumbered.
> I also wonder whether these people were hired by Musk on purpose or he’s just a clueless imbecile who was duped by people who saw an opportunity to further their own goals.
This is a more interesting question to ask of some of the historic government waste the department is theoretically supposed to be tackling and the people who authorised wasteful government spending.
In Musk's case the unqualified young people in question are hardly in a position to persuasively argue they have a sophisticated grasp of workplace norms, government finances and auditing practices, and their Twitter edglordism is nothing that he wouldn't do himself so I don't think they've slipped by some thorough vetting process.
Agreed, previously I was amenable to the "they're young and smart" (but I'd counter with "not wise") take, but no, some of these people are just actually evil.
Good reporting here. Clarifies why the kid was fired for leaking documents - it was specifically for leaking internal corporate documents to a competitor.
The details about cybercrime discords involved in SWATting and DDOS attacks are fascinating.
The idea that anyone involved in this would be fast-tracked for a clearance is beyond the pale.
He was in the com chat, which is a domestic tier one threat. There is no way any fast-tracking would solve this, unless monsieur big balls is an American spy, when in reality he's an overly caffeinated kid who has no idea how bad he's screwing up his, and while we're at it our country's, future.
I personally think it says volumes about how those in the Trump-Musk group (Musk group?) see this. They see the task as infiltrating an adversary, requiring someone with the technical skills to do so but who is also disposable. This in their mind is not about improving anything in the government for citizens, or with regard to US interests, it's about gaining access to a hostile entity without regard to their interests or the long-term interests of the persons actually doing the activity. It doesn't matter if they compromise US security, because the US is a hostile adversary, and they don't want to deal with people who might hesitate because of families or a reputation to uphold. If this person gets in trouble for security breaches or racism or whatever, they just fire them and replace them with another 19 year old with nothing left to lose and/or plenty of time left to go another path later.
The problem here is having such activities in his past makes him an exploitable by criminal organizations or foreign adversaries who would seek the sensitive information he now has access to.
First point is not even true of the Watergate burglars. What makes crime indistinguishable from politics here is the recent ruling on presidential immunity.
Edit: I took a second look at your other recent comments and they didn't seem quite as bad as this, so I've restored your account. If you want to keep posting to HN, please take more care to stay on the right side of https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. What you posted here was particularly bad, and has been a problem before (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29868531).
-- original comment --
We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. You can't post like this here, and you've done it many times before.
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.
Isn’t that part of mandatory spending (that DOGE can’t touch)? Anyways, the social security administration (even under Biden) has made clear that they have to cut the payments in the future. We simply have too much spending overall to fund and sustain it. But by cutting elsewhere maybe it can be saved.
Edit: I took a second look at your other recent comments and they didn't seem quite as bad as this, so I've restored your account. If you want to keep posting to HN, please take more care to stay on the right side of https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
-- original comment --
We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. You can't post like this here, and you've done it many times before.
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.
> They see the task as infiltrating an adversary, requiring someone with the technical skills to do so but who is also disposable.
People who have had access to that kind of data, and who have those kinds of skills, you'd better be careful about how you dispose of them. (Consider the term "blowback".)
Seems more likely that this can be completely subdued when the outcome of swatting is not a nuisance, but a conveniently extra-judicial raid by armed militia.
Or indeed that they are a hostile adversary to the US who have achieved some successes adversarial to the US.
I feel like from the perspective of the US, if we frame this conflict/battle for control of US services and computer systems, we needn't say 'the US is a hostile adversary'. It's fair to frame it as 'the US is the US, and the people seizing control of the systems against the interests of the US are hostile adversaries of the US'.
The specifics of who they're working for, how, why etc. can still be up for speculation or further discovery, but we needn't frame it as 'perhaps the US is actually the enemy and Musk's people are actually the liberators'.
DOGE is the deep state: unelected, unaccountable, unconstitutional. President Trusk does not care at all about anything but enriching and empowering himself.
> DOGE is the deep state: unelected, unaccountable, unconstitutional
They're carrying out the platform the president was elected on, and he'll very much be accountable for the results. The very fact that they're in the news and being talked about is the opposite of the deep state.
You do not know with any degree of certainty what their motivations are. In fact, the utter disdain they demonstrate for certain US citizens dismantles your entire claim.
To the absolute contrary. They do it because of the contempt they have for the average US citizen. These people now in power believe their interests come first because, in their minds, they are inherently superior to most people by birthright.
I have a very close friend who works for VA. Her patients are veterans, many far poorer and with no higher-education. She cares about them deeply. She has a husband, kids, and two parents that depend on her paycheck, and her first thought post-election when rumors of furlough and mass layoffs started circulating were about how she can make sure her patients are taken care of if they lose access to her care.
There are good people in every org. I'm sure there are people with similar values on the DOGE team. I responded to a generalisation with a generalisation.
What good does any comment here do? The person I was responding to argued their side, I argued mine, hopefully readers can synthesise something that comes closer to the truth than if no-one was saying anything.
If you think people shouldn't make that kind of generalisation, why didn't you call out the person I replied to? What good does calling me out do that calling them out wouldn't do?
>the PMC bureaucrats who worked for federal agencies absolutely did think they were wiser and better educated and had better judgement and were simply better people than the people their agencies were meant to serve
Do you have any evidence for this at all, or are you just projecting your own beliefs?
lol idk if you're brainwashed or dumb as rocks but billionaires and broke famous guys lusting for power(djt) don't give a rat's ass about you or your family. On the contrary they would wipe you all of the map with the stroke of a pen if it made them .0000001% richer, and they oft do just that.
Oh yeah, the Deep State totally exists, any day now the Deep State is going to stop Elon Musk and Trump, the only reason the Deep State hasn't stopped them yet is because the Deep State (which is definitely a real thing and would not include Trump and Musk, they given a seat at the council of Epstein but were refused the rank of Pedofile) is playing 5D chess and waiting for the right time to stop them. Any day now, Musk will be eating a ham sandwich or firing employees with DEI colored skin and WAM! The Deep State will return power away from poor working class freedom fighters like Musk/Trump and return it to the billionaire oligarchs AOC Luigi and Obama.
The "Deep State" as I got to learn about it in the earlier phase of online conspiratorial forums and sites referred to two pretty distinct things:
1) The CIA et al, official parts of the government that work secretely and control the world through illegal and shadowy actions. They assassinate people going against them (eg. JFK), faked the moon landing and poison the water supply to keep the population weak willed aso.
2) Neo-feudalistic elites, a mix of billionaires, politicians and the previously mentioned security services. They meet at Bilderberg to perform satanic rituals, work together in the trilateral commission, and might all be lizard people.
Now both of those obviously contain a kernel of truth, both the unaccountability of intelligence agencies, on more than one occasion used even against the american population, as well as these neo-feudal, elitist structures are anti-democratic. But that's a whole other topic, the interesting bit. is that over the last 10 years or so, also with the rise of QAnon, the idea of the "deep state" has been reframed to basically mean "professional bureaucracy".
What was once the topic of cynical comedy in "Yes minister", is now phrased as an existential threat to democracy - ironically and cynically by people who openly admit to wanting to create a fully neo-feudal society.
>Now both of those obviously contain a kernel of truth
It is not obvious to this observer that either of your claims contain any truth whatsoever, let alone a mere "kernel." In fact, to this observe, both of these claims seem quite ludicrous
I should have phrased the two points less hyperbolical when including that next sentence.
Regarding intelligence services: There's a very long history of CIA misconduct, including spying, abusing and murdering Americans.[0] As well as an abundance of human rights abuses, which aren't, but should be a big issue in American discourse. NSA up in everyone's business is basically the same. [1] We like to claim China is a totalitarian state, but their surveillance is less sophisticated than ours.
Regarding the second point, I don't believe in satanic rituals or lizard people, but it is crazy that democratically elected officials go party with billionaires, european aristocrats and IC people in extremely secretive venues. The networking organizations consistently place them in important positions afterwards regardless of merit or preferences of the electorate. This leads to a neo-feudal class of elites and their sycophants, which is deeply anti-democratic.
Due to my background, I know quite a few of these people, and they are frankly disgusting. The amount of slime, butt-lickery and unearned pathos you have to endure at an "elite" party is just making my skin crawl.
>it is crazy that democratically elected officials go party with billionaires, european aristocrats and IC people in extremely secretive venues. The networking organizations consistently place them in important positions afterwards regardless of merit or preferences of the electorate. This leads to a neo-feudal class of elites and their sycophants, which is deeply anti-democratic.
> democratically elected officials go party with billionaires, european aristocrats and IC people in extremely secretive venues
Trump is a democratically elected offical; Musk is a billionaire. They are literally part of that class. It is astonishing that you are trying to claim the opposite of things that are obviously true, and frankly, part of the very problem with Trump's administrations ("alternative facts") and Elon Musk (Nazi salute followed by an attempt to gaslight the planet).
> Trump is a democratically elected offical; Musk is a billionaire. They are literally part of that class.
Trump is an extremely atypical democratically elected official, Musk is an extremely atypical billionaire, they are not part of that social class.
Maybe try to make an effort to understand what people are telling you rather than leaping to accusations and attempts at shaming. (That's assuming you actually want to understand, of course)
Trump was never really accepted in high society. The mafioso-type real estate moguls don't mix well with blue blood elites. Truthfully, I only have an extremely patchy view of how these elites work. Looking at history, and how things work in smaller environments, I'd argue that there are different power bases competing with each other. The people around the Paypal mafia; extremist libertarian tech billionaires, including Musk, Zuckerberg and Thiel are relatively new players on the bloc. JD Vance is their man. The Koch brothers have been highly involved in American politics, but aren't involved with power structures usually targetted by conspiracy theorists like Bilderberg, CFR or the Trilateral Commission. Instead they funded a lot of the tea party, right wing media, and work through evangelical organizations, the NRA and think tanks.
They are on some level fighting the deep state, but only to replace some minority interests with their own - and completely subvert democracy to create a neo-feudal plutocracy. People who voted for them as a solution to anti-democratic, elitist corruption are complete fools.
> No, whether misguided or not they're doing this out of patriotism. They care about US citizens and US interests, and believe the deep state is hostile to both.
This type of religious fervor following these two people is what concerns me the most. Trump and Musk are the deep state if such a thing even exists. The only thing they care about are themselves. When Musk details and cuts all government funding to his companies and Trump stops openly taking bribes, then maybe we can have a conversation about whose interests they care about.
> Trump and Musk are the deep state if such a thing even exists.
What are you trying to say? Trump was elected as close to directly as it gets, and is doing what he said he would. The people can - and did! - vote him out.
Seriously yes. Having lived with someone who is schizoaffective, I recognize what is happening to America as an acute manic episode with psychosis and hallucinations.
This assumes that leaking is a compulsive behavior. The federal government has stronger incentives to offer for not leaking information. Getting fired is nothing.
It's so strange to see this become a Partisan Issue so quickly and easily, when just a few short years ago everyone on the Internet cheered on Ron Paul's cries to Audit The Fed. (Yes, I know, “the Fed” means the Federal Reserve, and not the federal government—but that's clearly in the cards, too.)
And it's not as though the pre-smartphone Internet was majority Republican, of course—quite the opposite, if anything!
One must ask oneself if one's views on the matter would be the same if the exact same actions were done by one's preferred political party, and reported upon favorably instead of unfavorably.
Yes, that the title of a book he wrote, as well as his eventual end goal for sure.
But he and others (including his son Rand, and Bernie Sanders) have also used the phrase “Audit The Fed” repeatedly as well, for various “Federal Reserve Transparency Acts”[0] over the years, since 2009—including a bipartisan one with Senator Grassley just this past November.
Eh, I think "stealing is bad" is a plenty sufficient rationale for the vast majority of people not to engage in this type of behavior regardless of what kind of threats people dangle over their head.
Obviously this kid would reasonably expect to get a pardon for any law he breaks anyway so long as he breaks it in service of the cult.
Clearance is a process and it hasn't been obeyed, and the ultimate purpose of it is to both audit potential recipients and train them in security protocols. The president can't elude it, though he can pardon them for federal crimes, which they're committing a lot of.
The authority of classification rests solely with the executive branch and the policies are established by EO.
A President can absolutely classify and declassify whatever he wants. This has been done a million times.
"It is true that the President has broad authority to classify and declassify, derived from the President’s dual role “as head of the Executive Branch and as Commander in Chief” of the armed forces. The “authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security... flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant" ...
"Finally, as the district court recognized, the suggestion that courts can declassify information raises separation of powers concerns.... such determinations encroach upon the President’s undisputedly broad authority in the realm of national security."
- The New York Times v. Central Intelligence Agency, No. 18-2112 (2d Cir. 2020)
The only reason the material was not considered declassified in that case was because the possible declassification was "inadvertent" etc etc.
Even that ruling does not go far enough, and I'd be willing to give 10:1 odds SCOTUS would give Pres. full and complete powers over classification
What you are overlooking is the underhanded plays executed by a certain political party to allow one president during one 4-year term to appoint 3 supreme court lackeys in order to ensure no matter what bs went before them, they'd rule in his favor.
The idea of the "unitary executive", a concept that has long been a wet dream of the Federalist Society and other conservative think tanks, is the most decidedly un-American thing I can imagine.
Our country was founded on the idea of 3 co-equal branches of government, who each have the duty and authority to exercise checks and balances against the other 2 branches (trust but verify).
Further, the citizens are supposed to have representatives in the house & senate who act as their voice on issues and execute their will and represent their interests.
Nowhere in this entire framework was there a President with the authority to rule by executive fiat, who has absolute immunity from every law of the land, and who is given free reign to do as he pleases like a bull in a china shop. The President of the United States is not a Monarch and he is not a King. There is no divine bloodline in the US of A. The President should always be answerable and accountable to the citizens of the United States and the other 2 branches of government, and they should be held to account for his/her actions.
The current legal framework is a travesty and a result of a gradual erosion of many foundational principles of our republic that have been ground down since FDR dared to empower the working man 80 years ago. In short, it's an abomination.
And don't give me this "but Biden had that same authority" bs. Anybody who knows anything about politics know Dems are spineless. If a Dem tried to pull one tenth of the shit the Republicans do, Rs would be all over AM radio, Fox News, Breitbart, X, Rogan, screaming at the top of their lungs about socialism or some kind of "takeover" or telling people their country is being stolen from them, or some other boneheaded idiotic conspiracy theory. They know there's always someone to fall for their shit. Remember the guys showing up at the DC pizza place looking for the child sex dungeon in the non-existent basement? Yeah, these geniuses.
It's always the same old shit- rich & powerful people don't like being told "no" by the government. Oh, and they also hate paying the government (we all do, but to them it's an actual insult). This is a tantrum of epic proportions, and all this crap is political theater for people who don't know any better.
As an aside, not a one of them has any problem holding out their hand to get old Uncle Sam's money, nor do they have a problem suckling at the government teet their entire career. Ironic, no?
If half these people knew they were carrying water because some spoiled brat of a man didn't want to pay his taxes or got pissed because they can no longer light a river on fire, they'd tell these gold-brickers to pound sand.
But that can't happen anymore. Everybody is plugged-in. The algorithms that drive engagement drive the feedback loop. People can't even argue anymore, because no one knows what the hell is really going on.
This is what our ancestors fought and died for: Twitter and Donald "I can't even make money running a casino" Trump.
The worst part? These people truly don't care. "Gee whiz, why are all these billionaires building bunkers thousands of miles away from the continental US?" Because they're planning to light the USA on fire and bounce. They don't care if you are a republican or a democrat. They don't care about anything. They got theirs. They raped the system, rigged the system, and that's it. Why? Because, paraphrasing George Carlin, "You ain't in their club, you ain't ever going to be in their club. They don't give a shit about you."
That's a lot of politics I won't be answering about but I think you misunderstand the unitary executive idea.
It's not that the president is the sole power in government! it's that he's the sole power in the executive branch
This means the checks and balances are Congress vs Court vs President. Just like the clerks for SCOTUS don't have any power and neither do the staffers or clerks of Congress, so too do all the members of the executive branch have no power, except for whenever the Pres decides to delegate his power to them.
Even those who argue with this idea (few do) the only other ppl who have power in executive branch are the officials who get confirmed by the senate bec. they are mentioned in the constitution. No one thinks that unelected bureaucrat have any standing whatsoever outside of what's been delegated to them by the President
This does not in any way pertain to ruling by EO! Many things should in fact be done by Congress, but those that can/should be done by the executive branch are under the Presidents full control.
When the executive is also vested with the power of enforcement, then, by construction, it usurps the power of the other 2 branches to check its authority.
Which I think is obvious- a power hungry executive who disputes an attempted check of its authority by one of the other branches can simply decline to enforce.
Ipso facto, unchecked executive power.
Edit: you seem informed, so you should know that issues like these are not new; Andrew Jackson famously ignored the Supreme Court and told them to get bent way back in 1832 after their decision in Worcester v Georgia.
To use a programming analogy, our government's type system has a soundness problem. That means we, as a civilized society, have to follow a few unwritten rules to make sure the system remains functional and doesn't crash. One of those is for the executive to exercise restraint on the technical power they have in the interest of not encountering UB.
No, the greyed-out parent comment is correct. It's an unintuitive and weird legal truth, but it *is* the truth.
- "While the president has the legal authority to grant a clearance, in most cases, the White House’s personnel security office makes a determination about whether to grant one after the F.B.I. has conducted a background check. If there is a dispute in the personnel security office about how to move forward — a rare occurrence — the White House counsel makes the decision. In highly unusual cases, the president weighs in and grants one himself."
That's not true. Many government positions and rules require different levels/types of clearance. E.g. the DoD and DHS have entirely different clearances managed by different organizations.
The DoD funds so much scientific research. There are entire budgets that are classified to hide how much we spend on - say - split satellites. Having access to the books of all of these orgs likely would require tons of different background checks and clearances from different organizations under normal circumstances
at the same time, far, far too much stuff is classified not to protect national interest, but to protect the spooks and deep military industrial state neocons from scrutiny.
Why shouldn’t all public transactions be public? IRS and personal taxes may be legitimate since it’s, well, personal, but we are all “shareholders” with equal stake in all other payments. This is the perfect use case for public ledger. We should all have access to all of this data. All outflows should note which bill authorized that expenditure, every bureaucrat that’s involved with spending it. If I’m getting $600 in income tracked as a free citizen, I want the even more accountability for anyone spending that amount on behalf of the government.
There’s almost certainly no clearance requirement for what they’ve looked at already. Maybe HIPAA. I’m not sure why one executive branch org has any more or less right to access this data than any other.
They had access to both financial and personal data. This included for example social security numbers and bank accounts. Sure, more financial data being public would be nice, but the current dataset as it is can't be made public safely and definitely needs clearance.
By assigning random people with no experience and criminal work history to an internal system with no data restriction on personal information scope? No, that's not how they work. What are you even asking?
Vetting might be a better word, and a more general term, than clearance.
Nearly all the jobs I’ve had working with data have required vetting - including a criminal background check. This is not the same thing as obtaining a security clearance.
This is philosophizing, and it isn't even on topic.
The laws are broken, so regardless of what you think "should" be legal, it isn't. They are being selectively enforced, though, and that's both the problem and probably the thing more worth your philosophical energy. Is that okay, when a criminal operation is too wealthy and influential to be held accountable?
OP was philosophizing. Why would anyone need any kind of clearance to access non-classified data. If they’ve been given permission by the head of the executive branch, what more authority do they need?
> The laws are broken, so regardless of what you think "should" be legal, it isn't. They are being selectively enforced, though, and that's both the problem and probably the thing more worth your philosophical energy. Is that okay, when a criminal operation is too wealthy and influential to be held accountable?
All the laws have been being selectively enforced for decades. The people who were previously running these departments may have written the right incantations and negotiated a consensus with the departments that are supposed to watch the watchmen, but they had no more accountability to the average citizen/voter than the people who are moving in now.
The voting public no longer cares about "legal" versus "illegal", because they recognise that those categories have no bearing on anything relevant. This has been brewing for years, but the establishment benefited too much from subverting the rule of law to fix it. At this point they've made their bed.
The laws have been selectively enforced and it has led us here, yes, and it does mean that broad support of the bureaucracy has justifiably waned.
Was it okay then, when it was a bureaucratic governing class encamping in the public coffers? Is it okay now, when it's a single vulture capitalist harvesting the public coffers?
What's "okay"? My position is that the current state of affairs is far from ideal, but also not significantly worse than what came before, and so I'm suspicious of the motivations of anyone who's selectively concerned about public accountability now.
To to drain the swamp you probably have to dive into the swamp, or at least get your feet muddy. Every successful reform/anticorruption programme I can think of has involved giving a few trusted people some fairly extraordinary powers - special prosecutors, special judges, special task forces and the like. Sometimes the end result is no better, or is even worse, sure. But I'll take trying something that might work over letting the prior status quo continue indefinitely. And I don't think the system would ever have been capable of reforming itself while staying within its bounds.
While I am in favour of radically open records for government and private sector alike, consider what hostile governments' intelligence agencies can do with a detailed budget when deciding where to draw the line.
Everything about this should worry patriotic Americans*, because this does look like a fantastic opportunity for everyone else on the planet to spy on your government at the top level.
* also anyone in a country that has a military or economic relationship with the USA: we're still impacted even though we don't have a say in it
Go ahead, put some legislation in place. I'd love to see transparency as the Swedes have where you can see how much tax your neighbour has paid. Or at least how much subsidies which company received. I'm sure rich people will LOVE to know the competition got half what they got... Btw, did Trump's tax returns get published yet?
We really don’t know what data is being accessed. We have a lot of people saying lots of things about the access. Such as he will block payments or tarter people based on how they vote. You have not claimed those so I won’t rebuttal then here. But “all this data” I will.
The systems bending accessed are the ones which handle money approved by congress to be spent in a specific way.
As a tax payer I am appalled that this data is not already public and broadcasted live. Even more so that the specific legislation that granted the money was already public.
Now let’s say there are social security numbers and maybe even social security numbers tied to addresses or even names. This is still not a reason to not allow an audit.
You might say. Okay let’s audit. But people need to be verified. And at this point your argument is watered down to “I don’t like who is doing this”, which is the same bullshit politics we deal with in any tech company and the same bs that only delays results.
If people were actually worried they would not be trying to stop musk. What they would actually be doing is asking for somebody who they politically align with to also have access to the data and perform their own audit, on top of making much if not all of the data public so those with real trust issues can draw their own conclusions.
> As a tax payer I am appalled that this data is not already public and broadcasted live.
As a taxpayer, I'm offended that more of my money isn't spent protecting it. Clearly it wasn't enough to stop a rudimentary attack. I can give you three good reasons this is offensive to American liberty in an apolitical context:
1. The personal information of federal employees should remain private in respects to the Civil Rights act and the impartiality of hiring all candidates. This is what protects both Democrats and Republicans from having punitive action held against them by political opposition.
2. America's actual itemized expenditure is a matter of national security. Publishing a precise budget lets an adversary (of which America has many) estimate our weaknesses and, if specific enough, predict our intent before we strike. The current system of budgeting rather than begging is safe and can still be audited by both parties.
3. Elon Musk has stated business interests in opposing Apple and Google, both of which have secret testimonies he could access for illegal leverage against them in negotiations. Allowing him unfettered access to government records and defunding regulators is an expressly unfair business advantage that should not be tolerated in any free market.
I don't believe people who say they demand transparency from the government. If they're not genuinely outraged at Musk's lack of accountability then I don't believe they're genuinely outraged at the Pentagon or Treasury either.
Musk is working for the government and sets an example with his own behavior. If he can't commit to his own standard of transparency then I (and no rational person) would trust him to hold the rest of the government accountable either.
> If they're not genuinely outraged at Musk's lack of accountability then I don't believe they're genuinely outraged at the Pentagon or Treasury either.
I'm skeptical of people who do this, too. I also bet that a lot of people want transparency until they find a flaw that serves them and further transparency would attract attention.
However, this skepticism is mis-placed and off-topic. Re-read the posted comment above. The comment wants more transparency and isn't debating weaponizing the data, which they acknowledge and park as a separate issue.
> We really don’t know what data is being accessed.
> As a tax payer I am appalled that this data is not already public and broadcasted live.
How are you mad it's not public if you don't know what it is? Sure there is data in computers of the Treasury department that should not be public - individuals' social security numbers, personal financial information, etc.
Stop being so pedantic, we have an idea what it is. When I say “we don’t know what it is” is a nice way of saying the things you say it is you have no proof of it being.
How about you give me an argument of why we should not have this sort of audit?
I am also willing to bet there is no situation where it could be done “right” and have the stated outcome Trump and Musk have outlined be okay. Which makes most of your arguments bad faith ones. Given the things already exposed should have all Americans upset.
We should know where our tax money is going. As far as I can tell, the alleged fraud that Musk has been tweeting about was already public info. The viral tweets about Politico, etc, were showing screenshots of public dashboards.
The one place that has famously failed audits year after year is the defense department. We shall see if Musk brings his chopping-block to DoD.
Anyone operating in good faith knows to curb spending, everything Musk has been saying won't make a dent until you get to DoD, Social Security, or health care. And of course, any savings are going to be totally swamped by big tax cuts for the billionaire class.
> Anyone operating in good faith knows to curb spending, everything Musk has been saying won't make a dent until you get to DoD, Social Security, or health care
This isn't accurate. Anyone who's managed a large and complex budget knows death by a thousand cuts is a very real thing. Yes, there may be bigger opportunities in the larger pots of money, but to suggest saving a billion here or few million there isn't worth the time is simply wrong.
Simply having the finances be looked at will have an impact on behavior. I see it in my own personal spending. If I'm not watching it, I spend way more. Now what happens if its not even my bank account the spending takes money out of and no one is paying attention? And then it goes on like this for decades?
> And of course, any savings are going to be totally swamped by big tax cuts for the billionaire class.
Aside from 2020, collected tax revenues did not drop under Trump in his first term, even after 2017 tax cuts. The one exception was for 2020 when the economy ground to a halt due to covid and gdp shrunk by a few %.
The point is, the problem is not that the government needs more money. The government needs pressure to be more effecient with the money it has. Thats the root of the issue that needs solved. Until that is solved, increasing tax revenue (which may not even be needed) won't make any difference whatsoever.
> We really don’t know what data is being accessed. We have a lot of people saying lots of things about the access. Such as he will block payments or tarter people based on how they vote. You have not claimed those so I won’t rebuttal then here. But “all this data” I will.
We do know that they got admin rights to several IT systems. Are you saying that giving admin rights to government IT systems to people with dubious backgrounds is fine, because the guys at the top have been voted in?
> As a tax payer I am appalled that this data is not already public and broadcasted live. Even more so that the specific legislation that granted the money was already public.
As appalled as by the fact that the people who are supposedly doing the auditing are completely intransparent, trying to obscure who is doing the auditing and threatening people who are trying to name people involved? Or is that ok for you?
> We really don’t know what data is being accessed.
And you don’t think that’s a problem?
You think that requiring people to have proper vetting to access information that might include personally identifiable information is “political bullshit”?
No. No I don’t. Before all this nobody knew anything. Then Trump and Elon came along and now everybody on the internet is an expert, and has all sorts opinions based off fear.
We have a system. If it is not legal it will be flushed out. The only people who seem to have an issue seem to be ones who simply don’t like the who.
The only enforcement arm is in the executive branch, and we've already got the VP and Republican senators complaining that judges are ruling against Elon's team and suggesting that he just do what he wants to do anyway. Pam Bondi won't stand in his way and neither will whoever eventually becomes head of the FBI.
I think you mean "if we don't like it, it will be lied about and demonized".
DJT & Friends don't exactly have a stunning track record of being truthful.
In fact, I don't think the man ever tells the truth. And I wish that were hyperbole. He literally just makes shit up as he goes along, and his legions of brainwashed followers just repeat what he says and twist facts to try to fit the narrative after the fact.
Biden was a geriatric moron, and I'm sure he looked the other way while people he knew profited from his actions, but this MAGA shit is a grift on a whole other level. This is like stealing the Holy Grail and getting away with it.
He worked in contact with Musk and his sponsorship to create this tool
Interesting cybercrime research credentials
Yes there's not evidence available that this research was used for crime, just that the project is capable of what's described and that it was done under Musk's sponsorship and that he was hired after building this in contact with Musk
This does not strike me as nefarious in any way and there is a really valid reason for generating the ballot images -- testing, which is exactly how it is used in the project.
Yeah— when I needed to test an integration with a cash recycler of the kind found in atms I asked if there were any fake or test bills I could use. It’s a reasonable thing to do in embedded systems, and frankly you’d be surprised at what tools are out there and how hard they would be to actually use the way you say. Physical controls are paramount in this case.
Another legitimate use would be research to demonstrate vulnerabilities in support of a return to paper ballots. Ed Felten and many others have been arguing this for years.
Yup, there are election conspiracy theorists on the left too. I ran into a few on Bluesky, and after a conversation, they were realizing the evidence they wanted to believe in was quite thin and that they should hold off on such strong beliefs
This is just someone who took Coristine's previous handle [0]. That post was made 1 day after the WIRED article revealing his handle. Lots of conspiracies around election stealing going round (and sadly, quite prevalent in some corners of Bluesky), don't fall for it!
The Olympics comment seemed more damning. He literally said twice they rigged the election.
> They all came in on the Olympics. And then I saw [Gulati] and we got the World Cup too. And you know, it's only because they rigged the election that I'll be your president representing you there. You know, I got both of them. I got the Olympics and I got the World Cup. And I said, you know, it's too bad. One was in 2026 or the other was in 2028. I said, I won't be there. I won't be your president.(...) But then they rigged the election and now we won. So I'm going to be your president for the Olympics and for the World Cup.(...) So [Gulati], thank you for the World Cup and everybody. Thank you for the Olympics.
This is a really bad faith interpretation of what he's saying. I think a more reasonable interpretation is that he's claiming the 2020 election was rigged (a claim he's made many times already), which in turn means he was able to run again for 2024.
It's pretty clear, and has been for years, that Trump is mentally impaired. He rambles, is incoherent, loses his thought all the time, and generally his sentences don't make much sense. It's more or less normal for someone of his age and lifestyle.
Example of a thing he said back in 2016:
> "Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you're a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it's true! — but when you're a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that's why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we're a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it's not as important as these lives are — nuclear is so powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? — but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it's four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven't figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it's gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us, this is horrible."
There's just no semblance of coherence there. And he does that all the freaking time. It's obvious he has dementia or something of the like, and belongs in a specialised care facility. Yet people hear/watch/read this, and think to themselves this is the kind of person they want with absolute and total power over everything in the US (remember, his loyal supreme court said he has total immunity, and all checks and balances have been thrown out the window by the people supposed to be doing them refusing to do their duty), from budgets to nuclear weapons. I genuinely would not be surprised if the world ends up in a nuclear war because of him getting angry at something he misunderstood while on the can.
It's honestly kind of a tragicomedy to watch from afar. If this were a book or a movie, nobody would buy it, yet here we are. Reality really is stranger than fiction.
That kind of word salad is emblematic of the extremely stupid but confident grifter.
If you have ever interacted with delusional idiots who insist they know more than anyone else about anything even though you know they were failing biology and snorting mints in the back of class, you have experienced this talking style.
For some reason, the especially gullible fall for it in droves. This talking style is essential to MLM profitability.
>"I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price," Schumer, who was then minority leader, said at the time. "You won't know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions."
This was during the overturning of Roe v Wade.
I can pull out statements from Greene suggesting execution as a quicker way to remove Nancy Pelosi.
But Greene perhaps is just too easy. Trump has had some choice words too, eg after the inaugural prayer service, he called the reverend a "Radical Left hard line Trump hater"
And lest people forget, the right - globally - plays offense. We would all love a truce for sure, I'd love to see it happen.
Edit: I’ve seen this happen in a few threads. Examples of uncivil things being said by democrats.
Except the examples are shorn of context, and typically it’s under a situation of immense duress. The Dem base today would want their representatives to say more forceful things - if only to reach PR parity.
Elon is hoping to impeach a judge, who is enforcing the law, and what remains of the balance of powers.
Saying this politely doesn’t pardon the act, nor does it delegitimize genuine outrage from an outrageous event.
Losing reproductive rights, creating a global security crisis, are disastrous things.
All three citizenships? He's triple nationality, US, Canadian, South African.
I thought that wasn't allowed under US law? That you allow dual, but if you're already dual and want to become a US cotizen, you have to give up one of the other two?
Thinking about it, I won't be surprised if Canada takes his Canadian-ness away. Too close to Trump, who is repositioning the US to be a direct military threat.
Then he should spend the rest of his life in prison. And it has always been legal to revoke citizenship for naturalized citizens who also have citizenship in another country.
They are ignoring the basic precepts of the constitution, have rendered Congress' authority to set budgets as moot, are threatening the judiciary and the press. I can't believe how sanguine this thread is. This is an absolute crisis.
We'll never know the true nature of the commenters on HN. However I do wonder how many are useful idiots, propagandists, disinformation spreaders, or trolls.
It is a crisis. Discarding any political leanings, just the economic fallout from this is going to be felt for years. Do none of these supporters have a 401k or savings?
All: if you're going to comment here, please make sure you're up on the guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, and don't post low-information / high-indignation comments that could just as easily appear in any related thread. Such generic comments make discussion less interesting and more activating. That's not what we're trying for here.
Rather, we want curious conversation. I know that's not so easy when a situation is intense, infuriating, frightening, distressing, and so on. But we need to protect this site for its specific mandate—which is fragile at the best of times—so please make the effort.
As some of you know, this article was posted a dozen times and immediately flagkilled by users. I turned the flags off on this one because there's interesting new information in the story. But now it's up to the commenters to prove that was a good decision by co-creating a discussion that is interesting, curious, and has to do with the specifics of the article.
If we end up with yet-another interchangeable flamewar about $BigTopic, that will only confirm that the flaggers were right, so those of you who want fewer of these threads to be flagged have a particular interest in sticking to the intended spirit of the site and proving that a substantively different discusson is possible.
Edit: if you want to reply to this, please uncollapse the child comment below and reply there. Your views are welcome! I just also want to conserve space at the top of the thread.
I spent all day responding to the replies here, and then detaching them in order to save space at the top of the thread. But I just had a better idea.
This is a stub comment so we have a single root to collapse the replies. This way (1) replies can stay close to their parent (the top comment) without flooding the screen with offtopicness; and (2) we can all re-experience the timeless truth of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_theorem_of_softwar....
If you want to reply, reply here. I've moved all the original replies back so everyone's on the same playing field.
> All: please don't post the sort of low-information / high-indignation comment that could just as easily appear in any semi-related thread. Such generic comments make the discussion less interesting and more activating. That's not what we're trying for here.
We'd love to have the sort of useful discussion you're aiming for, but all new discussions that reference Musk are being systematically flagged by apparent supporters of Musk.
One one hand, I'm not flagging anything because I'm happy to let these discussions take place. If nothing else they are entertaining.
On the other hand, I see where the flaggers are coming from. If there isn't any gate keeping, other topics can be drowned out by a single highly contentious topic if enough people believe it is their civil duty to bring up that topic at every conceivable opportunity. This has happened on much of reddit, and on smaller scales in many social spheres across the country. Reddit demonstrates that almost any conversation could be steered into the direction of partisan politics if there are enough participants who think it's important to do that.
No I live in Europe. And if I didn’t I wouldn’t worry about it until there’s armed men in uniforms and red armbands walking the streets. I’ve found the best coping mechanism to the overabundance and inflation of information due to the internet, is to simply live within your horizon. I see no musk/trump, I fear no musk/trump. Have a great day, hope your cortisol levels are good.
"Local residents confronted and drove off neo-Nazi demonstrators waving large swastika-emblazoned flags along a highway overpass on Friday between Lincoln Heights and Evendale, Ohio, home to a historically Black community that has endured a long history of racism... As they approached the neo-Nazis, the demonstrators, which Talbert said were carrying guns, called them the N-word."
When they start marching down the streets it will already be far too late. And if you think we're safe just because we live across the pond, well... remember that there is no European army, and that so far our leaders have been extremely passive in the face of obvious political interferences, in e.g. Germany.
This is a common type of argument that my friends and colleagues have offered me. Perhaps it doesn't make sense to help with wildfire relief because my house didn't burn down. Perhaps it doesn't make sense to have concerns about systemd because I use BSD. Perhaps it is a waste of resources to ensure HIV positive people have access to medicine because I don't have HIV.
How much time do you really spend worrying about all of the things you could be worrying about? Maybe you really do worry about SystemD, after all you thought to mention it, but couldn't that time and emotional energy be spent on climate change or malaria instead? Your resources are finite and the list of things you could be worrying about include many which could easily swallow all of your time and energy. You must be prioritizing some while neglecting others, using some manner of selection function biased towards local and personal matters. Which is fine, and completely natural. I cleaned my house yesterday, time I could have spent advocating the cause of mosquito nets.
If you now tell me, a, but I live in <insert more specific European country>, you'll know just as well as I do that the fascists are on the rise in every European country.
Whose side is currently dismantling the government to profit a few billionaires? Whose side is doing nazi salutes at rallies and giving white supremacists illegal positions of power (see the political views of the aforementioned individual named "bigballs" in the article above)? Neither court nor congress will attempt anything on Trump or Musk anymore. They are going after judges and journalists who dare report what they are illegally doing.
It absolutely is and always has been a "just one side" issue. Fascists are consolidating their powers by the day but somehow it's on progressives to be more civilized?
Cool, you cherry-picked some radical and terrible things. I can find some examples of progressives doing radical and terrible things, too.
This whataboutism is unrelated to the point I was making, and entirely representative of the kind of thinking that is facilitating and encouraging the dissolution of political discourse in this country.
When your first response to someone suggesting that you might be part of the problem is to excuse every bad action from your side by pointing to the egregious actions of the other, you tell me that you have no interest in having a good-faith discussion with anyone who disagrees with you, even slightly. We may agree on most topics, even, and yet you come out of the gate swinging because I suggested your side (which is also my own side!) might be part of the problem.
How then can you expect someone like me to believe you actually have my best interests in mind? Responses like this are not convincing that we even are on the same side, even if we agree on most things!
P.S. The problem with whataboutism is that it undermines your point. If you're offended when "the other side" does a thing, you should be even more offended when your own side does it, because it represents a betrayal of your values. The fact that you're using the other side's bad behavior to entirely discount criticisms about your side's behavior just tells me you don't actually think it's bad behavior when your side does it. At the end of the day, the message I get from that is "rules for thee, but not for me".
Trust me, "they go low, we go high" never worked and never will. Anything the right can criticize an opponent on, they will blast on Fox news and X 24/7, with nonstop propaganda and added lies, but Elon does a nazi salute on live TV twice and it's barely acknowledged.
I'll be succinct: no amount of courtesy and patience will deradicalize a fascist. The only thing that can get us out of this mess is a constant reminder to the people that aren't radicalized yet, that what Musk and his goons are doing is not OK and actually very dangerous to everything and everyone they hold dear. Use your voice while you still can.
(Also, I doubt you could find anything the left ever did to this country that would remotely compare in severity to what republicans are currently doing. And even if you could, they are not the source of the current threats our democracy, rights and freedom faces.)
Ah, so "hate has no place here" never was a serious statement?
Amazing how much the progressive movement has changed over the past few years, and in no way for the better.
Please understand: people very rarely change their beliefs without both push and pull mechanisms being in effect. The Democratic party lost this election soundly, which is strong evidence that a) they lack a meaningful message to attract people not yet on their side, or b) they are projecting a powerful message that's pushing existing allies out; or some combination of the two where the "push" outweighs the "pull". Doubling down on the "push" when it's being called out as such hardly seems like a recipe for success?
One place where I've experienced this personally is the increasingly extreme rhetoric coming from self-professed progressives; to the point where they are now blatantly contradicting the words of yesterday with the actions of today.
While I agree that what's happening with DOGE has the potential to be dangerous, it's also 100% in line with the professed goals of the effort: a full audit of government spending, efficiency, and waste.
So while the rhetoric you're peddling is indeed worrisome and plausible, it's also the same overblown conspiracy-minded rhetoric that has been evolving over the same time period I mentioned. Most of that rhetoric has turned out to be entirely unfounded, so I have trouble believing that this time will be different.
This is an entirely self-inflicted wound on the part of people who share your opinions and methods. You keep making wild predictions, and they keep not coming true. I would believe that some of them have "come true" for some definition of "true", and probably enough for you to maintain your belief in the righteousness of your cause; but as an apparent "outsider", I'm less convinced.
[E] I do have to point this out, though:
> Anything the right can criticize an opponent on, they will blast on Fox news and X 24/7, with nonstop propaganda and added lies, but Elon does a nazi salute on live TV twice and it's barely acknowledged.
The irony of making this statement given the amount of ink spilled over the last couple weeks (more like years!) criticizing anything remotely related to "Elon Musk". The lack of self-awareness is saddening.
I do not hate anyone, besides the fascists currently running the show.
I know you couldn't convince a red cap wearing MAGA fanatic to vote blue, just like you couldn't convince me to vote red. But most people aren't politicized, and those are the ones that need reminders of what is going on up there.
We do agree on the fact the democrats lost soundly, after leading a pathetic campaign against a lunatic who by any metric should have been defeated without a sweat. But I think that's where we disagree most: Trump won through populism, and wether you like it or not (I don't), we now live in populist times.
The democrats were playing as if Project 2025 didn't exist, as if the republicans were still playing by the rules. If Biden said one tenth of the sh*t Trump said during his campaign, it'd have become a central talking point of Trump's.
And now millions will get deported, all US aid in the world suddenly ended, causing millions more to suffer. Minorities are losing rights by the day, etc.
Also, why are you labelling me as a conspiracist? Did I ever lie? What DOGE is doing is illegal. They are employing neonazis. They are going after judges and journalists. Congress is doing nothing to oppose this. Notice how I didn't make a single prediction. Shouldn't this alone be enough to be concerned?
You put too much faith in the strength of our democracy and institutions.
> I do not hate anyone, besides the fascists currently running the show.
So you hate a lot of people, then. Democrats made "hate has no place here" a key slogan back around the time of George Floyd, and some people at the time felt like it was just posturing and pandering to the zeitgeist. This level of hatred that's now being openly leveled against anyone you feel like labeling a "fascist" does nothing but prove those people right.
You do see how this is ultimately self-defeating, right? It utterly destroys your faction's credibility, especially because your faction is no longer even maintaining the pretense that they're opposed to hate "in all forms", despite that being a key piece of messaging only a few years ago. This destroys trust, and trust is your most valuable asset.
> We do agree on the fact the democrats lost soundly, after leading a pathetic campaign against a lunatic who by any metric should have been defeated without a sweat. But I think that's where we disagree most: Trump won through populism, and wether you like it or not (I don't), we now live in populist times.
I think populism is a large part of it, but is not the only reason he won. The Uncommitted movement shares some blame there, as does the increasingly hateful progressive rhetoric that is still being given the largest of megaphones. As a prime example of this, I watched the entirety of the most recent (I think?) House Oversight Committee meeting, and was abjectly embarrassed by the level of demagoguery on display by the Democratic members of the committee. The irony was that it was a meeting about "government efficiency"! The constant obstructionism and deflections and blatant sound-byte farming by the Democrats on the panel really highlighted their inability to be "efficient", and really could not have made the Republicans' points more effectively. It's a sad day when I find myself agreeing with the logic and reasoning of some of the most toxic Republican members of Congress, especially when I feel that the delivery of their points was highly objectionable. I (un?)fortunately believe that logic and reasoning can stand apart from delivery, so despite how utterly abrasive some of the speakers were, I'm forced to admit they demonstrated sound reasoning. Despite all of that, the whole thing was a complete and total "self-own" by the Democrats, and cannot even charitably be described in any other way. The bar was set pathetically low, and still they could not clear it.
To me, Democrats are demonstrating that, at every level, all they can do is complain about how "bad" the other side is, while constantly ignoring the concerns of the people that voted that side into power. Going back to my "push" and "pull" analogy, while the "pull" of populism certainly helped get Trump elected (the why of which is worth a lot of inspection, but would be an entire tangent of its own), the "push" of the Democrats' increasing detachment from reality is also partially to blame. A whole debate should be had at the relative contributions of each of these things to Trump's victory, but to try to claim as fact that "populism was the largest factor" is both arrogant and ignorant, especially a mere 3 months later. These are the kinds of complicated, nuanced things that are rarely ever conclusively decided, so to try to push a specific conclusion as fact at this point is elitist speculation at best, and outright misinformation at worst.
> The democrats were playing as if Project 2025 didn't exist, as if the republicans were still playing by the rules. If Biden said one tenth of the sh*t Trump said during his campaign, it'd have become a central talking point of Trump's.
I suspect this has more to do with Democrats trying to avoid drawing attention to their lack of a "Project 2025" of their own. Democrats are often the loudest voices for swe...
Well excuse me for failing to show kindness to the most bigoted and hateful beings on the planet. Hating hatred is not the same as blind hate. To be clear, I throw no vitriol to Trump voters, only to elected republicans actively pushing to maim and wound our legal system, minorities, political opponents, etc. Which to be fair, is quite a lot of them.
I have no idea what you're referring to with "hateful progressive rhetoric". I do not hold the democrats in my heart either, but can you seriously claim the democrats are anything remotely comparable to the republicans when it comes to hating stuff?
> To me, Democrats are demonstrating that, at every level, all they can do is complain about how "bad" the other side is
Seemed to work well enough for the republicans.
> I suspect this has more to do with Democrats trying to avoid drawing attention to their lack of a "Project 2025" of their own.
Democrats couldn't have had a "Project 2025" because something as large can't be realized that quickly in a reasonable democracy. And why would they want one of their own? Republicans acted like it didn't exist because they knew it looked very bad, as was confirmed by the polls. Why didn't the dems use that? Confront Trump and Vance on their constant lying.
> I don't think people who are not in the country legally have a right to stay here.
You're a fool if you really believe they will stop at only illegal residents. In fact, go read the news right now. They also deport legal residents now. ICE now acts unconstrained from any oversight, free to deport on racial criterion. They have deportation quotas and sanctions if they don't fulfill them.
> I also highly doubt "all US aid in the world" would end.
It already did.
> Whether or not what DOGE is doing is actually illegal (i.e. represents executive overreach) is for legal system to decide, not you, me, or the legislature (unless you or I happen to actually be part of said system).
It is illegal, go read what lawyers are saying. Trump does not hold absolute power (yet), we don't live in a monarchy (yet). He is supposed to abide by the law but doesn't. Which is why I am concerned. I feel like talking to a wall here.
> No, I've just stopped putting so much faith in the loudest voices in the Democratic party. They've been wrong more often than they've been right, have demonstrated an incredible ability to alienate some of their most powerful allies and largest demographics, and have demonstrated a complete inability to unify anyone, preferring instead to be increasingly divisive as they lose ground.
We do agree on the basic issue, but I think our conclusions are completely opposite. You seem to advocate for the democrat becoming some sort of republicans-lite. This won't help anyone, not even themselves. They can't win by weakly catering to MAGA voters.
My vision is that of a real left-wing party, with a populist messaging on universal healthcare, high taxes on the ultra-wealthy, more redistribution, pro-union policies, etc. All those subjects poll incredibly well with Americans.
There is no future for this country if we continue shifting both parties right-ward.
I feel like we're both losing time. Do you have any closing words on this?
> Well excuse me for failing to show kindness to the most bigoted and hateful beings on the planet.
Except... They're not? I've seen more hatred and bigoted behavior directed at Musk by the Democratic party in general than I've seen directed at any minority group by Republicans of any flavor (to pick two common examples of hate in today's politics). I agree that there's been a lot of hate from the latter, but it does not compare in scale and general "acceptability" to the hateful rhetoric I see thrown about on a daily basis by Democratic leaders in the most mainstream of places.
Maybe you "only hate the most bigoted ones", but I suspect that's just a rationalization on your part? I suspect every person I see this hateful rhetoric from would say the same thing about "only hating those who deserve it": but the scope and scale of actual hateful rhetoric tells me that's just rationalizing and posturing. Many Democrats are quite gleeful when they spew their hatred, and there's are not nearly enough Democrats speaking out about it.
> Seemed to work well enough for the republicans.
And yet they also came up with a very detailed plan of action and are currently executing on it. So they clearly are doing more than "just" complaining how bad things were under Democrats.
The Republicans' victory in this past election should be a searing indictment of Democrats' perceived ability to execute.
> You're a fool if you really believe they will stop at only illegal residents. In fact, go read the news right now. They also deport legal residents now.
This is wild speculation and the exact kind of rhetoric that does you no favors. I've seen a couple accounts that this has happened in isolated incidents, but certainly nothing that rises to the level that you're claiming here.
As much as it sucks, I would expect any deportation program to mistakenly deport a few people it shouldn't, no matter how carefully they identify individuals.
Maybe I'm a "fool" for believing it's a baseline error rate thing, but I would certainly be a fool if I believed every person who was as convinced of malfeasance as you seem to be! Every situation over the past few years that could be plausibly extrapolated to "ending democracy" has been by Democrats, regardless of how feasible that outcome actually is... So perhaps I now carry more skepticism of those kinds of hyperbolic claims than I should.
> It already did.
It didn't, though. Some aid programs were immediately exempted from the EO, and more exemptions have been added over time.
So, no. You're factually incorrect
> It is illegal, go read what lawyers are saying. Trump does not hold absolute power (yet), we don't live in a monarchy (yet). He is supposed to abide by the law but doesn't. Which is why I am concerned. I feel like talking to a wall here.
I've seen a lot of ink spilled by lawyers about what's "illegal" over my lifetime, and more often than not the courts do not agree with them. You can find a lawyer willing to make a case that anything is illegal, and everyone has one they're ready to trot out to question the legality of their opponents' actions.
As such, I've put a lot less weight on the authority of those statements.
I agree that some of the things the current administration is doing could be illegal, and I agree with some of the rationale behind why some lawyers are saying it is illegal. However, I'm not convinced it is illegal, due to the poor predictive power of such blanket announcements--especially when they're being made in such an information-poor environment.
Being concerned is fine. I'm concerned, too. Categorically declaring the actions are "definitely illegal" based on the words of some lawyers' motivated reasoning? Probably foolish.
> We do agree on the basic issue, but I think our conclusi...
At what point does a story become big enough to disable the flagging mechanic? Maybe this post isn't the one to do it, but there has been an onslaught of stories about the damage Musk and DOGE is doing to the US government including lots of tech specific stories. This is an important ongoing story that is relevant to the community here and every post about it shoots up the front page of HN only to disappear minutes later because of mass flagging.
I suspect the curation mentioned above[0] is crowd-sourced to a relatively small handful of “power” users with an outsized amount of flags in general. Probably not much of a solution to limit that.
0: Slightly confused; I’m referring to dang’s comment, which I thought was the GP comment.
I don't think it's very high, like 1500 upvotes or something, there is a large population of people who can flag.
Another idea is to make flags fractional, so the more upvotes you have the more weight your flags have. So those newly empowered get say 0.1 of a flag while more highly rated users get progressively closer to 1 flag.
> At what point does a story become big enough to disable the flagging mechanic?
I'm not sure "big" is the right word because we're not optimizing HN for topic importance - that would make for a current affairs site, which HN is not [1, 2]. But maybe that's hair-splitting in this case.
The short answer to your question is that when there's a Major Ongoing Topic (MOT), moderators turn off flags on stories that contain Significant New Information (SNI) that is interesting in HN's sense of the word (i.e. gratifying intellectual curiosity) and there is a fair chance of the article supporting a substantively different discussion than the ones which have already recently appeared on the same topic.
If you want more information, I'd start with my other post in this subthread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42993092) and go on to the other links there. That should give a pretty complete explanation. If, after that, there's still a question I haven't answered, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.
I replied to your comment in that other chain, but just want to point something else out here specifically. There seems to be more than just flags that are dragging down this story. The top post on HN at the moment has 117 points and is 3 hours old. This post has 238 points and is 1 hour old and is currently number 8 on the front page. Number 7 is currently a post with 28 points posted 2 hours ago. There is clearly something else at work here besides flags and maybe disabling flags isn't enough to give these type of posts staying power on the front page of HN.
It is a technology related article that is detailed and specific about things which appear to violate practices that have been part of the social contact for some time. Relevant regardless of optics.
I turned off the flags and rolled back the clock on this submission so that it would be on the front page and have a chance at a thorough discussion. I didn't do that so much that it would go straight to #1, though, because that would not be in the interests of the site. These things need to be controlled burns.
Yes, I understand that. But you are missing the point of my comment.
From the FAQ:
>The basic algorithm divides points by a power of the time since a story was submitted. Comments in threads are ranked the same way.
> Other factors affecting rank include user flags, anti-abuse software, software which demotes overheated discussions, account or site weighting, and moderator action.
You are effectively just turning off one aspect of this, the flags, and declaring mission accomplished when obviously there are other things contributing to these stories falling off the front page faster than many people think they should. People care about the outcome, not the specific button you are pushing on the backend to accomplish that outcome.
This story now has more points than anything posted on the site in the last 24 hours and it is currently halfway down the front page. People clearly think this is an important topic worthy of the site and discussion in a way that isn't in line with the HN ranking algorithm. My original point was that if you agree that stories like this have a place on the front page of HN, turning off the flagging isn't always enough to counteract the other factors at play that drop these posts in the HN rankings.
Hmm we seem to be missing each other a bit here. My point is that I'm fine with this article being on the front page of HN today, and I'm not fine with it being at #1 or #2 on the front page. Both of those are moderation calls. Does that help clarify?
I view a "moderation call" as a binary allow or disallow. Once you get to the point of personally deciding that a post is good enough for the front page but not good enough for #1 or #2, you are making editorial decisions.
I tried to make it clear that I am talking about more than this individual post. That is why I used phrases like "these stories" and "stories like this". In an attempt to stop us from "missing each other", I'll be as direct as possible. The visibility of what is likely the most important ongoing story in the US at the moment should be up to more than just whether you personally are "fine with this article being on the front page of HN today".
Ok, that explains the misunderstanding. From my point of view it's not binary, and yes it's an editorial decision. Moderating and editoring (not a word) are more or less the same thing, no?
> The visibility of what is likely the most important ongoing story in the US at the moment should be up to more than just whether you personally are "fine with this article being on the front page of HN today".
I may have misled you with the phrases "I'm fine with" and "I'm not fine with", which were admittedly a little glib. I'm not applying my personal preferences here. (I'm not even sure what those are—the only strong preference I'm aware of is to try to minimize the pain of masses of people being upset.)
Rather, I'm taking in what the community and software inputs are producing, and then modulating that according to HN principles in an effort to optimize the site for its intended purpose. I wish it weren't necessary—it would so much less work, not to mention less painful—but unfortunately the community system (upvotes and flags) doesn't do this on its own, and there's only so much that software can do, so human intervention is still needed to jig the system out of its failure modes.
>Ok, that explains the misunderstanding. From my point of view it's not binary, and yes it's an editorial decision. Moderating and editoring (not a word) are more or less the same thing, no?
IANAL and I don't know if it is something HN has had to deal with directly, so maybe you know a lot more than me, but isn't that what a lot of the Section 230 debate is about? Either way, I think both our positions on this are now clear and reasonable people can disagree on it either way.
>Rather, I'm taking in what the community and software inputs are producing, and then modulating that according to HN principles in an effort to optimize the site for its intended purpose.
I guess to summarize this conversation, I think the success of this post (now number 3 on https://news.ycombinator.com/best with 2 be another DOGE story from a week ago) is maybe an indication that "the community... inputs" are being ignored too much. Much of the community wants to talk about this ongoing story as evidenced by the upvotes and comments. We shouldn't let a small group of flaggers stop that. And perhaps you are making your own work more difficult by only manually greenlighting a very limited number of these stories. Sometimes you need a pressure release valve in the system. I'm not sure this specific post would have been received as enthusiastically if other similar stories were able to get through and you almost certainly wouldn't have to answer so many questions about your own role in moderating this site.
If HN didn't have user flags and moderators, these stories (not just the current topic but the current affairs of any moment) would dominate the site completely and HN would cease to be HN.
> Sometimes you need a pressure release valve in the system.
I agree! Perhaps we're only disagreeing about the diameter of the valve.
> I'm not sure this specific post would have been received as enthusiastically if other similar stories were able to get through
Yes in the sense that, with some exceptions, the selection of particular articles isn't the high-order bit. The high bit is discussion of the MOT that they're in the orbit of.
> you almost certainly wouldn't have to answer so many questions about your own role in moderating this site
That's definitely wrong. However many users are upset about flags on this MOT, thousands more would be clamoring if they felt like HN was being taken over by it (or politics in general). The bulk of the community here is pretty zealous about preserving HN for its intended purpose.
Basically what I do is try to minimize community pushback by opening "valves" enough to satisfy (well, never to satisfy but at least to reduce the pain) one constituency, but not so much that it causes greater pushback from a different consitutency. The hope is to find a saddle point where we can temporarily hang for a while.
It's hard for people with strong passions on any $Topic to relate to this because they are the most vocal and think they are the community. So they are—but others are too. Users have the luxury of seeing themselves and their viewmates (if I can put it that way) as the community, and others as NPCs or Neanderthals. I don't have that luxury because I've learned the hard way what happens when we neglect the bulk of the community in favor of any vocal contingent—a horrible experience I hope to never have again.
I hope that doesn't sound dismissive—I've enjoyed this conversation!
As I said upthread of that comment, I still think this is the wrong way to look at it. A story being on the site is very different from the story being on the front page. Maybe "time on front page" should be something you look into tracking if it isn't something already available to you on the backend. Because I would guess that the most common way to interact with HN is via the front page. I don't come to HN to specifically talk to people here about this story, but I care about it so I will engage when something on the subject happens to be one of the stories I see on HN.
In fact, having these posts primarily only visible through search leads to worse discussions because the comments are full of people who are already motivated enough (in both directions) to actively seek out the conversation with few "HN normies", for lack of a better term, to help moderate the conversation through their comments, votes, and flags. And if there is a desire to avoid caving to "any vocal contingent", there needs to be an acknowledgement of how easy it is for any motivated minority to keep something off the HN front page with diligent flagging of a topic.
>I hope that doesn't sound dismissive—I've enjoyed this conversation!
dang has commented about this before, and IIRC the gist is that he has access to a ton of data about user activity on the site, and that in the vast majority of cases where it feels like a story/comment/opinion is being brigaded or otherwise maliciously targeted en masse, the data hasn't backed that up. The community is a large and varied, so inevitably whatever opinion you or I holds, there are a ton of people who also exist here who disagree.
> We'd love to have the sort of useful discussion you're aiming for,
Alas, that is not true for all values of "we". Let's see how we do in the current thread. (Edit: so far it does seem to be a little better.)
> but all new discussions that reference Musk are being systematically flagged
Yes, and at the same time we've turned off the flags on quite a few of them—enough that this continues to be by far the most-discussed topic on HN right now. I realize that's not enough for those who want more, but this is always the case whenever there is a MOT (Major Ongoing Topic - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...)
> by apparent supporters of Musk
But also by users who just care about protecting HN for its intended purpose, which is vulnerable to getting consumed by political flames. The pattern we've observed over the years is that when a MOT keeps getting flagkilled, the flags are coming from a coalition of these two groups (i.e. users who oppose it politically and users who are trying to protect HN), neither of which would have enough oomph to do this on their own.
> We're being censored.
That word has so many different meanings nowadays that nearly all sentences including it are both true and false. In one sense, sure, any story getting removed from HN's front page could be called censorship—but it's maybe not the most helpful description on a site where frontpage space is the scarcest resource and some kind of curation/selection is essential.
In another sense, the fact that this MOT is the most discussed topic on HN of the past few weeks means that no, it is not being censored—there have been thousands of posts about it.
Using the word 'censored' ultimately just means you'd like to see more of this topic on HN. I certainly respect that, but there are also a lot of other users who would like to see less of it. Our job is to serve the community as a whole, which is not easy when the community is so divided. Ultimately, whatever solution we come up ends up feeling unsatisfactory to nearly everyone. That is probably my least favorite square on the Cycle of Life of HN, but it comes up once or twice in every go-round.
Here are links to some other comments I've posted in the last few days about this specific issue. If you (or anyone) are willing to read them, take in the explanations, and then have a question that I haven't answered, I'd be curious to know what it is* and happy to take a crack at it.
> But also by users who just care about protecting HN for its intended purpose, which is vulnerable to getting consumed by political flames.
I think there has been an element of backlash here. I believe there are people posting Musk articles repeatedly in response to the flagging, feeding the cycle.
I haven't seen that one yet; I was mostly offline yesterday. This happens sometimes.
Btw, stories about "powerful tech people look like idiots" get discussed on HN all the time. The tenor of HN comments about that kind of thing leans strongly towards the cynical, enough that it's actually a problem for the long-term quality of the site. I may be misinterpreting you, but if you feel like HN needs more of that, I have to disagree.
Edit: $Firm hires $PolarizingPerson is probably not a good topic for HN but I'm happy to take a look at specific articles.
>this continues to be by far the most-discussed topic on HN right now
I wonder if you are maybe too close to the problem to see it from a normal HN user's perspective. From my perspective, I don't get this impression because I don't see the full breath of conversations that happen on HN like you do. People clearly want to talk about this here and I have rarely seen these stories actually on the front page of HN because they are so quick to drop off the front page due to flagging, downvoting, the flame war detector, or whatever other behind the scenes mechanics exist that you are obviously more knowledgeable about than me. People continuing to have conversations on posts that no one sees unless they specifically search them out is the equivalent of shadowbanning those conversations. Yes, they are still happening, but the normal HN user isn't actually seeing them and that is why you are fielding so many complaints from normal users who want to see these posts.
I think you're right, but it's not clear to me what we could do differently about that. Ultimately it derives from the fundamentals of the site. Most people don't see most of what gets posted here. I don't either.
I think the situation has demonstrated a weakness. Elon Musk, unarguably the single most Hacker News person on the planet due to his control of Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter and others, and now tied up in US politics with DOGE, has completely disappeared from the front page of hacker news, except for the articles you personally have deflagged. And you can't do that 24x7, such as the weekend Treasury Payments got shutdown and apparently nothing newsworthy was done by DOGE or Musk. I was watching articles mentioning either DOGE or Musk in the headline begin flagged in minutes. The same article might stay up for several hours if the headline had been edited to remove the offending words (but that might just be a side effect of getting less traction). And you get stuck with making the call which articles to unflag, based on limited information as they don't hang around long enough to meaningfully get upvotes or beyond the first 15 minutes of irrational blathering in the comments.
I'm sorry but I don't follow what discussions you're saying haven't happened. But in case you (or anyone) are feeling like the current MOT (Major Ongoing Topic) hasn't received much attention on HN, here's a partial list of recent threads:
First off, thanks for providing all of the moderation energy and you clearly maintain a level of civility on hacker news across a wide range of controversial topics.
However, I think placing this long list of stories all under the same MOT demonstrates that conversation is "happening", but at the same time it isn't really happening.
As an example, the parent story of this comment is no longer on the front page and instead of anything related to Musk at the fed there is now another distraction about him trying to buy OpenAI.
I haven't read all of the above articles, but from just a cursory glance it looks like many different important events are happening. If they happened one at a time over the course of a year no one would consider it MOT, but because its all happening in the same week it gets mashed together. Individual stories quickly fall off the front page.
From my perspective, all that is true, but it's not HN's job to be the zone that is flooded by it. HN's job is to be a place for intellectually curious stories and conversations. We have to hold fast to that mandate because if we don't, the site will quickly cease to exist for its intended purpose.
What this means in practice is that there's some space for discussing these topics, but only some, and not nearly enough to fully cover everything that's going on right now.
I understand that a lot of users want this to be otherwise. Quite rightly, they feel like current events are important and deserve a great deal more airtime. But our first responsibility is to preserve HN for its intended purpose, and HN is not an instrument that can accommodate much more of this. The threads that I listed above are, from HN's point of view, already a lot.
It's a pity, because to the extent that discussion here is marginally* more substantive than what's available elsewhere, it's natural to wish that it could be applied to much more important issues. Why care about the origins of Proto-Indo-European when the government is being burned down? and so on. We should turn our attention to the things that matter! But this argument just doesn't work in practice. The only thing that would happen if we "flooded the zone" on HN too is that the place would burn out.
* emphasis on "marginally". I'm not claiming it's particularly good—there is a great deal not to like.
From my perspective it seems like HN abandoned the mandate of intellectually curious stories and conversations and is instead a place where only non-controversial stories and conversations are encouraged. If people can only talk about things where no one can vociferously disagree then we aren't really being inquisitive and curious, merely eccentric.
Your comment of "discussion here is marginally* more substantive" footnoted that it's not particularly good also seems a bit condescending. Its dismissive to those attempting to engage with these stories in good faith even if a vocal minority are behaving in bad faith. When a dozen stories are popping up and disappearing in a few hours it feels a lot harder to participate in a thoughtful and substantial ways.
I can understand HN is in a rough spot. But on the other hand, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.
> a place where only non-controversial stories and conversations are encouraged
I've made a list of 23 threads (see the reply below), all from the last month. There are over 13k comments in those threads alone, and it's not a complete list.
At first that seems counterintuitive (like Jevons' paradox, or Yogi Berra's "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded"). But it's not so paradoxical. These aren't factual propositions, they're expressions of a feeling—what people are really saying is not that there is no coverage of these topics, but that they would like more coverage. They often use words like "no", "zero", "never", and "nothing" to express how they feel, but what they mean by these words is "not enough". Which is fair enough. The community always splits between users who want more and users who feel like it's too much.
Also, it's easy to miss any particular thread or sequence of threads. Even among regular HN readers, there will be many who haven't seen even one of the 23 threads listed below, or who only saw 1 or 2, and therefore might naturally feel like none of this is being discussed. Among those, there will be some who feel strongly about it, and some of these will naturally express their feeling in the way I described above. Nonetheless, in reality there is a large amount of this discussion happening—it is by far the most-discussed topic of recent weeks, and will likely continue to be.
> also seems a bit condescending
Sorry for giving that impression! I often add a disclaimer like that because I don't want to sound like I'm making excessive claims about HN's discussion quality. The most I can say is that median discussion quality here is modestly better than elsewhere on the internet, but at its worst it's still pretty bad. I don't mean to put down HN commenters who are using the site thoughtfully. You have to remember that as moderators we see a lot of stuff like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43018472, to pick the most recent example. In fact we must see more of that than any other reader, simply because it's our job to.
> They often use words like "no", "zero", "never", and "nothing" to express how they feel, but what they mean by these words is "not enough".
Hyperbole is worse than that, IMHO. It inflames and serves almost no other purpose.
Imagine someone writes, "politician X is the most corrupt ever". What does that tell us? One bit of information (yes/no on this politician), and that the author has strong emotions about it (maybe 2-4 more bits - are they 4 of 4 angry? 16 of 16?); or very possibly they want to perform strong emotion because that energizes the interaction, draws attention, 'wins' the day, or is an aggressive negotiating position (reducing it to ~1-2 bits); and/or they could do those things reflexively and without a conscious plan, participating in a fun social dynamic that is muscle memory from years on the the Internet (reducing it to ~0-2 bits). Maybe it's just easier.
Whatever it is, what we don't learn - what the hyperbole wipes out - is knowledge and learning. We learn - acquire novel knowledge - little regarding X; what X does black, white, and mostly grey (what shades?); what is corrupt and not corrupt about X; what corruption is, the grey areas, and how that applies here, and of course much more. There are gigabits or maybe terabits to say here, dissertations and books, more than could be said in a lifetime. Another thing we could learn is the author as a person and their feelings, including their anger - how, why, when, what kind, etc. - giga-terabits more. On these vast landscapes of knowledge and emotion, we need each other's perspectives and insights to navigate and see what's valuable.
But all real information and nuance and complexity is washed away by the ultimate, by hyperbole. It's so ___, there is nothing to think about. Just a few bits is all you need.
The volume of threads alone does not tell the full story because the visibility of controversial content is just as important as its existence. Even if thousands of comments exist on topics, the way the platform functions means these stories quickly fall off the front page and limits their influence. HN guidelines also discourage political or activating content, making it less likely that stories about these urgent issues, such as Trump stealing $80 million in FEMA aid from New York, will even be posted.
The destruction of the federal government is a more critical issue than the origins of Proto-Indo-European people because it directly affects millions of lives in tangible ways. Yes historical curiosities are valuable, but they do not carry the same immediate, material consequences as a government being hollowed out from within.
That's a fair point and it's true that some of the threads I listed fell off the front page quickly, but others were on the front page for 7 hours, 9 hours, 22 hours, 26 hours, and so on.
> a more critical issue than the origins of Proto-Indo-European because it directly affects millions of lives
For sure. I've made the same point many times over the years. I dug up a sample:
The question isn't whether current events are more important than, say, "making my own basketball hoops" or "3rd century irrigation systems" or "Do spiders dream?" or any of the other obscure things that have spent time on HN's front page. Current events are far more important than these, and indeed almost anything on HN's front page.
But if you're arguing that HN should prioritize stories by importance, then you're arguing that HN should become a current affairs site. That's not the mandate of the site.
If you're not arguing that, then I think we agree in principle, and disagree only about the degree to which the valve for such stories should be open. I get that you think it should be opened further, and many users agree with you; but then, many users feel that it should be tightened further. We have to think about satisfying the whole community (as best we can), not just one constituency; and we have to think about preserving the site for its intended mandate, which could all too easily be washed away by a tsunami of legitimately more important stories.
I'd arguing that HN should take a stand against the unprecedented shift towards authoritarianism. At best be are in a new era of McCarthyism. At worst the entire federal government is going to crumble and be dissolved.
This is not hyperbole!
Trump and Elon have started the first round of firing federal workers. A friend's organization just laid off 1500 people because 80% of their funding comes from the federal government.
Yes, HN is a special place. But your silence allows countless other special places to be destroyed. By the end of Trump's term HN might not even survive anyway.
I hear you and I hear the other users expressing similar feelings, but what you guys need to understand is that the community is split on this, and the larger part does not want the frontpage to be taken over by this (or by anything else, presumably).
The more repetitive these threads get, the lower-quality they become. The most recent ones have been truly terrible, by the standards of https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. That's another key indicator of which way to adjust the valve. The more people are unable to discuss this topic thoughtfully, the further it drifts from the intended spirit of the site.
On one hand it comes across like a conspiracy video, but on the other hand she plays direct video clips of major tech figures talking about dismantling the government and dividing the world into small nation states. Trump and Musk have also both stated they want to eliminate large amounts of the federal government.
I would love to get some perspective from those who have personally interacted with those people over the last 10 years.
This video probably falls under what you consider "activating", but it seems like we need to have conversations around this type of issue rather than letting rational voices get drowned out by the sea of angry shouting.
It's thanks to this kind of guidance that HN survives as a focused technical hivemind.
At the same time, issues of this kind of revolutionary scope are important for users to process. We can learn a lot from each other.
Irrespective of politics, it's necessary to hedge systemic risk that's appearing due to destabilization of the US. That affects so many of us that it's hard to ignore.
Keeping some persistent outlet (front page post) for discussion of this major topic is important to give people a politically agnostic and technically proficient space to integrate what's happening.
Thank you for filtering the noise and fear with the posts.
> Keeping some persistent outlet (front page post) for discussion of this major topic is important to give people a politically agnostic and technically proficient space to integrate what's happening.
It doesn't really feel like a politically agnostic space. A large number of users (though probably a small proportion of total HN users) seem to care a lot and of those who care a lot it looks like at least 3/4rs have a "leftist" persuasion.
(Sadly, I'm not longer aware of any intelligent and politically agnostic space where politics can be discussed. All those I knew have gradually become dominated by one political direction or another)
> Using the word 'censored' ultimately just means you'd like to see more of this topic on HN. I certainly respect that, but there are also a lot of other users who would like to see less of it.
Woo love changing the meaning of words to fit what I imagine other people are using it for!!
I would also say, that to me dang and team is doing a good job in general. I disagree with any sentiment that this is being censored, and I applaud the openness for discussing this.
On the whole, I appreciate and respect your approach to moderation. However, it’s hard to ignore the fact that many leaders in the YC sphere — possibly including Garry Tan — seem to be aligned with Thiel and Yarvin on the topic of government and democracy. (The “smart ones” should aggressively take over and restructure our republic in the image of a corporation.) If there is, in fact, an active and ongoing conspiracy against the government headed by SV technocrats, how can we trust moderation on this site to be unbiased? (This is my fear, not an accusation.)
I don't know that you can. Trust is a strong word, and I can't claim to be unbiased. What I can claim is that we (HN mods) work hard to be conscious of our biases and not be swayed by them when making moderation calls. Can that be done perfectly? No. One is still influenced, even if not swayed, and anyway unconscious bias is a thing. But can it be done better with practice? I'm sure it can, at least to a point, and we do at least have years of practice.
Let me see what else I can come up with for you...
Well, here are some things: (1) HN's moderation approach to this kind of stuff hasn't changed in years; (2) the principles of what we do are pretty clearly articulated (though we don't always apply those principles optimally); (3) we try to always answer the questions people have; (4) we're open to admitting and correcting mistakes when we find out about them; and (5) FWIW, I don't know of anyone working on HN (or at YC for that matter) who supports the immoderate agenda you're describing, though I also don't have (or want, or need) core dumps of anyone's politics.
its not censorship. There's several comments on here that have no relevance to the source article and are hand wringing which is unproductive and often is eager to descend into flaming. Lets talk about the article and its content and the potential cybersecurity risks to government data please.
> all new discussions that reference Musk are being systematically flagged by apparent supporters of Musk.
I'm not a Musk supporter at all, but I flag these discussions for several reasons.
1. To keep my sanity. These stories are pretty much everywhere and will be all over for the next 4 years at least. I don't want to engage in them and lose even more time and get even more anxious.
2. The comments aren't useful and don't bring new information. It's pretty clear what Elon and the oligarchs are trying to do. Those who don't see it won't change their mind at that point.
HN is one of the rare forum to avoid flame war, let's keep it that way.
But where this particular article is from Brian Krebs, a niche reporter on hacker news, and bringing SNI, significant new information to the table, why flag this one? The broader strokes of what's going on is obvious, but this particular article is a specific detail of a detail, from a source that is relevant to tits community, and not a generic breathless CNN or Fox News "something happened today"
If your objection is that "I don't want to engage with it" and "I don't find them useful", it seems obvious to me that the solution is to simply not click on the thread and move on, rather than to attempt to stifle everyone else from engaging with it.
I would assume there are counter measures and detection. I strongly remember people discussing up-voting rings/puppet groups that pushed stories on slashdot and reddit, and the counter measures used to prevent that.
I don't recall if dang has ever openly discussed such security measures, through I do recall him saying that people can loose access to flag/voting if they are misused.
My issue with this content on HN isn't that the conversation is sometimes garbage, which it is, but that it's overwhelmingly people repeating the same falsehoods that might, at best, have a kernel of truth, but have been blown out of proportion to the point of just being not-true. There is very little interest in actually taking a step backwards, challenging beliefs and the propaganda fed to us by corporate news channels owned by billionaires, and trying to objectively evaluate information without "so and so is literally worse than hitler" knee-jerk reactions. If people could actually steel-man (I hate that phrase) actions and have nuanced views, that would be interesting, but it's basically only anti-whatever people butting heads with any opinion that challenges their narrative at all.
I agree in principle, but these are the dynamics of every intense polarized issue and I don't think there's much we can do about it other than nibble around the margins. For example, we try to downweight comments that are primarily name-calling or flaming, in the hope of giving more oxygen to posts that are reflective, find something new to say, and so on.
At bottom, it seems like this is just how mass psychology works—it's what you get when the inputs are (1) human nature, and (2) modern media. It stresses me out too, but I have to remind myself not to fight battles we can't win. That's a recipe for burnout and worse.
Also, when the nature of an intense polarized issue about things of great importance overlaps into the things Hacker News is about, that's when to try very hard to study what's happening. What's happening with modern media is Hacker News-adjacent. What's happening in how modern world wars are fought is Hacker News-adjacent.
When the mechanics of how these things are put into play, begin to affect not only Facebook, Twitter etc but also Hacker News itself, that's very much Hacker News-adjacent. It's a meta sense where control of the discourse becomes not only the ground but also the figure.
Hackers are eager to think they, like the internet, will route around any censorship. If their ways and belief systems are studied to the point that flagging and argument becomes able to unilaterally censor discourse against the wishes of the hackers, that's when your action of picking a thread and taking pains to unflag it and attempt discussion anyhow, becomes the right thing to do :)
If it is any consolation, I don't think there's anything more you can do as a moderator to solve the problem, as it will require the underlying human nature to change. In this context, the problem is with what is called 'peasant mentality'[^1], specifically defending a bureaucracy that is being dismantled by DOGE.
On mastodon I noticed an interesting approach: to warn in a visible manner that a topic is "sensitive". Not sure if that triggers less aggressive behavior, maybe its even the opposite? But just as there are instinctive red dots that grab our attention there might be digital blue dots to calm us down.
I get your reluctance to do things you can't take back, but it seems like the emotional response to thinking your comment's being down weighted but not being told that's happening, or not knowing why, might be helped by being told why. eg if I'm calling people names but don't know or don't realize that's not accepted behavior here, someone with a persecution complex is going to think you're personally out for them and not their behavior.
I hear you and I'm sure you have a point. But my experience is that adding information of this kind diminishes some misperceptions but fuels others. I don't know is what the tradeoffs are and I don't want to do things that make either HN, or the job of moderating HN, worse.
it's an example of the type of knee-jerk reactions, not a claim that people are literally saying that in every comment thread, however you're welcome to see for yourself how musk and hitler are discussed in the same comment constantly. it happens basically every day:
There are genuine similarities between the current administrations actions and the actions taken by Hitler in 1933 in Germany that essentially ended their reign of democracy, and of course people are going to write about that and talk about that. Toss in Musk's loud and frequent support for far-right parties (including in Germany), and top it all off with a nazi salute on national television and you're bound to get a few comparisons.
>> it's overwhelmingly people repeating the same falsehoods that might, at best, have a kernel of truth, but have been blown out of proportion to the point of just being not-true.
That describes basically all posts about AI, so let's all join in and start flagging any HN post about AI.
If we end up with yet-another interchangeable flamewar about $BigTopic, that will only confirm that the flaggers were right'
No it won't. That would only be true if the flaggers were disinterested judges who never comment. You're projecting your desire for a good civil discussion onto them without considering the possibility that any of them could be flagging or commenting in bad faith, ie with a view to shaping the outcome of the discussion rather than optimizing the quality thereof.
Edit: oh wait, I think I understand you now. When I said "that will only confirm that the flaggers were right", I did not mean "that will only confirm that the flaggers all had the right motive". (Obviously not all of them do, as I've explained below.) Rather, I meant "that will only confirm that this submission wasn't a good one for HN, and therefore it was good that it got flagged (even though not every flag was rightly motivated)".
-- original comment --
> That would only be true if the flaggers were disinterested judges who never comment.
I don't follow this argument. Can you rephrase it?
Flagging flamewars is an appropriate use of flagging on HN. If this thread turns into the kind of flamewar we normally want to see flagged, that's evidence in favor of the users who made that call in the first place.
> the possibility that any of them could be flagging or commenting in bad faith
Yes. I've made this point many times, including in this thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42993092): there's usually two kinds of flaggers: users who want to suppress a story because they don't like it (e.g. politically), and users who feel like the story isn't in keeping with the site guidelines and are worried about protecting HN. I assume by "bad faith" you mean the first kind.
My daily interface with Hacker News for the last decade has been https://hckrnews.com/, so I've seen every item that's made it to the front page.
The number of dead posts in recent weeks is unprecedented. Some have upwards of 100 votes. I never saw a dead post in 2017 or 2021 that struck me as suspiciously flagged. But multiple times this week I've written a comment on a post only to have the comment blocked on submission because the post was flagged while I was writing. (or in the case of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42994293, flagged, unflagged, and flagged again.)
There is clearly something unusual happening with flags. There is an obvious correlation between the post topic and likelihood of flags, even when the post's comments are reasonable.
I think this motivated flagging is preventing productive discussion on HN, and it's healthier in the long term for Hacker News to allow perhaps excessive discussions on these currently popular topics. Otherwise HN risks developing a reputation that it systematically suppresses discussions critical of the current administration. I think that reputation would linger for far longer than the temporary irritation some might feel about the currently popular topic.
There have been periods like this in the past, such as 8 years ago when you-know-who first took power. I hear you that you don't remember it being this bad then; my memory is otherwise. Either way, the moment will subside. HN has gone through such swings before.
> I think this motivated flagging is preventing productive discussion on HN
I know some people would prefer more, but that is always the case about any topic. Moreover, everyone has at least one topic they feel that way about. These are perennial conditions that come from the fundamentals of the site, not recent trends.
> it's healthier in the long term for Hacker News to allow perhaps excessive discussions on these currently popular topics
I have to disagree—I think the health of Hacker News depends on not doing this. Times like this are moments to reinforce HN's differentiation from other forums by insisting on its particular focus (i.e. that it's a forum for intellectual curiosity, not a current affairs site).If we lose users who get frustrated because they can't use HN primarily for political battle, that makes me sad, but the solution is not to use HN primarily for political battle.
> Otherwise HN risks developing a reputation that it systematically suppresses discussions critical of the current administration.
It's not true that HN does this, so anyone who believes it is jumping to a false conclusion. It bothers me a lot when people do that, but you wouldn't believe how often it happens, and how many kinds of false generalization people come up with—I could give you hundreds of examples. I've learned that it's a bad idea to worry too much about the false conclusions about HN that people jump to for reasons of their own. Not that I've stopped worrying too much about it—I still do, I've just learned that it's a bad idea.
After pondering this for a day I've come around, and agree with you now.
My subconscious worry (now conscious) was that the "political flaggers" would discover the effectiveness of flagging, and expand its use to here-on-out sink any politically unfavorable news topic.
But I then realized that you (HN mod(s)) have been IMO faultless for a decade at unflagging or boosting posts on contentious topics that add at least a smidgen of new information. Sometimes it takes a couple hours for moderation to kick in but that's reasonable.
So I'll continue to trust in HN's moderation, and cease worrying that my favorite discussion forum is in jeopardy!
No, they are simply saying that someone who wanted these stories removed could both flag the story and engage in a flamewar. Then they wouldn't have predicted the situation, but created it.
Say some don't like stories about crypto currency, but tolerates them. So, stories about crypto currency appear and attract those interested in crypto currency. Say there are also stories about public projects, but those interested in crypto currency don't tolerate stories about public projects, so there are flamewars for those stories.
Your conclusion would then be that Hacker News is a good place for stories about crypto currency, but not for stories about public projects. Because stories about public projects creates flamewars and should therefor be removed.
When in reality those interested in public projects would be the ones wanting interesting discussions, while those interested in crypto currency would be acting against the spirit of the site.
As stories about public projects are removed eventually those interested in them would leave and stories about how public projects can't work would meet little resistance. Therefor not creating any flamewars and be good for HN. Yet, it would at best be the opposite of curiosity.
If you see threads that you think are examples of the dynamic you're describing, I'd appreciate specific links. Since I don't have specifics, I can only say that this doesn't match what we see in practice, or at least what I believe we see in practice.
For example, the comments that drive flamewars are mostly not produced by the accounts that have flagged the thread.
I don't know what specifics you are looking for as you made the statement in the first place and haven't explained what you base it on other than that what has already been addressed. None of my arguments needs specifics. So I also don't know why you need them, or why you can't address anything else without them.
Therefor I haven't really gotten anything out of this which both doesn't make me interested in (nor do I think I can be expected to be) these conditions for a further discussion. I'm happy to reconsider at any point (but can't guarantee a response) if you have any specific questions about my comment.
If you want to prove your theory that flamewars makes those flagging right and not what I said, it is up to you. Which is even more reasonable considering you have the responsibility to run this site, the tools required for it and are getting paid to do it.
While curious discussion is certainly a worthy aspiration for HN, it's inevitable that some some objects of curiosity will also be polarizing. The problem with the flagging mechanism and its lack of transparency is that a small group of people can stymie curious inquiry.
While I understand that you don't want to share flagging or voting preferences (though I don't consider this intimate data myself), it's hard for people have confidence in the flagging/vouching mechanism because there is no indicator of volume or frequency. One might argue that if there was it would be gamed, but the site is obviously being gamed as is. One indicator is the elevated volume of baity comments from throwaway accounts on some discussions.
I don't see how this kind of story is on-topic for HN. Yes, we all appreciate that HN is more than just a website for discussing garbage collection algorithms, graph algorithms, javascript frameworks, etc (i.e. computer science and programming) but isn't it meant to be about things that hackers would find interesting by virtue of being hackers?
My understanding of that broader topicality was that it was intended to capture things like science news ("Feynman's lectures have been published online for free" or "The Higgs Boson has been confirmed"), interesting posts and articles of other kinds (e.g. that series of posts of horror stories about dangerous chemical compounds - "why I will never work with supernitroglycerin" etc) and occasionally general news stories of such significance that ANYONE would want to discuss them (eg. Russian troops have invaded Ukraine).
That isn't what I am seeing here. There is now almost always general American political "news" on the front page. It isn't particularly newsworthy. It feels like the only reason it is here is that people here don't have anywhere else to discuss it because HN is one of the few decent forums left on the Web. But that doesn't make it on-topic, surely?
I often see you remove flags from posts. What's the point of having the flagging mechanism if you just remove them when people complain? You say there's interesting new information, but is everything that is interesting on-topic? Or is the test narrower: it should be interesting to hackers by virtue of their being hackers. I am sure this is interesting to many hackers that are also US political junkies (which I mean in a neutral way) but not because they are hackers.
I don’t know how many flags it takes to flag kill a whole article, but the threshold for comments is two or three flags. It doesn’t take a lot of people to kill an entire topic of discussion by flagging related articles, especially for users who only peruse the front page. Brigading on this site is almost trivial.
Dang’s anti-flagging mechanism is the human factor that balances that very blunt automated system. People don’t seem to vouch for articles as much as for comments.
That's all well and good for the submissions themselves, but you can't have the kind of balanced discussions dang is calling for when comments in conflict with the HN moral "majority" are flagged and downvoted. There should be an anti-downvoting/flagging facility employed to protect sincere commenters expressing heretical opinions.
Once the comment disappears it is too late, no? How can an invisible comment be seen in order to be vouched or upvoted? I typically overlook grayed out or invisible comments unless I intentionally go looking for them.
It is not too late, but you have to enable showdead to see flagged/dead/banned posts (note: banned posts also get the [dead] tag). Unfortunately that comes with seeing some actually despicable posts.
I'm not sure I'd recommend showdead, but there are sometimes reasoned or informative posts that get flagged due to hyperbolic statements. Probably worth trying it out just to be aware of how the sausage is made.
I would personally appreciate a setting alongside showdead that disables the greying out of posts. It makes it very hard to read them. I am more than capable of ignoring things that I don't want to read.
> There should be an anti-downvoting/flagging facility
Like upvoting and vouching?
To be honest, I don’t think that comments are the problem. The community mostly does a good job of policing itself, especially once a thread gets enough visibility*. The problem is all the threads that get killed before they reach the front page (this post is a case in point).
* Although I will admit there are glaring blindspots you could drive a Panamax tanker through (especially political ones on the boundary between ideologies).
I don't see how this isn't hacker news: "What is the technical education of the teenager with security clearance to the network of the org that is responsible for nukes"
That sounds *literallyf like the plot for any 80s hacker movie out there. You know, when hacking was political and hackers were people interested in undermining structures of authority and bending the rules.
That is the origin of hacking, and as such it is totally in order to discuss such topics here, IMO.
I'd rather read stuff like this than another CEOs musings that are entirely marketing and make believe (cue Sam Altman). Just because it affirms billionairs viewpoints of the status quo doesn't make it apolitical. If it feels apolitical to you that probably says something about your political biases.
I mean hacker in the proper sense not in the colloquial/black hat sense.
I agree that content marketing posts are not the best but they can be interesting despite the underlying motivation for the posts being marketing instead of curiosity. Sometimes the result is interesting regardless. Removing content marketing means having to try to guess the motivations of authors which is fraught. Yeah sometimes it is obvious but not always.
Whereas any old thing that "might be interesting" is fine when it comes from a rich person? Make a poll at the CCC, or Defcon, about the value of such posts, I'd be very curious.
I disagree. Krebsonsecurity has regularly delivered HN salient and interesting frontpage material, and this is currently the most flagged submission they've ever had on HN. We've discussed security assessments very similar to this in the past, even political ones, with technical curiosity and good faith discussion. The constraining factor is now people who unconditionally idolize Elon Musk. It's easy to see who's in the wrong when flagging relevant, well-written and objective reports like this one.
My personal view is that HN shouldn't promote political content at all. It should just be moderated out or flagged with no opportunity for recourse, whether it's Syrian independence or the invasion of Ukraine. But I abide by the exceptions made in HN's guidelines and consider this a technically imperative article that most can tune out if they dislike. It's very easy to see the title and decide for yourself whether you're comfortable reading and discussing the article.
I think the fact that we keep hearing about DOGE grey-area accessing of computer systems run by the US government and not about whatever else the Trump administration is currently doing is pretty good evidence that HN maintains a bias towards stories of interest to hackers. Like it or not, I think most of the hackers here are also US citizens.
Ignoring the US politics angle, would this post have been flagged? It's Brian Krebs, back after being DDoSed yet again, reporting on hackers hacking. doxing and swatting people. hacking. That's not of interest on hacker news? If, then, the subject without the political angle, would have been of interest here, then why does adding, yes, a highly contentious topic on top of that, make it of less interest to the community?
Here are a couple recent posts to look at if you (or anyone) want to understand the principles by which we decide which ones get to count as "on topic":
The answer is that we don't "just remove them when people complain". We only remove them sometimes, when doing so seems in keeping with the principles by which we moderate HN.
a ton of replies to dang's adminsitraviata comment are highjacking his "sticky" to coattail all their comments to the top, and the comments are generally right on the edge of being what dang's comment is trying to warn against.
I'd flag them all but fear that would appear heavy handed
I am responding to the content of Daniel's comment, not hijacking his comment to coattail my views of the article itself. I think the replies to his comment are the most appropriate place to respond to it.
The effect you describe is an unfortunate side effect of any threaded forum where the ordering of sibling posts is determined by some measure of quality: all responses to the first top-level comment, no matter the quality, precede the second top-level comment, which is probably of higher quality (on average). This is one of many reasons that threaded comments are flawed. Flat comments (phpBB style) of course have their own flaws and chronological threaded comments (LWN for example) have their own too.
Normally we turn off replies on pinned comments to avoid this problem, but today I decided to leave it open, to give people a chance to air their objections/counterarguments/feelings and hopefully get responded to.
However, to avoid the thread ballooning at the top of the page, I'm also detaching these subthreads as I reply to them.
Thank you, dang. I think you've done the right thing here, and I'm sure you're also under a lot of stress right now. Thanks for having faith in the community to discuss this amicably.
That is me also. Sometimes the bad side of yourself just want to start another war over the internet, but whenever I see Dang I just thought I should edit myself and not make his job any harder than what is already an insane job.
Just wan to say Thank You again. I still dont know how you handle HN all the time. May be some day you could post about tips and tricks or lessons learned from moderating HN.
I hear you but I think this sequence of stories has interest to HN readers on both sides of the political abyss, though not necessarily for the same reasons, and I think one can find the stories interesting without crossing into personal attack. (It's true that some of the articles do that more than others.)
We don't want too much of this, but a certain amount is ok, and that's how HN has operated for at least the last 15 years.
While I understand the sentiment (and support it with a lot of political content on HN) the start of this administration has an undeniable tech angle. If you don’t want to read the stuff, don’t click. But it belongs here.
The preferred approach is (1) flag the stories you think are off-topic for Hacker News, and (2) make peace with the fact that the front page sometimes has stories that you feel don't belong there. This is true for everyone, including me. It's a consequence of the site being under conflicting constraints, and frontpage space being the scarcest resource (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).
Oh and (3) if you browse HN while logged in, you can always click 'hide' on a submission and the software will not show you that particular one anymore.
Why would it have to be organized flagkilling? A combination of a sizeable pro-Trump faction (even 20% of users would be more than enough) and a sizeable "just keep US politics off the front page" faction would be more than enough to account for what you're seeing.
You need only look at the threads that HN has hosted about this to see that "pro-Trump" is a strong overstatement. The community is divided, just like the society at large is divided (or societies, since many countries are represented here).
Given what we know about the demographics of HN—for example, users here are probably more likely to be college-educated, many come from outside the U.S., and so on—the community here is probably less pro-Trump than the general U.S. population is, but that still leaves a great many users on both sides of that issue.
Of course I understand that any level of pro-$X can be disturbing if $X itself is disturbing enough. But that's more of a qualitative experience than a quantitative one. I've called it the "shock experience" in the past and wrote about it here, if anyone is interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098.
You are not quite right and there are "organized groups" active on HN influencing sensitive topics. The equivalence you are making i.e. "society is divided, the HN community is a reflection of the society and therefore the community is divided" does not say anything about how specific groups may exploit the situation and push their agenda. They are not all rational actors nor is it a zero-sum game.
To understand what i mean take a look at;
1) Nassim Taleb's book Skin in the Game - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_in_the_Game_(book). Specifically his The Minority Rule which basically states that an intransigent minority can almost always prevail over a flexible majority. It is the asymmetry which is being used to game the system.
it would be helpful to evidence your hypothesis with example threads here on HN, I guess. do you have examples at hand? And are you talking about "brigading", i.e. groups of HN users who organize outside HN to in dang's terms "activate" discussions inside HN? as in "hey brigade, please have a look at topic xyz: ..."? is this what you're talking about?
I'm not talking about the events themselves or how significant they are—I'm only talking about HN comment threads.
Often, a sequence of related stories (S1, S2, ..., Sn) produces threads that are more or less the same as their predecessors, rather than focusing on the specific new information introduced by any Si. This particularly happens when the topic is a major and divisive one, like the current one.
What happens in this cases is that people tend to post their generic views about $Person or $Topic, often in vehement terms and without much curiosity about the specific details of what's happening. In this way we get threads that don't differ very much from one discussion to the next. That's what I mean by "interchangeable".
Lobste.rs has what they call "merged stories", where the moderator will merge into a single page the links for a few submissions, as well as the comments from all submissions. Here's a recent example: https://lobste.rs/s/djejmh/really_really_good_random_number
I guess it's similar to what you do here when you "move" comments from one submission to another. A downside is that it can be hard to know which comments come from which submission. Perhaps top-level comments need a small marker indicating which link they originally commented under?
Comments from merged stories do have a label showing where the came from... but only before the merge; afterwards top-level comments are always attached to the primary story which is when things get especially confusing.
If anyone is real curious about the fine details, I've done almost all of this feature work on Lobsters office hours streams: https://push.cx/tags#story-merging I plan to continue that work in about four hours on today's stream so it's a great time to ask questions: https://push.cx/stream
As a (much) smaller community, story merging has been valuable for allowing us to build the critical mass of a good discussion. We also avoid rehashing the basics/easy misunderstandings. It's a pretty similar to dang's motivation about wanting to promote novel discussions. I have joked for a couple years that I'd love to see HN copy the feature so that HN can teach everyone how the feature works.
> exact duplicate submissions do get redirected to a single canonical item
Not always.
There seems to be some issue with the exactness match.
I haven't reported it because I presumed it was intentional.
Well, that and there's no obvious bug submission process.
There's already a feature so that when you try to post a link, and it's been posted recently, you're instead taken to that discussion and your submission instead counts as an upvote.
Doesn't solve the sameish story being posted from multiple sources, though.
You can’t have your cake and eat it too bud. You’re saying contradictory things. “Yes this is a shit show but please have civil discourse” just doesn’t work anymore.
We can be civil until the very end of the world, I guess. I’ll make sure to hold my knife and fork correctly while civilization falls apart.
I don't personally care how anyone holds their knife and fork - I prefer chopsticks anyway.
But yes, I do intend to be civil and thoughtful right up until my death, no matter what happens in the world.
That's how I want to live my life, and I'm glad to be part of this community which has clearly stated goals that align with mine, and a moderator team that does as good a job as I'd expect while maintaining a fairly light touch. There's almost nowhere else like this on the internet.
It's also important to state clearly that being civil and thoughtful does not equate to being passive. It does not equate to failing to take action to defend your ideals and way of life. You can be a highly active and passionate person taking strong actions everyday to guide the world (back) onto the path you believe in, and you can do so while striving to remain thoughtful and civil.
If you've found contradictions in what I'm saying, I'd be interested, but you need to find them in things I've actually said. I certainly haven't said the thing you've put in quotation marks here.
I have previously brought you a plain and obvious example of a contradiction, and you denied that it was a valid example.
Now you want this poster to believe that if they were to just bring examples, you would be interested for reasons other than arguing against their validity.
I said I'd be interested, not that I would automatically agree! That would be a bit silly to commit to, no?
If you're going to mention a "plain and obvious" example, you should link to it so users can make up their own minds about how plain and obvious it is.
Re contradictions: there probably are contradictions in the principles I've been describing, because the problem we're trying to solve is complex enough to involve tradeoffs. Perhaps this is what whalesalad means by "You can’t have your cake and eat it too bud."
I understand, but I was not the one who introduced Andrew Jackson as a comparator. I see that our friend has provided some of his arguments above. That's good.
I find it hard to compare the two men in question. They will have their similarities, being humans and politicians. But Andrew Jackson lived two hundred years ago. The modern era has seen the USA become a "superpower" with brokering influence (political, financial, military) all around the world.
The current administration appears intent (despite its slogans) on dismantling its own influence in the world... as well as Democracy. Nations and economic zones that considered themselves long-standing allies only a month ago now openly express distrust.
So I won't go into too much detail given the nature of the forum, but beyond the complete change in tone that Jackson brought to the presidency, something that Trump is also routinely criticized for, prior to Andrew Jackson we had an entirely different banking system.
He engaged in a conflict with the central bank overseeing national finances and banking and vetoed the bill renewing its charter, in part because he perceived the bank as supporting his political opponents. It still had four years to go, but the next year he unilaterally pulled all federal deposits from the bank, putting them in smaller state banks. This crippled the Second Bank of the United States with no Congressional approval or oversight. In fact, he was officially censured by the Senate for doing it.
Some other similarities in tone or type:
Jackson wasn't initially taken seriously as a presidential candidate - he was a political outsider and "a man of the people." He thought the federal government was corrupt and against him. This feeling was not helped by his winning the popular vote in the election of 1824 but it being taken away by the electoral college and ultimately decided by the House of Representatives in a "corrupt bargain."
He basically replaced his entire cabinet because of a conflict between the wives of his cabinet members and the wife of his chief of staff, who had married the widow of another cabinet member after a rumored affair and that member's subsequent suicide.
He had a "kitchen cabinet" of unofficial and unappointed advisors who had extremely significant power in the Federal government, such as Martin Van Buren (who would later become VP), John Overton, and Francis Blair (Editor of the Washington Globe), including some of the richest people in the country at the time - some of whom were bankers, by the way, and directly benefited from the destruction of the 2nd National Bank.
He criminally investigated his presidential predecessor's staff, alleging (and allegedly finding) corruption.
He was accused of being a dictator and a despot, and rattled his saber against Europe, almost going to war with France.
He nominated and successfully appointed completely unqualified judges.
We didn't have the current system of executive agencies until the latter half of the twentieth century, but if we did Jackson would probably have dismantled it.
Unprecedented things happen in every US presidency, they're just different things. (Hard to mention examples because the ones I am most familiar with are the last 6 terms, and each topic has flamebait potential)
Genuine question - What's the meaning of "activating" as an opposite to "interesting" in this context? I've never heard it used like this and couldn't get good results from searching.
I think there should be some balance. Passionless discussion never feels as satisfying. We're not all robots. Our reasoning should be clear, but our tone and the grounding of our opinions should also shine through.
I totally agree with you that we shouldn't try to suppress emotion or passion. Those add depth and color and character to interesting conversation.
What I'm calling "activation" isn't the same thing as emotion or passion, and what I'm calling "curiosity" or "being interested" is definitely not the same thing as being passionless or robotic.
I understand, but it's a blurry line. I think just asking for good faith conversation backed by verifiable facts where appropriate is a good place to start.
Ah good question and sorry that wasn't clear—I use that word a lot. By "activation" I mean arousal of the nervous system, particularly the sympathetic nervous system, which regulates fight-or-flight responses, and the limbic system of the brain which assesses threats and seizes control when it feels that survival is threatened.
What happens in flamewars is that when people encounter material they strongly disagree with, these systems get activated and rapidly produce aggressive and defensive responses that have to do with self-protection, and nothing to do with thoughtful consideration of the material, things one might learn, points where one might be wrong, curiosity, playful interaction, and so on. When survival is at stake there is no time or space for the latter sorts of reactions. But it's the latter that we want on HN—they're what the site is for.
Of course we all know cognitively that our survival is not really at stake when someone disagrees with us on the internet—at least our frontal cortices know that—but our limbic systems and autonomic nervous systems definitely do not know that. They experience it as a threat and from then on it's kill-or-be-killed. The fact that survival is not really at stake has no effect; what matters is the feeling that it is so.
This is what underlies commenters being so angry, snarky, sarcastic, aggressive and so on, on the internet. It's also what underlies our inability to hear each other or respect each other.
I sometimes describe this is as 'reflexive' vs. 'reflective' responses (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). By 'reflexive' I mean when the rapid-response system I just described takes over and reacts from "cache", so to speak, to quickly counter
a threat. By 'reflective' I mean the slower processes that happen when one is in a relaxed state and available for curiosity and play. In the jargon I'm using, 'activated' means being in 'reflexive' mode, and 'interested' or 'curious' means being in 'reflective' mode.
This has all kinds of interesting aspects. Here's one: you can't be in both of these states at the same time. It's literally one or the other. Think of the implications that has for a community like HN, where basically everything we want comes out of one of those two states and everything we don't want comes out of the other.
Someone is going to object that political developments can and do present real survival threats. That of course is true, and maybe to the extent that it is true, people have no choice but to function in kill-or-be-killed mode. But we feel this way and behave this way to a greater extent than we need to, and that's one factor preventing conflicts from being solved. That's a vicious circle which it's in all our interests to explore our way out of. We can't kill our way out of it.
In case it's not obvious, I'm using the word 'kill' metaphorically. What I mean by 'kill' is what we do when we try to eliminate threats (and the feeling of threat) by annihilating the other. That shows up as real killing in extreme situations like war, but the same (let's call it) psycho-physiological state shows up in other environments too, including trivial ones like internet forums. Here it shows up as people trying to annihilate the other by maximizing the aggressive potency of their language.
How do we end up getting so activated when we don't need to? and what can we do to become less activated in this way? I believe that if you tug on those threads and keep tugging, you arrive at the most important problem in the world. That's one main reason why I've kept working...
No. By jargon I just mean a specialized vocabulary. In this case the 'jargon' is terms that we've accumulated over the years to describe HN and how we moderate it.
Edit: but see what I wrote at the very end there about somatically-oriented trauma therapies. I wouldn't call that a "specific religion or group" but it's at least a subculture and that may be what you meant? In any case, I've spent a lot of time in that subculture and it has informed what I wrote there.
> Here's one: you can't be in both of these states at the same time. It's literally one or the other.
It is definitely the case that certain neuromodulators exert negative feedback on each other, but this may not be factual. Maybe the way I would make your point is that the external feedback we interact with can more or less quickly drive our brain into extremes on the brain state continuum.
What's the plan? I guess the plan is continue to turn off flags on specific submissions that people bring to our attention and which seem to clear the bar according to the principles I've outlined in this and other threads.
Another word that is often used (you can look it up) is emotional reactivity. It’s when you “overreacting negatively to normal or even benign stimuli due to stress, depleted physiological resources, or emotional disorder.”
In terms of wanting reflective and not reactive, one thought would be to gate it by time, and prevent replies to a comment until N number of minutes have passed. which I know exists as a flag that can be set on specific users, but it's a heavy hammer and extra work for moderators. If, on a post that the system has marked as a flamewar, hitting the reply page started a, say, 15 minute timer before allowing a reply, would that help lessen the reactivity of comments? personally if it's something contentious, sometimes I'll open up a reply page, write what I feel like writing, then give it 15 mins to sit, and then usually come back and delete and rewrite my entire response to be more in line with the guidelines. (though tbh, not 100% successfully)
technical fixes can't fix the underlying social ills, but sometimes you just need a simple lock to keep people honest.
It's a good idea and the HN software already does that in deeply nested threads (it hides the 'reply' link for several minutes). Maybe we could extend something like that to all threads, not just deeply nested ones. Thanks!
As I read it, when someone is "activated" they are provoked to responding; someone replying because they want to say something. I see "triggered" as somewhat of an analogy, but a much more loaded word.
This seems to stand opposed to people who reply because they have something interesting to say.
I’m curious what the new and interesting information is. I read the article when it was originally posted a few days ago. I just scanned it again and it seems the same as before. Just curious. Thanks.
I guess 2 days isn't new by firehose standards, but this particular story didn't get discussed until today and there's still some interest in it. HN has a long tradition of hosting threads about the exploits of young hackers.
I don't feel out of depth. To me it feels like variations on places we've been before.
But I hasten to qualify this:
(1) This is just my feeling! You asked how I feel, so I'm telling you, but I don't claim my feeling is anything more than that.
(2) I'm only talking about dynamics on HN. I'm not talking about what Trump might do or AI might do; it's not my job to comment on those and your guess is as good as mine anyhow.
I'll just add my personal observations that I've found that the more the world turns into a circus tent, the more I actually respect, enjoy and desire the HN approach to the sensitive and polarizable discussion.
Not all the time, no. It's good to stay informed and maybe even stay "functionally outraged" a bit. But having HN with its high degree of remoteness and dispassionate analysis to come back to is great.
I'm quite curious on your retrospective thoughts on this thread once this article goes off the front page! Also whether you'd do the same again.
Having looked around, probably around 80% of comments are mostly uninteresting/partisanship (though a fair few of those combine the mud slinging with an interesting fact or argument, which complicates categorization).
(Aside: One of the issues for me is that on high emotion topics like this I can't take people's word for things as much as in a usual thread, it just becomes visual noise)
My thought is that it's not great in absolute terms but reasonably ok in relative terms. Any thread on a topic this intense is going to have a lot of qualities that aren't good-for-HN.
We do some moderation things to try to nudge it in a more reflective/interesting direction, but there's a limit to how much that can help.
@dang Considering how many are ready to label one of the “other side” as evil, I think it’s very irresponsible of you to allow articles about US politics in the front page, specially an article like this that it’s really an smearing attempt
I’m curious what you consider to be a smear. Are the items about his background & history factual or not? If true, it seems calling it a smear attempt might be disingenuous.
I see you're "ready to label one of the “other side” as evil" but the article seems well researched and referenced while your comment makes vague claims.
I see a lot of really specific and well thought out raising of issues in this thread, as it applies to technology, commerce and security, all very much on topic for HN.
Criticism of the current administration is an important part of democracy, we need to hold the government accountable, no matter who runs it.
> I think it’s very irresponsible of you to allow articles about US politics in the front page
There are a couple answers to that. One is that it's not possible not to. We tried once, as an experiment, and it had the counterintuitive effect of making the site more politicized.
Dan, can we BAN all political threads unless we have fairness. There are a fair number of HN users that also want the USAID scandal covered with a post with 1500 comments. The time for HN to be left biased needs to come to an end.
The way out of this logjam is to stop thinking in quantitative terms (how many 'left' posts vs. how many 'right' posts) and instead look for the highest-quality articles you can find. If there's a high-qualty article about USAID, meaning one which contains interesting information and isn't primarily hammering on partisan drums, I don't see why that wouldn't be on topic here.
A career fed guy in his 50s being forced to beg for his job in a 15 minute teleconference to an arrogant zoomer in shorts and an unbuttoned suit is peak representation of democracy.
20 year old are dumb as shit, you couldn't explain anything to me when I was 20 because I already knew everything.
A subject matter expert in some obscure government office might not be able to dumb it down well enough in 15 minutes especially if they have no idea who their audience is ahead of time.
I have some empathy, mostly because it may be challenging for them to retrain and they have been institutionalized.
I hope they are given some runway or options to prepare for the private sector. But viscerally it is deeply, exquisitely satisfying to observe feds have shit canned their parasitic positions predicated on collection by armed tax collectors.
“My colleagues are getting 15-minute one-on-one check-ins with 19, 20, 21-year-old college graduates asking to justify their existence,” one speaker at a recent town hall in northern Virginia said without identifying himself or his agency due to fear of retaliation.
What? It was a first-hand complaint from someone at a town hall, and it seems to corroborate with the intention of Musk’s campaign to ‘cut waste’ and other statements about how this is playing out from a federal employee’s perspective.
‘That report’ is based on a reporter hearing this statement at the town-hall, not innuendos and rumors. Your very statement that it was based on innuendo and rumors is poisoning the well.
> guy in his 50s being forced to beg for his job in a 15 minute teleconference to an arrogant zoomer
So, like every private sector job nowadays?
Everyone is acting like this is the first time in history someone's been called into a meeting with a ponytailed 25 year old to have the "What is it ya do here?" discussion.
Memorialized in a movie so old now that most zoomers haven't even heard of it, let alone seen it. Only the Bobs have now been replaced with 'Skylar'.
I promise that I hate the US gov more than you, hoss.
I just don't really want to be in the house when they burn it down, and I am not under any illusion that all those civil liberties and other elements (that were weak before) are going to somehow get better when a bunch of nihilistic brats start yelling YOLO while burning down a bunch of Chesterton's fences.
Musk literally owns Twitter! The constitution gives Congress and ONLY Congress the right to control spending. Musk is intentionally breaking this law and you are cheering him on. Watching rubes such as you cheer on Musk while he destroys things makes me understand how Hitler could have gotten so much power.
The issue is the 10th amendment limits the scope of the federal government and Congress. Spending on many of the institutions that unconstitutionally regulate stuff like intrastate trade was illegal to begin with so defunding makes it more rather than less constitutional.
Funny how people are taking massive doses of copium and not wanting to see how 2 big conmen are now in charge of the country, and they (as in, the people like grandparent commenter) are not willing to see that it's all in service of the grift.
Well, maybe not funny, but understandable, "con" is short for "confidence" anyway, and just like the Nigerian scam victims refusing to believe all evidence to show them they're being scammed, so are many Trump voters digging in...
DOGE isn't providing accountability or transparency. It provides destruction of government agencies and services. And given the enormous amount of grift and corruption done by Trump and the people he associates with, I would expect more corruption after this not less.
And some of the cracked eggs you mentioned are real human lives.
I'm extremely puzzled why you're bringing transgender people into this. You could've said "an opera in Columbia" and have had an equally valid argument about fiscal responsibilty and America's meddling in other countries. You, however, felt that it was morally necessary to mention that this was to benefit transgender people trying to live their lives as if that's a unique negative to be avoided.
I brought it up because if you took a poll of the Americans, the vast majority would be against spending money on it. And comparing it to just “an opera in Columbia”, I’d wager even less would support a transgender opera.
Even if this problem you identify really does exist, and isn't just a boogeyman in your imagination, this is not fixing the problem. DOGE is literally creating more graft, and eroding processes put in place to ensure transparency. It will make the problem worse, not fix it.
Ignoring the horrifying political parts, I think one aspect here about data access that is inherently worrying is that it seems like all usual controls were bypassed and the DOGE people had very low level access to systems. So there are probably copies of sensitive data now in their possession, and nobody knows exactly what was copied and where it is stored.
This kind of access would be dangerous even in the hands of principled and well-meaning people. Giving it to people with glaring red flags like here is just entirely irresponsible.
At the very least, it’s a field day for foreign intelligence in DC. Offering these guys some money, women, status, or drink would pay massive dividends.
I think we both know the answer. Most of these DOGE people wouldn’t have been allowed in the building, much less the system root a couple of months ago because they’d never pass a clearance check.
technically, a clearance and background check have never been done on political appointees. the fbi openly says so. at least this is not new... the new thing is the low level of petty criminals being apointed.
Political appointees don’t get root, and they still had to get clearance for sensitive materials (as it’s legally required for the people securing a SCIF not to allow anyone who doesn’t have clearance in the door). Part of why the new administration is trying to bull through the process is that his first term had many delays due to appointees failing those checks.
Yes, there’s a database and people who audit access, ensure that permissions are periodically reviewed (i.e. just because you needed access 5 years ago doesn’t mean your current duties still require the same access), and other events can trigger reviews (e.g. a large amount of personal debt could make someone a greater risk).
The Office of Personnel Management runs a lot of the standardized stuff, including the system which people use to submit the standard forms, but agencies have their own offices and variations:
appointees are interviewed, not vetted by the fbi like federal employs. the dowvote brigade could read the article since im rentioning a literal quote from there.
Political appointees typically work on policy, they’re not shelling into servers and moving data around. This is especially true of the “special government employee” category Musk is using where it’s short-term (not more than 130 days in a 365 day period) and intended for consulting type expert advice rather than bypassing the normal hiring rules.
> the dowvote brigade could read the article since im rentioning a literal quote from there.
Alternately, consider that they’re recognizing that the scope of this situation is different both in terms of the level of access and nature of the work and unwillingness to follow policies. For example, when they tried to barge into the SCIF at USAID the staff who tried to stop them were under a legal obligation to do so - they’re charged with requiring everyone who enters to have a clearance. Historically, people got those and so it was never codified into law that they had to. Similarly, if people were requesting the access needed to perform their official task and using agency accounts and equipment to do so, you didn’t need an “auditor” to get approved at the level needed to be a system administrator. This is turning into a big scandal not just because it’s so highly politicized but also because bulling through so many process protections dramatically increases the potential risk.
As a simple example, reports have these guys getting admin access and using personal email accounts and equipment. Consider what happens if someone emails them a PDF saying it has evidence of fraud and it has a nasty payload. If they have unnecessary levels of access or have demanded that restrictions be removed, the fallout for that will be much worse than it would be if they were following the rules. Every federal agency has people employed specifically to prevent all of those layers of failure from happening.
Background checks have always been done on political appointees. They aren't a requirement for getting the position but historically they've been done prior to appointment so that leadership knows if they are a security risk.
And for appointees that require congressional confirmation the checks have been giving to congress prior to hearings for the same reason.
They weren't required but they very much have been done for political appointees in every admin in recent history except this one.
This comments section is getting wild. Do you have any proof that DOGE team members have been granted "system root" (whatever that means)? When I Google, it is unclear how many DOGE team members have security clearance and at what level.
> When I Google, it is unclear how many DOGE team members have security clearance and at what level.
They are flooding the zone. That's by design. At one point they had "read-only access" to records. Then later people say they had full access and have backups.
The only definitive proof we have publicly Is that a federal judge made two orders; One to restrict access to the treasury for all of DOGE except for the 2 people allegedly already working in treasury. And One to order deletion of any records they have backed up. All other reports come from first or second hand sources. AFAIK, no one truly knows DOGE did in the Treasury, and we won't know until a court proceeding later this month.
There's a rumor that the doge team went and did their metadata dump at treasury on midnight on the 21st or whatever. But what I think would be more interesting is if musk hasn't done anything, and all this crying and screaming is just at the threat of peeking at the books.
They could just hack their devices remotely, or physically break into his residence. I suspect a serial leaker will lack neither the discipline to not copy data onto personal devices, nor the opsec to withstand a motivated nation-state, since a lot of the work seems rushed, and is off playbook.
Perhaps giving an inexperienced script kiddie full access was part of a broader plan to allow someone else to covertly “steal” the data without directly implicating those in charge.
This person was fired from a trivial teenage script kid job after two months because he couldn’t resist sharing their internal information.
Only a few years later, he was thrust into the core information systems of the United States right next to people with security clearance.
Targets like this are a dream come true for foreign adversaries looking for someone to corrupt.
Who knows how much compromising content his old peers already have on him. The chat logs revealed they’re already thinking about how much access he has to valuable secrets.
>For this employment have any of the following happened to you in the last seven (7) years?
>Fired, quit after being told you would be fired, left by mutual agreement following charges or allegations of misconduct, left by mutual agreement following notice of unsatisfactory performance.
You have a point - there are probably no defined rules about whether security risk rules apply when POTUS is employing someone to do something illegal or unconstitutional.
If anyone gets to judge, however, it will be SCOTUS, not voters. It's hard to guess, right now, whether that's a plus for security.
Security clearances are granted by the president, or someone delegated by him. The president has absolute authority to bypass, modify, or shut down the clearance credentialing system. There is no law or Constitutional requirement dictating security requirements or how they are applied.
As the sibling comment pointed out, this is not to say that doing so is a good idea. But it's very probably legal.
Nope, it's not illegal at all. This where one of the "traditions" should have come in and congress/the people should have burned Trump at stake for doing so, though. All those concerns about Hilary Emails 9 years ago, but we let Trump fast track his circus in no problems.
I agree with your point, but it isn't Trump that showed that. It was the country itself. Even with full control of everything, the Democrats were not able to properly punish Trump. This is in large part due to the Supreme Court helping out, but also due to ineffectual prosecution (e.g. Garland), and incompetency (e.g. the Georgia case) and blatant "lawfare" (hate that term), with a misdemeanor being upgraded to a felony in New York.
This has created a scenario where the average person believes lawsuits against Trump are without merit, even though that's not true. Add in the incompetent media and you have a powerful potion.
> Democrats were not able to properly punish Trump
We’ve still got Chuck Schumer playing it business as usual. There is nothing in the Democratic Party that signals an emergency; the DNC didn’t even hint at lessons learned.
The Dems are playing it the way they have to - which is like a legitimate political party. So I suppose they are playing it according to the constitution, which means things have to go to the courts.
Which is the right thing to do.
The deal is that the Trump is upping the ante constantly.
Yes, except the bit about the upgraded charge. It was perfectly valid, and a serious crime, just very poorly explained. Which gets to the real problem: the combination of people in charge of enforcing consequences don't have the proper incentives to do so; and a criminal willing to resort to violence.
Also apparently huge scores of data was just dumped into a Microsoft hosted LLM [1].
So that data is (a) publicly available if you don't secure your VPC properly and (b) available to anyone without RBAC or request logging. This is an extraordinary degradation of the level of private and security controls.
What's more worrying is whether the access can realistically be revoked. As a general rule, when a security even rises to the level of root access to internal systems, you don't even try to remove them - you just rebuild the affected VMs from scratch because it's the only way to be sure the attacker didn't leave anything behind. For the systems we're talking about, payment processing stuff at Treasury and Social Security and so forth, one wonders if they can even be rebuilt on a reasonable timeframe?
How does someone even clean up this mess? One of the DOGE kids may have just cloned every repo and then connect the machine to public internet because they need to fed it to an AI to figure out how things work. We can only assume the worst and that foreign adversaries may already be combing the code line by line.
What will happen when PIIs of every individual with dealings with the Treasury gets leaked?
Then there is going to be thousands of hours of meetings to review various processes...
> One of the DOGE kids may have just cloned every repo and then connect the machine to public internet because they need to fed it to an AI to figure out how things work.
I like how you are 100% convinced that this “a mess” and “we can only assume the worst” and that PII is compromised, etc.
What actual facts do you have for anything?
I understand why the media is mad, why NGOs, and why liberal politicians are mad, I get why foreign countries are mad.
I’m interested in fraud and abuse, regardless of who does it. So if Musk’s team finds it, great, if they get caught committing it and have to deal with that, also great.
But right now we know there is something broken. Instead of being mad about that, you are angry about hypotheticals that have not happened.
How does Musk find "fraud and abuse" if he doesn't have access to the whole stack of decision making?
It's not up to him to make those decisions, it's up to congress. Musk is just making up bullshit (I'm surprised he didn't say he was rooting out pedophiles) to justify his jihad against the public service.
So, say in a few weeks, a massive fraud gets caught. Musk announces it, releases the documents. Who's to say these crooks didn't manipulate it? Same goes for achives of *.gov but those are public. So we can compare hashes independently from each other. With these private repos, we can't. Originals are getting burned. Hopefully there's solid offsite backups untouched.
Of course it’s tainted. The whole thing will be ‘trust us.’ The only source of most of what has been claimed to be ‘found’ so far is Musk’s Twitter account. Journalists cross referenced his first claims and found they were BS, so Musk will just get rid of the place people can cross reference. How this is ok with anyone, regardless of how they voted, is beyond me.
Lots of really good, and as of yet, unanswered questions which shed some light on why/how Musk's claims of "waste" and his method of supposed resolution don't hold up to scrutiny.
> "What will happen when PIIs of every individual with dealings with the Treasury gets leaked?"
We see what happens when big companies leak personal data - almost nothing. Maybe they give you 3 months of 'credit monitoring' or 'identity theft monitoring' service, maybe they write an apology press release. We've seen how Trump presents things, he quite realistically could say either "it was Democrats weak security, we're fixing it" or "hackers must have got it, we'll clean it up" or even "fake news" and then ... do nothing, we never hear about it again and the affected people deal with it as best they can. Why would you expect more than that to happen - a newspaper writes a damning article, lawsuits are filed, the news moves on in 24 hours.
We saw how he reacted to COVID, it wasn't a world class good reaction.
Boy I sure would love to hear how you'd deal with a novel virus in a country as large as the US with as many people in it. How'd China do, since they're an authoritarian regime?
When you reply, don't use the word "bleach" or "UV"
I don't want to engage in your bad-faith trolling. Make a substantial comment. Compare Trump's response with other world leaders, other countries, and medical advisors' recommendations, and what you'd hope an ideal leader would do, leave me out of it, I'm not a part of a government's COVID response.
there's only a couple of coutries that have the area/population demographics of the US. it isn't bad faith. what you're doing is conflating "The US" as just "any other country" when it isn't. we're the third or 4th largest area nation in the world.
is it because you wanted to say bleach and UV?
edit: "look what UK and denmark did!" is so completely irrelevant that it's ... not "good" faith to suggest it.
Click the link and imagine me asking "Was that because the US is so big? Or because the US has such a large population?" about every point. Including, but not limited to, these:
> May 2018 - The Trump Administration disbands the White House pandemic response team.
> July 2019 The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) epidemiologist embedded in China’s disease control agency left the post, and the Trump Administration eliminated the role.
> June 30-July 6, 2020 The U.S. has just 4% of the global population, ... and the second-highest death rate per capita.
> May 29, 2020 “We will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization”
And these, imagine me asking why Trump is more concerned about the stock market, his image, finding people to blame:
> Feb. 24, 2020 “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA… the Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”
> March 20, 2020 [Response to reporter’s question: "What do you say to Americans who are watching you right now who are scared?"] “I say that you're a terrible reporter, that's what I say. I think it's a very nasty question"
> July 28, 2020 "He [Fauci]'s got this high approval rating. So why don't I have a high approval rating with respect -- and the administration -- with respect to the virus?"
> Aug 19, 2020 "We’ve got all the damn cases...I want to do what Mexico does. They don’t give you a test till you get to the emergency room and you’re vomiting,”
> Sept. 10, 2020 "This is nobody's fault but China.”
and:
> May 6, 2020 The Brookings Institution reports that children were “experiencing food insecurity to an extent unprecedented in modern times” and “40.9 percent of mothers with children ages 12 and under reported household food insecurity since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.” Republicans block proposals to expand food stamps.
Thanks Obama.
Remember when New York's morgues were overloaded[1] with 800 people dying there every day[1] and they were burying people in mass graves on Hart Island[2]? That was April 2020 when medical advisors were saying people should wear masks and Trump was announcing to the world that he was feeling good and "I think wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens, I don’t know, somehow I don’t see it for myself. I just don’t." and then Trump's fanbase picked them up as "face-panties" for "wimps"? How many lives could he have saved if he just encouraged people to take it seriously and calmly and modelled that behaviour himself?
So let's start with an immediately better response: after being warned it is serious and spreads easily, stop telling the public to ignore it because it will miraculously go away over and over and over again. Tell people to distance, ventilate rooms, as the evidence becomes available
I understand you're coming from a place of passion, here. so i'll tread lightly.
> Remember when New York's morgues were overloaded[1] with 800 people dying there every day[1]
I do remember when the public health policy in this country was to intubate people with enfeebled lungs after pumping them full of opiates. I do understand that this is homicide, at least the way i define it.
Will there ever be a reckoning? i don't know. I do know a lot of outright falsehoods were told for 2 years straight. If you'd like a detailed list i'd be glad, but I'm the kind of person that is still mad that Obama joked about killing two kids with predator drones. That Clinton bombed a [medicine factory?] That Bush... both...
If everything is a shambles because of one (or 2) people then the constitution is not worth the paper it's printed on. I bet you could fetch a nice price for that paper. I'd repeat that, but it's easy to just scan back to the beginning and read it again.
I'm not worried. These people are hype-based. I get that people are suffering but people are always suffering and i got no control over that. Me yelling at people or agreeing with people like you doesn't do anything. I guarantee if i wrote an agreement this long, no-one would read it.
These people have administrative access, and at least in some cases network and physical access.
Once you determine they are untrustworthy and potentially malicious, you can't just rebuild the VMs, since you can no longer trust the hypervisor or even the hardware.
If they were Chinese or Mossad agents, you'd start from scratch in a different DC on supply chain audited new compute, storage, and networking hardware. And you'd compile everything from audited source. And I have NFI how you'd deal with potential malicious changes to your data and backups.
> And I have NFI how you'd deal with potential malicious changes to your data and backups.
The backups should be stored on WORM tape. They can't be altered (easily or at all?). Of course they're probably wiping their asses with the backups like they are the constitution.
WORM prevents after-the-fact modification, but it isn't very helpful in the case of persistent threats.
The concern is that the tampering has already been committed to the backups. When was the "Break Glass" password last rotated? Is it protected by one or more Yubikeys that were manufactured before they fixed that nasty exploit? What other attack vectors are baked in through malfeasance or human error?
My comment was not in reply to passwords, "yubikeys" or anything else you mentioned, so your techsplaining about those things was a bit misplaced. MY point was that if the backups are on WORM tapes, and we still have those backups, then there's nothing to fear being compromised from those backups. Everything other than WORM tapes you wrote about is outside the scope of my comment.
This is going to be like coming home from a vacation and discovering that squatters have been living in your house for a month, going through your stuff. You'll probably end up bulldozing the place and starting over.
I will admit I did not think of that aspect of it. I think the reason I didn't is because, supposedly - as it was presented to me at the time, those systems run on some ancient hardware/software. In other words, even if something was left behind, it shouldn't be that hard to locate.
If anyone with real experience in that area could chime in. Until now I was under impression COBOL ran it all:P
Worked in IT a long time ago for a branch. There was some Java, a lot of Perl and SVN. We got releases from DC to run on local servers. Folks with experience with SDLC were prevalent and that was a prerequisite for doing anything meaningful. Never saw Cobol, doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.
The amount of commercially and politically valuable information there is in these systems is incredible.
If these people are scooping up this information you can imagine they might be tempted to monetize or weaponize it at some point, or use the threat of such for their own gain.
This is absolutely chilling when you think about it.
The best part is that even if courts force them to destroy all the pillaged data right now, it won’t stop them from making stuff up and weaponizing it anyway.
On the other hand, we may all experience privacy at levels uncomfortable for a lot of people, which MIGHT trigger some desire to actually make things more privacy conscious.
> Coristine wrote impressive, profitable tech. He should have a future as a productive member of society, perhaps even one of its titans.
When did "profitable" become the sole metric by which we judge someone's work? Does what is morally correct factor into it at all, or should the impressiveness someone's accomplishments make them a "titan" regardless of intent or outcome?
> should the impressiveness someone's accomplishments make them a "titan" regardless of intent or outcome?
For a teenager? Barring violence, yes. An impressive, misguided teenager is a net asset to a community and society in the developed world.
I challenge anyone intelligent to honestly say they didn’t have any really stupid opinions or worldviews before their prefrontal cortex had finished developing.
I certainly didn't say anything akin to the recent racist tweets from another Doge staffer, no.
There's also a very large unspoken piece left out of your sentence, which is that they are an asset if taught and guided well. Do you think Musk is likely to do that, or to instead encourage careless "technically impressive and profitable" behavior without regard to ethics or morals?
> certainly didn't say anything akin to the recent racist tweets from another Doge staffer, no
Were you on Twitter?
I don’t remember anything that heinous. But I do remember telling off-colour jokes. If I’d done that in public and received validation from someone I respected and admired, is it implausible I’d have gone down the rabbit hole?
> unspoken piece left out of your sentence, which is that they are an asset if taught and guided well
That’s my point. These kids show potential. It’s being squandered for the short-term gains of old men.
What was the impressive and profitable part? The article makes him sound like a script kiddie who dicked around with some DDoS networks and formed a couple LLCs but didn't end up accomplishing much (either entrepreneurially or illegally). Not saying that makes him a terrible person, but in generation ago terms, he sounds less like a founding l0pht member and more like a Rusty n Edie's subscriber.
He's got enough hustle to get funded by a16z to build yet another blockchain scam if he so chose. You better believe he's siphoning your government records to use for his own purposes later. Ask for forgiveness, not for permission, as they say; but with this government, you don't even need to ask for forgiveness.
In context, I read that as describing the future he could have had in brighter terms to increase the contrast with the following description of the future he probably has. Like, being generous because it doesn't matter now anyway.
I do not find it impressive. It is not difficult technically. The reason others do not do this is that they have ethical and moral limitations, they wont DDoS networks because they are aware of harm. Maybe we should stop treating people who cause intentional harm as superior.
Not opening LLCs you do not know what to do with is also more of "good impulse control" sign.
You have a point. Way back when digital presence was still something new, I remember entertaining the idea of running an org that would fake reviews on Amazon and other spaces, but I dropped the idea, because it seemed unethical. I will never know what could have been, but I also know there were people who followed that path.
To your point, as a society, we have an actual filter for people like that, but that filter was not been uniformly applied.
Well, becoming a titan in tech industry hasn't required doing any difficult tech since... idk, at least the 1990s. Tech is just business now, and being a business titan requires a different particular set of skills, skills this guy apparently has.
He is not titan in tech industry nor on the path there. Your typical script kiddy does not become tech titan. What it takes to be tech titan is actually irrelevant to whether DDoS is impressive.
> being a business titan requires a different particular set of skills, skills this guy apparently has.
Just about the only thing he has is lack of ethics and morals. Lack of care for harm he causes. Yes, those are necessary to be a tech titan, but not nearly sufficient.
There are many low level guys without much ethics that never ever become tech titans.
You really think so? How about the alternative being he's fully pardoned of anything that might be brought against him and coasts to billionaire status by launching companies and having his funding rounds and paths to exits secured now that he's an absolute NRx legend with the full backing of Thiel and Musk?
Being fully pardoned assumes that he and/or Musk do not end up annoying Trump enough that he'd rather burn them. Franky even Musk should be concerned given how easy it is to get on the wrong side of Trump, but anyone involved in this relying on Musk being prepared to risk political capital shielding them if something goes wrong should be terrified and working on escape plans.
Musk pledged $45 million per month in donations to help Trump win a second term[1], he won't have done that for nothing. He owns Twitter, the social network the President uses to talk to millions of followers, another big donor was Palantir owned by Peter Thiel who was key Trump advisor last administration[2]. I've seen people on Reddit praising Musk for "uncovering billions of dollars of wasted money already" so he has political capital for himself and Trump already from his DOGE actions.
We've seen Trump dismiss people before, sure, but we've known for years that the administration has been pre-vetting people as Trump loyalists[3], planning who will become head of what department and why, which executive orders to move on right at the start of the presidency. This suggests Musk is not a casual appointment and advisers will advise Trump not to dismiss him casually.
And, apart from literal death, what does he have to fear with hundreds of billions and two companies to fall back on? For all my criticism I am not expecting Trump to pull a full Putin, confiscate X, SpaceX and Tesla and send Musk to Camp Guantanmo or have him die by falling out a window. Are you?
[3] this was 2023: https://www.axios.com/2023/11/13/trump-loyalists-2024-presid... "Hundreds of people are spending tens of millions of dollars to install a pre-vetted, pro-Trump army of up to 54,000 loyalists across government to rip off the restraints imposed on the previous 46 presidents. The screening for ready-to-serve loyalists has already begun, driven in part by artificial intelligence from tech giant Oracle, contracted for the project."
> what does he have to fear with hundreds of billions and two companies to fall back on?
Not having those anymore. With the new emergency powers Trump has claimed, he could shut down every company of Musk’s except X. Depending on how bad the breakup is, that could be on the table. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Wouldn't that be disastrous PR for all companies and investors? Especially when this administration campaigned on unleashing American energy and economic productivity. To send the message that your company can be taken from you if you annoy the President and nothing - wealth, public adoration, providing jobs in multiple states - can save you.
Just thinking of Musk's behaviour, if he felt that was a real possibility wouldn't he be walking on eggshells? Instead he acts like he feels untouchable.
You're assuming that not just one of them, but both of them, will be acting rationally. There's plenty of evidence to suggest both of them are capable of acting extremely irrationally.
Can you clarify what you meant? From reading the article I gathered that his attempts to start a business didn’t produce anything and his attempt to join someone else’s company resulted quickly in him getting fired for leaking private info to a competitor.
That last point is extremely alarming for someone who was just given access to core government data. Any adversaries looking for an insider to corrupt are definitely taking note.
> He should have a future as a productive member of society, perhaps even one of its titans
...did we read the same article? It sounds like he was a failed script kiddie that registered some vanity domains, had exactly one job that he was promptly fired form.
Where are you setting the bar for "deserves to be a titan of society"?
> Instead, he’s going to spend his years in some combination of hearings, court rooms and jails.
It is super possible none of those are in his future. Trumps administration wont pursue him and whatever remains after them will likely ignore this kid. I mean, it would be fair and great if these all got some kind of punishment, but it is unlikely to ever happen.
> DOGE, at a smaller scale in every respect, reminds one of the arrogance of Europe’s WWI leaders.
What exactly you mean there? This does not strikes me as similar to WWI.
Yes. I don't know many accountants who are familiar with polynomials let alone what a DAG is, etc. I am sure there are graph concepts they use by other names.
> Light SQL skills tend to be the upper end of technical accounting
This would be the main point that would need correction if I am wrong.
Please don't cross into personal attack, regardless of how wrong another commenter is or you feel they are.
If you know more than someone else, two good options are (1) to share some of what you know, so we all can learn; or (2) not post. Snarky putdowns are not a good option.
"it seems like all usual controls were bypassed". Apparently it isn't known. Let's answer this question and be impartial about it. A story about China having access to Treasury Department workstations landed a few months ago. There may be a LOT of bad practices in place. We should be pushing to improve them if so.
Did everybody already forget only a month ago it was revealed Chinese hackers had access to US Treasury computers including US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's own?
If outsiders with the CCP's interests at heart are able to use this data, why can't outsiders with the U.S.'s interests at heart be able to use this data?
I always feel like there's a Monty Hall aspect to these discussions where people forget that the past has occurred and it has a bearing on the present. The choice isn't between "observe data protections" and "don't observe data protections." Something was behind door #3.
Your personal data is already public due to commercial breaches. Does that mean that your current bank, etc. shouldn’t be expected to obey privacy laws?
First, the idea that the bank is lying is unfounded speculation, not a given. Second, if you were auditing a bank you would be scrupulous about how you get access and keeping it limited because you be would want it to hold up in court and avoid any questions about tampering or planting evidence. You’d use qualified auditors with clean records, not someone who couldn’t pass a background check.
Now, of course, if your goal was to create propaganda or to install extra-legal modifications to block payments without having to follow normal processes, you might do this because you’re getting you’ll never have to defend your actions in court. That would be consistent with what we’ve seen of the “fraud” being talked up despite being quickly debunked because most of the people sharing stories don’t care whether it’s true as long as it feels right.
> Second, if you were auditing a bank you would be scrupulous about how you get access and keeping it limited because you be would want it to hold up in court and avoid any questions about tampering or planting evidence.
er, not if my role was as a consultant of the parent bank and my assignment was to close branches that were "losing money".
note: i even specified "first party" because in my mind i was envisioning a first party audit, of which i have done many as a consultant.
1) a random citizen murders someone and
2) a cop murders someone on duty?
Yes, ideally the country would be safe enough that no one was killed, and you can even argue that it don't matter because the end result is the same (hell, some people would even argue whoever the police kills had it coming). But most people understand that when those entrusted with special powers for the public good abuse that trust and engage in criminal behavior, it’s a far more serious issue.
I find it strange that neither activists nor politicians nor journalists cared about that enough to make it a continuous news cycle. There was also no outrage about various security breaches that exposed personal information for 100 million Americans, like the Change Healthcare breach. The reaction to alleged violation of privacy here seems inconsistent and disproportionate, and I wonder why?
The story did get memoryholed very fast. At the time, I was not sure what to ascribe it to ( well, still don't ), but I did find it interesting that it was pointed out how limited in scope it was.
>> Did everybody already forget only a month ago it was revealed Chinese hackers had access to US Treasury computers including US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's own?
> I find it strange that neither activists nor politicians nor journalists cared about that enough to make it a continuous news cycle.
Because (a) that was a month ago and that's a long time given recent events. And (b), it's implicit that someone 'inappropriate' having access is a bad thing, but with Trump/Musk/DOGE it's being done on purpose.
It's the purposeful part that's at issue now.
There are people who have reportedly just graduated high school that have root-level access to things:
Are you saying, a potus appointed commission for auditing government system is worse than a chinese backdoor in treasury department, who's level of access was unknown?
No one invited the Chinese through the front door.
If you can’t understand that difference, you’re missing something very critical.
One is serious because a foreign adversary is compromising us; the other is serious because we are apparently designing the compromise ourselves via the whims of a demagogue.
Yes. Someone without clearance nor congress approval running around with a sledgehammer is a lot more an immediate issue than a long term saboteur. We can deal with both, but let's make priorities.
So far the only evidence of that is a wired article [1] with anonymous sources, even those source were not 100% sure about it.
Since then wired has posted another article [2] claiming the access have been revoked after announcements from senior officials, which again is from anonymous sources.
I'm really skeptical of these anonymous sources tbh.
> I mean, Luke Farritor used some variety of AI to translate ancient scrolls and won an award for it:
Did the ancient scrolls involved accounting ledgers? Because some kind of auditing experience would be useful to figure out how where Treasury or USAid payments went.
Because those were done by state or criminal actors and this one is allegedly being done with the consent of our elected government? It’s really not that difficult to figure out.
Why don’t you just state your opinion instead of being vague?
What was the impact of the "exposed personal information" from Change Healthcare? One thing that makes me suspicious when I see those leaked personal details headlines: I am sure that my own personal info has been leaked many, many times. And, yet, never once have I been hacked (PC/laptop/phone) or had financial crimes against me (steal credit card, unauth'd charges, etc.). And, I write this as a total normie, who basically depends upon Google Accounts/Passwords to "do it all for me" (and my commercial banks where I have bank + credit cards). I don't do anything particularly special.
To be clear: I am not here to defend companies with weak cybersecurity, but the impact of these leaks is virtually nil. "One hundred million" sounds like a huge number, but it provides little insight on the realised impacts.
It's pretty obvious that people opposing the goals of DOGE are pushing this story, same way they were pushing the earlier "doxxing" of the young engineers working for DOGE or the Elon nazi zieg idiocy.
Say what you will, but Musk has a track record of executing well at preposterous speed, so for legacy players/media this sorta of PR campaign is about the most they can muster.
At the end of the day thought, we'll all have to compare real word results versus those PR narratives and I am positive i know which way that will swing. You just can't PR bullshit you way out something like a 250ton piece of stainless sticking a landing.
>Say what you will, but Musk has a track record of executing well at preposterous speed
I highly disagree, and these stories makes his incompetence more obvious. As well as proving various anecdoctes years ago from SpaceX/Tesla that Musk was someone you needed to work around, not with.
> Musk has a track record of executing well at preposterous speed
He has been promising Tesla full auto-pilot every year for about 9 years. Just around the corner he said. I even shelled out $10K for it on top of the price of my car, 6 years ago. He said the car would pick up the owner from the airport. That was about 5 years ago.
Musk says a lot and promises a lot. A lot of it never materializes. And he seems be going insane at a rapid pace as of late. I have been wondering if the ketamine that he says he has been taking is really turning his brain into mush.
>The reaction to alleged violation of privacy here seems inconsistent and disproportionate, and I wonder why?
because they made a public show of it. That's the big difference. Meanwhile, Healhcare is already under more scutiny than ever and want to bury a lede of hacking.
> all usual controls were bypassed and the DOGE people had very low level access to systems
Before DOGE, somebody obviously had to have this access as well, and similarly could have copied and stored. Why be concerned with DOGE but not their predecessors? Honest question.
Because before the people that had access to this data got that access after passing background checks, had years in the treasury, supervision from higher-ups, and other processes in place. Now it's being accessed by cyber-criminal Nazis in their 20s who describe themselves as wanting to "Normalize Indian hate", " want a eugenic immigration policy", and who "were racist before it was cool" https://www.npr.org/2025/02/06/nx-s1-5289337/elon-musk-doge-....
Hmm. I am hesitant to engage this post, but it may be well worth to point out, that some of issues with status quo are precisely the result of "people that had access to this data got that access after passing background checks, had years in the treasury, supervision from higher-ups, and other processes in place". Until now it was old boys club that did not dare to shake things up a little.
My point is that there is plenty to dislike here, but if your argument against him is: he is a nazi, you have already lost, because you do not understand the sentiment out there.
> Hmm. I am hesitant to engage this post, but it may be well worth to point out, that some of issues with status quo […]
Is one of the issues that an audit log of actions was created? Because it seems to me some of the levels of access given to the DOGE folks mean that auditing and traceability has now gone out the window like a Russian oligarch.
I'm a sysadmin who 'just' runs a bunch of HPC stuff—nothing 'important' like HIPAA or SOX—and even my systems have some level of auditing and logging.
See? This is already a much better argument than what parent posted. If you tone down Russian hysteria angle ( not wrong, just pointing out how it is coming across ) the other side may be able to hear you.
This is basically my point and that point is the same point I make for Zuck, Thiel and others. There is already plenty of real things to complain about.
I think what the posts above you are trying to say, and not doing a great job because of the emphasis on rhetoric, is the actions being taken are hypocritical.
The argument from the DOGE side is that entrenched interests are operating opaque systems and gating access to the information needed to identify inefficiencies. It's not a bad argument because it's no secret that you end up with waste in big companies or government programs and everyone should want to improve efficiency.
However, it's a bad faith argument because the public's being told they're being disenfranchised by a lack of transparency at the same time they're being told to accept a solution that has no transparency or oversight.
When you have tech billionaires with a lifelong goal of controlling payments since starting PayPal in the 90s, is it unreasonable to be skeptical of their motivations when they've managed to gain access to the government's payment system? Aren't these the same people sucking up our private information and telling us if we've got nothing to hide we've got nothing to fear? Why do they need to operate in the shadows?
I have zero issue with the arguments you presented, because I know you are being factually accurate ( to the best of my knowledge anyway; I wonder if there is a person out there that has a full unrestricted view of everything ).
<< is it unreasonable to be skeptical of their motivations when they've managed to gain access to the government's payment system? Aren't these the same people sucking up our private information and telling us if we've got nothing to hide we've got nothing to fear? Why do they need to operate in the shadows?
I don't want to argue for DOGE, because their fanbase is doing it on various fora already ( including this one ).
But to answer your question, it is not unreasonable at all. Those questions should be asked and, ideally, answered.
It is vital that the government officials are watched, their performance evaluated and our political will enforced by means we deem necessary. From where I sit, what is good for goose, is good for gander.
If I hesitate, it is around the level of emotion this generates. Some of it is warranted ( I would lie if I said I am not concerned ), but it does not help with making an appropriate response. In fact, that level of emotion actively inhibits making good choices.
You have to give it to him. It does look like Trump actually had a plan this time around.
I don't think the constant news cycles covering each and every dime that USAID misused is indicative of a lack of transparency. I think given just a little more time, DOGE could uncover (and reveal to the American people) a lot more than 50 billion of waste and corruption.
As for the oversight requirement, it is fully and completely satisfied by:
1.) A guy who has the technical acumen, drive, and attention to detail to catch a rocket out of mid air with chopsticks.
2.) A man who won a presidential election twice (and could possibly have been 3 times if the Hunter Biden laptop story wasn't corruptly and improperly squashed).
The largest proportion of the complaints from media outlets come from defunded operations. Its in everyone's fiscal best interest for these audits to continue, and for them to be completed by people completely outside of the government's patronage (grant and funding) networks.
More importantly, even if sending money to USAid is wasteful, that is Congress's prerogative. The President's job is to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed": if Congress wants to spend money on Foo then that's what he is supposed to do.
> Every dime that the USAID spent was allocated via Congress through the budgeting process.
A thread on the general process:
> Every year, the White House (via OMB) puts together a federal budget proposal to Congress. Every federal agency (incl USAID) sends OMB their budget wishlist.
[…]
> So to be clear: every dollar that USAID requests from Congress goes through White House review.
[…]
> Once USAID gets its budget from Congress, it must go straight back to Congress again with a further level of detail on how it will satisfy the various budget directives - via "Congressional Notifications."
Many of those fact checks make a huge deal about minor distinctions that in no way redeem the amount of money that was spent on their """""intended""""" purposes. Example:
"
“$32,000 for a ‘transgender comic book’ in Peru”
This is wrong. USAID did not fund this, and it was not specifically transgender. Instead, the grant says the State Department provided $32,000, under the guise of public diplomacy, to Peru’s Education Department “to cover expenses to produce a tailored-made comic, featured an LGBTQ+ hero to address social and mental health issues.”
"
So the comic existed, but it was funded by another equally corrupt department? This doesn't make USAID look any better at all, it just means Trump and Elon's team need to do MORE of what they have been doing, and expand their scope further.
I don't really care that a 2500 page omnibus spending bill that no one could read in full (minus an AI) specifically said that some pork goes to some unethical and corrupt action. Its evil and it needs to stop. If the government's normal checks and balances cant fix it, the answer is not to give up and let corrupt liberals desecrate the union. The answer is to fulfill the promise of the 2nd Amendment and to break the system of government in whatever way is necessary until it is no longer tyrannical. Remember that a 2% tax on tea without sufficient and effective representation is an acceptable threshold for such actions.
Process for security clearance might have caught this kids background, and then decision makers would have at least had a conversation about it. This kid is more a symptom of a wider lack of controls though, who knows whether any of Musk's script kiddies has a criminal background. Important to note that previous Trump administration has already followed out/bypassed security clearance process, so this is really just the next evolution of the disregard for criminal elements or foreign interests.
Here’s how that sounds to anyone with security experience: “Before the bank president gave his nephew the vault keys, somebody must have had access as well.”
Federal IT has tons of policies designed to prevent unauthorized access and mistakes. People go through background checks, they only work on secured networks using official devices, everything is logged and audited, and circumventing it is a crime with penalties potentially leading to jail time. Some of those policies have strong legal requirements for oversight: even if you’re not doing anything other than your job, the agency needs to be able to show how work is done to auditors, Congress, FOIA requests, etc. Anything with national security implications should be designed to avoid a single compromised person from being able to avoid detection, too, especially for people trusted with administrative access to IT systems.
These guys are widely reported to be using personal emails and devices (violating the record and transparency laws) and even if they’re acting entirely in good faith they are bypassing policies designed to contain the damage due to mistakes. For example, what happens if one of them gets an email with an attachment claiming to have evidence of politically incorrect activities and runs the payload on a device/network which has had safeguards removed by executive fiat?
What I don’t understand is how this thing happened on the first place. Someone just shouldn’t be able to be appointed by a single dictator, and suddenly have access to a wealth of data that would have made the (here we go) nazi’s green with envy.
The biggest irony to me is that Musk wanted to reneg on the Twitter sale. It's interesting to consider the timeline where he was allowed to not buy it. Truly a "canon" event, that one.
I'm also not convinced this is a "security breach." They're being allowed to do it. It's more like an unforced error, if anything. Not that it changes anything material about the situation.
That said - a small majority of congress is currently complicit in this, but I expect that to reverse as many Republican states will have congresspeople whose constituents are affected. I'd expect by May of this year some of this will have been reversed.
Sadly that's too long and some damage will be done perhaps permanently...
I always assumed it was because he believed the price he was paying was now too high anfter the tech downturn, and he wanted to try lower it a few billion. It’s roughly worth a few million in lawyer fees to take a 10% chance to lower the purchase price by just over a billion.
would you mind looking like a fool for a chance to save a couple billion dollars?
there's no fair market value for Twitter because there's only one Twitter. If you're rich, money is just a means to an end. you see something, you take it. If you think you can save a couple (billion) bucks on your way out, why not give it a shot? it's already yours
I've become convinced that everything he publicly does is an advanced form of social gish gallop meant to overwhelm and distract everyone from what he is actually doing, which is robbing the United States of its wealth, information, and federal autonomy. For example, everyone knew that the hyperloop was a work of fiction and that the Vegas loop was an ineffective death trap, but during the same period that he was evangelizing about it, China had built 40,000 Km of high speed rail - the US built 0. It seems aufully convenient that someone whos wealth stems from car manufacturing might work to ensure that the most car-dependent nation in the world remains so. This of course doesn't even begin to touch on his forays into media, public infrastructure, digital technologies, communications, space travel, and I can only assume soon energy.
Most people are not very "in the loop", nor do they put much thought into long term consequences or even the concept of ulterior motives; performative (yet socially consequential) things like distracting everyone by paying a team of people to play PoE for him so he can lie about it and generate widespread and inconsequential outrage is an insignificant cost to him. He is poised to be a trillionaire within the term of this administration, and I fully believe he is going to become one by continuing this pattern of pointing at distractions while rifling through our pockets.
> things like distracting everyone by paying a team of people to play PoE for him so he can lie about it and generate widespread and inconsequential outrage is an insignificant cost to him
Yes, the salute was the same thing. Not to say he couldn't have white nationalist tendencies, but the outrage is what he wanted. He's been doing it on Twitter for years, retweeting clearly incendiary and offensive things with "Interesting" or "Huh". This has been the alt-right playbook for years.
> I'm also not convinced this is a "security breach." They're being allowed to do it. It's more like an unforced error, if anything. Not that it changes anything material about the situation.
From the perspective of the owners of this data, the US citizens and others that live in the country, this is very much a security breach; the data that was supposed to be secure is no longer secure.
That's what I'm saying though - DOGE claims it is secure and all of the data is still in the hands of those (in)directly appointed by Trump.
I do not disagree with your sentiment though, but a little pedantry is needed here. It's not necessary for this to be a security breach to be bad. Given how poorly this data is being handled even among those who are "supposed" to have it, it's likely there will be a legitimate security breach soon enough.
Agreed, but part of the reason I think people are not aware of what’s going on is that we’re not calling things for what they are, in a weird and self-imposed Orwellian way. Like calling a rocket that blows up “unexpected rapid disassembly” or some other BS. The rocket blew up, the cars blow up, it’s a coup, they’re nazi sympathizers, etc…
If DOGE is acting in an adversarial capacity to the US, there's no reason to put any stock in any claims they make regarding 'it is secure' or 'it is still in the hands of DOGE alone and definitely not being conveyed anywhere else, it has just been wrested from the grasp of the US Government'.
If they are adversarial enough to justify such wresting from the grasp of the US government, is that not already a problem, compounded by the fact that if they are already in an adversarial position there's no reason to assume they are acting alone in that position? Why believe any claim by them if they are already taking pains to take a position as an adversary?
It's taking their say-so that they are a domestic adversary rather than a foreign adversary, as if that made all the difference. I can't agree that it makes as much difference as they claim it makes.
> From the perspective of the owners of this data, the US citizens and others that live in the country
Did you say the cattle owns the ranch? Or you mean the cattle owns the feed?
No, the cattle owns nothing, you own nothing.
As for data being secure or not secure - how do you know any of this is true? Because journalists are good faith arbiters of truth without any conflicts of interest or personal bias?
I would argue that the same could be said that "from the perspective of the owners of this data, the US citizens and others that live in the country" it's evident that the government has been recklessly spending money. The reality is Americans voted this in, they wanted it. Both sides have made historical voting points for claiming to clean up corruption and cut the fat, none of them really did. This time it's being cut for everyone to see. They don't like it. People will fight it. Some good programs will be impacted. Once the dust settles we'll fix it, but for now I have yet to see any good arguments for some of the excess spending programs. I've seen little or no justification for billions going to foreign countries while Americans are in need of help.
He was trying to renege on Twitter so he could renegotiate the $52 price after the stock market came off its highs. To me the suspicious thing about the Twitter sale is why banks lent him the $13 billion to pull it off. The banks were then unable to move those loans off the books as Elon trashed Twitter's value.
At the time, Tesla's shares were so resilient that banks must've equated it to gold. And you can borrow any amount of money if you can provide the equivalent amount of gold as collateral.
This is Elon who is neck deep in the cesspool parts of the internet and attracts the same kinds of people.
They will continue to break every rule they can and ignore the legal push back as much as possible. They know that there is little they could do here that will result in any criminal prosecution.
Batten down the hatches and expect worse to come, the safeties are off.
When Elon stripped the Twitter organisation down to its fundamental parts, saved tons of money and the service is still ran like usual, people said the he’s a moron and the service couldn’t possibly run without a bloated and inefficient workforce.
They were wrong. Now that Elon is applying the same philosophy to all of his companies and now the federal government, people are once again saying he doesn’t know what he’s doing.
At a certain point, you have to ask yourself if these people who complain like headless chickens are actually serious people …
Is it really impressive to reduce expenses drastically if you also reduce revenue drastically?
Secondly it's doubly unimpressive because I believe Musk could have actually maintained very similar revenue levels, but the haphazard and immediate way of laying everyone off was incredibly counterproductive.
Revenue went down a lot less than expenses. So yes, profits went up a ton and are now positioned to go up even more as revenue recovers and the tech keeps functioning.
The revenue reduction was also more related to political positioning/image than technical capacity of the platform.
Let's look it up together. Musk has approximately doubled X's profits from 0.68B to 1.25B.
[0] article quote:
"During the last full year prior to Musk’s takeover, Twitter reported adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) of about $682 million and about $5 billion in revenue.
In 2024, X had an EBITDA of about $1.25 billion and annual revenue of $2.7 billion.
While X’s revenue is about half of what it used to be, the company’s costs are just about a quarter of what they were before.
As per the WSJ, investors noted that these were better figures than they had anticipated."
Even this [1] hilariously biased article is forced to admit in the middle that yes, X's profits have gone up since Musk took over.
"Now X also, of course, has reduced its overheads significantly, by culling around 80% of staff, so X’s profit margins are now much better as a result."
The word “adjusted” before EBITDA for 2021 is an important one: it references a one-time legal settlement that Twitter paid that year. If you don’t take that into account, the EBITDA was $1.47 billion.
Xai or whatever it's called was pumped with $6 billion, by, wait for it, fidelity. And, they still value X at 1/3rd of its original price. So, yes, the numbers will look good to people like you doing basic ebitda and revenue back of the envelope math. There's also no denying that the product sucks and users are leaving, which in turn will make your cute ebitda numbers look even bigger a few years down the line when there's only naz1s left!
I strongly doubt the current Twitter programmers could recreate Twitter from scratch. They are living of of the work a much larger number of programmers and building up a lot of technical debt.
Twitter as it stands post Musk is a disaster, though. Revenue has dropped off significantly. How is that a success?
Not to mention the absurdity of comparing something like Twitter to the federal government. It shows the staggering arrogance and ignorance of people in tech who think that.
The companies EBITDA is nearly double from when he purchased it so although revenue is down the company is making more money than before due to efficiencies. It’s probably worth about what he paid for it today. If advertisers come back, which I can see occurring with the huge cultural shift, it will certainly be worth well more than what he paid.
So why did the bankers that finance the loan write it down by nearly 80%? They have access to all the financial data and yet decided to take a major loss on their loan due to?
From what it appears, Late 2024, Fidelity wrote down their loans by 79% [1] and then sold it early 2025 for 97 cents on the dollar (of the reduced value) [2].
I really struggle to believe that the banks are just taking this massive loss by mistake and that the value is actually still there.
Fidelity was not part of the banks that sold their loans. Also it was a partial sale. The banks that sold their loans at just under their original valuation and profited, apparently. Original source reuters: https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/banks-sell-down-55-...
> At 97 cents, it is likely they sold at a profit, he added.
I would guess that the 3 cents loss on the loan value still results in profit due to payments which amounted to more than 3 cents + loan expenses.
I don't agree with parent that xitter is worth what he paid for it, far from it. EBIDTA isn't the whole story. But things do look better than a few months ago. So far I haven't seen a viable contender for a xitter replacement. I can't believe I'm saying this but I'm actually rooting for Threads.
a) Trust and Safety teams were disbanded which led to the EU now investigating the company for breaching DSA Risk Management provisions. If X is banned from EU this decision will be a major part.
b) Content Moderators were fired which has led to an increase in the amount of bots, spam etc which has directly attributed to a major loss in revenue as advertisers require a trusted platform.
c) Fidelity, an X investor, has valued the company at 20% of when it purchased. That is indicative of widespread wealth destruction.
Just want to point out that Twitter is not running anything like it used to. It’s handling orders of magnitude less load because they have broken all publicly embedded tweets, blocked public searching of tweets, blocked public browsing of tweets, and cut off all API access except for a very few who are paying.
Brand safety is also essentially turned off. This was a staff-intensive feature because brands can’t delete other users’ tweets the way they can hide or delete or turn off comments in Meta platforms and Youtube. They had to have help from Twitter staff, and now they don’t.
Finally, Twitter’s ad targeting is horribly broken and there is little recourse. Again, that customer service was staff-intensive and therefore a target of cuts.
Elon dramatically shrank Twitter into a much smaller service and company. And that’s a fine approach for a private company, because customers can just go elsewhere (Threads, Mastodon, Bluesky, Truth Social, etc) if they don’t like it.
It will not work as a way to improve the federal government. If you take away highway funding and healthcare and national defense, there is not an alternative federal government that American citizens can switch to.
It’s a dramatic demonstration of how poorly many business leaders understand what government does. Tech leaders can move fast and break things because they operate inside the protected, optimized space created by what government does. Break the government and you also break all the assumptions that give license to innovation.
Also after Musk took over my DMs were full of bots (never had a bot DM me before that). And the platform is drenched in outright naked racism and antisemitism in a way it wasn't before because they just decided you don't really need to do anything with that (except if someone says "cisgender", of course).
Ok, but how do you balance that with the fact that Twitter did $1.3B in profit in 2024, double the highest adjusted EBITDA of Twitter which was $682 million in 2021? You're talking about a bunch of metrics that are not the one metric that matters in business.
For Elon and all the neo Nazis who were banned from Twitter, Elon's takeover of the platform worked out great. For others, like trans people who were just living their online lives in a community they formed over years, Elon unleashed a barrage of hate and toxicity that forced them off the platform entirely.
The same will be true in our country. What Elon's doing now will work out great for him and neo Nazis, not so great for people that Elon and neo Nazis hates.
If I read this post 2 years ago it’d sound really relevant and current. But today it sounds fossilized. Like it came from a world that hasn’t existed for a long time. It’s amazing how much has changed in the last year. Like the Berlin Wall fell.
> When Elon stripped the Twitter organisation down to its fundamental parts, saved tons of money and the service is still ran like usual, people said the he’s a moron and the service couldn’t possibly run without a bloated and inefficient workforce.
- The bot problem is much worse than before the acquisition
- Search is completely broken, borderline unusable
There's this thing autistic people do where they try to reduce everything down to very simple systems that they can wrap their heads around. Sometimes this can be very powerful, but it oftentimes is an incorrect model of reality. Looking at the United States like a company is exactly this, and it's deeply misguided.
Arguably it was designed explicitly for the chief executive having control of the executive branch we just haven’t had executives with this level of interest in making major changes in 40+ years. Was somewhat common to shake up the scope of the federal gov’t when the bureaucracy was much smaller in the 1800’s and early 1900’s
You’re right that previous governments did not just recklessly disband entire agencies based on the wishes of an unelected billionaire and a bunch of teenagers.
Correct. It’s hard for people to imagine but the country functioned very differently before FDR and before him Lincoln. We’ve lived in FDRs government for 75 years and it’s served well for a good deal of that time. But nothing lasts for ever and even wine doesn’t continue to get better forever.
You could argue there have been 4 Republics - articles of confederation, Washington, Lincoln, FDR marking the turning point. The world has changed a lot. It feels like the time is right to rethink the federal governments scope and function and how it relates to her people and the world.
So....
The US government was designed to -deny- the executive branch
oversight and answers from the departments and agencies that
the exutive branch runs?
Or it was designed such that the exutive branch may not
appoint or use independent organisations or consultants
to perform audits?
Not sure what you are talking about. Audits happen all the time in government.
What is extraordinary is doing so with (a) no thought to privacy or security, (b) using teenagers with no security clearances, (c) by a billionaire who seems to just be going after his enemies e.g. USAID was investigating SpaceX.
Everyone has the necessary clearance. People need to stop treating clearances like a magic totem, the executive can grant access like candy if they wish, and often does when expedient.
DC is organized around minimizing the need for a formal clearance/access process because it is slow. Between the executive carte blanche and various title authorities with their well-understood loopholes, you can often just do things.
> the executive can grant access like candy if they wish
That doesn't mean doing so it can't be a problem when they do. This article is exactly why doing so is problematic and justifies the existence of the clearance process.
If they hadn't circumvented the process, the FBI would have found this information instead of Wired, and it could have been handled properly instead of in the public by the media. Going around this process opens people up to being blackmailed or extorted -- what if foreign intelligence found leverage over one of these people before our media and used it to extract government secrets? We don't even know if these people have been trained to handle classified and sensitive information. Do they even know their own rights and responsibilities?
It was designed for this. The safeguard is supposed to be Congress protecting their own powers out of self interest. They aren't. That's the where the "framers" screwed up.
I think the problem goes deeper than that, for two reasons.
The first is the obvious one. Congress is captured by a bunch of ineffectual assholes that either don't care enough to stop this or actively support ceding power to the executive.
But the second is that Congress has no actual enforcement mechanism. There are a few Congress members that are trying to stop this, but the executive can just play games with the court and lock out Congress members from any sort of oversight. If the executive refuses to abide by the laws of the country, who has control to stop it?
To quote the article: “I think Trump is going to run again in 2024,” [Vance] said. “I think that what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.”
“And when the courts stop you,” he went on, “stand before the country, and say—” he quoted Andrew Jackson, giving a challenge to the entire constitutional order—“the chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.”
They've been preparing themselves to ignore judicial rulings and they may well do that.
My two cents. Congress has a singular enforcement mechanism: impeachment.
If the Congress refuses? A constitution doesn't envision the government ceasing. What happens next requires a lot of imagination because it's not written in any text.
There's an example of Principate from when the Roman republic ceased and the empire began. It had the veneer of a republic, and maybe it fooled some people, I don't really know. But today it's considered an empire, not a republic, for the > 250 year period of the Principate. It was an autocracy, with an emperor. The senators were decoration.
> Why are high level figures in these departments just letting them walk in
The better question is what are all the Congressmen doing cozily on Capitol Hill. Like, not one has walked over to these departments to try and physically stop these kids from gaining the keys to the kingdom?
Thank you—missed this. I’d still say there is an escalation step missing in trying to stop the DOGE bros from entering the premises, up to and including getting arrested.
Look at Seoul. The balls on those lawmakers saved their democracy. I’m not seeing that strength or resolve in the Congress anywhere.
Resistance in democracy needs to be well-timed. Too early, and you don't have a critical mass of force to oppose the ruling regime and appear unreasonable. Too late, and it's too late to do anything.
This, plus you must consider the risks of taking bold action that can be framed as insurrectionary. I don't see a lot of haste to immediately and unequivocally declare the elected President, a usurper. Some would say the trouble is, the man got large numbers of legitimate votes under false pretenses, in a system where such an act is expected to lead to buyers' remorse and midterm losses through the political system.
Instead, we have whatever this is. Doesn't look like it's complying with the normal process of the political system, which is designed to punish an electoral bait-and-switch. Looks more like Russian elections and populace-management.
The democratic leadership has allegedly advised the members on congress to not get arrested, as they are already in the minority. Given too many arrests, the republican majority will be able to easily pass nearly anything through congress.
Now it's my understanding that members of congress can't be truly arrested during session; so the above argument doesn't entirely stick for me.
Regarding USAID: That is under Rubio now, who was confirmed unanimously. So I suspect it will be resurrected in some form and continue at least regime change operations.
MAGA outlet Tucker Carlson had Mike Benz on this week. Mike Benz had been vocally opposed to all CIA or foreign interference programs during the election campaigns. This week he recanted, talked without his usual eloquence and said that USAID is not all that bad! So MAGA is being reprogrammed.
If nothing really changes, the Democrats (who were avid neocons in the past four years) won't mind. Which could explain the meek protests of Schumer etc.
The treasury story is way more difficult, we have to wait for more information.
Almost certainly not. The President can’t reorganise e.g. the CIA and Federal Reserve under HHS, for example.
Where I agree with you is in USAID not being politically worth the fight. And after the last 8 years (and Biden’s twilight) it’s hard for Democrats to argue for the rule of law per se.
Almost certainly not. The President can’t reorganise e.g. the CIA and Federal Reserve under HHS, for example.
Any sentence that begins with "The President can't" can safely be disregarded. The executive branch has all the lawyers, all the guns, virtually all the media, and (now) all the money.
Everything we were taught was an ironclad law of American constitutional governance has turned out to be a "guideline," a "custom," a "tradition," a "gentlemens' agreement," or "nothing that my pet judges can't fix."
> Any sentence that begins with "The President can't" can safely be disregarded. The executive branch has all the lawyers, all the guns, virtually all the media, and (now) all the money.
Not to mention the blanket ruling from the supreme court that says "if the president does it, it's legal."
If you weren't paying attention when people like Patrick Soon-Shiong and Jeff Bezos were elbowing each other out of the way to pay tribute to Trump (1) -- or when CBS 'settled' a lawsuit that was widely seen as a certain win for them (2) in exchange for a $15M donation to the Trump Presidential Library, matching an earlier contribution in the form of an unnecessary 'settlement' from ABC, you probably aren't going to pay any attention to this comment, either. But for the record:
Also, bear in mind the history of America's most popular cable news network. Fox News is the propaganda arm of the Republican Party, and that was always the idea. After Watergate took down Nixon, the GOP swore the same oath that the Holocaust victims did: Never again. Never again would something like Watergate be allowed to play out in an unbiased, uncontrolled media environment. Ailes and Murdoch answered the call (https://theweek.com/articles/880107/why-fox-news-created) and the rest is history.
Why do we care so much about classified information? Why is there a reverence for our government hiding information from its people? Why shouldn't the government operate out in the open in all ways?
Something something terrorism, but i don't buy it. terrorism is the scapegoat for which we have massively eroded privacy and rights, in the same way that CSAM is the scapegoat for trying to ban encryption every 5 years.
They don't just have classified information. There is a lot of sensitive personal information on you and me in these databases. Information that can be used for blackmail and other nefarious purposes.
They didn’t publish it all for everyone to use, did they? Not much transparency here, since all they did was steal it and use selectively for their purposes.
Because the DOGE people have the proper clearances and authority. There seems to be a lot of confusion on this point. The executive branch can immediately grant clearance and access to random people at their discretion, and they routinely do in every administration. You don't even need to apply for a security clearance, never mind hold one. If the DNI wants to read in a Starbucks barista on the secret space alien bunker program, they can do that.
Voting for the President is in part voting for this. They don't need to ask permission from the bureaucracy nor can they be impeded by process because it is a Constitutional authority.
Americans really do seem to know nothing about how the Federal government works. This kind of drama happens every four years, they've just never paid attention before. Every administration change brings in a coterie of poorly vetted people like this and gives them the keys to the kingdom. Dialing up the outrage media this particularly time is manipulative. I've been close enough to this action across several administration changes to be pretty blasé about what has occurred so far.
Nothing to see here folks. All very normal. Remember aliens? Aren’t they cool. Don’t y’all remember when O’biden gave all those illegals access to the Jade Helm. What a blasé coterie of manipulative lamestream media.
The question no one asking is why Elon is sending a team of teenage programmers and not a team of financial auditors if he really wanted to cut government spending?
Reporting on this is terrible. There are also senior (in age and experience) people, but much of the focus is on the youngins for obvious reasons.
Musk also believes (either arrogance, or true belief) that much of this stuff can be figured out from first principals without much need of traditional experts.
I know a number of them but they’re rightfully not looking to be especially public about it now on the internet — life is hard enough just doing the job they’re trying to do. Which is frankly a lot of banal accounting and auditing type work. They’re in their 30’s and 40’s with prolific backgrounds in PE, as entrepreneurs managing nine figure budgets and thousands of employees, etc.
I'm having trouble reconciling the backgrounds of the people that you're describing with the effects of the work they're doing. When they suddenly closed USAID, vulnerable people around the world instantly lost access to food and medicine with no recourse. There were people enrolled in clinical trials who had devices implanted in their bodies and then suddenly all support was cut off. Even if you believe that America shouldn't fund these things, how can you possibly justify shutting it down in such a way that food for hungry people rots in warehouses and clinicians have to decide if they're going to defy orders to vaccinate a pregnant mother? I can understand how a 23-year-old can get so enamored by all this sudden access to power that he completely loses sight of the effects of what he's doing. I don't understand how someone with decades of experience in positions of responsibility doesn't ask the most basic questions about the consequences of taking drastic action.
The policy people like Stephen Miller who are the brains here question the humanity of others.
The expression of power by inflicting suffering is seen as a flex. USAID and its mission are in opposition to their aims — you are to be cowed by power, not be look kindly upon the kindness and mercy of the US.
Google up "hostage puppy". I could give you a link, but I'm not trying to claim that any particular person who said it is an authority.
The idea is that your organization may be doing inefficient or horrible things, but it also has one cute puppy who depends on it. Any time someone wants to shut your organization down, you just point to the cute puppy and say "you wouldn't want this puppy to die, would you?".
Which is the hostage puppy? Half the HIV treatment in the developing world? The people clearing landmines? The malaria treatment? Or is it tuberculosis? Or security and economic aid to our allies, particularly allies that are fighting wars? Or funding the groups that are standing up to our authoritarian adversaries? Feeding people facing famines? Economic assistance to bolster employment in countries to reduce the demand for people to migrate to the US?
Yeah I can’t believe what I’m reading on this site. The intellectual dishonesty is staggering.
This is truly the post truth world. I wouldn’t be surprised if many here who are making counter arguments either hate the US and what it stands for or are outright malicious actors
My friends aren’t working on USAid they’re in departments doing work that has no political storytelling like cutting a bunch of redundant $2-10M contracts here and there every day. Remember that it’s been like 2-3 weeks — what has your established company done in these 2 weeks?
I worked for a company that had the mentality of "what can we ship today", "how can we get 80% of the output with 20% of the work", "how do we move as quickly as possible" and "how do we keep the team as lean as possible". What they lost sight of in all of that hustle, they were piling on risks that would eventually cause real harm to customers. I'm talking about an expensive hardware product with a very high failure rate and limited warranty, and absolutely terrible security and privacy practices. These led to real harms to people. Moving quickly is fine in certain contexts, particularly when you're at an early stage and your work is effecting few people or only people who are willing to accept risk. But what works for an early stage startup doesn't work in other situations! Sometimes there are real human costs. When you're moving that fast, you completely lose sight of the consequences of your actions.
And if you think USAID is the only place where there are horrible first, second, and third order effects to what DOGE is doing, you're being completely naive. There are huge numbers of people in the federal government who deal with life-or-death matters every day. Air traffic controllers. VA clinicians. What are the consequences of sending these people daily emails telling them they're unproductive and they should quit or get laid off? Telling them that you want them to be "traumatized"?
A larger list of DOGE employees is on Wikipedia. While there are a variety of members, most of them don't have the experience you'd expect someone to have in the respective roles. The average age is definitely higher than 25 though.
I would love to know what Trump supporters think of all of this, but the usual places where Trump supporters hang out online (e.g., r/Conservative) don’t seem to talk about anything of the current administration’s controversies at all. I guess I was hoping they would at least talk about why they think they’re good or not that bad, but the mere mention of them seems to be suppressed. :sigh:
This is the part quite a lot of people seem to not grasp. While there is certainly a portion of them that are regretful and feel misled, a lot of them actively wanted this. The cruelty is the point, the end is the cherry on top.
I don't even mean this as an insult, but these people are quite literally in a cult. MAGA has all the hallmarks of a cult, and accordingly, you will not find the contrition or self-doubt you're looking for penetrating deeply into the movement whatsoever.
They chose long ago to block out negative thoughts and information, today is no different.
Similar to how we are shutting down the whole topic of what these programs were actually funding? The excessive spending? It's easy to project one side as bad but the same exact behaviors and attitude have been prevalent on the left.
Do you feel all of these programs should have been funded, or make sense when we are blowing through money and crushing people with inflation? Do you find the concept of auditing these organizations as bad, or is it bad because it's someone else doing it? If so can you explain why these actions weren't taken with the prior administration?
The point being, step out of a partisan hat, or an emotional state of X person is Y. Look at the federal governments spend, fraud, waste, and abuse is prevalent. Someone has to do the hard part and clearly leaving everyone to manage themselves doesn't work. More so when they can't pass their own audits.
> Do you feel all of these programs should have been funded, or make sense when we are blowing through money and crushing people with inflation? Do you find the concept of auditing these organizations as bad, or is it bad because it's someone else doing it? If so can you explain why these actions weren't taken with the prior administration?
I don't take issue with auditing. I take issue with the possible illegal firing of officials that are meant to provide oversight, skipping over security clearances to provide sensitive data access to unvetted indivduals, and attempting to illegally cut spending when only Congress has that authority.
> The point being, step out of a partisan hat, or an emotional state of X person is Y. Look at the federal governments spend, fraud, waste, and abuse is prevalent. Someone has to do the hard part and clearly leaving everyone to manage themselves doesn't work. More so when they can't pass their own audits.
Let's be clear here because I see a lot of MAGA repeating this incorrectly. You are referring to a few agencies like the Pentagon when you say they can't pass their own audits. Most federal agencies have no problem passing their audits and all of those audits are available through GAO. https://www.gao.gov/federal-financial-accountability. The majority of agencies pass GAO audits. In fact if Elon was only targeting agencies that failed GAO audits I would have much less of a problem.
I think you are the one that needs to take off the partisan hat.
Can you prove that the appropriate clearance hasn't been granted? It actually appears to be the opposite.
Passing an audit of " you spent x at y" isn't the same as "why are we spending X at y". He's doing the later, surely you can agree with that.
As for you partisan hat dig, i'm in fact not. I don't lean or vote how you're implying. In this particular instance, I've seen the excess of fraud, waste, and abuse through multiple agencies and organizations first hand. I've seen the pallets of USAID cash that were handed out without regard. I've also seen the increased prices, the national debt rising, and the general glut of how our government operates. So yes, while I may disagree with the process, the fact is no one else has taken a legitimate attempt at solving this problem. So in that manner I support the cleanse.
No one should have to prove a negative. In fact, Musk should be the one being completely transparent about clearances, etc... Instead he's fighting transparency every step of the way. If Musk was really looking to save tax payers money, USAID would have been at the bottom of the list. The cynic in me says he went after them because they were investigating him and he didn't want any conclusions to get out.
Finally, if you want to talk about the 'why' money is being spent, that's congress's domain. If we throw the laws out now then what use are laws. If you want to talk about rising debts, then look at the tax cuts Trump wants to renew that we can't pay for.
The left lost. If they didn't want this to happen they would have put forth a better candidate and addressed the American peoples concerns. This is what we get. It's crude and abrupt, but its what we get. I think we needed to purge a lot of the glut, so in this instance i'm indifferent to whom is doing it.
You completely sidestepped their comments on the legality of this all as just "eh, as long as it gets done." The legality and unconstitutionality of it all should be concerning no matter what side you are on.
You clearly have your perspective and the rest of the population has theirs. If he / they broke the law, I encourage you to engage your representatives and push for the appropriate actions. Take charge. Until then, it is what it is.
Kamala Harris was not a leftist candidate nor is the DNC a leftist party. They are both center-right, with a center-left fringe that votes Democrat largely for historical reasons. In fact, it is specifically the fact that the DNC is not leftist that renders them incapable of addressing Americans' concerns. Because the center-right is the "everything's fine" wing of the DNC, which bet that they could make leftists blink and vote Harris, and lost.
> If Musk was really looking to save tax payers money, USAID would have been at the bottom of the list. The cynic in me says he went after them because they were investigating him and he didn't want any conclusions to get out.
Why would the USAID be investigating Musk? USAID primarily focuses on foreign aid, humanitarian assistance, and development programs rather than regulatory or investigative actions.
By the way, the reason the USAID is at the top of the list for DOGE to audit is because they were the most resistant and combative when the idea of them being audited came up. But they won’t be the only ones facing an audit - the administration said they are looking at all agencies. In fact, just today President Trump literally said in a pre-Super Bowl interview that they will be looking at the Department of Defense soon and expect to find billions or maybe even hundreds of billions in waste.
This seems like exactly the kind of broad audit the US government needs, not just at the national level but every level of government.
It's not an audit, it's bullshit. The resistance he has met from officials is due to them trying to follow the law.
Musk doesn't have the context or detail on what is wasteful or not. Those decisions are made in Congress. If you believe him you believe you can just look at who is being paid and a short description and identify waste. That notion is idiotic.
Musk and crew aren't informed or qualified enough to make decisions about any of this. They're just ignoring the law and made themselves judge jury and executioner.
> If you believe him you believe you can just look at who is being paid and a short description and identify waste. That notion is idiotic.
We have to be clear going into the future. Musk is not doing things this way because he's an idiot, he's doing it because he is waging an ideological war. If he says something is waste and fraud, it's waste and fraud by definition. They don't care about whether there is waste and fraud, they just care about implementing their vision, and "reducing waste/fraud" is apparently the magic phrase that everyone agrees allows them to seize unchecked powers.
Can you prove the opposite has happened because every journalist says otherwise? The very article you are commenting on suggest the FBI did not do background checks because if so this particular person wouldn't have been approved. I'm all for having a committee that scrutinizes line items but the ends don't justify the means. Especially because there is no oversight here.
What evidence do the journalists have? Elon is cleared, many of his employees are by nature of the work they do. Many of the listed personnel for each of the DOGE teams in the orgs are comprised of Cleared lawyers and invdividuals from within the orgs as well. The burden isn't on proving they aren't, it's on the journalist to prove the sensationalist claims. There is clearly evidence of oversight, the president is authorizing actions. He was elected, we don't have to like it but it's how things are structured. Want change, back the candidates that will fix the issues you want, convince everyone else to agree.
One good example of sensationalism from journalists is the claim this is a "Data breach". That's neither true, nor helpful.
That is not how oversight works. Oversight is an unrelated non-partisan committee and transparency. Unfortunately Elon is jumping through hoops to avoid transparency like moving off any communication that would be subject to FOIA. What you describing is a crony doing his masters bidding not oversight and transparency.
You clearly have your perspective and the rest of the population has theirs. If he / they broke the law, I encourage you to engage your representatives and push for the appropriate actions. Take charge. Until then, it is what it is.
Are you seriously suggesting that usaid spending is responsible for inflation? Can you show any correlation with inflation and usaid spending? The only correlation I see, is corporation profits and wealth of the upper 0.001% going up at the same time as inflation. But instead of a conversation about this, we put the biggest of them all (whom btw has profited significantly from government hand-outs) in charge of finding efficiency.
This is not accurate. Most jobs in the federal government, including at the treasury, do not require security clearances. You’re confusing background checks, which are very basic, with the different types of security clearances, which aren’t required for something like a financial audit.
You don’t find it at all concerning how quickly this is happening? How have they learned so much in such a little amount of time? It’s incredibly naive to just trust that they’re this efficient.
I mean at least make it look like this is what you’re accomplishing. They’re not even trying to convince anyone, we’re just supposed to trust.
I understand a perspective from someone on the outside that hasn't worked within these organazations. The reality is we're ripping a bandaid off and it will sting and we may need more treatment, but we have to see where the real wound is at.
It's also not a situation of where we are spending money, but why. I have yet to see any reporting that can defend the vast majority of spend in USAID let alone the other organizations. Further when you look at the disclosures of how much money is actually making it to the organizations vs overhead it's even worse.
This is painful and it will impact people, but as a country we have to fix the books. If it goes to far, come election time we elect the people we need to fix it. Ultimately this was something he campaigned on and it's something he's doing. Like it or not, it's been a pretty transparent process.
> Like it or not, it's been a pretty transparent process.
Not at all. Musk has cherry picked a few things to share. Other than that, we know nothing. And most of what he's cherry picked have been shown to be incorrectly understood. Transparency would be third party auditors who setup a process, executed the process, and documented as they went. We literally have no idea what's going on.
They've been at it for a couple weeks, Let's see what happens. If they don't provide it, we'll start to see the results of their failures. Then we can push back. There will be legit programs impacted, we can pivot and get them back. If America didn't want this, they shouldn't have voted the way they did, but that's where we're at. He was open in doing this, it was always the case.
I highly doubt the people who voted all voted for this and the ones that did didn't vote for seizing agencies and illegally barring personnel and senators from the building.
We can speculate all we want. He said what he would do, he's doing it. Here we are. I encourage you to reach out and get involved with your local and representative politicians if you want to be a voice for change.
> Let's see what happens. If they don't provide it, we'll start to see the results of their failures. Then we can push back. There will be legit programs impacted, we can pivot and get them back.
So what you're saying is they have no idea what they're doing. Just cut it and "see what happens" and if it's really bad, "we'll just bring it back." You realize that we won't see the true effects of lots of things for many months and possibly years? It's not binary.
If the debt and spending are so important, why focus on cutting random programs and throwing tens of thousands of people in chaos?
You really haven't seen reporting defending PEPFAR, for example, as a program of USAID? The same org that also track and help prevent Ebola outbreaks? That funded hospitals for innocent civilians in Gaza?
Why is the first priority of the GOP Congress to renew and expand the Trump tax cuts, which the government is estimating to cost at least $4 trillion dollars and will mostly accumulate to the top 0.1%? It's also estimated that it will explode the federal debt.
This is a government by and for oligarchs like Musk. He's attempting distraction while the plan is to grossly enrich themselves.
You were having a discussion about the merits of specific behaviors and when someone pushes back on the merits, you just keep defaulting to "well they won the election."
You've done it multiple times now.
Everyone knows they won the election. Everyone knows the way to win power back is to win the election next time. People are having a discussion with you about the merits of what they're doing with that power currently.
the repeated refrain “they won the election” isn’t a lazy deflection—it’s a recognition of how our political system actually works. Power isn’t a magical property that comes from shouting insults or perpetuating endless conspiracy theories. Rather, it comes from a process that all of us have a stake in: an election that confers legitimacy on those chosen to govern. Yes, the people in power are taking legal actions to challenge inefficiency or waste, and if you disagree with the policies or the conduct of those in office, the established rules and courts are the means to bring about change.
Critics on both sides—whether anti‑Trump or anti‑Elon—tend to focus on slogans or sensational accusations rather than on what really matters: the proper channels of accountability. If you object to how power is being wielded or believe that policies are harming the nation, then the proper remedy isn’t to simply rail against the outcome. It is to participate in the democratic process. Challenge those actions in court, push for legislative reforms, and, importantly, vote for candidates who will implement the changes you want. That is the only non‑ad hoc, non‑refutable solution available.
It may sound repetitive to say “win the election” over and over again, but that is the point. Every time someone dismisses an objection with “they won the election,” they are implicitly saying: “If you don’t like how the current system is working, use the power that the system itself provides.” The legal processes and checks and balances aren’t just theoretical ideals—they’re the only way to address grievances without devolving into personal attacks or populist demagoguery.
So yes. If you don't like CURRENT thing.. you'll have to vote and better convince others your candidates the right one. The team that won is the team with power. Just as with Biden the team that won had their actions, people didn't like it, and here we are.
EDIT: I'd also ad that it's confrontational for you to directly assume people are in a cult because they don't follow your views.
> Yes, the people in power are taking legal actions to challenge inefficiency or waste, and if you disagree with the policies or the conduct of those in office, the established rules and courts are the means to bring about change.
They are likely not legal and have been told to stop by a judge. Vance has suggested ignoring the ruling and Elon is whining about impeaching judges now.
> the proper channels of accountability
Who is exactly is accountable to what is happening right now? Musk? Hahaha. There is zero accountability, transparency, or oversight in what is happening.
> people are in a cult
It's not an assumption. When people follow someone or a group to a religious extreme that is a cult. Everything Trump or now Musk does is somehow explained away in a very 'we were always at war with Eurasia' way. This list is really never-ending, but Trump was going to lower prices (the eggs!) and now he says they are going to go up. MAGA's are about backing the blue, unless Trump is pardoning people who beat police officers. What about Hilary's emails on a private server, but it's ok that Musk loading confidential government data to who knows where. Can you believe Hunter is on the board of a company and may be profiting off his families name? Forget about Trump coin, Kushner getting billions from the Saudis, the list goes on. And it highlights that MAGA doesn't really have any views other than 'our team good, their team bad'.
It's wild to me that people are that into someone like Trump or Musk. I'm not into anyone like that except maybe my family. When Trump said he could shoot someone in the street and people would still follow him, he was right. That also means it's a cult. What would they have to do for you to say throw them in jail?
You literally are personifying your own "our team good, their team bad" comment.
You're not providing any solution to the actual perceived problem. You're not providing any counters beyond your candidate that failed to get the support necessary to win. You don't have to like it, this is what it is, the left lost not only the election, but your "I know better than you" smarmy attitudes are resulting in those of use that are socially liberal, being pushed further right for a sense of sanity.
At this point the conversation isn't going anywhere and i'm satisfied that we are cleaning out all this graft, you (collectively) are not. We will not agree on this and i'm ok with that. I get it, it sucks losing control of narratives and funds, all I can say is what i've said before, if you don't like it vote for change.
USAID passed an independent audit literally 4 months ago. [1]
Please elucidate what graft 1) they missed, 2) you've found, and 3) justifies withdrawal of life-saving treatments for millions of people while inflicting enormous damage upon our country's international image?
Okay got it. Near the top of ganoushoreilly's priority list are:
1. Stopping life-saving treatments for 560,000 children
2. Stopping life-saving treatments for another 20 million people
Ganoushoreilly thinks this might be actually the right course of action, because s/he believes the funding is not audited and "there might be fraud." S/he appears ignorant of the easily discoverable fact that this funding was last audited a jawdropping, wildly irresponsible four months ago. By actual independent auditors.
Oh look, generic claims projected as fact. Where did I say anything close to this? Maybe re-frame your allegations here with actual links to specifics and I'll respond. If your emotionally charged response is in regard to stopping the medical transition of minors, yes I support that stance. It also has 0 to do with cuts as USAID and is more a larger complaint you have against the President vs the actual topic this whole post in based on. That's on you. Democrats lost, their views aren't the views in power. The american population has voted for the powers that be. It sucks losing and it can be an extremely emotional thing realizing that a large part of the population doesn't in fact toe the line with you on what you feel are the most critical issues in america. That's just how it is. You can be mad, you can sling mud, but like a broken record, there is only one way you can fix that and it's convincing people to vote like you.
This conversation has delved into hyper emotional responses, i've tried to keep it to the point of topic at hand. I've made it clear we have different opinions and it's not going to change. I'm not engaging further after this.
Uhhh... I was referring to the number of people currently -- and now, no longer -- receiving life-saving HIV treatments via USAID/PEPFAR. These people will die.
It's frankly mind-boggling that we can be in the middle of conversation about USAID/PEPFAR, you say "yes I agree with this prioritization," I reply back with what that prioritization actually is, and then you... jump to thinking that I'm talking about half a million children transitioning genders?
You first justified the Trump administration's blatantly illegal actions by saying Americans voted for Trump. Now, you're saying it's all fine, because anyone can challenge Trump's illegal actions in court.
The fact that the president is taking one extreme, illegal action after the next in rapid succession is itself extremely alarming and unprecedented in American history. The fact that the Vice President has publicly declared that courts have no right to overrule the President's illegal actions is equally alarming.
He is the president, the population elected him. You have a process to rectify it if you feel so inclined. He won and now your views aren't the views of power and it must suck, I sympathize with that but progress is going to continue regardless if it's your vision. Plenty would say the same is true about the prior president and the excessive heavy handed actions taken towards DEI and other programs that have been found to be unconstitutional, you know, within the courts as the system requires. There is a process. If you don't want to play the game, using the process, any outcomes you don't like are on you for failing to change it. You as in the collective of opinion.
Go outside, take a walk, breath, it's going to be ok.
> He is the president, the population elected him.
That doesn't give him the right to shred the Constitution.
> You have a process to rectify it if you feel so inclined.
A process that the Vice President has said the President is free to ignore.
You're justifying an all-out assault on the Constitution of the US. The President isn't following "the process" - which seems not to concern you in the slightest.
Why not get mad at all the money appropriated to USAID to fund specific causes and find out most of that money went to pay for houses near Langley, VA and Politico accounts? That's a much larger scandal than this super transparent process happening.
The scandal is now super deep. They just caught FEMA funding another $60 M going to hotels in NYC! Prepare for this to get deeper. I hope they root out all corruption. My hat is off to them, I'm extremely overjoyed they're finally fixing our government. This is the best government the USA has ever had.
> Why not get mad at all the money appropriated to USAID to fund specific causes and find out most of that money went to pay for houses near Langley, VA and Politico accounts?
It didn't, and I'm disappointed to see that there are people on HN who fall for such absurd falsehoods.
Have you even read the article you linked to? It says that USAID only paid $44k to Politico, for subscriptions to a publication it runs.
$44k is nowhere near "most" of USAID's budget. It's less than 0.0001%. If you want USAID to stop subscribing to publications, that's a very minor change. You don't shut down an entire agency over that.
You still haven't addressed the fact that USAID only paid $44k to Politico (over two years, for subscriptions), which is less than 0.0001% of USAID's budget.
You said USAID spends most of its budget on Politico and apartments near Langley. Are you going to admit that that was nonsense, before switching to your next argument?
> I have yet to see any reporting that can defend the vast majority of spend in USAID let alone the other organizations.
What is there to defend? Congress passed a law saying there must be an international aid agency. Congress appropriated money to that agency with general directives on how it should be spent, and exercises regular oversight over that spending. The grants given by the agency are transparent and publicly availabile.
You or I might not like every grant USAID gives, but that's for Congress to address. In fact, the USAID spending I have the biggest problem with - the arms funding to Ukraine - is specifically congressionally mandated. The largest program after that, I believe, is AIDS prevention and management in Africa, which is a great use of US tax dollars that only a truly evil person would object to.
If you don't like something that USAID is spending money on, the answer is for Congress to exercise its oversight, and possibly change the law to alter how USAID works. The president has no legal authority to shutter the agency. He's required to implement the foreign aid laws that Congress has passed, and those laws say that USAID must exist.
You didn't answer the question, which is all the answer I need. You just don't care until it hits you or a loved one.
How has it been transparent? They're not releasing any reports or giving any reasoning behind anything other than it's "corrupt". They're being the opposite of transparent, which is by design. And they're moving fast so there is no time to react to it all. It's very clear what's actually going on, you can choose to ignore it all you want, but it's going to hit you personally eventually.
I find the concept of ad hoc audits of the executive branch, by the executive branch, terrifying. Especially when used to terminate congressionally-mandated programs.
I agree that we should lean into audits and responsibility. The good faith way to do that would be laws passed by congress and executed by the executive.
There is no possible spin that legitimizes current events. I would say we have a constitutional crisis, but it seems like the blitzkreig was successful and the constitution became irrelevant.
I don't follow this logic, I would in fact expect the executive branch to be auditing the executive branch. What congressionally mandated program was terminated?
No spin is required, the people voted for this. Unfortunately one side wasn't able to convince the people that they didn't need this. That's where we are. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. You make adjustments and move on.
> I don't follow this logic, I would in fact expect the executive branch to be auditing the executive branch.
This is nonsense. It's like the police investigating themselves and finding no wrongdoing. You have a separate oversight organization do the audit because of conflict of interest and corruption.
It's nonsense in that is what was going on within the agencies. Our legal system is being leveraged. Don't like it, put forth a good claim and bring it to court. As it stands, it's all legal. That's on the voters if you don't like it.
> Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act on September 4, 1961, which reorganized U.S. foreign assistance programs and mandated the creation of an agency to administer economic aid.
I wouldn’t be opposed to an executive branch that implemented audits and took the results to congress to advocate for policy changes and department refactoring.
I’m very opposed to an executive branch that audits programs they have political problems with, and use these no-oversight audits to kill agencies. That’s just authoritarianism.
I've seen MAGA supporters hyperventilating about "money laundering" and "fraud," but they almost never give any examples of said laundering and fraud. When they do give supposed examples, they're usually fake (e.g., birth control for Gaza, not that that would even be fraudulent in any way, if it had been true).
If you look at the federal budget, the vast majority of it is spent on a few big-ticket items (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the military). The programs Musk is attacking are a tiny part of the federal budget, and are already transparent, for the most part. You can go look up who is getting what grant from which agency. But it's all peanuts to start with.
> I've seen MAGA supporters hyperventilating about "money laundering" and "fraud," but they almost never give any examples of said laundering and fraud. When they do give supposed examples, they're usually fake (e.g., birth control for Gaza, not that that would even be fraudulent in any way, if it had been true).
This is the end stage of cable news like Fox and social media.
Wouldn't the otherside argue the same could be said for about the extreme viewpoints the left has held for the last decade+? Regardless of what anyone on this forum thinks, his approval ratings are only going up. If the people made a great mistake, that was their mistake to make.
You may find the left's ideas extreme, but they played by the rules of the game and respected the Constitution.
Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election, and now, he's operating as if the Constitution and the law simply didn't exist. Birthright citizenship, as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment? Executive order to eliminate it. Agencies established and funded by Congress? Eliminated by Elon Musk with no consultation. Musk hasn't even been confirmed by the Senate, as the Constitution requires. Trump just appointed him czar of everything, and now he goes around firing people and shutting down congressionally mandated agencies.
I'm sure he started with USAID because USAID helped end apartheid in South Africa, something he was a big fan of. Starting with USAID also helps reduce US's power overseas which certain countries would be very grateful for.
He can't touch things like national defense, because that means all his SpaceX and friends' Palantir contracts get exposed for what they are. Cash orders. Once all the smaller hurdles, see CFPB, are out of the way, then the rest of the a16z and Founders Fund clowns will come in with their solution-based ideas shelling their own stupid stocks on how to make America build, dynamic and great. USAID is the lowest-hanging fruit, with everything in plain sight, minimum effort was needed to create maximum distortion. All the peanuts are for him and his gang.
The peanuts don't add up, in this case. The discretionary federal budget is dominated by the military, and the nondiscretionary budget dominates the entire budget.
Even if entire agencies were bullshit, and that’s incredibly unlikely and unrealistic, it’d do absolutely nothing meaningful to our spending compared to our biggest expenses. This is a problem for a lot of people without backgrounds in economics or who are used to very, very, large numbers. A few billion dollars sounds like a lot, but it’s literally not even a tenth of a percent of our budget.
If they cared about reducing the budget, and finding inefficiencies they would nationalize the healthcare system since we as a nation pay nearly double that of any other country and have worse outcomes. It’s empirical they do not care about efficiency, based on their targets, they care about power. USAID was investigating NeuralLink that’s why it was targeted. Thats it.
He's going after every single agency. Surely you're aware he's tarting health card and the Military already right? Do you know why the started with USAID?
Let's see where we are in 6 - 12 months, then if he hasn't touched anyone else I'll accept your point of him not targeting anything of value.
In 6-12 months there will be nearly irreparable harm done. And I said exactly why he started with USAID but I’m guessing you didn’t actually read that part.
Good idea: having someone audit wasteful government spending
Bad idea: having someone hire a bunch of H1-Bs[0] to take root access onto a bunch of Treasury Department servers and leak everything they get their hands on by asking an LLM to do the work for them
[0] My politics considers migration as a human right. However, since we don't live in that world yet, we have to consider that H1-Bs are hired not for their merit as programmers but for their willingness to wear golden handcuffs in exchange for potential future immigration opportunities.
Is an independent audit in November of 2024 recent enough? Nothing material found. A few recommendations on reviewing leases and tightening expense reports.
There's probably still a bunch of libertarian leaning Ron Paul supporters here.
I'm all for limited government and shutting down all foreign aid, but this is why I hate Trump and Maga. They ruin everything by playing checkers and not chess. How did Musk not see that sending unvetted kids into the US Treasury was going to blow up in his face.
Now Musk is saying he is going to get Ron Paul to audit the Fed, finally. Does he not see that sending a 90 year old to audit the fed is going to be even more of a clown show?
> Luke Farritor of DOGE was given access to computer systems of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the department responsible for the security and protection of American nuclear technologies and nuclear weapons, by United States Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Chris Wright, against guidance of the DOE's general counsel and chief information offices.
on the face of it, this sounded absolutely terrifying reading it on wikipedia. But, on closer inspection of the CNN article used as a source
> Farritor was granted access to basic IT including email and Microsoft 365, one of the people said. The chief information office only does a small amount of IT and cybersecurity work for the National Nuclear Security Administration, they said, including providing connectivity and running basic internet services for NNSA’s headquarters. It does not run IT systems for the nuclear agency’s labs controlling the nation’s nuclear stockpile.
This is how media has been hacked. When everyone is exaggerating that the sky is falling, we all tune it out, and then it's really hard to convey when the sky truly is falling... resulting in authorities that can get away with pretty much anything.
audible sigh. no, this is not evidence of how "media has been hacked".
the wikipedia summary of the information could be clearer, as it leaves room for me to make an inference on the statements provided -- but those inferences are based on my own biases and my own fuzzy stupid human brain thing filling in the blanks.
which is exactly why there are links to the underlying source material. so I can go and dive in deeper to see that, actually, my brain filled in the blanks wrong. it's my brain filling in the blanks. no-one else's brain is doing it for me. no-one is "hacking" my perspective. I screwed up by reading into something wrong and making assumptions out of fear. It is my personal responsibility to verify and challenge my own assumptions, especially those based on fears and worries.
basically, it's my own damn fault. please don't blame someone else for something that is my own damn fault.
there are plenty of badly poorly edited wikipedia articles out there -- i was reading one last night which literally had an entire paragraph that consisted of "The BBC released a timeline of events on their website". That was the whole paragraph. No reference for that statement either! This is part of the nature of community based, a.k.a. amateur, created notes. Oh look, an argument for professional fact checking and copy editing appears out of nowhere.
I don't mean "hacked" as in some malicious individual planned to mislead you. I mean we've screwed up our brain's information processing with the constant flow of urgency (for eyeballs). We're basically unable to pay attention to anything that isn't immediate. The bias you mention in compounded by others biases as the information is shared with each individual's bias. I also suspect that there can be bad actors in the chain, who intentionally mislead, often for pretty banal reasons (protecting their own perceptions).
I recently read about how Trump is "crashing" the stock market, and I was like oh crap, but when I checked it was only down a few points. Not only will I now ignore this source, but it's also probably nudged my overall distrust a little bit. Possibly the person writing the article figured it was important enough to warrant notice (it is) but realized no one would pay attention if it didn't sound urgent, so they gussied it up a lot... Imagine how much more dire it was after it got shared a few more times. If I got my news from Facebook then I might have thought democracy had collapsed and roving bands of gun toting anarchists had taken over.
> "Trump is "crashing" the stock market, and I was like oh crap, but when I checked it was only down a few points"
Forbes has a page "realtime billionaires list"[1] where they track the day to day wealth changes. Musk lost $12.5 billion today, Larry Ellison lost $2.8 billion today, Mark Zuckerberg gained $820M today.
When a few points means billions to the people who fund and own media outlets, who are also famously competitive and willing to do anything to make the numbers go up, it becomes more clear why we hear of the market "crashing" but it doesn't seem much different to us. (and that's outside the usual political complaining about everything the 'other' party does, whatever it is).
You're very intelligently jumping through hoops to justify and defend the media and how the system as a whole operated here. On aggregate, this kind of "something" that happened, whether relying on readers filling in blanks, omissions, downright lying, even the choice of photo on a wiki page, etc, they all have a net-effect which steers the conversation and effort in a very specific direction.
Let's not pretend like this stuff doesn't have some sort of effect on the conversation, or our ability to have the conversation, or to debate it rationally and from first-principles. At the very least, we are here arguing pedantic minor points whilst the real issues are left un-debated. The purpose of the media should be to distill, enlighten, inform, and definitely not mislead with a very specific agenda which it very clearly does. You point me to any news article from any news outlet, including Reuters and I will show you how they twist literal facts into bias. At this point, I see them as no different than politicians.
Unfortunately for the left-wing intelligentsia, the media, and their allies - the average day to day people are waking up and the general opinion floating around more and more is having the effect of exposing the MO of how the media pushes an agenda (whether purposefully or not).
I think that's generous. He is chopping entire departments after scooping up all their data. He doesn't seem to be doing any analysis at all. And a lot of his public statements have been patently false.
As a side note: that is very similar to how a consulting team would operate. Very young (inexperienced) team on the ground + senior people flying in from time to time.
Consulting is a sales job where senior partners need to hit numbers which affect their compensation, so they will sell anything and everything in terms of the projects that they leverage their (balkanised, aggressively dysfunctional internal politics) firm’s weight to achieve credibility to perform a massive turnaround or implementation or some other such project, and then sic a bunch of people ranging from fuck all experience to just learning to play the game onto delivery.
The partner will appear at key points to ensure that the executives who approved the contract are happy and hopefully sell the next round of work.
If they shit the bed, which they do frequently, no worries, they’ve already sold the next deal elsewhere and now their firm may be out from that organisation for a year or two and one of the others will come in and screw up for a few years and then they’ll be back.
Incidentally and because this should be a basic competency of government, the Australian government, owing to a huge number of significant scandals including one in which PwC used the information in crafting taxation law and then sold it to international corporations to fucking obliterate any sense of Chinese walls (in which no one has gone to jail and most careers have emerged semi intact, if with a bunch of egg that any self respecting person would go and take a long hard look in the mirror at themselves for having been involved in) - the last 3 years has seen a modest relocation of these basic functions of government internally.
Which one of our political party leaders is now campaigning on removing, in order to bring back the gravy train to the incompetent consulting fucks. (Both our primary party leadership need to have a stern talking to because one side is actively trying to channel MAGA energy, and the other seems unwilling to do anything useful.
So turns out I had a bit to get off my chest, I hope no one found that too boring
Not going to defend the cult of the consulting MBA, but when I was running strategy work, my consultant-level kids had been recruited from a small number of MBA programs, undergone six-month intensives, and then spent 2-3 years as entry-level spreadsheet jockeys and task trackers before they were given any actual responsibilities, and we would have had a partner or up-for-partner management overseeing every identifiable tranche of work (plus federal work usually requires additional oversight layers and sometimes totally separate resource silos). Worlds different than parachuting in a handful of teenage or barely post-undergrad interns and letting them run riot through the most sensitive areas of the federal government without so much as an MSA or SOW, let alone security clearance investigations.
> letting them run riot through the most sensitive areas of the federal government
This is an overstatement. These are not the most sensitive areas of gov't. Surely, that would be anything with national secrets: military planning, CIA, NSA, FBI, etc.
You could say it's the most sensitive area that affects the day-to-day life of everyday people. Especially medicaid and co. for the older voterbase (AKA the one that actually votes). Those Intelligence agency data wouldn't have made as big a public outcry in comparison.
dunno, I've seen some of the McKinsey, Deloitte, PwC, and Bane work... I'm skeptical anyone senior ever looks an anything. McKinsey specifically feels like the Jim Cramer of consulting with every blog post they write. Maybe your experience is different, but it feels like the consultants do the same as DOGE is doing.
most of the NASA engineers that took us to the moon were very young. Young people accomplished major feats of achievement, and continue to do so.
considering that knowledge decays (often rapidly) as a function of time since the last instruction, "experience" seems like it might be of far less value than temporal proximity to a previous college education.
Curiously both Tesla and SpaceX benefit enormously from government spending[1] to the tune of almost $5Bn of taxpayer money. And then Tesla paid zero income tax last year[2] and none in 2021 either[3]. And now Musk is taking the position that the government spends too much taxpayer's money and needs to be torn down.
Musk also did very well by plainly lying (which I would call market manipulation) about Tesla products; the Cybertruck video where Musk claimed it was faster than a Porsche while towing a Porsche was a lie[4]. A 2016 video demonstrating self-driving was faked[5]. Musk's statements about what the Tesla Semi can do were not just generous marketing, they are impossible[6], claiming 500 miles range and PepsiCo reports they can't even carry a load of Lay's potato chips for 500 miles and on heavier loads they can only travel 100 miles. Faked self parking videos, faked SolarCity videos, faked Optimus humanoid robot videos, faked CyberTruck towing an F150 video[7]. The Optimus robots at the October 2024 event were remote controled and remote-voiced by humans[8]. They walk like Honda Asimo robots walked 25 years ago but they're being spun like they are Boston Dynamics killers. Musk's talk of tentacle arms to recharge Teslas never turned into anything (though BYD in China has had public automated electric-car battery-swap stations for years now). Musk's talk of full self driving first promised, what, 2017? turned out to be misleading with cars not even having the hardware to do a good job of it. Musk's early plans for completely automated Model 3 factory faded very quickly with them reverting to humans in marquees.
Yes Musk has done pretty well with investors letting him get away with a lot of broken promises and taxpayers letting him get away with a lot of subsidies and customers letting him get away with a lot of shoddy products. Lucky for him the Tesla engineers were competent true believers(tm) and delivered decent Model 3 and Model Y but that should only give them a similar valuation to other car companies, shouldn't it?
All of this, and yet the rockets land on the ground, the cars sell and drive themselves, and the world is fighting for Starlink terminals as soon as there is some event going on. I wish more would manage to consistently fail upwards in such a way.
Almost as if he didn’t actually cause that to happen. I can imagine a world where thousands of competent professionals, working in areas they were already passionate about did the work. They did it by working according to their training, not according to “first principles.”
Their jobs and approaches were protected by middle/upper management constructing stories for Musk about how it was revolutionary, and all he heard was agreement.
SpaceX makes money in four ways[0], billion dollar contracts with NASA for rocket design and manufacture, cargo and supply services for NASA, contracts with the US Department of Defense, and the US Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center. Most of its income is taxpayer money. And StarLink, though we might wonder if StarLink would be around without the taxpayer, and what SpaceX valuation would be if it was just Starlink.
Fidelity estimates X (Twitter) is worth 80% less than when Musk bought it[1].
The Boring Company has raised ~$795M of investment valuing it at $5.6Bn and in 7 years it has delivered a 2.4 mile tunnel under Las Vegas which cost $48M and $4.5M/year. It was going to use self driving Teslas but actually they pay drivers to drive the cars, to move 1-3 people at ~40 miles per hour, and The Boring Company subsidises it by another couple of million per year. This money could have bought a lot of buses which would move more people more cheaply. Bus Rapid Transit, but worse.
I wrote three paragraphs with 8 links showing multiple lies, manipulation, differences between how Musk presents himself and what he says he supports (Randian superman), vs. what actually happened (taxpayer funding) and they post a one-line dismissive "who cares, he's rich, the ends justify the means".
That's not a good comment, especially in the light of dang's callout at the top of this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42992992 "don't post low-information / high-indignation comments that could just as easily appear in any related thread. Such generic comments make discussion less interesting and more activating.".
I can also now add to my list: and now an offshoot of X, xAI, released the most impressive thinking model people have seen in some time.
The issue is that one can write as many paragraphs as they want, if the goal of those paragraphs is to obscure some basic truths then they will gain:
- laudation from sycophants;
- mere rejection from "basic facts enjoyers".
Your dismissal of Musk's accomplishments and companies for political reasons is also a dismissal of all the people who have trusted him with their time and effort to build all those wonders. What they've accomplished is great, and it obviously would not have happened without him.
Touting “first principals” is a way of revealing “I’m too dumb to understand other people’s work.” Like if you can’t understand higher level concepts and have to start on your own from Euclid, it just means you aren’t very smart but think you can be another Maxwell just by thinkin’ real hard. It’s a joke.
Not necessarily. Other peoples' work can assume what "everyone knows"; starting from first principles can (sometimes) show up where that's the case. That doesn't mean you're not very smart; it means you're aware enough to know that some limitations that aren't real creep in to the body of knowledge of a field.
Or it can be just arrogance. (In fact, even when it's reasonable, it probably also contains some arrogance...)
I am in agreement with you. The OP is overstated. I have heard Musk interviewed a few times. When asked to explain more about his phase "first principles", he usually talks about (paraphrase) "delete as many things as possible". It is an interesting way to think about project planning. At a bare minimum, he has created several incredibly successful businesses in his lifetime, so he must be doing something right.
> At a bare minimum, he has created several incredibly successful businesses in his lifetime, so he must be doing something right.
No, this is a common fallacy.
The main reason to get crazy rich and successful is statistics: be lucky. I.e., accidentally do the successful things. And usually starting rich helps, so you have the opportunities.
Crazy success is not a measure for capability. There is no correlation. Yes, it is sad, so despite this, the fallacy is a great motivation for many.
Its about assuming most people operate on dogma and heuristics. This is extremely true in my opinion.
By making this assumption, you dispel bad practices and behaviors that might have built up within an organization. Even more importantly you can reveal why certain chesterton’s fences exist.
Interestingly that is the exact opposite of the Chesterton's fence concept - it illustrates that it is much better to grasp the system as it exists before attempting to change it, as then you can learn why a Chesterton's fence exists without tearing it down.
Which works in fields removed from non-human reality or consequences. For example, when creating financial derivatives or other forms of social engineering, where the substrate changes and nothing seems fixed.
It falls to pieces when people with this mindset attempt to work up against the constraints of physics, or other unchanging limits. Those limits can be constructed on, and relied upon. Going back to first principles in these cases inevitably results in massive losses in the repetition of the uncountable quiet failure-corners of history.
The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it. Physics has to work, organisational processes don't - Maxwell himself wouldn't have been able to understand the travel expense rules at some organisations I've seen, and the right response isn't always to try to reverse engineer what people were thinking when they came up with this crap, sometimes you really are better off throwing it away and coming up with something reasonable from scratch.
Do you think it more likely that people are "incapable of understanding" or that people are intensely suspicious of what Musk's idea of a "reasonable tax code created from scratch" would be and how it would benefit Musk a lot more than everyone else?
The former. My own personal view on taxes: (especially income and property tax) neither the rich nor the poor should ever pay them. So in my view it does not matter to whom it benefits the most - most likely it is going to benefit everybody musk included, I suspect though It will also mostly benefit the less well off people in society. Perhaps the most important question to ask is not who will gain - rather who stands to lose? My answer would be the career bureaucrats.
Without paying property tax, the rich can buy up lots of property (and land) and leave it idle, with the express purpose of squeezing everyone else into the remaining land, forcing the rent prices up, which they benefit from. Since there is a finite amount of land in a nation, that ends up being unfair. Assuming the ordinary people pay a tax of some kind, the government is taking that money under the idea that they will use it to benefit the taxpayers and the overall nation. Standing back and doing nothing while the rich exploit everyone else isn't living up to that side of the tax contract. Property taxes impose a cost to the ownership of a property which disincentivizes leaving it empty, which is better for almost everyone else except the property owner.
Do you have another solution to that, or do you not care about that in a dog-eat-dog way?
> "My answer would be the career bureaucrats"
Why is this used as a slur? There's such a thing as a career diplomat, and we'd hope they would learn more about the country they were diplomat-ing in over that career - who can make things happen in the government, how the consulate can get things done, build relationships with people in power. Similar with a career bureaucrat in principle, having a head full of details about which supply chains are reliable and resilient, which people are experts in border issues or international currency issues or state laws vs. federal laws, building relationships with them.
>the government is taking that money under the idea that they will use it to benefit the taxpayers and the overall nation
It's not how it pans out.
>Property taxes impose a cost to the ownership of a property which disincentivizes leaving it empty, which is better for almost everyone else except the property owner.
All that will disproportionately affect the poor not the rich who can actually afford the taxes.
>Do you have another solution to that, or do you not care about that in a dog-eat-dog way?
I do. Property in one thing that I think should be equally divided among individuals, with individuals being able to use/rent in whatever manner they please within certain confines (lots of assumptions here and lots of if and buts, but it's huge discussion).
>> "My answer would be the career bureaucrats"
>Why is this used as a slur?
It is intended to be a slur, infact the word bureaucrat itself is a slur. Being a bureaucrat is a negative skill or a parasite etc. unlike a lot of other specializations. Ofcourse exceptions may exist. Personal questions: have you done your taxes beyond simple salaried income tax? Have you bough/sold property? have you run a small/big business? have you run a payroll? Alternatively are you familiar with the amount of complexity introduced by the govt in the questions I asked you?
> "I do. Property in one thing that I think should be equally divided among individuals, with individuals being able to use/rent in whatever manner they please within certain confines (lots of assumptions here and lots of if and buts, but it's huge discussion)."
That's interesting, and rather goes up against the free markety ideas that the people with the most valuable use for land/property should be able to buy as much of it as they want from people with less valuable uses (who can sell it at market rates). I am interested and do wonder how that might work, and if it would work. Although I note that thing_you_like is allowed to be nuanced and complex, and thing_you_dislike must be bad because it's complex.
> All that will disproportionately affect the poor not the rich who can actually afford the taxes.
That happens when a speeding ticket is a fixed $100. Norway can give speeding fines up to 10% of the driver's annual salary. A bad property tax disproportionately hurts the poor, not all property taxes.
Your parent comment "Perhaps the most important question to ask is not who will gain - rather who stands to lose?" is the entire reason taxes get complicated - because every change is a change that someone gains and someone else loses. Any thing which is paid for by taxes has an argument over who should pay the tax, and how much of it; do parents pay tax for schools? Society benefits from more educated people, so does everyone pay? Is it an income tax because people who benefitted more from education can earn more? Is it part of property tax because family homes need schools built nearby? Solve for something all councillors/senators agree on - after they negotiate, for every thing and every slider.
> Personal questions: ...
They would be relevant if I had said the tax code was in any way optimal, good, efficient, should not be changed, or should not/could not be improved. My position is not that. It is if we give the greedy fat kid free reign to rewrite the rationing system the only expected result is all the food ends up on their plate and none on anybody else's.
We've seen Musk taking union busting actions, we've seen Musk's daughter accuse him of abuse, we've seen Tesla and SpaceX benefit from billions of taxpayer funding while Tesla arranged to pay no income tax on its billions of income, Musk has demonstrated lack of caring for the interests of other humans, the expected outcome of him rewriting the tax code is that he and his companies pay no tax and therefore others pay all of it. We've also seen years of Musk dashing off an unworkable ill-thought-out idea off the top of his head, so after "I pay no tax" the remainder is probably some pre-planned maximally self-interested tax code written by Peter Thiel et al, or some dashed-out-in-ten-minutes wildly unbalanced hopelessly unworkable napkin tweet.
I would like to see laws implemented with test conditions for how we will know if they are working, with a mandatory sunset period for reviewing them and if they aren't meeting the test conditions they automatically expire. I would like to see the tax code be mandatory computer-implementable with low tax filing complexity as a priority consideration.
> "It is intended to be a slur, infact the word bureaucrat itself is a slur. Being a bureaucrat is a negative skill or a parasite etc."
One person's bureacratic parasite is another person's necessary management. I enjoy Yes Minister[1] and am annoyed by the waste it parodies and mocks, but also acknowledge that a necessary and significantly sized part of any large system is the organization and management and implementation of the system itself; the UK's NHS is often criticised for having too many administrators, and at the same time for not having enough administrators to be able to do the work of organizing and making it more efficent on top of the work of keeping it running.
>That's interesting, and rather goes up against the free markety ideas.
While the general impression of free market that is commonly touted does imply what you say, even in its current form people don't carry free market ideas to it's extreme: for example someone could argue that in a true free market you could kill your competitor to gain an edge.
>Although I note that thing_you_like is allowed to be nuanced and complex, and thing_you_dislike must be bad because it's complex.
There are areas where complexity may be needed and not avoidable. (for example a rocket ) . Something similar goes for the land division that I talked about. What I can assure you is that if a land division is not considered, the complexity ( and associated atrocities) are magnified in other areas like the tax code.
>I would like to see laws implemented with test conditions for how we will know if they are working, with a mandatory sunset period for reviewing them and if they aren't meeting the test conditions they automatically expire.
As much as I agree with you on this I don't think it'll happen in practice, simply because most humans are completely incapable of even conceiving those kind of ideas. If you are a developer like me, you are well about the average IQ - so what may seem trivial to you and me is not for the common man or the common elected representative that he elects.
> tax code was in any way optimal
The tax code especially for income tax and property tax, can never be optimal, or if it's optimal it's only for a short time. Because by it's very nature it's predatory. (it's another huge topic as to what can be taxed)
>One person's bureacratic parasite is another person's necessary management.
This mostly true of private companies, less so for a government that writes check to itself.
>I enjoy Yes Minister[1] and am annoyed by the waste it parodies and mocks,
While you did not answer my questions which were directed to you as a person( I assume that most of your answers would be 'no'). I'm glad that you're familiar with "Yes Minister". (I had seen it a few decades back.). Anyway I'm arguing for minimal government and for minimizing any scope creep of the powers that the government may have. Easier said than done. (the mostly legalized and easy to obtain gun ownership in US is one example, which if I interpret correctly was intended to keep the government in check)
I'm echo chambering on this and one other comment[1], and starting to wonder if those guys are actually neurodivergent, autistic, whatever implies combination of entry-superhuman intelligence and unfortunate psycho-emotional development, or it's complete opposite and they're faking intelligence with vastly superior EQ, put aside pointlessness of taking IQ/EQ seriously.
Because, I don't think Musk had ever shown issues understanding or even precisely manipulating people's sentiments with bare hands which some of us struggle even with tools, while also there being countless examples him showing lack of understanding of laws, order, code, all such brittle dehumanized systems in general.
All his successes owes to his mastery of orchestrating humans as animals, not machines or humans as intelligent constructs. Why are we nearly dead set that it's opposite of that?
I think it's more to do with long eroded goodwill. I remember the early 10's when he was an internet darling and there was optimism on what he would deliver. Then some of that is simply artificially inflated hype by investors on Wall Street that need him to keep that persona so they can keep their money going up.
He's long turned about face with that, but that goodwill can die really, really hard (only took until now for Wall Street to very slowly start pulling out). As we see with Donald Trump somehow being relevant some 4 decades after his celebrity fame for a national election.
>Why are we nearly dead set that it's opposite of that?
My impression is that Musk knew to surround himself with good people. Be it coincidence, a Charisma check, or simply throwing cash at them, those people clearly did amazing things and he was the face of it all.
This is more or less the opposite, and his crude behavior navigating government IMO could not have gone worse. He had at least 2 years to sow the seeds and he's instead taking "Drill Baby, Drill" a bit too seriously. I could be very wrong and underestimating him. But he feels more like someone who demands the spotlight, not a mastermind with a precise vision. Those good people are not around him anymore; Trump sure as hell doesn't have a vision past tax cuts for billionaires.
Another way of looking at it might be that the crowd who liked Musk in the 2010s is a tough audience. I was among them too - I liked what Musk (appeared) to stand for. Expanding mankind's reach, unafraid to take a task that previously was deemed "impossible" and pretending that with enough determination it can be achieved. All the while maintaining a bit of childish cheek and humor about things. I really liked both the vibe and the approach. It was the quintessential "young and starry eyed rich genius who is prepared to throw lots of money at moonshot ideas - if only to see what happens".
But this audience is more diverse in it's views and is perhaps more willing to challenge it's idols and leaders. Keeping this audience on your side is a constant dialogue where you are constantly challenged and it's a symbiotic-adversarial relationship that results in a stronger whole. Only by getting challenged in a constructive discussion can truly great ideas be born.
But this is hard work and in some sense annoying. Inevitably he gets surrounded by sycophants and yes-men, because these people butter his ego, and comes to realize that there's an audience around who will unquestionably eat up anything their leader says irrespective of it's truthfulness. An audience who doesn't care whether their leaders are good, just that the leader is on their side.
And thus we find ourselves in the current situation, with an entire establishment in the US who will happily broadcast broad faced lies, but these lies are only for their own audience who believes them without question. Or they just don't care at all, because it's not about the truth, it's only about tribalism.
considering the massive amount of (still often true) information at our fingertips, appealing to authorities that have proved themselves unreliable many times in recent memories is not the benefit one might initially think it is.
"first principles" doesn't mean "go back to 2 + 2 and reinvent the rest of math".
When we think about what tasks bright young people can become good at, I think auditing flows of money is one of them. It's a technical task with objective results, and a tight feedback cycle. The places where you need age and experience are like resolving interpersonal conflict, balancing interests from many stakeholders, setting up objectives for others to follow, etc.
So to me this argument sounds the same as "how can young kids think they can program like experienced engineers".
Another answer is that financial auditors don't have ALL the technical skill for this scope of project. Light SQL skills tend to be the upper end of technical accounting (many workers on a project is good for corporate billing). Reports indicate Doge is employing graph analysis, LLMs, etc.
Getting the data looks like a SW problem perfect for young people. I have no evidence that this how the organization functions, but I can imagine them as technical analysts, who simply pass information to higher ups who do have organizational experience.
The answer to that question is that Elon Musk does not seem to believe that the government departments can answer data questions. Rather than wait for them to inevitably say it will take weeks to gather the data, he has his war boys extract it from the system.
One might as well ask "if you want to stop HIV/AIDS in Africa why pay a bunch of young kids with international relations degrees instead of AIDS researchers". Grunt work takes grunt effort.
Auditors take time and are boring. Auditors measure performance against rules and goals — this is about discarding the rules and goals. The point of this is chaos and power.
Elon has contempt for rules and laws. Blame the fuckups on the deep state or whatever. He will run wild until the president cuts off his head.
The question no one is asking is why does the federal government have so much "sensitive data" on it's citizens in the first place?
When you build a machine like this you should ask, "would I be comfortable if my political opposites had control of this?" If the answer is no, then you DON'T BUILD IT.
Meanwhile someone goes in there to try to break up this 30 year pile of technical debt and it's all lawsuits and handwaving theatrics to try to stop it.
Tax data is not particularly sensitive and several nations just publish it. Even in the US many forms of non-individual tax filings are public by default. The results of audits /are/ highly sensitive but there's no reason to hold those on computer systems for longer than 5 years after the audit.
I think the medical industry can easily be regulated without the government having access to my actual medical file. They regulate cars without having any idea how I drive mine. They regulate planes without sitting on the flight deck themselves.
It's like we know how to build good businesses, good databases, have solid user control practices, but then we give the government a pass because it's imagined to be "really hard." It's laughable.
Can you point to a country that publicly releases everybody's tax returns, as a policy? I know some countries that release elected officials' returns, but not those of common people.
> Individual income tax information for 2023 was released on 7 November 2024. Public information can be browsed on tax office workstations and requested by telephone: How to search the public information on income taxes and real estate taxes
> The following data is included in the public information on individual income taxes:
> name, year of birth, county
earned income subject to state taxation
> capital income subject to state taxation, income subject to municipal taxation, income tax, municipal tax
> imposed taxes and charges in total, amount of back taxes or tax refunds
Sensitive data includes things like home addresses, personal income, personal debt, personal wealth, dates of birth, medical status, etc. I don't know if it's true that some nations publish that (I don't personally know of any) but whether that's the case or not doesn't make any difference to whether it's sensitive.
In Sweden that's public information except medical status.
So I can call the IRS - get the date of birth and tax declaration, i.e. income from work and income from capital of anybody (except those with protected identity).
Address and date of birth etc. you can just check any map-site lite hitta.se.
I'm not trying to be flip. You should try to look up your own data sometime. In many states, with just your plate number, I can request your info. The DMV will give it to me unless you've requested and presented a reason for them not to. Some will notify you and possibly give you a few days advance notice but with action on your part I will get your information. The cost here is less than $100 typically.
Or a PI. The cost there is less than $2000 typically.
Consumption taxes are highly regressive. Pure consumption taxes would plunge USA into an even higher degree of inequality. The most progressive way to tax a populous is taxing incomes and wealth progressively.
You could give everyone an exemption. That would require some minimal tracking of identity and whether or not the exemption had been paid, but no details on income, wealth, family status, etc.
I fundamentally disagree that earning money or saving it should be taxable in and of itself. We should encourage that as much as possible. But others differ.
The NIH and CDC have incredibly detailed medical event data for infectious diseases, cancer diagnoses, and death certificates (which have a ton of data beyond "John Doe of New York City died of such and such on such and such date." It's how we have incredibly effective epidemiologists. Hospitals and non-profits use the data published by the government to make large decisions about equipment purchases, types of staff to hire, and community health programs to run.
All the government professionals I've met who work with that data are very careful with it. The guiding star is "Never let anyone use our data to find out something about any individual. Then, if you still can, publish someone useful."
>Meanwhile someone goes in there to try to break up this 30 year pile of technical debt and it's all lawsuits and handwaving theatrics to try to stop it.
They only had to get security clearances and follow the Constitution. Clearances are routine, so shouldn't be a problem (unless the person being cleared is a problem). The Republicans control all branches of government, and cost-cutting is very popular among all voters, so writing a better budget is possible. Things won't collapse if they work on it until before the midterm elections. It just seems like Trump is testing how far he can walk along the path to tyranny.
Maybe it's a question of wording, but I would agree if the word were "inexperienced" instead of teenage (in reality, they are young adults).
I have no horse in this DOGE race and all the discussions, but I find this "reverse ageism" (for lack of a better term) quite sad, 'cause it does not sound condescending but infantilizes youth and hides one of the biggest elephants in the room in the modern world, which is the real lack of representation of youth in politics (and maybe in the public service?) [1][2].
I was a 19-year-old holding an assault weapon in my daily work in the military with the power to terminate the lives of almost 99.99% civilians, friends with 23 starting piloting USD 5 million machines, and it's just sad to see that we as a society do not see young adults as capable as their older counterparts.
I speculate that at least in Europe, due to this credibility bias in favor of older politicians, we are facing one of the biggest violations of the intergenerational pact, which is the fact that this same youth will end up without retirement [3].
Financial data that seems to be subject to those running massive fraud or allowing it through negligence, but somehow attempting to tackle that is more dangerous than a 19 year old holding an incredibly efficient weapon.
The foxes were already in the hen-house before DOGE turned up, either, as many seem to think here, there are now competing foxes in there, or a clean up is happening. I've yet to see any evidence of actual damage done by DOGE, so why is everyone ignoring the evidence of actual damage that they've found? Can we work that one out?
I’m guessing they don’t post that on Xitter, do they? Do they even post what exactly they did there?
The problem is that same admin who ran up second largest national debt increase is now doing some inconsequential fraud hunting before running up likely the largest debt ever.
> I’m guessing they don’t post that on Xitter, do they? Do they even post what exactly they did there?
I don't know about exactly but I found this tweet[0] informative, this is just a part:
> To be clear, what the @DOGE team and @USTreasury have jointly agreed makes sense is the following:
> - Require that all outgoing government payments have a payment categorization code, which is necessary in order to pass financial audits. This is frequently left blank, making audits almost impossible.
> - All payments must also include a rationale for the payment in the comment field, which is currently left blank. Importantly, we are not yet applying ANY judgment to this rationale, but simply requiring that SOME attempt be made to explain the payment more than NOTHING!
That does sound like sound financial management, and pretty basic, which does make me question the whole system.
> The problem is that same admin who ran up second largest national debt increase is now doing some inconsequential fraud hunting before running up likely the largest debt ever.
That is almost fair criticism, let down by the doom-mongering, and ignoring that a) they're actively cutting things, and b) no pandemic (yet).
Ok, that’s what I saw elsewhere. The conflicting part is where some individual agencies pass their audits (https://oig.usaid.gov/node/7291) and yet this claim of lacking audit basics. What gives? Is this highlighting bits where say DoD is a known black hole and then crafting a narrative?
As for “doom-mongering”, you don’t have to take my word, just listen to what republicans are saying: $3T in tax breaks extension, possibly offset by $1T in cuts. Not even accounting idea of cutting income taxes. You do the math.
You’re not wrong, but there is also wisdom in age. I’m 37 now, and got in plenty of similar trouble when I was 16-22, simply because my brain literally was not fully developed yet. My impulse control was worse, my consideration of consequences was much less existent, and so on.
I think the reaction is more about wanting some older adults in the room as well, not about having no younger adults in the room.
Younger people always want to knock down Chesterton’s fences whenever they see them; I know, because I was recently young.
But asking the elders why those fences exist is always a good idea; then, knock them down if the issue is resolved. Humility and curiosity are required for that.
I do find that knocking them down to find out why they were necessary is often a lot more efficient. Even at 37 that hasn’t really changed. But that’s a lot easier to justify when the impact of that decision is a bunch of process interruption at worst.
And being that efficient is fine, if you're a startup or a technology company. If you're the government, sometimes people die waiting on their treatment to be funded because of your efficient bulldozing.
> I was a 19-year-old holding an assault weapon in my daily work in the military with the power to terminate the lives of almost 99.99% civilians, friends with 23 starting piloting USD 5 million machines, and it's just sad to see that we as a society do not see young adults as capable as their older counterparts.
Who would you trust more, a teenager with active military training and awareness on how to handle a gun or a teenager picking up a gun off the floor for the first time?
If these teens all had followed proper protocol, went through a full security clearance process and training on how to handle sensitive data there would be no issue. They did not. And they are definitely not old enough to have had experience dealing with highly sensitive systems. So you've got people that are not qualified to handle data, working on systems they are not experienced enough to work in, kicking over load-bearing pillars that they can't see.
I would trust 19 years old soldier with an assault weapon more then trusting him with what DOGE is supposed to do. Soldiers passed training literally designed to make them obey orders and not randomly shoot that gun. And there is whole hierarchy designed to keep their use of assault guns in check.
I would not trust a random 19 years old with assault gun, I would not trust that guy if we were alone in the room where his superiors do not see. But, I would be afraid of him raping me more then him using that gun without order.
you're probably being dowvoted because there are thousand of regulations and a multi year program exclusively made to educate young soldiers, besides giving them guns.
your argument starts well, but then compares the top well behaved military machine with a war lord arming children and throwing them on the front.
Yeah, there is a trend towards an absurd infantilization that would call 26 year olds children. It seems to me to have grown first out of a desire to acquit themselves of responsibilities combined with the junk pop-science about brain age fully forming and a desire to acquit themselves of poor decision making and their own bad outcomes, and then later used as they grew older use to dismiss others.
> He cofounded paypal which is payment system. Presumably he knows about things like payment systems, fraud, etc...
No, he didn't. He founded x.com as a payment system which was substantially less popular then paypal. Due to a bunch of mergers of parent companies, x.com and paypal had to merge. Musk became CEO and the whole thing was later sold to ebay, he left and cashed out big. That whole timeline unfolded in just a couple of years.
So his actual experience is not that long. And besides that all unfolded in 1999. I have no idea what your age is but that was a different time and payment system knowledge from that time isn't worth that much nowadays.
You’re leaving out that he was ousted by Thiel and the board because they thought he was about to fuck up the whole thing. By the time they sold to eBay, he was the largest shareholder, but no longer involved with the operation of the company.
Isn't there a tell-all book or three about the founding of PayPal? I think many people here have read those books, and some readers here were involved? Please, enough breathless conjecture, the content is serious enough..
Cause these can get access to things Elon wants access to and will do what Elon wants. Musk does not want audit, he wants someone who will find exactly what Musk wants him to find and wont worry about legality or rules.
Musk is not concerned with producing false accusation for example. Obviously he could find corrupt auditors and probably did, but those are slower. They take more time to produce what was asked from them.
There is a claim that many federal payments do not have information necessary for traditional financial audits. Maybe a team of forensic auditors would be more apt?
Given how transparent government spending is and how frequently it’s audited, I think that’s begging the question of how scientific that claim is. The DoD is the only federal agency which hasn’t been able to have a clean audit[1] so it would be reasonable to question them – taking into consideration their unusual size and distribution, of course – but that doesn’t say anything about the rest of the government, or even distinguish between issues with payments vs. things like physical inventory when you have thousands of facilities around the world.
this just exposes the double standard and agism in tech industries. in tech, a lot of companies won't hire you in technical roles or as programmer because you're over 40.
a lot of doge/elon's team is from the various tech companies he owns, so of course, they're going to be teenagers and senior people are pretty much laid off.
think about the next tech layoff you hear in the news (facebook/meta, etc) and think about what portion of the layoff is younger than 20 and what portion are older than 40.
> The question no one asking is why Elon is sending a team of teenage programmers and not a team of financial auditors if he really wanted to cut government spending?
If it's working, why would it matter? The most curious thing in all these discussions is that the elephant in the room is never addressed: they already found on hundreds of billions of pure fraud and funding for extremely dubious endeavors.
But nobody talks about that: everybody attacks the messenger. Everywhere.
Are people not happy that the fraud team already uncovered the following:
USAID fund diverted to the Clinton family, part of which funded a $3m for Chelsea Clinton's wedding and $10m for Chelsea Clinton's mansion.
$41m to study transgender mice
$3m to BBC (seriously, what? BBC in the UK? With US taxpayers dollars? Why? To push what kind of narrative?)
$8m to the supposedly independent "Politico"
$40m+ to EcoHealthAlliance to fund gain-of-function on modified bat viruses (moreover now official report to Congress says the most likely source for the Covid-19 outbreak is a lab-leak: so we have USAID partially responsible for the *death of tens of millions of people*
$20m for a "Sesame Street" show in Iraq
$110m to find water in Afghanistan
funding of a movie in Portugal glorifying incest
countless NGOs worldwide who got funded by USAID and who constantly pushed for tens of millions of illegal migrants to make their way both to the US and the EU (now you may believe it's a good thing that countless NGOs do actively work towards migrating tens of millions of people to the US and the EU but *why* is this done with US taxpayers' money?)
The examples are endless and yet everybody shoots the messenger. If out of hundreds of dubious endeavour (money to publish trans book for children in Guatemala: I mean, come on guys), if one happens to be justified spending or a wrongly attributed spending, then people will focus on that to attack DOGE.
But the elephant in the room is constantly dodged: why? The elephant in the room is there. And it's a gigantic elephant.
Why is it that to some, like me, it looks like USAID (and certainly more with more revelations to come) is basically a gigantic money laundering operation combined with the push of a worldwide leftist agenda?
And the curious thing: people keep crying "attack on democracy" although DOGE keeps exposing, day after day, actual attacks on democracy, where US taxpayers dollar were used to fund a leftist agenda.
To me DOGE is doing something right. Instead of shooting the messenger, discuss the actual findings they already did.
Explain to me how you defend $40m+ going to fund gain-of-function bat viruses and how you defend Biden pardoning Fauci who lied about it in Congress? Because that's what DOGE is exposing.
> DOGE keeps exposing, day after day, actual attacks on democracy, where US taxpayers dollar were used to fund a leftist agenda
That’s… normal? Just because you don’t like a leftist agenda doesn’t mean it’s an attack on democracy. You might be surprised to hear that those leftist presidents were actually democratically elected. Much like, as much as it pains me to say it, Trump.
You're just regurgitating conspiracy theories and political nonsense from the right.
For example: '$8m to the supposedly independent "Politico"' is for subscriptions. So what? The rest is the same sort of nonsense: innuendo, smears and outright lies.
Please stop repeating misinformation. For your own sake, and for the sake of those around you, please also consider where you're getting information from.
Seems like your first point is "fake news" as they say?
So it seems like its not working, what info we do get is false or slanted to support a narrative. Social media posts are making people hysterical. It's not clear why your other 7 bullet points are things to be concerned about. As you pointed out a few times, we don't have context into these deals. Your jumping to conclusions assuming the worst for some reason.
You appear to believe those things are true, but consider what evidence you actually have beyond social media claims. For example, the very first one has been circulating in right-wing social media but we don’t have any evidence that it’s actually true:
The second similarly wasn’t a DOGE find and is vaguely sourced because it was from Nancy Mace’s political fundraising and there’s a direct financial incentive to misrepresent what was actually funded. If you read the actual grants, they’re studying things like gender-based differences in how wounds heal or whether transgender people have different responses to things like HIV vaccination or other medical treatments - and unless your position is that transgender people shouldn’t exist, it’s hard to argue that a tiny fraction of a percent of government spending going to medical research is fraud.
Similarly, there is still no evidence that COVID was caused by gain of function research even if it would be really useful politically.
Finally, not understanding why the United States invests money building influence internationally is not fraud. We spent trillions invading Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s profoundly unsurprising that we spent money trying to improve our reputation in those countries.
Your list of "already uncovered" fraud seems more like a list of RW hot-buttons: Clintons - check. Transgender - check. Various lame-stream media - check. Covid bats - check. Muslims - check. Incest movies - check. I'm just surprised they haven't turned up the payments for the NASA movie studio where they faked the moon landings.
But not a single administrator skimming off their department's budgets, which I would imagine is 90% of government fraud.
Also no-one is shooting the messenger. Mainly they are complaining that completely unauthorised people are rooting through all government data with no oversight. No matter what your politics, the president should have got these people vetted and followed the carefully designed processes to keep this data safe. If you're not seriously concerned that one day your tax info is going to turn up in an unsecured AWS bucket, then I can offer you a unique video of out-takes of Neil Armstrong falling off the LEM ladder for just $5,000.
Googling the firs claim leads to a website absolutely teeming with ads, one of many being this gem:
> TRENDING! Trump’s Power Brew: The Coffee That Fuels His Peak Energy and Keeps Him Unstoppable! If You Want to Lose Weight and Have Maximum Energy 24/7, You Need to Try This Coffee!
The second result is the comment above. I cannot find any more information on this otherwise.
> To me DOGE is doing something right. Instead of shooting the messenger, discuss the actual findings they already did.
> $110m to find water in Afghanistan
I assume that's the same as the whitehouse.gov [1] talking point:
> Hundreds of millions of dollars to fund “irrigation canals, farming equipment, and even fertilizer used to support the unprecedented poppy cultivation and heroin production in Afghanistan,” benefiting the Taliban
The source they link for that is a Breitbart article [2] from 2018 and it talks about 20 year old project that ran for 3 years.
> Between 2005 and 2008, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) devoted at least $330 million in funding to failed ADP projects intended to deter farmers and traffickers from cultivating and trafficking opium.
During the $2+ trillion war in Afghanistan, the US government tried to spend $330 million to damage the Taliban's primary source of revenue. It didn't work and the funding stopped in 2008.
The DOGE "proof" of waste is a 7 year old news article talking about a 20 year old program that only ran for 3 years while George W Bush was the president.
That's the only big number in their official statement regarding the waste. They're going 20 years into the past and once you throw out the dubious claim above, the "waste" they're saying exists is a few million dollars. They didn't even put the $8 million Politico thing on whitehouse.gov because it's been debunked too.
A couple million dollars in waste for an organization that distributes about $44 billion [3] in foreign aid every year is a giant nothing burger and American's are eating it up like it's kobe beef.
> everybody attacks the messenger
He's not the messenger. He's the source of the misinformation.
Yeah the opium one is a particularly interesting example of "waste." Most of the complaints are about "woke shit" and usual reactionary talking points or whatever but this one is just a generally widely agreed to be a good idea that didn't work. If "we tried something and it didn't work" is sufficient to justify destroying an entire organization, then oh boy does the entirety of silicon valley need to be shut down. "No project may ever fail" is the polar opposite of "move fast and break things" or Musk's "eliminate all process, re-establish the necessary ones once things break."
Have the people telling you these things put any effort into making them independently verifiable? That would be an important early step in any kind of transparency effort.
People are not shooting the messenger. The messenger has no credibility, and no demonstrated interest in earning it as long as they can hold power otherwise.
I don't quite understand how they are gaining the access credentials required? Where I work, it takes days to onboard people, through standard processes. Whats happening in this case.
Given the highly volatile, and legally gray, situation; I'd expect the front line people who usually grant access are at least flagging these requests to their boss, who flags to their boss etc. Is everyone up the chain just giving a shrug and saying "seems legit, give them the access".
Of course people don't want to loose their jobs, but I would have expected someone in a senior leadership position to take a stand in preventing this (unless their all on board?)
USAID was the most resistant to an audit which is why they’re getting scrutinized early. Trump literally said today on an interview aired before the superbowl that a department of defense audit is coming up and he expects it to turn up billions to hundreds of billions in waste.
It appears that they passed audit just a few months ago:
> Opinion: Williams Adley concluded that USADF’s financial statements as of September 30, 2024, and September 30, 2023, are presented fairly, in all material respects, and in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.
> The audit firm also found no reportable noncompliance with provisions of applicable laws, regulations, contracts, and grant agreements.
> The audit firm found no material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting but found deficiencies in the internal controls over the Funds Held Outside of Treasury process. We collectively identified these deficiencies as a reportable significant deficiency.
Why would the DoD be resistant to an audit? They've had un-auditable black budgets for decades and every time someone questions them they pull a new stealth aircraft out of their back pocket
it all mirrors the Twitter takeover (fetishizing "hardcore coders", micromanagement, randomly breaking or cancelling things), so this might just be how Elon Musk approaches things.
I have no idea what proportion of Twitter's jobs were necessary or not, but it is DEFINITELY not fine.
From images routinely failing to load, to the current mess of logins that is the dualistic nature of x.com vs twitter.com (where which accts appear logged in fluctuates constantly), to my favorite bug, where it's always stuck in dark mode in mobile browsers...
And that's just technologically. Firing moderators, letting neonazis run rampant, and driving away advertisers and non-nazis...
Honestly, they might as well have brought back the Fail Whale.
I’ve not really noticed any significant increase in problems with the mobile app, and there are some new features like the view counter.
Overall though I’d expect much worse problems to occur from firing the majority of a workforce. If that had happened at my workplace there’d be lots of data loss, downtime and show stopping bugs. Because the work people do is essential to the product and although we have some level of redundancy to reduce key man risk, that wouldn’t work if 80% of people left.
People mentioned Elon's DOGE team is about 200 people including lawyers and accountants. I am guessing the focus on the 6 youngsters is mainly because here's a bunch of former Deloitte lawyers/accountants is not a newsworthy thing to focus on especially if your angle is to discredit the effort.
Just look in this thread for how many posters here are 100% certain that irreparable damage is being done - because they want to feel mad.
There is no proof of anything bad. Regardless how many people want that to be false, oddly.
So I guess tough to not think that the worldwide media that has been receiving government money would be mad and willing to focus on ”a handful of 20 year olds” as a means to discredit.
What I find strange is that it’s working so well. So many people here KNOW so much that hasn’t been reported or happened.
I would agree with you were it not for the fact that Musk, Trump, Vance, and several of the DOGE boy squad have links to Curtis Yarvin and believe that his idea of Dark Enlightenment is the way forward. He was even invited to the Coronation Ball for Trump's inauguration. If you aren't familiar, you should read up. It's truly demented and twisted. The minds of people who would follow such a philosophy have been utterly compromised and corrupted beyond help. These people are not to be trusted.
In what sense is it a security violation a person authorized by the Treasury secretary accessed data in Treasury department. The granting of security clearances is in the authority of the President which President can exercise directly or by delegating.
It was not but regardless how is this a bigger security violation? Also is the claim here that Secretary of Treasury lacks authority to grant access to treasury data or that President lacks authority to grant security clearances? Keep in mind Scott Bessent was confirmed by a huge margin. This was a rare bipartisan vote as he is an extremely qualified individual for the role (unlike many other Trump nominees).
Hiring someone who was part of the Com and who was already terminated once for leaking secrets seems like a pretty big security violation, whether or not it was signed off by someone.
I advise you never look in into backgrounds of most top cyber sec people cause prob about half used to be on the black hat side in their youth days some even served time.
You're telling me 200 ALLEGED adult professionals are involved in a scheme where some 19 year old cybercriminal has access to classified nuclear weapons systems as if that's any indication of a better situation than critics allege and you think you've got sober and thoughtful take to offer on this situation, do you?
I didn't know FED data that was accessed at the Treasury department contained data on classified nuclear weapons systems. I've also never seen this level of freakout over real breaches like say SolarWind done by APT-29(Cozy Bear) actual Russian foreign intelligence group. That breach included Treasury, DoD, DoJ, State Department, DHS, Energy Department and so on.
> Farritor was granted access to basic IT including email and Microsoft 365, one of the people said. The chief information office only does a small amount of IT and cybersecurity work for the National Nuclear Security Administration, they said, including providing connectivity and running basic internet services for NNSA’s headquarters. It does not run IT systems for the nuclear agency’s labs controlling the nation’s nuclear stockpile.
As to this part of your comment:
> and you think you've got sober and thoughtful take to offer on this situation, do you?
Please take note of Dang's comment at the top of the page, hyperbole and hysteria are not interesting.
Because the media machine is spinning it all about the "teenagers", rather than doing actual investigative journalism and asking the right questions and assuming good-faith. So now instead of going to a DOGE rep and asking sane questions that illuminate the conversation and bring more info to light, they ask spin and hype-inducing ones like "There have been some criticisms from government senators about your alleged hiring of young individuals without security clearance, care to comment on that? What do you say to the concerns 'many' are having over granting such privileged access to un-accountable and non-departmental employees?"
1,942 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 417 ms ] threadTrump has set a precedent of pardoning the January 6th insurrectionists - people who break the law doing what he wants get pardoned.
The supreme court is majority Republican, and he's been dismissing senior department heads and replacing them with people who have been pre-vetted for their Trump loyalty.
And he's possibly setting the precedent of ignoring court rulings he doesn't like; it's at least being accused by Republican nominated federal juste John Coughenour[1], JD Vance has spoken about ignoring supreme court rulings[2].
And The Whitehouse has announced that Elon Musk will police himself over his own conflicts of interest[3].
[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
[2] https://edition.cnn.com/2024/12/31/politics/john-roberts-yea...
[3] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/white-house-says-mus...
More context [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/764_(organization)
Here’s my view:
I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life.
We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever.
So I say bring him back.
If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that.
https://x.com/JDVance/status/1887900880143343633 --
The part about the journalists is the operative part obviously.
Edit: Now that you've brought Vance's tweet into focus, it's also interesting that he does not think Elez is currently a "bad dude" when he's expressly stated a desire to normalize hatred against an entire ethnicity
"Question for JD Vance - can you look at your Indian wife and children and then say a guy posting 'Normalize Indian hate' is not a 'bad dude'"?
The doge boys are in-group, so they are protected, and the law will not be brought to bear against them. Simple as that.
https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservative...
He said pro-Palestinian protesters that are here on visa and who were arrested, committing crimes should be sent back.
Big difference from what you wrote. Perhaps you only read the headline.
Funny, I don't see those extra qualifiers in there.
The phrasing is intended to create the impression that the posts were made years ago, by some angry teenager, and it's not relevant to the person they are today. It's a way of downplaying the acts, creating distance between the person today and the acts at some unspecified point in the past.
But we know these timeline details. Elez is not a "kid" now, he's 25. These posts were not made when he was 13, they were made last year when he was, I suppose, 24 going on 25.
There are two conflicting perspectives being promoted by Musk, Vance, etc which IMO are in direct logical conflict:
1) This person's actions last year (going up to December 2024! Just 2 months ago!) are the actions of an irresponsible child and we shouldn't hold them accountable for those actions because they're not responsible enough to be held accountable for them.
2) This person is responsible enough right now to be operating at the highest levels of government.
He can't be both. So which is he, really?
We shouldn't reward journalists for finding and exposing morally repugnant people getting near the levers of state power?
That is 100% exactly on-the-money the absolute ideal usecase for journalism.
He’s 25 or 26, given his birth year. The comments were posted months ago.
This isn’t a “kid”! Calling him a kid is a propaganda tactic that got rolled out to try to confuse people about the true story.
He’s an adult. He made the comments as an adult.
> We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever.
It’s extraordinarily irrational to think that we should ignore important information simply to spite journalists.
There is nothing logical in that argument. It’s pure emotion and spite driven.
You are cherrypicking. There are dozens of other posts, ranging from benign to South Park edgy to outright indefensible. In any case, they were shameful and he should be taking great efforts to apologize and prove he's a changed person if he actually regrets posting them.
Broken clocks are right twice a day and all that.
> If the things he says about ${identity_group} are bad then so are the same things being said by people in high places about the aforementioned so a sizeable fraction of 'progressives'
Please, point to the spot where the progressives are being racist. Are you going to accuse Democrats of being racist against Krasnodar Krai for supporting Ukraine in their racist and illegal defense of Russian homeland? Accuse them of hating Palestinians more than Trump?
Or no, you're going to cherry pick racist Buzzfeed columnists who are (somehow) an analog for an appointed government employee with privileged access to private data.
To add to this, JD Vance's wife is Indian.
When people were criticizing the age of the people on the team, the narrative was that they are young and energetic adults and that it’s offensive to bring their age into question.
As soon as one of them (age 25!) was discovered to have written some blatantly racist remarks, the narrative flipped to pleas to forgive them because they’re just kids.
Not to mention how quickly this all went from shining a light on the situation to insisting that we blindly trust claims of corruption with no evidence or even independent review.
It’s all so absurd to watch. Regardless of where you fall on the political side, the intellectual dishonesty and hypocrisy is so blatant that you can’t possibly ignore it unless you’re resigned to being so hyper-partisan that anything goes as long as it’s done by your team.
What besides IT knowledge qualifies them including Musk to do what they claim to do?
Sounds more like McKinsey on steroids.
Yeah, you just made that up. The "narrative" about the 25-year-old's remarks was not based on his age. This is the narrative, from JD Vance the vice president himself:
"Here’s my view:
I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life.
We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever.
So I say bring him back.
If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that." [0]
[0] https://x.com/JDVance/status/1887900880143343633
Obviously the operative line is the central one about not rewarding journalists who try to destroy people, "Ever". That means regardless of who the target is or their age.
>intellectual dishonesty and hypocrisy is so blatant that you can’t possibly ignore it
Hypocritical intellectual dishonesty indeed.
It's interesting that JD Vance should invoke that defence considering this particular "kid" with a fondness for racist edglordism was tasked with the responsibility of firing tens of thousands of other people...
You're literally just deleting the important part of the message to pretend a supporting comment is "the narrative".
It's hypocritical intellectual dishonesty to pretend JD's point was something other than what it obviously was.
If this is your argument, don't be surprised when people look up the facts, note that you're dishonest this way, and tune you out.
What if we didn’t worry about whether we’re “rewarding” the journalist, and just evaluated people’s actions and deeds when we decide how much public trust we want to extend to them?
I appreciate that people who concur with Vance's objection to journalists reporting the truth are going to tune me and most things out, but that says more about your own lack of intellectual honesty than anyone else's...
Because he says:
> If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that.
Saying things like "Normalize Indian hate" and "I was racist before it was cool" are statements that pretty well support a "bad dude" classification, especially in the context of a role where he'll be responsible for firing people and removing "DEI hires." Even if you agree (with Musk, Elez, etc.) that DEI is a problem, hiring a self-avowed racist to deal with it seems pretty idiotic.
Calling him "a kid" is also pretty disingenuous. He was 24 or 25 when he made those posts, hardly a kid. And they weren't ancient history, they were last year. I'm also for forgiveness if time has passed and people show that they deserve it, but it isn't ruining his life to hold him accountable to things he said last year, as an adult.
Does that apply to politicians or billionaires as well? Considering Musk's history of doing that?
On a more general note, if it's racist remarks everyone is coming out with "lets forgive them", "they were young", "lets not destroy people because of some innocent remarks", but god forbid they say something that is being perceived as "leftist" ... burn them!
Why would there be? The people hired Trump to be the CEO, the CEO hired Musk (personally, I think it is mostly to serve as a distraction while real personal/political goals are handled elsewhere), but regardless, any government only works when most leaders (and voters) have mostly good intentions.
It is not feasible to have a check and balance on every decision, everything would grind to a halt.
The US president presides over the executive branch of the US government.
It’s not a one to one equivalence, but commander-in-chief is pretty close to a chief executive office.
As one obvious example, a CEO controls the company budget. A President can merely suggest a budget to Congress.
Once they defy those, it’s done.
The enforcement of federal laws including court orders requires the Trump justice department to act. And his first moves (naturally) were to fire all oversight people, install extremist hardcore loyalists at the top, and fire anyone underneath who was not equally loyal. Anybody who thinks any other administration has done anything remotely comparable in the modern era is just uninformed
All of us should take a moment to acknowledge all the Peter Thiel-adjacent folks in this community who drove us directly to this moment
The Supreme court has only a few armed police, basically no teeth. There is nothing really holding the executive to listen to them, and the legislators won't check any fouls either. There is surprisingly little beyond tradition to stop them going off the rails.
Norm violations have a way of accelerating in a tit-for-tat way, because once your opponent does it you will lose if you don't respond in kind. This didn't start here, and it definitely won't end here.
I'm preparing for a war on American soil, by "Americans" or whatever they're going to call themselves - MAGA I guess.
The thing is, even if Trump said something similar, I think we'd still keep going about things in the same ho-hum way we are now. Left-wing newspapers will have headlines, Fox will have nothing, and Democratic congresspeople will have some kind of protest. Maybe there will be marches in a few big cities.
I honestly think nothing will rise to the level of an actual crisis until the military is ordered to do something that some percentage of officers refuse to comply with.
Indeed.
> I'm not sure how you think we'll have business-as-usual
Are you seeing general strikes? Chaos in the streets? Democratic congresspeople being successful at stopping anything? The Supreme Court stepping in?
No, none of those. Trump went and had fun at the Superbowl last night, and some editorials wrung their hands over Vance saying that Trump doesn't need to obey the courts. Most people in the country are ignoring what they see as some typical partisan bickering.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worcester_v._Georgia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears
The only reason Brown v. Board of Education was enforced was because the President sent troops from the 101st Airborne Division to ensure black children were able to go to school.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education#Re...
"Move fast and break things" is a culture we promulgated. Yes, me, you, everyone commenting here. The people we looked up to for years - mentors and thought leaders - are the ones planning and directing this effort. Hackers apparently are the ones implementing it. If we want to talk about it in our cultural terms, these guys are imo acting like black hats and we need to grapple with that.
Clearly we as a community are not ready for these conversations, but flagging them and burying them isn't going to make the need for them go away.
Sure there is. A general strike for example. But we’re talking about the USA, so fat chance.
I don’t see anything about “We The People” being restricted or did I miss something?
Oh my sweet summer child.
There are abundant ways to wield power even when not in direct control of branches of government. For example, the unions that are suing to stop some of this have hundreds of thousands of members. They could shut down just about anything they want and wield enormous amounts of pressure.
Air traffic controllers could stand in solidarity to fellow fired federal workers and ground every airplane in the country indefinitely. Teamsters could completely immobilize Tesla, SpaceX, and everything else Elon Musk cares about in hours.
If you don't like my examples, come up with your own, but these concepts aren't fantastical at all they're just core ways to wield power in society. The Scandinavian countries do stuff like this all the time it's not even a relic of the 1930's or something.
There is a power struggle to determine what our society's goals are, how it accomplishes those goals, and for the benefit of whom. The "MAGA" side has a clear conception of this concept, and they're trying to grab as much power as they can get away with.
There is a massive amount of power that could be brought to bear against that. There always is whenever it's an attempt at rule by rich oligarchs, as they're always wildly outnumbered.
Someone just has to use it.
This is a more interesting question to ask of some of the historic government waste the department is theoretically supposed to be tackling and the people who authorised wasteful government spending.
In Musk's case the unqualified young people in question are hardly in a position to persuasively argue they have a sophisticated grasp of workplace norms, government finances and auditing practices, and their Twitter edglordism is nothing that he wouldn't do himself so I don't think they've slipped by some thorough vetting process.
404 media has ran multiple stories on them. Here is one:
https://www.404media.co/inside-the-com-world-war-robberies-b...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42979187
Good thorough article on another wild development in this story. Deserves to be seen and read.
Agreed, previously I was amenable to the "they're young and smart" (but I'd counter with "not wise") take, but no, some of these people are just actually evil.
Also flagged dead.
The details about cybercrime discords involved in SWATting and DDOS attacks are fascinating.
The idea that anyone involved in this would be fast-tracked for a clearance is beyond the pale.
The problem here is having such activities in his past makes him an exploitable by criminal organizations or foreign adversaries who would seek the sensitive information he now has access to.
First point is not even true of the Watergate burglars. What makes crime indistinguishable from politics here is the recent ruling on presidential immunity.
I was actually thinking of Hunt and Liddy, who did nothing of worth after their infamy. I don’t think the actual burglars did either?
There is little left to lose, it's a redistribution scheme rather than a savings scheme.
And maybe in some distant future post-scarcity society we would not have a need for a savings scheme.
-- original comment --
We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. You can't post like this here, and you've done it many times before.
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.
-- original comment --
We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. You can't post like this here, and you've done it many times before.
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.
People who have had access to that kind of data, and who have those kinds of skills, you'd better be careful about how you dispose of them. (Consider the term "blowback".)
I feel like from the perspective of the US, if we frame this conflict/battle for control of US services and computer systems, we needn't say 'the US is a hostile adversary'. It's fair to frame it as 'the US is the US, and the people seizing control of the systems against the interests of the US are hostile adversaries of the US'.
The specifics of who they're working for, how, why etc. can still be up for speculation or further discovery, but we needn't frame it as 'perhaps the US is actually the enemy and Musk's people are actually the liberators'.
They're carrying out the platform the president was elected on, and he'll very much be accountable for the results. The very fact that they're in the news and being talked about is the opposite of the deep state.
I have a very close friend who works for VA. Her patients are veterans, many far poorer and with no higher-education. She cares about them deeply. She has a husband, kids, and two parents that depend on her paycheck, and her first thought post-election when rumors of furlough and mass layoffs started circulating were about how she can make sure her patients are taken care of if they lose access to her care.
If you think people shouldn't make that kind of generalisation, why didn't you call out the person I replied to? What good does calling me out do that calling them out wouldn't do?
Do you have any evidence for this at all, or are you just projecting your own beliefs?
1) The CIA et al, official parts of the government that work secretely and control the world through illegal and shadowy actions. They assassinate people going against them (eg. JFK), faked the moon landing and poison the water supply to keep the population weak willed aso.
2) Neo-feudalistic elites, a mix of billionaires, politicians and the previously mentioned security services. They meet at Bilderberg to perform satanic rituals, work together in the trilateral commission, and might all be lizard people.
Now both of those obviously contain a kernel of truth, both the unaccountability of intelligence agencies, on more than one occasion used even against the american population, as well as these neo-feudal, elitist structures are anti-democratic. But that's a whole other topic, the interesting bit. is that over the last 10 years or so, also with the rise of QAnon, the idea of the "deep state" has been reframed to basically mean "professional bureaucracy".
What was once the topic of cynical comedy in "Yes minister", is now phrased as an existential threat to democracy - ironically and cynically by people who openly admit to wanting to create a fully neo-feudal society.
It is not obvious to this observer that either of your claims contain any truth whatsoever, let alone a mere "kernel." In fact, to this observe, both of these claims seem quite ludicrous
Regarding intelligence services: There's a very long history of CIA misconduct, including spying, abusing and murdering Americans.[0] As well as an abundance of human rights abuses, which aren't, but should be a big issue in American discourse. NSA up in everyone's business is basically the same. [1] We like to claim China is a totalitarian state, but their surveillance is less sophisticated than ours.
Regarding the second point, I don't believe in satanic rituals or lizard people, but it is crazy that democratically elected officials go party with billionaires, european aristocrats and IC people in extremely secretive venues. The networking organizations consistently place them in important positions afterwards regardless of merit or preferences of the electorate. This leads to a neo-feudal class of elites and their sycophants, which is deeply anti-democratic.
Due to my background, I know quite a few of these people, and they are frankly disgusting. The amount of slime, butt-lickery and unearned pathos you have to endure at an "elite" party is just making my skin crawl.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CIA_controversies#
[1] https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying
>it is crazy that democratically elected officials go party with billionaires, european aristocrats and IC people in extremely secretive venues. The networking organizations consistently place them in important positions afterwards regardless of merit or preferences of the electorate. This leads to a neo-feudal class of elites and their sycophants, which is deeply anti-democratic.
How, then, is Trump-Musk not the Deep State?
Trump is a democratically elected offical; Musk is a billionaire. They are literally part of that class. It is astonishing that you are trying to claim the opposite of things that are obviously true, and frankly, part of the very problem with Trump's administrations ("alternative facts") and Elon Musk (Nazi salute followed by an attempt to gaslight the planet).
Shame on you for such a blatant lie.
Trump is an extremely atypical democratically elected official, Musk is an extremely atypical billionaire, they are not part of that social class.
Maybe try to make an effort to understand what people are telling you rather than leaping to accusations and attempts at shaming. (That's assuming you actually want to understand, of course)
They are on some level fighting the deep state, but only to replace some minority interests with their own - and completely subvert democracy to create a neo-feudal plutocracy. People who voted for them as a solution to anti-democratic, elitist corruption are complete fools.
This type of religious fervor following these two people is what concerns me the most. Trump and Musk are the deep state if such a thing even exists. The only thing they care about are themselves. When Musk details and cuts all government funding to his companies and Trump stops openly taking bribes, then maybe we can have a conversation about whose interests they care about.
What are you trying to say? Trump was elected as close to directly as it gets, and is doing what he said he would. The people can - and did! - vote him out.
unconstitutionally
It's more the Musk, Thiel, Vance Group. Trump is simply a tool.
This is what actual schizophrenia looks like.
And it's not as though the pre-smartphone Internet was majority Republican, of course—quite the opposite, if anything!
Its "End the Fed"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_the_Fed
But he and others (including his son Rand, and Bernie Sanders) have also used the phrase “Audit The Fed” repeatedly as well, for various “Federal Reserve Transparency Acts”[0] over the years, since 2009—including a bipartisan one with Senator Grassley just this past November.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Transparency_A...
Obviously this kid would reasonably expect to get a pardon for any law he breaks anyway so long as he breaks it in service of the cult.
Clearance is a process and it hasn't been obeyed, and the ultimate purpose of it is to both audit potential recipients and train them in security protocols. The president can't elude it, though he can pardon them for federal crimes, which they're committing a lot of.
The authority of classification rests solely with the executive branch and the policies are established by EO.
A President can absolutely classify and declassify whatever he wants. This has been done a million times.
"It is true that the President has broad authority to classify and declassify, derived from the President’s dual role “as head of the Executive Branch and as Commander in Chief” of the armed forces. The “authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security... flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant" ...
"Finally, as the district court recognized, the suggestion that courts can declassify information raises separation of powers concerns.... such determinations encroach upon the President’s undisputedly broad authority in the realm of national security."
- The New York Times v. Central Intelligence Agency, No. 18-2112 (2d Cir. 2020)
The only reason the material was not considered declassified in that case was because the possible declassification was "inadvertent" etc etc.
Even that ruling does not go far enough, and I'd be willing to give 10:1 odds SCOTUS would give Pres. full and complete powers over classification
What you are overlooking is the underhanded plays executed by a certain political party to allow one president during one 4-year term to appoint 3 supreme court lackeys in order to ensure no matter what bs went before them, they'd rule in his favor.
The idea of the "unitary executive", a concept that has long been a wet dream of the Federalist Society and other conservative think tanks, is the most decidedly un-American thing I can imagine.
Our country was founded on the idea of 3 co-equal branches of government, who each have the duty and authority to exercise checks and balances against the other 2 branches (trust but verify).
Further, the citizens are supposed to have representatives in the house & senate who act as their voice on issues and execute their will and represent their interests.
Nowhere in this entire framework was there a President with the authority to rule by executive fiat, who has absolute immunity from every law of the land, and who is given free reign to do as he pleases like a bull in a china shop. The President of the United States is not a Monarch and he is not a King. There is no divine bloodline in the US of A. The President should always be answerable and accountable to the citizens of the United States and the other 2 branches of government, and they should be held to account for his/her actions.
The current legal framework is a travesty and a result of a gradual erosion of many foundational principles of our republic that have been ground down since FDR dared to empower the working man 80 years ago. In short, it's an abomination.
And don't give me this "but Biden had that same authority" bs. Anybody who knows anything about politics know Dems are spineless. If a Dem tried to pull one tenth of the shit the Republicans do, Rs would be all over AM radio, Fox News, Breitbart, X, Rogan, screaming at the top of their lungs about socialism or some kind of "takeover" or telling people their country is being stolen from them, or some other boneheaded idiotic conspiracy theory. They know there's always someone to fall for their shit. Remember the guys showing up at the DC pizza place looking for the child sex dungeon in the non-existent basement? Yeah, these geniuses.
It's always the same old shit- rich & powerful people don't like being told "no" by the government. Oh, and they also hate paying the government (we all do, but to them it's an actual insult). This is a tantrum of epic proportions, and all this crap is political theater for people who don't know any better.
As an aside, not a one of them has any problem holding out their hand to get old Uncle Sam's money, nor do they have a problem suckling at the government teet their entire career. Ironic, no?
If half these people knew they were carrying water because some spoiled brat of a man didn't want to pay his taxes or got pissed because they can no longer light a river on fire, they'd tell these gold-brickers to pound sand.
But that can't happen anymore. Everybody is plugged-in. The algorithms that drive engagement drive the feedback loop. People can't even argue anymore, because no one knows what the hell is really going on.
This is what our ancestors fought and died for: Twitter and Donald "I can't even make money running a casino" Trump.
The worst part? These people truly don't care. "Gee whiz, why are all these billionaires building bunkers thousands of miles away from the continental US?" Because they're planning to light the USA on fire and bounce. They don't care if you are a republican or a democrat. They don't care about anything. They got theirs. They raped the system, rigged the system, and that's it. Why? Because, paraphrasing George Carlin, "You ain't in their club, you ain't ever going to be in their club. They don't give a shit about you."
And one half the country is helpin...
It's not that the president is the sole power in government! it's that he's the sole power in the executive branch
This means the checks and balances are Congress vs Court vs President. Just like the clerks for SCOTUS don't have any power and neither do the staffers or clerks of Congress, so too do all the members of the executive branch have no power, except for whenever the Pres decides to delegate his power to them.
Even those who argue with this idea (few do) the only other ppl who have power in executive branch are the officials who get confirmed by the senate bec. they are mentioned in the constitution. No one thinks that unelected bureaucrat have any standing whatsoever outside of what's been delegated to them by the President
This does not in any way pertain to ruling by EO! Many things should in fact be done by Congress, but those that can/should be done by the executive branch are under the Presidents full control.
Which I think is obvious- a power hungry executive who disputes an attempted check of its authority by one of the other branches can simply decline to enforce.
Ipso facto, unchecked executive power.
Edit: you seem informed, so you should know that issues like these are not new; Andrew Jackson famously ignored the Supreme Court and told them to get bent way back in 1832 after their decision in Worcester v Georgia.
To use a programming analogy, our government's type system has a soundness problem. That means we, as a civilized society, have to follow a few unwritten rules to make sure the system remains functional and doesn't crash. One of those is for the executive to exercise restraint on the technical power they have in the interest of not encountering UB.
- "While the president has the legal authority to grant a clearance, in most cases, the White House’s personnel security office makes a determination about whether to grant one after the F.B.I. has conducted a background check. If there is a dispute in the personnel security office about how to move forward — a rare occurrence — the White House counsel makes the decision. In highly unusual cases, the president weighs in and grants one himself."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/us/politics/jared-kushner... ("Trump Ordered Officials to Give Jared Kushner a Security Clearance" (2019))
The DoD funds so much scientific research. There are entire budgets that are classified to hide how much we spend on - say - split satellites. Having access to the books of all of these orgs likely would require tons of different background checks and clearances from different organizations under normal circumstances
There’s almost certainly no clearance requirement for what they’ve looked at already. Maybe HIPAA. I’m not sure why one executive branch org has any more or less right to access this data than any other.
Nearly all the jobs I’ve had working with data have required vetting - including a criminal background check. This is not the same thing as obtaining a security clearance.
The laws are broken, so regardless of what you think "should" be legal, it isn't. They are being selectively enforced, though, and that's both the problem and probably the thing more worth your philosophical energy. Is that okay, when a criminal operation is too wealthy and influential to be held accountable?
All the laws have been being selectively enforced for decades. The people who were previously running these departments may have written the right incantations and negotiated a consensus with the departments that are supposed to watch the watchmen, but they had no more accountability to the average citizen/voter than the people who are moving in now.
The voting public no longer cares about "legal" versus "illegal", because they recognise that those categories have no bearing on anything relevant. This has been brewing for years, but the establishment benefited too much from subverting the rule of law to fix it. At this point they've made their bed.
Was it okay then, when it was a bureaucratic governing class encamping in the public coffers? Is it okay now, when it's a single vulture capitalist harvesting the public coffers?
To to drain the swamp you probably have to dive into the swamp, or at least get your feet muddy. Every successful reform/anticorruption programme I can think of has involved giving a few trusted people some fairly extraordinary powers - special prosecutors, special judges, special task forces and the like. Sometimes the end result is no better, or is even worse, sure. But I'll take trying something that might work over letting the prior status quo continue indefinitely. And I don't think the system would ever have been capable of reforming itself while staying within its bounds.
Everything about this should worry patriotic Americans*, because this does look like a fantastic opportunity for everyone else on the planet to spy on your government at the top level.
* also anyone in a country that has a military or economic relationship with the USA: we're still impacted even though we don't have a say in it
We really don’t know what data is being accessed. We have a lot of people saying lots of things about the access. Such as he will block payments or tarter people based on how they vote. You have not claimed those so I won’t rebuttal then here. But “all this data” I will.
The systems bending accessed are the ones which handle money approved by congress to be spent in a specific way.
As a tax payer I am appalled that this data is not already public and broadcasted live. Even more so that the specific legislation that granted the money was already public.
Now let’s say there are social security numbers and maybe even social security numbers tied to addresses or even names. This is still not a reason to not allow an audit.
You might say. Okay let’s audit. But people need to be verified. And at this point your argument is watered down to “I don’t like who is doing this”, which is the same bullshit politics we deal with in any tech company and the same bs that only delays results.
If people were actually worried they would not be trying to stop musk. What they would actually be doing is asking for somebody who they politically align with to also have access to the data and perform their own audit, on top of making much if not all of the data public so those with real trust issues can draw their own conclusions.
As a taxpayer, I'm offended that more of my money isn't spent protecting it. Clearly it wasn't enough to stop a rudimentary attack. I can give you three good reasons this is offensive to American liberty in an apolitical context:
1. The personal information of federal employees should remain private in respects to the Civil Rights act and the impartiality of hiring all candidates. This is what protects both Democrats and Republicans from having punitive action held against them by political opposition.
2. America's actual itemized expenditure is a matter of national security. Publishing a precise budget lets an adversary (of which America has many) estimate our weaknesses and, if specific enough, predict our intent before we strike. The current system of budgeting rather than begging is safe and can still be audited by both parties.
3. Elon Musk has stated business interests in opposing Apple and Google, both of which have secret testimonies he could access for illegal leverage against them in negotiations. Allowing him unfettered access to government records and defunding regulators is an expressly unfair business advantage that should not be tolerated in any free market.
Tell me what this has to do with am having access to USAAID and the Treasury?
Thank you. I think there is a lot of assumption by everyone about that very thing.
Which part of the above comment are you attributing this to?
Seems like a strawman.
Musk is working for the government and sets an example with his own behavior. If he can't commit to his own standard of transparency then I (and no rational person) would trust him to hold the rest of the government accountable either.
I'm skeptical of people who do this, too. I also bet that a lot of people want transparency until they find a flaw that serves them and further transparency would attract attention.
However, this skepticism is mis-placed and off-topic. Re-read the posted comment above. The comment wants more transparency and isn't debating weaponizing the data, which they acknowledge and park as a separate issue.
> As a tax payer I am appalled that this data is not already public and broadcasted live.
How are you mad it's not public if you don't know what it is? Sure there is data in computers of the Treasury department that should not be public - individuals' social security numbers, personal financial information, etc.
How about you give me an argument of why we should not have this sort of audit?
I am also willing to bet there is no situation where it could be done “right” and have the stated outcome Trump and Musk have outlined be okay. Which makes most of your arguments bad faith ones. Given the things already exposed should have all Americans upset.
The one place that has famously failed audits year after year is the defense department. We shall see if Musk brings his chopping-block to DoD.
Anyone operating in good faith knows to curb spending, everything Musk has been saying won't make a dent until you get to DoD, Social Security, or health care. And of course, any savings are going to be totally swamped by big tax cuts for the billionaire class.
This isn't accurate. Anyone who's managed a large and complex budget knows death by a thousand cuts is a very real thing. Yes, there may be bigger opportunities in the larger pots of money, but to suggest saving a billion here or few million there isn't worth the time is simply wrong.
Simply having the finances be looked at will have an impact on behavior. I see it in my own personal spending. If I'm not watching it, I spend way more. Now what happens if its not even my bank account the spending takes money out of and no one is paying attention? And then it goes on like this for decades?
> And of course, any savings are going to be totally swamped by big tax cuts for the billionaire class.
Aside from 2020, collected tax revenues did not drop under Trump in his first term, even after 2017 tax cuts. The one exception was for 2020 when the economy ground to a halt due to covid and gdp shrunk by a few %.
The point is, the problem is not that the government needs more money. The government needs pressure to be more effecient with the money it has. Thats the root of the issue that needs solved. Until that is solved, increasing tax revenue (which may not even be needed) won't make any difference whatsoever.
We do know that they got admin rights to several IT systems. Are you saying that giving admin rights to government IT systems to people with dubious backgrounds is fine, because the guys at the top have been voted in?
> As a tax payer I am appalled that this data is not already public and broadcasted live. Even more so that the specific legislation that granted the money was already public.
As appalled as by the fact that the people who are supposedly doing the auditing are completely intransparent, trying to obscure who is doing the auditing and threatening people who are trying to name people involved? Or is that ok for you?
And you don’t think that’s a problem?
You think that requiring people to have proper vetting to access information that might include personally identifiable information is “political bullshit”?
We have a system. If it is not legal it will be flushed out. The only people who seem to have an issue seem to be ones who simply don’t like the who.
DJT & Friends don't exactly have a stunning track record of being truthful.
In fact, I don't think the man ever tells the truth. And I wish that were hyperbole. He literally just makes shit up as he goes along, and his legions of brainwashed followers just repeat what he says and twist facts to try to fit the narrative after the fact.
Biden was a geriatric moron, and I'm sure he looked the other way while people he knew profited from his actions, but this MAGA shit is a grift on a whole other level. This is like stealing the Holy Grail and getting away with it.
He worked in contact with Musk and his sponsorship to create this tool
Interesting cybercrime research credentials
Yes there's not evidence available that this research was used for crime, just that the project is capable of what's described and that it was done under Musk's sponsorship and that he was hired after building this in contact with Musk
This does not strike me as nefarious in any way and there is a really valid reason for generating the ballot images -- testing, which is exactly how it is used in the project.
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/12/politics/missing-rus...
https://www.npr.org/2006/09/23/6129761/study-shows-vulnerabi...
https://bsky.app/profile/cartwright776.bsky.social/post/3lhr...
I think it is the same guy.
This is just someone who took Coristine's previous handle [0]. That post was made 1 day after the WIRED article revealing his handle. Lots of conspiracies around election stealing going round (and sadly, quite prevalent in some corners of Bluesky), don't fall for it!
[0]: https://www.wired.com/story/edward-coristine-tesla-sexy-path... - "He also *previously* used an account on X with the username @edwardbigballer"
Elon Musk knows 'those vote counting computers' -Trump
> They all came in on the Olympics. And then I saw [Gulati] and we got the World Cup too. And you know, it's only because they rigged the election that I'll be your president representing you there. You know, I got both of them. I got the Olympics and I got the World Cup. And I said, you know, it's too bad. One was in 2026 or the other was in 2028. I said, I won't be there. I won't be your president.(...) But then they rigged the election and now we won. So I'm going to be your president for the Olympics and for the World Cup.(...) So [Gulati], thank you for the World Cup and everybody. Thank you for the Olympics.
https://youtu.be/TTHonqrM7Vc
Example of a thing he said back in 2016:
> "Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you're a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it's true! — but when you're a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that's why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we're a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it's not as important as these lives are — nuclear is so powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? — but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it's four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven't figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it's gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us, this is horrible."
There's just no semblance of coherence there. And he does that all the freaking time. It's obvious he has dementia or something of the like, and belongs in a specialised care facility. Yet people hear/watch/read this, and think to themselves this is the kind of person they want with absolute and total power over everything in the US (remember, his loyal supreme court said he has total immunity, and all checks and balances have been thrown out the window by the people supposed to be doing them refusing to do their duty), from budgets to nuclear weapons. I genuinely would not be surprised if the world ends up in a nuclear war because of him getting angry at something he misunderstood while on the can.
It's honestly kind of a tragicomedy to watch from afar. If this were a book or a movie, nobody would buy it, yet here we are. Reality really is stranger than fiction.
If you have ever interacted with delusional idiots who insist they know more than anyone else about anything even though you know they were failing biology and snorting mints in the back of class, you have experienced this talking style.
For some reason, the especially gullible fall for it in droves. This talking style is essential to MLM profitability.
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5134725-elon-musk-impe...
This should be mandatory reading for everyone who argues this is just fine: https://www.amazon.com/They-Thought-Were-Free-Germans/dp/022...
Musk can ask the speaker of the house directly, he can speak to the president directly.
You or I do not have the access that musk has, nor do we have the amplified speech that he has.
Please don't whatabout. That does nothing for any kind of conversation.
This was during the overturning of Roe v Wade.
I can pull out statements from Greene suggesting execution as a quicker way to remove Nancy Pelosi.
But Greene perhaps is just too easy. Trump has had some choice words too, eg after the inaugural prayer service, he called the reverend a "Radical Left hard line Trump hater"
And lest people forget, the right - globally - plays offense. We would all love a truce for sure, I'd love to see it happen.
Edit: I’ve seen this happen in a few threads. Examples of uncivil things being said by democrats.
Except the examples are shorn of context, and typically it’s under a situation of immense duress. The Dem base today would want their representatives to say more forceful things - if only to reach PR parity.
Elon is hoping to impeach a judge, who is enforcing the law, and what remains of the balance of powers.
Saying this politely doesn’t pardon the act, nor does it delegitimize genuine outrage from an outrageous event.
Losing reproductive rights, creating a global security crisis, are disastrous things.
I thought that wasn't allowed under US law? That you allow dual, but if you're already dual and want to become a US cotizen, you have to give up one of the other two?
Thinking about it, I won't be surprised if Canada takes his Canadian-ness away. Too close to Trump, who is repositioning the US to be a direct military threat.
It is a crisis. Discarding any political leanings, just the economic fallout from this is going to be felt for years. Do none of these supporters have a 401k or savings?
Rather, we want curious conversation. I know that's not so easy when a situation is intense, infuriating, frightening, distressing, and so on. But we need to protect this site for its specific mandate—which is fragile at the best of times—so please make the effort.
As some of you know, this article was posted a dozen times and immediately flagkilled by users. I turned the flags off on this one because there's interesting new information in the story. But now it's up to the commenters to prove that was a good decision by co-creating a discussion that is interesting, curious, and has to do with the specifics of the article.
If we end up with yet-another interchangeable flamewar about $BigTopic, that will only confirm that the flaggers were right, so those of you who want fewer of these threads to be flagged have a particular interest in sticking to the intended spirit of the site and proving that a substantively different discusson is possible.
Edit: if you want to reply to this, please uncollapse the child comment below and reply there. Your views are welcome! I just also want to conserve space at the top of the thread.
This is a stub comment so we have a single root to collapse the replies. This way (1) replies can stay close to their parent (the top comment) without flooding the screen with offtopicness; and (2) we can all re-experience the timeless truth of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_theorem_of_softwar....
If you want to reply, reply here. I've moved all the original replies back so everyone's on the same playing field.
We'd love to have the sort of useful discussion you're aiming for, but all new discussions that reference Musk are being systematically flagged by apparent supporters of Musk.
We're being censored.
But when any new post that has Musk in the title is flagged within a minute or two entering the 'new' queue, then we have a problem.
We are indeed being censored by any meaningful definition of the term.
On the other hand, I see where the flaggers are coming from. If there isn't any gate keeping, other topics can be drowned out by a single highly contentious topic if enough people believe it is their civil duty to bring up that topic at every conceivable opportunity. This has happened on much of reddit, and on smaller scales in many social spheres across the country. Reddit demonstrates that almost any conversation could be steered into the direction of partisan politics if there are enough participants who think it's important to do that.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/08/us/cincinnati-ohio-nazi-flags...
This seems to fit your criteria of "armed men in uniforms and red armbands walking the streets". Time to be worried or no?
USA - https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/08/us/cincinnati-ohio-nazi-f...
Germany - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/12/24/g...
France - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2024/05/12/neo-fasc...
Poland - https://www.reuters.com/default/far-right-independence-day-m...
Italy - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67922431
If you now tell me, a, but I live in <insert more specific European country>, you'll know just as well as I do that the fascists are on the rise in every European country.
Wild that someone can write that entire sentence, put a period at the end, and not notice, "whoa, that actually makes zero sense at all, does it?"
And as others mention: time to worry!
It absolutely is and always has been a "just one side" issue. Fascists are consolidating their powers by the day but somehow it's on progressives to be more civilized?
This whataboutism is unrelated to the point I was making, and entirely representative of the kind of thinking that is facilitating and encouraging the dissolution of political discourse in this country.
When your first response to someone suggesting that you might be part of the problem is to excuse every bad action from your side by pointing to the egregious actions of the other, you tell me that you have no interest in having a good-faith discussion with anyone who disagrees with you, even slightly. We may agree on most topics, even, and yet you come out of the gate swinging because I suggested your side (which is also my own side!) might be part of the problem.
How then can you expect someone like me to believe you actually have my best interests in mind? Responses like this are not convincing that we even are on the same side, even if we agree on most things!
P.S. The problem with whataboutism is that it undermines your point. If you're offended when "the other side" does a thing, you should be even more offended when your own side does it, because it represents a betrayal of your values. The fact that you're using the other side's bad behavior to entirely discount criticisms about your side's behavior just tells me you don't actually think it's bad behavior when your side does it. At the end of the day, the message I get from that is "rules for thee, but not for me".
I'll be succinct: no amount of courtesy and patience will deradicalize a fascist. The only thing that can get us out of this mess is a constant reminder to the people that aren't radicalized yet, that what Musk and his goons are doing is not OK and actually very dangerous to everything and everyone they hold dear. Use your voice while you still can.
(Also, I doubt you could find anything the left ever did to this country that would remotely compare in severity to what republicans are currently doing. And even if you could, they are not the source of the current threats our democracy, rights and freedom faces.)
Amazing how much the progressive movement has changed over the past few years, and in no way for the better.
Please understand: people very rarely change their beliefs without both push and pull mechanisms being in effect. The Democratic party lost this election soundly, which is strong evidence that a) they lack a meaningful message to attract people not yet on their side, or b) they are projecting a powerful message that's pushing existing allies out; or some combination of the two where the "push" outweighs the "pull". Doubling down on the "push" when it's being called out as such hardly seems like a recipe for success?
One place where I've experienced this personally is the increasingly extreme rhetoric coming from self-professed progressives; to the point where they are now blatantly contradicting the words of yesterday with the actions of today.
While I agree that what's happening with DOGE has the potential to be dangerous, it's also 100% in line with the professed goals of the effort: a full audit of government spending, efficiency, and waste.
So while the rhetoric you're peddling is indeed worrisome and plausible, it's also the same overblown conspiracy-minded rhetoric that has been evolving over the same time period I mentioned. Most of that rhetoric has turned out to be entirely unfounded, so I have trouble believing that this time will be different.
This is an entirely self-inflicted wound on the part of people who share your opinions and methods. You keep making wild predictions, and they keep not coming true. I would believe that some of them have "come true" for some definition of "true", and probably enough for you to maintain your belief in the righteousness of your cause; but as an apparent "outsider", I'm less convinced.
[E] I do have to point this out, though:
> Anything the right can criticize an opponent on, they will blast on Fox news and X 24/7, with nonstop propaganda and added lies, but Elon does a nazi salute on live TV twice and it's barely acknowledged.
The irony of making this statement given the amount of ink spilled over the last couple weeks (more like years!) criticizing anything remotely related to "Elon Musk". The lack of self-awareness is saddening.
I know you couldn't convince a red cap wearing MAGA fanatic to vote blue, just like you couldn't convince me to vote red. But most people aren't politicized, and those are the ones that need reminders of what is going on up there.
We do agree on the fact the democrats lost soundly, after leading a pathetic campaign against a lunatic who by any metric should have been defeated without a sweat. But I think that's where we disagree most: Trump won through populism, and wether you like it or not (I don't), we now live in populist times.
The democrats were playing as if Project 2025 didn't exist, as if the republicans were still playing by the rules. If Biden said one tenth of the sh*t Trump said during his campaign, it'd have become a central talking point of Trump's.
And now millions will get deported, all US aid in the world suddenly ended, causing millions more to suffer. Minorities are losing rights by the day, etc.
Also, why are you labelling me as a conspiracist? Did I ever lie? What DOGE is doing is illegal. They are employing neonazis. They are going after judges and journalists. Congress is doing nothing to oppose this. Notice how I didn't make a single prediction. Shouldn't this alone be enough to be concerned?
You put too much faith in the strength of our democracy and institutions.
So you hate a lot of people, then. Democrats made "hate has no place here" a key slogan back around the time of George Floyd, and some people at the time felt like it was just posturing and pandering to the zeitgeist. This level of hatred that's now being openly leveled against anyone you feel like labeling a "fascist" does nothing but prove those people right.
You do see how this is ultimately self-defeating, right? It utterly destroys your faction's credibility, especially because your faction is no longer even maintaining the pretense that they're opposed to hate "in all forms", despite that being a key piece of messaging only a few years ago. This destroys trust, and trust is your most valuable asset.
> We do agree on the fact the democrats lost soundly, after leading a pathetic campaign against a lunatic who by any metric should have been defeated without a sweat. But I think that's where we disagree most: Trump won through populism, and wether you like it or not (I don't), we now live in populist times.
I think populism is a large part of it, but is not the only reason he won. The Uncommitted movement shares some blame there, as does the increasingly hateful progressive rhetoric that is still being given the largest of megaphones. As a prime example of this, I watched the entirety of the most recent (I think?) House Oversight Committee meeting, and was abjectly embarrassed by the level of demagoguery on display by the Democratic members of the committee. The irony was that it was a meeting about "government efficiency"! The constant obstructionism and deflections and blatant sound-byte farming by the Democrats on the panel really highlighted their inability to be "efficient", and really could not have made the Republicans' points more effectively. It's a sad day when I find myself agreeing with the logic and reasoning of some of the most toxic Republican members of Congress, especially when I feel that the delivery of their points was highly objectionable. I (un?)fortunately believe that logic and reasoning can stand apart from delivery, so despite how utterly abrasive some of the speakers were, I'm forced to admit they demonstrated sound reasoning. Despite all of that, the whole thing was a complete and total "self-own" by the Democrats, and cannot even charitably be described in any other way. The bar was set pathetically low, and still they could not clear it.
To me, Democrats are demonstrating that, at every level, all they can do is complain about how "bad" the other side is, while constantly ignoring the concerns of the people that voted that side into power. Going back to my "push" and "pull" analogy, while the "pull" of populism certainly helped get Trump elected (the why of which is worth a lot of inspection, but would be an entire tangent of its own), the "push" of the Democrats' increasing detachment from reality is also partially to blame. A whole debate should be had at the relative contributions of each of these things to Trump's victory, but to try to claim as fact that "populism was the largest factor" is both arrogant and ignorant, especially a mere 3 months later. These are the kinds of complicated, nuanced things that are rarely ever conclusively decided, so to try to push a specific conclusion as fact at this point is elitist speculation at best, and outright misinformation at worst.
> The democrats were playing as if Project 2025 didn't exist, as if the republicans were still playing by the rules. If Biden said one tenth of the sh*t Trump said during his campaign, it'd have become a central talking point of Trump's.
I suspect this has more to do with Democrats trying to avoid drawing attention to their lack of a "Project 2025" of their own. Democrats are often the loudest voices for swe...
Well excuse me for failing to show kindness to the most bigoted and hateful beings on the planet. Hating hatred is not the same as blind hate. To be clear, I throw no vitriol to Trump voters, only to elected republicans actively pushing to maim and wound our legal system, minorities, political opponents, etc. Which to be fair, is quite a lot of them.
I have no idea what you're referring to with "hateful progressive rhetoric". I do not hold the democrats in my heart either, but can you seriously claim the democrats are anything remotely comparable to the republicans when it comes to hating stuff?
> To me, Democrats are demonstrating that, at every level, all they can do is complain about how "bad" the other side is
Seemed to work well enough for the republicans.
> I suspect this has more to do with Democrats trying to avoid drawing attention to their lack of a "Project 2025" of their own.
Democrats couldn't have had a "Project 2025" because something as large can't be realized that quickly in a reasonable democracy. And why would they want one of their own? Republicans acted like it didn't exist because they knew it looked very bad, as was confirmed by the polls. Why didn't the dems use that? Confront Trump and Vance on their constant lying.
> I don't think people who are not in the country legally have a right to stay here.
You're a fool if you really believe they will stop at only illegal residents. In fact, go read the news right now. They also deport legal residents now. ICE now acts unconstrained from any oversight, free to deport on racial criterion. They have deportation quotas and sanctions if they don't fulfill them.
> I also highly doubt "all US aid in the world" would end.
It already did.
> Whether or not what DOGE is doing is actually illegal (i.e. represents executive overreach) is for legal system to decide, not you, me, or the legislature (unless you or I happen to actually be part of said system).
It is illegal, go read what lawyers are saying. Trump does not hold absolute power (yet), we don't live in a monarchy (yet). He is supposed to abide by the law but doesn't. Which is why I am concerned. I feel like talking to a wall here.
> No, I've just stopped putting so much faith in the loudest voices in the Democratic party. They've been wrong more often than they've been right, have demonstrated an incredible ability to alienate some of their most powerful allies and largest demographics, and have demonstrated a complete inability to unify anyone, preferring instead to be increasingly divisive as they lose ground.
We do agree on the basic issue, but I think our conclusions are completely opposite. You seem to advocate for the democrat becoming some sort of republicans-lite. This won't help anyone, not even themselves. They can't win by weakly catering to MAGA voters.
My vision is that of a real left-wing party, with a populist messaging on universal healthcare, high taxes on the ultra-wealthy, more redistribution, pro-union policies, etc. All those subjects poll incredibly well with Americans.
There is no future for this country if we continue shifting both parties right-ward.
I feel like we're both losing time. Do you have any closing words on this?
Except... They're not? I've seen more hatred and bigoted behavior directed at Musk by the Democratic party in general than I've seen directed at any minority group by Republicans of any flavor (to pick two common examples of hate in today's politics). I agree that there's been a lot of hate from the latter, but it does not compare in scale and general "acceptability" to the hateful rhetoric I see thrown about on a daily basis by Democratic leaders in the most mainstream of places.
Maybe you "only hate the most bigoted ones", but I suspect that's just a rationalization on your part? I suspect every person I see this hateful rhetoric from would say the same thing about "only hating those who deserve it": but the scope and scale of actual hateful rhetoric tells me that's just rationalizing and posturing. Many Democrats are quite gleeful when they spew their hatred, and there's are not nearly enough Democrats speaking out about it.
> Seemed to work well enough for the republicans.
And yet they also came up with a very detailed plan of action and are currently executing on it. So they clearly are doing more than "just" complaining how bad things were under Democrats.
The Republicans' victory in this past election should be a searing indictment of Democrats' perceived ability to execute.
> You're a fool if you really believe they will stop at only illegal residents. In fact, go read the news right now. They also deport legal residents now.
This is wild speculation and the exact kind of rhetoric that does you no favors. I've seen a couple accounts that this has happened in isolated incidents, but certainly nothing that rises to the level that you're claiming here.
As much as it sucks, I would expect any deportation program to mistakenly deport a few people it shouldn't, no matter how carefully they identify individuals.
Maybe I'm a "fool" for believing it's a baseline error rate thing, but I would certainly be a fool if I believed every person who was as convinced of malfeasance as you seem to be! Every situation over the past few years that could be plausibly extrapolated to "ending democracy" has been by Democrats, regardless of how feasible that outcome actually is... So perhaps I now carry more skepticism of those kinds of hyperbolic claims than I should.
> It already did.
It didn't, though. Some aid programs were immediately exempted from the EO, and more exemptions have been added over time.
So, no. You're factually incorrect
> It is illegal, go read what lawyers are saying. Trump does not hold absolute power (yet), we don't live in a monarchy (yet). He is supposed to abide by the law but doesn't. Which is why I am concerned. I feel like talking to a wall here.
I've seen a lot of ink spilled by lawyers about what's "illegal" over my lifetime, and more often than not the courts do not agree with them. You can find a lawyer willing to make a case that anything is illegal, and everyone has one they're ready to trot out to question the legality of their opponents' actions.
As such, I've put a lot less weight on the authority of those statements.
I agree that some of the things the current administration is doing could be illegal, and I agree with some of the rationale behind why some lawyers are saying it is illegal. However, I'm not convinced it is illegal, due to the poor predictive power of such blanket announcements--especially when they're being made in such an information-poor environment.
Being concerned is fine. I'm concerned, too. Categorically declaring the actions are "definitely illegal" based on the words of some lawyers' motivated reasoning? Probably foolish.
> We do agree on the basic issue, but I think our conclusi...
0: Slightly confused; I’m referring to dang’s comment, which I thought was the GP comment.
Another idea is to make flags fractional, so the more upvotes you have the more weight your flags have. So those newly empowered get say 0.1 of a flag while more highly rated users get progressively closer to 1 flag.
I'm not sure "big" is the right word because we're not optimizing HN for topic importance - that would make for a current affairs site, which HN is not [1, 2]. But maybe that's hair-splitting in this case.
The short answer to your question is that when there's a Major Ongoing Topic (MOT), moderators turn off flags on stories that contain Significant New Information (SNI) that is interesting in HN's sense of the word (i.e. gratifying intellectual curiosity) and there is a fair chance of the article supporting a substantively different discussion than the ones which have already recently appeared on the same topic.
If you want more information, I'd start with my other post in this subthread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42993092) and go on to the other links there. That should give a pretty complete explanation. If, after that, there's still a question I haven't answered, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.
[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
I replied to your comment in that other chain, but just want to point something else out here specifically. There seems to be more than just flags that are dragging down this story. The top post on HN at the moment has 117 points and is 3 hours old. This post has 238 points and is 1 hour old and is currently number 8 on the front page. Number 7 is currently a post with 28 points posted 2 hours ago. There is clearly something else at work here besides flags and maybe disabling flags isn't enough to give these type of posts staying power on the front page of HN.
I turned off the flags and rolled back the clock on this submission so that it would be on the front page and have a chance at a thorough discussion. I didn't do that so much that it would go straight to #1, though, because that would not be in the interests of the site. These things need to be controlled burns.
From the FAQ:
>The basic algorithm divides points by a power of the time since a story was submitted. Comments in threads are ranked the same way.
> Other factors affecting rank include user flags, anti-abuse software, software which demotes overheated discussions, account or site weighting, and moderator action.
You are effectively just turning off one aspect of this, the flags, and declaring mission accomplished when obviously there are other things contributing to these stories falling off the front page faster than many people think they should. People care about the outcome, not the specific button you are pushing on the backend to accomplish that outcome.
This story now has more points than anything posted on the site in the last 24 hours and it is currently halfway down the front page. People clearly think this is an important topic worthy of the site and discussion in a way that isn't in line with the HN ranking algorithm. My original point was that if you agree that stories like this have a place on the front page of HN, turning off the flagging isn't always enough to counteract the other factors at play that drop these posts in the HN rankings.
I tried to make it clear that I am talking about more than this individual post. That is why I used phrases like "these stories" and "stories like this". In an attempt to stop us from "missing each other", I'll be as direct as possible. The visibility of what is likely the most important ongoing story in the US at the moment should be up to more than just whether you personally are "fine with this article being on the front page of HN today".
> The visibility of what is likely the most important ongoing story in the US at the moment should be up to more than just whether you personally are "fine with this article being on the front page of HN today".
I may have misled you with the phrases "I'm fine with" and "I'm not fine with", which were admittedly a little glib. I'm not applying my personal preferences here. (I'm not even sure what those are—the only strong preference I'm aware of is to try to minimize the pain of masses of people being upset.)
Rather, I'm taking in what the community and software inputs are producing, and then modulating that according to HN principles in an effort to optimize the site for its intended purpose. I wish it weren't necessary—it would so much less work, not to mention less painful—but unfortunately the community system (upvotes and flags) doesn't do this on its own, and there's only so much that software can do, so human intervention is still needed to jig the system out of its failure modes.
IANAL and I don't know if it is something HN has had to deal with directly, so maybe you know a lot more than me, but isn't that what a lot of the Section 230 debate is about? Either way, I think both our positions on this are now clear and reasonable people can disagree on it either way.
>Rather, I'm taking in what the community and software inputs are producing, and then modulating that according to HN principles in an effort to optimize the site for its intended purpose.
I guess to summarize this conversation, I think the success of this post (now number 3 on https://news.ycombinator.com/best with 2 be another DOGE story from a week ago) is maybe an indication that "the community... inputs" are being ignored too much. Much of the community wants to talk about this ongoing story as evidenced by the upvotes and comments. We shouldn't let a small group of flaggers stop that. And perhaps you are making your own work more difficult by only manually greenlighting a very limited number of these stories. Sometimes you need a pressure release valve in the system. I'm not sure this specific post would have been received as enthusiastically if other similar stories were able to get through and you almost certainly wouldn't have to answer so many questions about your own role in moderating this site.
Indeed, which is why they are talking about it more than any other topic right now (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43003292 for a partial list). I realize that you and many others feel it's not enough, but this is always the case with every Major Ongoing Topic (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).
If HN didn't have user flags and moderators, these stories (not just the current topic but the current affairs of any moment) would dominate the site completely and HN would cease to be HN.
> Sometimes you need a pressure release valve in the system.
I agree! Perhaps we're only disagreeing about the diameter of the valve.
> I'm not sure this specific post would have been received as enthusiastically if other similar stories were able to get through
Yes in the sense that, with some exceptions, the selection of particular articles isn't the high-order bit. The high bit is discussion of the MOT that they're in the orbit of.
> you almost certainly wouldn't have to answer so many questions about your own role in moderating this site
That's definitely wrong. However many users are upset about flags on this MOT, thousands more would be clamoring if they felt like HN was being taken over by it (or politics in general). The bulk of the community here is pretty zealous about preserving HN for its intended purpose.
Basically what I do is try to minimize community pushback by opening "valves" enough to satisfy (well, never to satisfy but at least to reduce the pain) one constituency, but not so much that it causes greater pushback from a different consitutency. The hope is to find a saddle point where we can temporarily hang for a while.
It's hard for people with strong passions on any $Topic to relate to this because they are the most vocal and think they are the community. So they are—but others are too. Users have the luxury of seeing themselves and their viewmates (if I can put it that way) as the community, and others as NPCs or Neanderthals. I don't have that luxury because I've learned the hard way what happens when we neglect the bulk of the community in favor of any vocal contingent—a horrible experience I hope to never have again.
I hope that doesn't sound dismissive—I've enjoyed this conversation!
As I said upthread of that comment, I still think this is the wrong way to look at it. A story being on the site is very different from the story being on the front page. Maybe "time on front page" should be something you look into tracking if it isn't something already available to you on the backend. Because I would guess that the most common way to interact with HN is via the front page. I don't come to HN to specifically talk to people here about this story, but I care about it so I will engage when something on the subject happens to be one of the stories I see on HN.
In fact, having these posts primarily only visible through search leads to worse discussions because the comments are full of people who are already motivated enough (in both directions) to actively seek out the conversation with few "HN normies", for lack of a better term, to help moderate the conversation through their comments, votes, and flags. And if there is a desire to avoid caving to "any vocal contingent", there needs to be an acknowledgement of how easy it is for any motivated minority to keep something off the HN front page with diligent flagging of a topic.
>I hope that doesn't sound dismissive—I've enjoyed this conversation!
Nope, not too dismissive. Thanks, same here.
Do you track people who frequently flag stories and/or comments?
Do you collate those results against particular subjects? i.e. Any musk related story always gets flagged by $group
Do those groups/people always flag within X minutes of each other?
Do those groups/people match the general location of a random sampling of HN users, or do they differ in a statistically significant way?
Alas, that is not true for all values of "we". Let's see how we do in the current thread. (Edit: so far it does seem to be a little better.)
> but all new discussions that reference Musk are being systematically flagged
Yes, and at the same time we've turned off the flags on quite a few of them—enough that this continues to be by far the most-discussed topic on HN right now. I realize that's not enough for those who want more, but this is always the case whenever there is a MOT (Major Ongoing Topic - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...)
> by apparent supporters of Musk
But also by users who just care about protecting HN for its intended purpose, which is vulnerable to getting consumed by political flames. The pattern we've observed over the years is that when a MOT keeps getting flagkilled, the flags are coming from a coalition of these two groups (i.e. users who oppose it politically and users who are trying to protect HN), neither of which would have enough oomph to do this on their own.
> We're being censored.
That word has so many different meanings nowadays that nearly all sentences including it are both true and false. In one sense, sure, any story getting removed from HN's front page could be called censorship—but it's maybe not the most helpful description on a site where frontpage space is the scarcest resource and some kind of curation/selection is essential.
In another sense, the fact that this MOT is the most discussed topic on HN of the past few weeks means that no, it is not being censored—there have been thousands of posts about it.
Using the word 'censored' ultimately just means you'd like to see more of this topic on HN. I certainly respect that, but there are also a lot of other users who would like to see less of it. Our job is to serve the community as a whole, which is not easy when the community is so divided. Ultimately, whatever solution we come up ends up feeling unsatisfactory to nearly everyone. That is probably my least favorite square on the Cycle of Life of HN, but it comes up once or twice in every go-round.
Here are links to some other comments I've posted in the last few days about this specific issue. If you (or anyone) are willing to read them, take in the explanations, and then have a question that I haven't answered, I'd be curious to know what it is* and happy to take a crack at it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42978572
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42978389
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42977160
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42911011
* (because as far as I know, all the important questions have already been answered, which is not to say everyone is happy!)
I think there has been an element of backlash here. I believe there are people posting Musk articles repeatedly in response to the flagging, feeding the cycle.
It’s so lame and tiresome —- powerful tech people look like idiots, it gets killed on here.
Btw, stories about "powerful tech people look like idiots" get discussed on HN all the time. The tenor of HN comments about that kind of thing leans strongly towards the cynical, enough that it's actually a problem for the long-term quality of the site. I may be misinterpreting you, but if you feel like HN needs more of that, I have to disagree.
Edit: $Firm hires $PolarizingPerson is probably not a good topic for HN but I'm happy to take a look at specific articles.
I wonder if you are maybe too close to the problem to see it from a normal HN user's perspective. From my perspective, I don't get this impression because I don't see the full breath of conversations that happen on HN like you do. People clearly want to talk about this here and I have rarely seen these stories actually on the front page of HN because they are so quick to drop off the front page due to flagging, downvoting, the flame war detector, or whatever other behind the scenes mechanics exist that you are obviously more knowledgeable about than me. People continuing to have conversations on posts that no one sees unless they specifically search them out is the equivalent of shadowbanning those conversations. Yes, they are still happening, but the normal HN user isn't actually seeing them and that is why you are fielding so many complaints from normal users who want to see these posts.
Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42981756 - Feb 2025 (1544 comments) (<-- you are here)
Elon Musk's Demolition Crew - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42968430 - Feb 2025 (353 comments)
DOGE staffer resigns over racist posts - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42966412 - Feb 2025 (107 comments)
DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42951458 - Feb 2025 (370 comments)
20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42950790 - Feb 2025 (547 comments)
Onlookers freak out as 25-year-old set loose on Treasury computer system - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42936421 - Feb 2025 (133 comments)
Payments crisis of 2025: Not “read only” access anymore - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42933219 - Feb 2025 (654 comments)
The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42910910 - Feb 2025 (2977 comments)
Phyllis Fong, who was investigating Neuralink, "forcefully removed " - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42902355 - Feb 2025 (214 comments)
The government information crisis is bigger than you think it is - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42895331 - Feb 2025 (270 comments)
NSF starts vetting all grants to comply with executive orders - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42886661 - Jan 2025 (488 comments)
Archivists work to save disappearing data.gov datasets - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42881367 - Jan 2025 (238 comments)
Trump's Federal Funding Freeze and Mean-Field Game Theory - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42863339 - Jan 2025 (89 comments)
Deferred resignation email to federal employees - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42859552 - Jan 2025 (151 comments)
NIH hit with freezes on meetings, travel, communications, and hiring - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42798960 - Jan 2025 (440 comments)
United States Digital Service renamed to DOGE - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42775684 - Jan 2025 (98 comments)
However, I think placing this long list of stories all under the same MOT demonstrates that conversation is "happening", but at the same time it isn't really happening.
One of the key strategies used by Trump and Putin is to flood the zone (“Flood the zone with shit”: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/16/20991816/i...)
As an example, the parent story of this comment is no longer on the front page and instead of anything related to Musk at the fed there is now another distraction about him trying to buy OpenAI.
I haven't read all of the above articles, but from just a cursory glance it looks like many different important events are happening. If they happened one at a time over the course of a year no one would consider it MOT, but because its all happening in the same week it gets mashed together. Individual stories quickly fall off the front page.
What this means in practice is that there's some space for discussing these topics, but only some, and not nearly enough to fully cover everything that's going on right now.
I understand that a lot of users want this to be otherwise. Quite rightly, they feel like current events are important and deserve a great deal more airtime. But our first responsibility is to preserve HN for its intended purpose, and HN is not an instrument that can accommodate much more of this. The threads that I listed above are, from HN's point of view, already a lot.
It's a pity, because to the extent that discussion here is marginally* more substantive than what's available elsewhere, it's natural to wish that it could be applied to much more important issues. Why care about the origins of Proto-Indo-European when the government is being burned down? and so on. We should turn our attention to the things that matter! But this argument just doesn't work in practice. The only thing that would happen if we "flooded the zone" on HN too is that the place would burn out.
* emphasis on "marginally". I'm not claiming it's particularly good—there is a great deal not to like.
Your comment of "discussion here is marginally* more substantive" footnoted that it's not particularly good also seems a bit condescending. Its dismissive to those attempting to engage with these stories in good faith even if a vocal minority are behaving in bad faith. When a dozen stories are popping up and disappearing in a few hours it feels a lot harder to participate in a thoughtful and substantial ways.
I can understand HN is in a rough spot. But on the other hand, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.
I've made a list of 23 threads (see the reply below), all from the last month. There are over 13k comments in those threads alone, and it's not a complete list.
It's interesting how claims like "only non-controversial stories" or "no discussion of this sort shall be allowed" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42976817) arise during periods when there's a sharp increase in such threads (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42978572).
At first that seems counterintuitive (like Jevons' paradox, or Yogi Berra's "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded"). But it's not so paradoxical. These aren't factual propositions, they're expressions of a feeling—what people are really saying is not that there is no coverage of these topics, but that they would like more coverage. They often use words like "no", "zero", "never", and "nothing" to express how they feel, but what they mean by these words is "not enough". Which is fair enough. The community always splits between users who want more and users who feel like it's too much.
Also, it's easy to miss any particular thread or sequence of threads. Even among regular HN readers, there will be many who haven't seen even one of the 23 threads listed below, or who only saw 1 or 2, and therefore might naturally feel like none of this is being discussed. Among those, there will be some who feel strongly about it, and some of these will naturally express their feeling in the way I described above. Nonetheless, in reality there is a large amount of this discussion happening—it is by far the most-discussed topic of recent weeks, and will likely continue to be.
> also seems a bit condescending
Sorry for giving that impression! I often add a disclaimer like that because I don't want to sound like I'm making excessive claims about HN's discussion quality. The most I can say is that median discussion quality here is modestly better than elsewhere on the internet, but at its worst it's still pretty bad. I don't mean to put down HN commenters who are using the site thoughtfully. You have to remember that as moderators we see a lot of stuff like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43018472, to pick the most recent example. In fact we must see more of that than any other reader, simply because it's our job to.
Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42981756 - Feb 2025 (1768 comments)
Announcing the data.gov archive - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42970039 - Feb 2025 (127 comments)
Elon Musk's Demolition Crew - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42968430 - Feb 2025 (348 comments)
DOGE staffer resigns over racist posts - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42966412 - Feb 2025 (105 comments)
DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42951458 - Feb 2025 (373 comments)
20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42950790 - Feb 2025 (547 comments)
What's happening inside the NIH and NSF - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42940257 - Feb 2025 (1519 comments)
Onlookers freak out as 25-year-old set loose on Treasury computer system - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42936421 - Feb 2025 (133 comments)
Payments crisis of 2025: Not “read only” access anymore - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42933219 - Feb 2025 (654 comments)
Words flagged in search of current NSF awards - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42932760 - Feb 2025 (154 comments)
The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42910910 - Feb 2025 (2978 comments)
CDC: Unpublished manuscripts mentioning certain topics must be pulled or revised - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42905937 - Feb 2025 (719 comments)
Phyllis Fong, who was investigating Neuralink, "forcefully removed " - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42902355 - Feb 2025 (214 comments)
CDC data are disappearing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42897696 - Feb 2025 (589 comments)
The government information crisis is bigger than you think it is - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42895331 - Feb 2025 (270 comments)
NSF starts vetting all grants to comply with executive orders - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42886661 - Jan 2025 (488 comments)
Archivists work to save disappearing data.gov datasets - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42881367 - Jan 2025 (238 comments)
Trum...
Hyperbole is worse than that, IMHO. It inflames and serves almost no other purpose.
Imagine someone writes, "politician X is the most corrupt ever". What does that tell us? One bit of information (yes/no on this politician), and that the author has strong emotions about it (maybe 2-4 more bits - are they 4 of 4 angry? 16 of 16?); or very possibly they want to perform strong emotion because that energizes the interaction, draws attention, 'wins' the day, or is an aggressive negotiating position (reducing it to ~1-2 bits); and/or they could do those things reflexively and without a conscious plan, participating in a fun social dynamic that is muscle memory from years on the the Internet (reducing it to ~0-2 bits). Maybe it's just easier.
Whatever it is, what we don't learn - what the hyperbole wipes out - is knowledge and learning. We learn - acquire novel knowledge - little regarding X; what X does black, white, and mostly grey (what shades?); what is corrupt and not corrupt about X; what corruption is, the grey areas, and how that applies here, and of course much more. There are gigabits or maybe terabits to say here, dissertations and books, more than could be said in a lifetime. Another thing we could learn is the author as a person and their feelings, including their anger - how, why, when, what kind, etc. - giga-terabits more. On these vast landscapes of knowledge and emotion, we need each other's perspectives and insights to navigate and see what's valuable.
But all real information and nuance and complexity is washed away by the ultimate, by hyperbole. It's so ___, there is nothing to think about. Just a few bits is all you need.
The destruction of the federal government is a more critical issue than the origins of Proto-Indo-European people because it directly affects millions of lives in tangible ways. Yes historical curiosities are valuable, but they do not carry the same immediate, material consequences as a government being hollowed out from within.
> a more critical issue than the origins of Proto-Indo-European because it directly affects millions of lives
For sure. I've made the same point many times over the years. I dug up a sample:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42413334 (Dec 2024)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36885572 (July 2023)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27486354 (June 2021)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25766970 (Jan 2021)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23332076 (May 2020)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902396 (April 2020)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22644521 (March 2020)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21152524 (Oct 2019)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20453883 (July 2019)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16968668 (May 2018)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16581518 (March 2018)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15948011 (Dec 2017)
The question isn't whether current events are more important than, say, "making my own basketball hoops" or "3rd century irrigation systems" or "Do spiders dream?" or any of the other obscure things that have spent time on HN's front page. Current events are far more important than these, and indeed almost anything on HN's front page.
But if you're arguing that HN should prioritize stories by importance, then you're arguing that HN should become a current affairs site. That's not the mandate of the site.
If you're not arguing that, then I think we agree in principle, and disagree only about the degree to which the valve for such stories should be open. I get that you think it should be opened further, and many users agree with you; but then, many users feel that it should be tightened further. We have to think about satisfying the whole community (as best we can), not just one constituency; and we have to think about preserving the site for its intended mandate, which could all too easily be washed away by a tsunami of legitimately more important stories.
This is not hyperbole!
Trump and Elon have started the first round of firing federal workers. A friend's organization just laid off 1500 people because 80% of their funding comes from the federal government.
Yes, HN is a special place. But your silence allows countless other special places to be destroyed. By the end of Trump's term HN might not even survive anyway.
The more repetitive these threads get, the lower-quality they become. The most recent ones have been truly terrible, by the standards of https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. That's another key indicator of which way to adjust the valve. The more people are unable to discuss this topic thoughtfully, the further it drifts from the intended spirit of the site.
On one hand it comes across like a conspiracy video, but on the other hand she plays direct video clips of major tech figures talking about dismantling the government and dividing the world into small nation states. Trump and Musk have also both stated they want to eliminate large amounts of the federal government.
I would love to get some perspective from those who have personally interacted with those people over the last 10 years.
This video probably falls under what you consider "activating", but it seems like we need to have conversations around this type of issue rather than letting rational voices get drowned out by the sea of angry shouting.
At the same time, issues of this kind of revolutionary scope are important for users to process. We can learn a lot from each other.
Irrespective of politics, it's necessary to hedge systemic risk that's appearing due to destabilization of the US. That affects so many of us that it's hard to ignore.
Keeping some persistent outlet (front page post) for discussion of this major topic is important to give people a politically agnostic and technically proficient space to integrate what's happening.
Thank you for filtering the noise and fear with the posts.
It doesn't really feel like a politically agnostic space. A large number of users (though probably a small proportion of total HN users) seem to care a lot and of those who care a lot it looks like at least 3/4rs have a "leftist" persuasion.
(Sadly, I'm not longer aware of any intelligent and politically agnostic space where politics can be discussed. All those I knew have gradually become dominated by one political direction or another)
Woo love changing the meaning of words to fit what I imagine other people are using it for!!
Let me see what else I can come up with for you...
Well, here are some things: (1) HN's moderation approach to this kind of stuff hasn't changed in years; (2) the principles of what we do are pretty clearly articulated (though we don't always apply those principles optimally); (3) we try to always answer the questions people have; (4) we're open to admitting and correcting mistakes when we find out about them; and (5) FWIW, I don't know of anyone working on HN (or at YC for that matter) who supports the immoderate agenda you're describing, though I also don't have (or want, or need) core dumps of anyone's politics.
I'm not a Musk supporter at all, but I flag these discussions for several reasons.
1. To keep my sanity. These stories are pretty much everywhere and will be all over for the next 4 years at least. I don't want to engage in them and lose even more time and get even more anxious.
2. The comments aren't useful and don't bring new information. It's pretty clear what Elon and the oligarchs are trying to do. Those who don't see it won't change their mind at that point.
HN is one of the rare forum to avoid flame war, let's keep it that way.
I believe this post is off-topic as it's political and doesn't satisfy my "hacker curiosity". There are other venues to discuss these topics.
How many people does it take to flag a post to the point where it doesnt show up anymore?
that means two or three people spawn-camping the new queue can control what stories will or will not get through
I don't recall if dang has ever openly discussed such security measures, through I do recall him saying that people can loose access to flag/voting if they are misused.
At bottom, it seems like this is just how mass psychology works—it's what you get when the inputs are (1) human nature, and (2) modern media. It stresses me out too, but I have to remind myself not to fight battles we can't win. That's a recipe for burnout and worse.
When the mechanics of how these things are put into play, begin to affect not only Facebook, Twitter etc but also Hacker News itself, that's very much Hacker News-adjacent. It's a meta sense where control of the discourse becomes not only the ground but also the figure.
Hackers are eager to think they, like the internet, will route around any censorship. If their ways and belief systems are studied to the point that flagging and argument becomes able to unilaterally censor discourse against the wishes of the hackers, that's when your action of picking a thread and taking pains to unflag it and attempt discussion anyhow, becomes the right thing to do :)
[^1]: https://x.com/sridca/status/1846935493100888262
https://www.audubon.org/news/why-do-gulls-have-red-spot-thei...
Can you give citations for where you’ve seen these sorts of statements?
However bad Musk is, I’ve yet to see anyone saying he is “literally worse than Hitler”
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
That describes basically all posts about AI, so let's all join in and start flagging any HN post about AI.
No it won't. That would only be true if the flaggers were disinterested judges who never comment. You're projecting your desire for a good civil discussion onto them without considering the possibility that any of them could be flagging or commenting in bad faith, ie with a view to shaping the outcome of the discussion rather than optimizing the quality thereof.
-- original comment --
> That would only be true if the flaggers were disinterested judges who never comment.
I don't follow this argument. Can you rephrase it?
Flagging flamewars is an appropriate use of flagging on HN. If this thread turns into the kind of flamewar we normally want to see flagged, that's evidence in favor of the users who made that call in the first place.
> the possibility that any of them could be flagging or commenting in bad faith
Yes. I've made this point many times, including in this thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42993092): there's usually two kinds of flaggers: users who want to suppress a story because they don't like it (e.g. politically), and users who feel like the story isn't in keeping with the site guidelines and are worried about protecting HN. I assume by "bad faith" you mean the first kind.
The number of dead posts in recent weeks is unprecedented. Some have upwards of 100 votes. I never saw a dead post in 2017 or 2021 that struck me as suspiciously flagged. But multiple times this week I've written a comment on a post only to have the comment blocked on submission because the post was flagged while I was writing. (or in the case of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42994293, flagged, unflagged, and flagged again.)
There is clearly something unusual happening with flags. There is an obvious correlation between the post topic and likelihood of flags, even when the post's comments are reasonable.
I think this motivated flagging is preventing productive discussion on HN, and it's healthier in the long term for Hacker News to allow perhaps excessive discussions on these currently popular topics. Otherwise HN risks developing a reputation that it systematically suppresses discussions critical of the current administration. I think that reputation would linger for far longer than the temporary irritation some might feel about the currently popular topic.
I'd say what's unusual is the macro environment. This is the most politically intense moment in years. HN can't be immune from macro trends (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).
There have been periods like this in the past, such as 8 years ago when you-know-who first took power. I hear you that you don't remember it being this bad then; my memory is otherwise. Either way, the moment will subside. HN has gone through such swings before.
> I think this motivated flagging is preventing productive discussion on HN
I don't see how one can say that discussion is being prevented when the topic is is by far the most-discussed on HN (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42977160 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42978572 for recent posts on that). The current thread has been on the front page for 9 hours and counting, and has over 1000 comments and counting.
I know some people would prefer more, but that is always the case about any topic. Moreover, everyone has at least one topic they feel that way about. These are perennial conditions that come from the fundamentals of the site, not recent trends.
> it's healthier in the long term for Hacker News to allow perhaps excessive discussions on these currently popular topics
I have to disagree—I think the health of Hacker News depends on not doing this. Times like this are moments to reinforce HN's differentiation from other forums by insisting on its particular focus (i.e. that it's a forum for intellectual curiosity, not a current affairs site).If we lose users who get frustrated because they can't use HN primarily for political battle, that makes me sad, but the solution is not to use HN primarily for political battle.
> Otherwise HN risks developing a reputation that it systematically suppresses discussions critical of the current administration.
It's not true that HN does this, so anyone who believes it is jumping to a false conclusion. It bothers me a lot when people do that, but you wouldn't believe how often it happens, and how many kinds of false generalization people come up with—I could give you hundreds of examples. I've learned that it's a bad idea to worry too much about the false conclusions about HN that people jump to for reasons of their own. Not that I've stopped worrying too much about it—I still do, I've just learned that it's a bad idea.
My subconscious worry (now conscious) was that the "political flaggers" would discover the effectiveness of flagging, and expand its use to here-on-out sink any politically unfavorable news topic.
But I then realized that you (HN mod(s)) have been IMO faultless for a decade at unflagging or boosting posts on contentious topics that add at least a smidgen of new information. Sometimes it takes a couple hours for moderation to kick in but that's reasonable.
So I'll continue to trust in HN's moderation, and cease worrying that my favorite discussion forum is in jeopardy!
Say some don't like stories about crypto currency, but tolerates them. So, stories about crypto currency appear and attract those interested in crypto currency. Say there are also stories about public projects, but those interested in crypto currency don't tolerate stories about public projects, so there are flamewars for those stories.
Your conclusion would then be that Hacker News is a good place for stories about crypto currency, but not for stories about public projects. Because stories about public projects creates flamewars and should therefor be removed.
When in reality those interested in public projects would be the ones wanting interesting discussions, while those interested in crypto currency would be acting against the spirit of the site.
As stories about public projects are removed eventually those interested in them would leave and stories about how public projects can't work would meet little resistance. Therefor not creating any flamewars and be good for HN. Yet, it would at best be the opposite of curiosity.
For example, the comments that drive flamewars are mostly not produced by the accounts that have flagged the thread.
Therefor I haven't really gotten anything out of this which both doesn't make me interested in (nor do I think I can be expected to be) these conditions for a further discussion. I'm happy to reconsider at any point (but can't guarantee a response) if you have any specific questions about my comment.
If you want to prove your theory that flamewars makes those flagging right and not what I said, it is up to you. Which is even more reasonable considering you have the responsibility to run this site, the tools required for it and are getting paid to do it.
While I understand that you don't want to share flagging or voting preferences (though I don't consider this intimate data myself), it's hard for people have confidence in the flagging/vouching mechanism because there is no indicator of volume or frequency. One might argue that if there was it would be gamed, but the site is obviously being gamed as is. One indicator is the elevated volume of baity comments from throwaway accounts on some discussions.
My understanding of that broader topicality was that it was intended to capture things like science news ("Feynman's lectures have been published online for free" or "The Higgs Boson has been confirmed"), interesting posts and articles of other kinds (e.g. that series of posts of horror stories about dangerous chemical compounds - "why I will never work with supernitroglycerin" etc) and occasionally general news stories of such significance that ANYONE would want to discuss them (eg. Russian troops have invaded Ukraine).
That isn't what I am seeing here. There is now almost always general American political "news" on the front page. It isn't particularly newsworthy. It feels like the only reason it is here is that people here don't have anywhere else to discuss it because HN is one of the few decent forums left on the Web. But that doesn't make it on-topic, surely?
I often see you remove flags from posts. What's the point of having the flagging mechanism if you just remove them when people complain? You say there's interesting new information, but is everything that is interesting on-topic? Or is the test narrower: it should be interesting to hackers by virtue of their being hackers. I am sure this is interesting to many hackers that are also US political junkies (which I mean in a neutral way) but not because they are hackers.
Do you see what I mean?
Dang’s anti-flagging mechanism is the human factor that balances that very blunt automated system. People don’t seem to vouch for articles as much as for comments.
Dead submissions have a vouch link on the new page. Dead comments require clicking on the comment timestamp before the vouch link becomes visible.
In either case you need showdead enabled on your profile, and to have met the karma threshold for vouch links to appear.
I'm not sure I'd recommend showdead, but there are sometimes reasoned or informative posts that get flagged due to hyperbolic statements. Probably worth trying it out just to be aware of how the sausage is made.
Like upvoting and vouching?
To be honest, I don’t think that comments are the problem. The community mostly does a good job of policing itself, especially once a thread gets enough visibility*. The problem is all the threads that get killed before they reach the front page (this post is a case in point).
* Although I will admit there are glaring blindspots you could drive a Panamax tanker through (especially political ones on the boundary between ideologies).
That sounds *literallyf like the plot for any 80s hacker movie out there. You know, when hacking was political and hackers were people interested in undermining structures of authority and bending the rules.
That is the origin of hacking, and as such it is totally in order to discuss such topics here, IMO.
I'd rather read stuff like this than another CEOs musings that are entirely marketing and make believe (cue Sam Altman). Just because it affirms billionairs viewpoints of the status quo doesn't make it apolitical. If it feels apolitical to you that probably says something about your political biases.
I agree that content marketing posts are not the best but they can be interesting despite the underlying motivation for the posts being marketing instead of curiosity. Sometimes the result is interesting regardless. Removing content marketing means having to try to guess the motivations of authors which is fraught. Yeah sometimes it is obvious but not always.
https://media.ccc.de/
Lots of political stuff, in context most importantly https://media.ccc.de/v/38c3-correctiv-recherche-geheimplan-g...
Whereas any old thing that "might be interesting" is fine when it comes from a rich person? Make a poll at the CCC, or Defcon, about the value of such posts, I'd be very curious.
I disagree. Krebsonsecurity has regularly delivered HN salient and interesting frontpage material, and this is currently the most flagged submission they've ever had on HN. We've discussed security assessments very similar to this in the past, even political ones, with technical curiosity and good faith discussion. The constraining factor is now people who unconditionally idolize Elon Musk. It's easy to see who's in the wrong when flagging relevant, well-written and objective reports like this one.
My personal view is that HN shouldn't promote political content at all. It should just be moderated out or flagged with no opportunity for recourse, whether it's Syrian independence or the invasion of Ukraine. But I abide by the exceptions made in HN's guidelines and consider this a technically imperative article that most can tune out if they dislike. It's very easy to see the title and decide for yourself whether you're comfortable reading and discussing the article.
Basically, how interesting a story is varies with its position in the sequence of related stories.
Here are a couple recent posts to look at if you (or anyone) want to understand the principles by which we decide which ones get to count as "on topic":
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42978389
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42911011
If you read those and follow the links there, and still have a question I haven't answered, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.
> What's the point of having the flagging mechanism if you just remove them when people complain?
I made precisely the same point a few minutes ago! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42993906
The answer is that we don't "just remove them when people complain". We only remove them sometimes, when doing so seems in keeping with the principles by which we moderate HN.
I'd flag them all but fear that would appear heavy handed
The effect you describe is an unfortunate side effect of any threaded forum where the ordering of sibling posts is determined by some measure of quality: all responses to the first top-level comment, no matter the quality, precede the second top-level comment, which is probably of higher quality (on average). This is one of many reasons that threaded comments are flawed. Flat comments (phpBB style) of course have their own flaws and chronological threaded comments (LWN for example) have their own too.
However, to avoid the thread ballooning at the top of the page, I'm also detaching these subthreads as I reply to them.
I sometimes post snarky comments and a tiny version of dang that sits on my shoulder scolds me into editing it.
That's both strange and a testament to your work.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42933391
We don't want too much of this, but a certain amount is ok, and that's how HN has operated for at least the last 15 years.
Oh and (3) if you browse HN while logged in, you can always click 'hide' on a submission and the software will not show you that particular one anymore.
There's no point giving Musk more money, power, and influence. He's now calling for the impeachment of judges because he thinks they're in his way:
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5134725-elon-musk-impe...
He wants any opposition or limit or restraint to him gone. Here's an interview with Kara Swisher about Musk's mentality that's worth watching:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xXLycFv5Gc
That's because HN appears to be disturbingly pro-trump and they seem to organize to flagkill anything "negative".
You really should look into organized flagkilling.
Given what we know about the demographics of HN—for example, users here are probably more likely to be college-educated, many come from outside the U.S., and so on—the community here is probably less pro-Trump than the general U.S. population is, but that still leaves a great many users on both sides of that issue.
Of course I understand that any level of pro-$X can be disturbing if $X itself is disturbing enough. But that's more of a qualitative experience than a quantitative one. I've called it the "shock experience" in the past and wrote about it here, if anyone is interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098.
To understand what i mean take a look at;
1) Nassim Taleb's book Skin in the Game - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_in_the_Game_(book). Specifically his The Minority Rule which basically states that an intransigent minority can almost always prevail over a flexible majority. It is the asymmetry which is being used to game the system.
Nassim Taleb's article The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority - https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...
Nassim Taleb & Naval Ravikant video on The Minority Rule - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwlW2aamDFc
2) Also see Game Theory(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory) and the books The Evolution of Cooperation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation), The Complexity of Cooperation(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Complexity_of_Cooperation) by Robert Axelrod
Veritasium's video on Game Theory and Axelrod's tournaments - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mScpHTIi-kM
Influence decision models: From cooperative game theory to social network analysis - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S15740...
A Survey of Game Theory as Applied to Social Networks - https://www.sciopen.com/article/10.26599/TST.2020.9010005
You have earned my respect, dang, but this is hardly an "interchangeable flamewar".
What is happening is frankly beyond anything we have ever seen before in the history of the country.
Often, a sequence of related stories (S1, S2, ..., Sn) produces threads that are more or less the same as their predecessors, rather than focusing on the specific new information introduced by any Si. This particularly happens when the topic is a major and divisive one, like the current one.
What happens in this cases is that people tend to post their generic views about $Person or $Topic, often in vehement terms and without much curiosity about the specific details of what's happening. In this way we get threads that don't differ very much from one discussion to the next. That's what I mean by "interchangeable".
I guess it's similar to what you do here when you "move" comments from one submission to another. A downside is that it can be hard to know which comments come from which submission. Perhaps top-level comments need a small marker indicating which link they originally commented under?
Comments from merged stories do have a label showing where the came from... but only before the merge; afterwards top-level comments are always attached to the primary story which is when things get especially confusing.
For this and other reasons, I'm in the middle of revamping UI for the feature and the database model: https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters/issues/1456
If anyone is real curious about the fine details, I've done almost all of this feature work on Lobsters office hours streams: https://push.cx/tags#story-merging I plan to continue that work in about four hours on today's stream so it's a great time to ask questions: https://push.cx/stream
As a (much) smaller community, story merging has been valuable for allowing us to build the critical mass of a good discussion. We also avoid rehashing the basics/easy misunderstandings. It's a pretty similar to dang's motivation about wanting to promote novel discussions. I have joked for a couple years that I'd love to see HN copy the feature so that HN can teach everyone how the feature works.
But conceptually-linked ones of course don’t.
Not always. There seems to be some issue with the exactness match. I haven't reported it because I presumed it was intentional. Well, that and there's no obvious bug submission process.
Maybe if submitters see something was already submitted 800 times, they'll get the message; though, I have my doubts.
Doesn't solve the sameish story being posted from multiple sources, though.
We can be civil until the very end of the world, I guess. I’ll make sure to hold my knife and fork correctly while civilization falls apart.
But yes, I do intend to be civil and thoughtful right up until my death, no matter what happens in the world.
That's how I want to live my life, and I'm glad to be part of this community which has clearly stated goals that align with mine, and a moderator team that does as good a job as I'd expect while maintaining a fairly light touch. There's almost nowhere else like this on the internet.
It's also important to state clearly that being civil and thoughtful does not equate to being passive. It does not equate to failing to take action to defend your ideals and way of life. You can be a highly active and passionate person taking strong actions everyday to guide the world (back) onto the path you believe in, and you can do so while striving to remain thoughtful and civil.
Why not? Do you think a violent discourse would work better?
(also I have not seen dang making any concrete statements about the topic)
Now you want this poster to believe that if they were to just bring examples, you would be interested for reasons other than arguing against their validity.
If you're going to mention a "plain and obvious" example, you should link to it so users can make up their own minds about how plain and obvious it is.
Re contradictions: there probably are contradictions in the principles I've been describing, because the problem we're trying to solve is complex enough to involve tradeoffs. Perhaps this is what whalesalad means by "You can’t have your cake and eat it too bud."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Jackson
I find it hard to compare the two men in question. They will have their similarities, being humans and politicians. But Andrew Jackson lived two hundred years ago. The modern era has seen the USA become a "superpower" with brokering influence (political, financial, military) all around the world.
The current administration appears intent (despite its slogans) on dismantling its own influence in the world... as well as Democracy. Nations and economic zones that considered themselves long-standing allies only a month ago now openly express distrust.
He engaged in a conflict with the central bank overseeing national finances and banking and vetoed the bill renewing its charter, in part because he perceived the bank as supporting his political opponents. It still had four years to go, but the next year he unilaterally pulled all federal deposits from the bank, putting them in smaller state banks. This crippled the Second Bank of the United States with no Congressional approval or oversight. In fact, he was officially censured by the Senate for doing it.
Some other similarities in tone or type:
Jackson wasn't initially taken seriously as a presidential candidate - he was a political outsider and "a man of the people." He thought the federal government was corrupt and against him. This feeling was not helped by his winning the popular vote in the election of 1824 but it being taken away by the electoral college and ultimately decided by the House of Representatives in a "corrupt bargain."
He basically replaced his entire cabinet because of a conflict between the wives of his cabinet members and the wife of his chief of staff, who had married the widow of another cabinet member after a rumored affair and that member's subsequent suicide.
He had a "kitchen cabinet" of unofficial and unappointed advisors who had extremely significant power in the Federal government, such as Martin Van Buren (who would later become VP), John Overton, and Francis Blair (Editor of the Washington Globe), including some of the richest people in the country at the time - some of whom were bankers, by the way, and directly benefited from the destruction of the 2nd National Bank.
He criminally investigated his presidential predecessor's staff, alleging (and allegedly finding) corruption.
He was accused of being a dictator and a despot, and rattled his saber against Europe, almost going to war with France.
He nominated and successfully appointed completely unqualified judges.
We didn't have the current system of executive agencies until the latter half of the twentieth century, but if we did Jackson would probably have dismantled it.
A couple of books I liked about this era are: The Birth of Modern Politics - https://archive.org/details/birthofmodernpol00lynn
American Lion by Jon Meacham
I'd say it's a classic Spock vs. Jimbo take.
What I'm calling "activation" isn't the same thing as emotion or passion, and what I'm calling "curiosity" or "being interested" is definitely not the same thing as being passionless or robotic.
What happens in flamewars is that when people encounter material they strongly disagree with, these systems get activated and rapidly produce aggressive and defensive responses that have to do with self-protection, and nothing to do with thoughtful consideration of the material, things one might learn, points where one might be wrong, curiosity, playful interaction, and so on. When survival is at stake there is no time or space for the latter sorts of reactions. But it's the latter that we want on HN—they're what the site is for.
Of course we all know cognitively that our survival is not really at stake when someone disagrees with us on the internet—at least our frontal cortices know that—but our limbic systems and autonomic nervous systems definitely do not know that. They experience it as a threat and from then on it's kill-or-be-killed. The fact that survival is not really at stake has no effect; what matters is the feeling that it is so.
This is what underlies commenters being so angry, snarky, sarcastic, aggressive and so on, on the internet. It's also what underlies our inability to hear each other or respect each other.
I sometimes describe this is as 'reflexive' vs. 'reflective' responses (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). By 'reflexive' I mean when the rapid-response system I just described takes over and reacts from "cache", so to speak, to quickly counter a threat. By 'reflective' I mean the slower processes that happen when one is in a relaxed state and available for curiosity and play. In the jargon I'm using, 'activated' means being in 'reflexive' mode, and 'interested' or 'curious' means being in 'reflective' mode.
This has all kinds of interesting aspects. Here's one: you can't be in both of these states at the same time. It's literally one or the other. Think of the implications that has for a community like HN, where basically everything we want comes out of one of those two states and everything we don't want comes out of the other.
Someone is going to object that political developments can and do present real survival threats. That of course is true, and maybe to the extent that it is true, people have no choice but to function in kill-or-be-killed mode. But we feel this way and behave this way to a greater extent than we need to, and that's one factor preventing conflicts from being solved. That's a vicious circle which it's in all our interests to explore our way out of. We can't kill our way out of it.
In case it's not obvious, I'm using the word 'kill' metaphorically. What I mean by 'kill' is what we do when we try to eliminate threats (and the feeling of threat) by annihilating the other. That shows up as real killing in extreme situations like war, but the same (let's call it) psycho-physiological state shows up in other environments too, including trivial ones like internet forums. Here it shows up as people trying to annihilate the other by maximizing the aggressive potency of their language.
How do we end up getting so activated when we don't need to? and what can we do to become less activated in this way? I believe that if you tug on those threads and keep tugging, you arrive at the most important problem in the world. That's one main reason why I've kept working...
Edit: but see what I wrote at the very end there about somatically-oriented trauma therapies. I wouldn't call that a "specific religion or group" but it's at least a subculture and that may be what you meant? In any case, I've spent a lot of time in that subculture and it has informed what I wrote there.
It is definitely the case that certain neuromodulators exert negative feedback on each other, but this may not be factual. Maybe the way I would make your point is that the external feedback we interact with can more or less quickly drive our brain into extremes on the brain state continuum.
That's exactly what's happening when people flag articles like this.
So what's the plan to achieve reflective flagging?
What's the plan? I guess the plan is continue to turn off flags on specific submissions that people bring to our attention and which seem to clear the bar according to the principles I've outlined in this and other threads.
In terms of wanting reflective and not reactive, one thought would be to gate it by time, and prevent replies to a comment until N number of minutes have passed. which I know exists as a flag that can be set on specific users, but it's a heavy hammer and extra work for moderators. If, on a post that the system has marked as a flamewar, hitting the reply page started a, say, 15 minute timer before allowing a reply, would that help lessen the reactivity of comments? personally if it's something contentious, sometimes I'll open up a reply page, write what I feel like writing, then give it 15 mins to sit, and then usually come back and delete and rewrite my entire response to be more in line with the guidelines. (though tbh, not 100% successfully)
technical fixes can't fix the underlying social ills, but sometimes you just need a simple lock to keep people honest.
This seems to stand opposed to people who reply because they have something interesting to say.
> This seems to stand opposed to people who reply because they have something interesting to say.
Or something interested to say. Interested people say interesting things.
First I want to thank you for the tireless job of moderating this form, it is really the thing that keeps it as a special place on the internet.
I genuinely wanted to ask if you feel out of depth on moderating the current and upcoming news on both the US and AI.
Both feel like we are heading towards things many of us have not experienced in our lives.
How do you find your previous moderation experience is leading you in the current environment?
But I hasten to qualify this:
(1) This is just my feeling! You asked how I feel, so I'm telling you, but I don't claim my feeling is anything more than that.
(2) I'm only talking about dynamics on HN. I'm not talking about what Trump might do or AI might do; it's not my job to comment on those and your guess is as good as mine anyhow.
Makes sense to really focus your commitment to HN.
I can appreciate your emotional discipline in these times. I could work on that more myself
Not all the time, no. It's good to stay informed and maybe even stay "functionally outraged" a bit. But having HN with its high degree of remoteness and dispassionate analysis to come back to is great.
Having looked around, probably around 80% of comments are mostly uninteresting/partisanship (though a fair few of those combine the mud slinging with an interesting fact or argument, which complicates categorization).
(Aside: One of the issues for me is that on high emotion topics like this I can't take people's word for things as much as in a usual thread, it just becomes visual noise)
We do some moderation things to try to nudge it in a more reflective/interesting direction, but there's a limit to how much that can help.
I see a lot of really specific and well thought out raising of issues in this thread, as it applies to technology, commerce and security, all very much on topic for HN.
Criticism of the current administration is an important part of democracy, we need to hold the government accountable, no matter who runs it.
I meant here, in this forum.
> Criticism of the current administration is an important part of democracy, we need to hold the government accountable, no matter who runs it.
Typical american imperialist mentality where USA is the only country that exists and/or matters:
- I'm not american
- I don't need to (or can) hold your government accountable
- I still believe allowing any politically-inclined post like this is toxic to this forum
There are a couple answers to that. One is that it's not possible not to. We tried once, as an experiment, and it had the counterintuitive effect of making the site more politicized.
The other answer is that a limited amount of political overlap is actually part of optimizing the site for intellectual curiosity. Lots of past explanations at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... if anyone wants more.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42618465
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42066014
The way out of this logjam is to stop thinking in quantitative terms (how many 'left' posts vs. how many 'right' posts) and instead look for the highest-quality articles you can find. If there's a high-qualty article about USAID, meaning one which contains interesting information and isn't primarily hammering on partisan drums, I don't see why that wouldn't be on topic here.
A subject matter expert in some obscure government office might not be able to dumb it down well enough in 15 minutes especially if they have no idea who their audience is ahead of time.
Have some empathy.
I hope they are given some runway or options to prepare for the private sector. But viscerally it is deeply, exquisitely satisfying to observe feds have shit canned their parasitic positions predicated on collection by armed tax collectors.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/07/politics/musk-doge-staffers-f...
Hard to hold a discussion when everyone is arguing in bad faith.
‘That report’ is based on a reporter hearing this statement at the town-hall, not innuendos and rumors. Your very statement that it was based on innuendo and rumors is poisoning the well.
They've ve deleted it now, I'm assuming because they didn't have a position they felt they could defend.
I mean yeah, that's part of the problem -- there's no oversight here, by design.
So, like every private sector job nowadays?
Everyone is acting like this is the first time in history someone's been called into a meeting with a ponytailed 25 year old to have the "What is it ya do here?" discussion.
Memorialized in a movie so old now that most zoomers haven't even heard of it, let alone seen it. Only the Bobs have now been replaced with 'Skylar'.
I just don't really want to be in the house when they burn it down, and I am not under any illusion that all those civil liberties and other elements (that were weak before) are going to somehow get better when a bunch of nihilistic brats start yelling YOLO while burning down a bunch of Chesterton's fences.
Well, maybe not funny, but understandable, "con" is short for "confidence" anyway, and just like the Nigerian scam victims refusing to believe all evidence to show them they're being scammed, so are many Trump voters digging in...
And some of the cracked eggs you mentioned are real human lives.
How _very_ interesting.
https://archive.is/g6ElI
https://graphics.social/@metin/113865450624948092
Bah. Musk and Trump will make a lot more than that disappear into their own and the other oligarchs pockets.
This kind of access would be dangerous even in the hands of principled and well-meaning people. Giving it to people with glaring red flags like here is just entirely irresponsible.
https://ourpublicservice.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/back...
appointees are interviewed, not vetted by the fbi like federal employs. the dowvote brigade could read the article since im rentioning a literal quote from there.
> the dowvote brigade could read the article since im rentioning a literal quote from there.
Alternately, consider that they’re recognizing that the scope of this situation is different both in terms of the level of access and nature of the work and unwillingness to follow policies. For example, when they tried to barge into the SCIF at USAID the staff who tried to stop them were under a legal obligation to do so - they’re charged with requiring everyone who enters to have a clearance. Historically, people got those and so it was never codified into law that they had to. Similarly, if people were requesting the access needed to perform their official task and using agency accounts and equipment to do so, you didn’t need an “auditor” to get approved at the level needed to be a system administrator. This is turning into a big scandal not just because it’s so highly politicized but also because bulling through so many process protections dramatically increases the potential risk.
As a simple example, reports have these guys getting admin access and using personal email accounts and equipment. Consider what happens if someone emails them a PDF saying it has evidence of fraud and it has a nasty payload. If they have unnecessary levels of access or have demanded that restrictions be removed, the fallout for that will be much worse than it would be if they were following the rules. Every federal agency has people employed specifically to prevent all of those layers of failure from happening.
And for appointees that require congressional confirmation the checks have been giving to congress prior to hearings for the same reason.
They weren't required but they very much have been done for political appointees in every admin in recent history except this one.
https://www.vox.com/trump-administration/388627/fbi-backgrou...
"Trump team agrees to DoJ background checks for nominees"
* https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/03/trump-team-b...
"FBI background checks of presidential nominees, explained":
* https://www.npr.org/2025/01/15/nx-s1-5260953/fbi-background-...
This has been the case since Eisenhower in 1953:
* https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/execu...
They are flooding the zone. That's by design. At one point they had "read-only access" to records. Then later people say they had full access and have backups.
The only definitive proof we have publicly Is that a federal judge made two orders; One to restrict access to the treasury for all of DOGE except for the 2 people allegedly already working in treasury. And One to order deletion of any records they have backed up. All other reports come from first or second hand sources. AFAIK, no one truly knows DOGE did in the Treasury, and we won't know until a court proceeding later this month.
Because that seems more both their style.
Only a few years later, he was thrust into the core information systems of the United States right next to people with security clearance.
Targets like this are a dream come true for foreign adversaries looking for someone to corrupt.
Who knows how much compromising content his old peers already have on him. The chat logs revealed they’re already thinking about how much access he has to valuable secrets.
>For this employment have any of the following happened to you in the last seven (7) years?
>Fired, quit after being told you would be fired, left by mutual agreement following charges or allegations of misconduct, left by mutual agreement following notice of unsatisfactory performance.
>Provide the reason for being fired.
https://www.opm.gov/Forms/pdf_fill/sf86.pdf
Whether or not ignoring such things is a good idea is something voters must judge.
If anyone gets to judge, however, it will be SCOTUS, not voters. It's hard to guess, right now, whether that's a plus for security.
As the sibling comment pointed out, this is not to say that doing so is a good idea. But it's very probably legal.
This has created a scenario where the average person believes lawsuits against Trump are without merit, even though that's not true. Add in the incompetent media and you have a powerful potion.
We’ve still got Chuck Schumer playing it business as usual. There is nothing in the Democratic Party that signals an emergency; the DNC didn’t even hint at lessons learned.
Which is the right thing to do.
The deal is that the Trump is upping the ante constantly.
So that data is (a) publicly available if you don't secure your VPC properly and (b) available to anyone without RBAC or request logging. This is an extraordinary degradation of the level of private and security controls.
[1] https://www.firstpost.com/tech/elon-musks-team-at-doge-feedi...
What will happen when PIIs of every individual with dealings with the Treasury gets leaked?
Then there is going to be thousands of hours of meetings to review various processes...
May...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/02/06/elon-musk-d...
What actual facts do you have for anything?
I understand why the media is mad, why NGOs, and why liberal politicians are mad, I get why foreign countries are mad.
I’m interested in fraud and abuse, regardless of who does it. So if Musk’s team finds it, great, if they get caught committing it and have to deal with that, also great.
But right now we know there is something broken. Instead of being mad about that, you are angry about hypotheticals that have not happened.
Why is that?
It's not up to him to make those decisions, it's up to congress. Musk is just making up bullshit (I'm surprised he didn't say he was rooting out pedophiles) to justify his jihad against the public service.
OK!
So you haven't found any insights regarding this?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43003791
Lots of really good, and as of yet, unanswered questions which shed some light on why/how Musk's claims of "waste" and his method of supposed resolution don't hold up to scrutiny.
We see what happens when big companies leak personal data - almost nothing. Maybe they give you 3 months of 'credit monitoring' or 'identity theft monitoring' service, maybe they write an apology press release. We've seen how Trump presents things, he quite realistically could say either "it was Democrats weak security, we're fixing it" or "hackers must have got it, we'll clean it up" or even "fake news" and then ... do nothing, we never hear about it again and the affected people deal with it as best they can. Why would you expect more than that to happen - a newspaper writes a damning article, lawsuits are filed, the news moves on in 24 hours.
We saw how he reacted to COVID, it wasn't a world class good reaction.
When you reply, don't use the word "bleach" or "UV"
is it because you wanted to say bleach and UV?
edit: "look what UK and denmark did!" is so completely irrelevant that it's ... not "good" faith to suggest it.
Click the link and imagine me asking "Was that because the US is so big? Or because the US has such a large population?" about every point. Including, but not limited to, these:
> May 2018 - The Trump Administration disbands the White House pandemic response team.
> July 2019 The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) epidemiologist embedded in China’s disease control agency left the post, and the Trump Administration eliminated the role.
> June 30-July 6, 2020 The U.S. has just 4% of the global population, ... and the second-highest death rate per capita.
> May 29, 2020 “We will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization”
And these, imagine me asking why Trump is more concerned about the stock market, his image, finding people to blame:
> Feb. 24, 2020 “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA… the Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”
> March 20, 2020 [Response to reporter’s question: "What do you say to Americans who are watching you right now who are scared?"] “I say that you're a terrible reporter, that's what I say. I think it's a very nasty question"
> July 28, 2020 "He [Fauci]'s got this high approval rating. So why don't I have a high approval rating with respect -- and the administration -- with respect to the virus?"
> Aug 19, 2020 "We’ve got all the damn cases...I want to do what Mexico does. They don’t give you a test till you get to the emergency room and you’re vomiting,”
> Sept. 10, 2020 "This is nobody's fault but China.”
and:
> May 6, 2020 The Brookings Institution reports that children were “experiencing food insecurity to an extent unprecedented in modern times” and “40.9 percent of mothers with children ages 12 and under reported household food insecurity since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.” Republicans block proposals to expand food stamps.
Thanks Obama.
Remember when New York's morgues were overloaded[1] with 800 people dying there every day[1] and they were burying people in mass graves on Hart Island[2]? That was April 2020 when medical advisors were saying people should wear masks and Trump was announcing to the world that he was feeling good and "I think wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens, I don’t know, somehow I don’t see it for myself. I just don’t." and then Trump's fanbase picked them up as "face-panties" for "wimps"? How many lives could he have saved if he just encouraged people to take it seriously and calmly and modelled that behaviour himself?
So let's start with an immediately better response: after being warned it is serious and spreads easily, stop telling the public to ignore it because it will miraculously go away over and over and over again. Tell people to distance, ventilate rooms, as the evidence becomes available
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/nyregion/coronavirus-nyc-...
[2] https://time.com/5913151/hart-island-covid/
> edit: "look what UK and denmark did!" is so completely irrelevant that it's ... not "good" faith to suggest it.
I didn't suggest it; the UK's handling of it was not good: https://www.ft.com/content/bea342f8-9289-41cb-83ae-1e97c47e...
> Remember when New York's morgues were overloaded[1] with 800 people dying there every day[1]
I do remember when the public health policy in this country was to intubate people with enfeebled lungs after pumping them full of opiates. I do understand that this is homicide, at least the way i define it.
Will there ever be a reckoning? i don't know. I do know a lot of outright falsehoods were told for 2 years straight. If you'd like a detailed list i'd be glad, but I'm the kind of person that is still mad that Obama joked about killing two kids with predator drones. That Clinton bombed a [medicine factory?] That Bush... both...
If everything is a shambles because of one (or 2) people then the constitution is not worth the paper it's printed on. I bet you could fetch a nice price for that paper. I'd repeat that, but it's easy to just scan back to the beginning and read it again.
I'm not worried. These people are hype-based. I get that people are suffering but people are always suffering and i got no control over that. Me yelling at people or agreeing with people like you doesn't do anything. I guarantee if i wrote an agreement this long, no-one would read it.
HT ID;
These people have administrative access, and at least in some cases network and physical access.
Once you determine they are untrustworthy and potentially malicious, you can't just rebuild the VMs, since you can no longer trust the hypervisor or even the hardware.
If they were Chinese or Mossad agents, you'd start from scratch in a different DC on supply chain audited new compute, storage, and networking hardware. And you'd compile everything from audited source. And I have NFI how you'd deal with potential malicious changes to your data and backups.
The backups should be stored on WORM tape. They can't be altered (easily or at all?). Of course they're probably wiping their asses with the backups like they are the constitution.
The concern is that the tampering has already been committed to the backups. When was the "Break Glass" password last rotated? Is it protected by one or more Yubikeys that were manufactured before they fixed that nasty exploit? What other attack vectors are baked in through malfeasance or human error?
If anyone with real experience in that area could chime in. Until now I was under impression COBOL ran it all:P
If these people are scooping up this information you can imagine they might be tempted to monetize or weaponize it at some point, or use the threat of such for their own gain.
This is absolutely chilling when you think about it.
When did "profitable" become the sole metric by which we judge someone's work? Does what is morally correct factor into it at all, or should the impressiveness someone's accomplishments make them a "titan" regardless of intent or outcome?
You’re quoting a sentence with two adjectives.
> should the impressiveness someone's accomplishments make them a "titan" regardless of intent or outcome?
For a teenager? Barring violence, yes. An impressive, misguided teenager is a net asset to a community and society in the developed world.
I challenge anyone intelligent to honestly say they didn’t have any really stupid opinions or worldviews before their prefrontal cortex had finished developing.
There's also a very large unspoken piece left out of your sentence, which is that they are an asset if taught and guided well. Do you think Musk is likely to do that, or to instead encourage careless "technically impressive and profitable" behavior without regard to ethics or morals?
Were you on Twitter?
I don’t remember anything that heinous. But I do remember telling off-colour jokes. If I’d done that in public and received validation from someone I respected and admired, is it implausible I’d have gone down the rabbit hole?
> unspoken piece left out of your sentence, which is that they are an asset if taught and guided well
That’s my point. These kids show potential. It’s being squandered for the short-term gains of old men.
The point is we have multiple layers of society working to turn small dumb things young men say and do into very dumb things.
> We’re wasting our youth on the fever dreams of old men.
Usually there are negative consequences for stupid actions.
Teenager has been on positive feedback loop for possibly ”not so good actions”. How difficult it is to turn the tide?
The guy didn't, and no one stopped him from collecting the very same data he could be using or will use to blackmail or worse.
Sorry to note that political allegiance beats common sense.
When humans learned to domesticate other humans.
I’d say that’s impressive for a high schooler. Initiative, follow through and results.
Why are we discussing the initiative in the first place? Isn’t this once again shifting deck chairs on the Titanic.
We live in the era AFTER stuxnet for crying out loud.
Not opening LLCs you do not know what to do with is also more of "good impulse control" sign.
To your point, as a society, we have an actual filter for people like that, but that filter was not been uniformly applied.
> being a business titan requires a different particular set of skills, skills this guy apparently has.
Just about the only thing he has is lack of ethics and morals. Lack of care for harm he causes. Yes, those are necessary to be a tech titan, but not nearly sufficient.
There are many low level guys without much ethics that never ever become tech titans.
We've seen Trump dismiss people before, sure, but we've known for years that the administration has been pre-vetting people as Trump loyalists[3], planning who will become head of what department and why, which executive orders to move on right at the start of the presidency. This suggests Musk is not a casual appointment and advisers will advise Trump not to dismiss him casually.
And, apart from literal death, what does he have to fear with hundreds of billions and two companies to fall back on? For all my criticism I am not expecting Trump to pull a full Putin, confiscate X, SpaceX and Tesla and send Musk to Camp Guantanmo or have him die by falling out a window. Are you?
[1] https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/elon-musk-has-said-he...
[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38315682
[3] this was 2023: https://www.axios.com/2023/11/13/trump-loyalists-2024-presid... "Hundreds of people are spending tens of millions of dollars to install a pre-vetted, pro-Trump army of up to 54,000 loyalists across government to rip off the restraints imposed on the previous 46 presidents. The screening for ready-to-serve loyalists has already begun, driven in part by artificial intelligence from tech giant Oracle, contracted for the project."
Not having those anymore. With the new emergency powers Trump has claimed, he could shut down every company of Musk’s except X. Depending on how bad the breakup is, that could be on the table. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Just thinking of Musk's behaviour, if he felt that was a real possibility wouldn't he be walking on eggshells? Instead he acts like he feels untouchable.
Can you clarify what you meant? From reading the article I gathered that his attempts to start a business didn’t produce anything and his attempt to join someone else’s company resulted quickly in him getting fired for leaking private info to a competitor.
That last point is extremely alarming for someone who was just given access to core government data. Any adversaries looking for an insider to corrupt are definitely taking note.
...did we read the same article? It sounds like he was a failed script kiddie that registered some vanity domains, had exactly one job that he was promptly fired form.
Where are you setting the bar for "deserves to be a titan of society"?
"rivage couldnt print hello world"
Granted, some of it may be sour grapes, but those are supposedly other kiddies he worked with at the time.
It is super possible none of those are in his future. Trumps administration wont pursue him and whatever remains after them will likely ignore this kid. I mean, it would be fair and great if these all got some kind of punishment, but it is unlikely to ever happen.
> DOGE, at a smaller scale in every respect, reminds one of the arrogance of Europe’s WWI leaders.
What exactly you mean there? This does not strikes me as similar to WWI.
> Light SQL skills tend to be the upper end of technical accounting
This would be the main point that would need correction if I am wrong.
If you know more than someone else, two good options are (1) to share some of what you know, so we all can learn; or (2) not post. Snarky putdowns are not a good option.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
This is about a specific person who has a history of bad behavior, not a generic discussion on the abilities of young people.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-16/chinese-h... (https://archive.ph/xeEaO) (January 16, 2025)
I always feel like there's a Monty Hall aspect to these discussions where people forget that the past has occurred and it has a bearing on the present. The choice isn't between "observe data protections" and "don't observe data protections." Something was behind door #3.
Now, of course, if your goal was to create propaganda or to install extra-legal modifications to block payments without having to follow normal processes, you might do this because you’re getting you’ll never have to defend your actions in court. That would be consistent with what we’ve seen of the “fraud” being talked up despite being quickly debunked because most of the people sharing stories don’t care whether it’s true as long as it feels right.
er, not if my role was as a consultant of the parent bank and my assignment was to close branches that were "losing money".
note: i even specified "first party" because in my mind i was envisioning a first party audit, of which i have done many as a consultant.
1) a random citizen murders someone and 2) a cop murders someone on duty?
Yes, ideally the country would be safe enough that no one was killed, and you can even argue that it don't matter because the end result is the same (hell, some people would even argue whoever the police kills had it coming). But most people understand that when those entrusted with special powers for the public good abuse that trust and engage in criminal behavior, it’s a far more serious issue.
> I find it strange that neither activists nor politicians nor journalists cared about that enough to make it a continuous news cycle.
Because (a) that was a month ago and that's a long time given recent events. And (b), it's implicit that someone 'inappropriate' having access is a bad thing, but with Trump/Musk/DOGE it's being done on purpose.
It's the purposeful part that's at issue now.
There are people who have reportedly just graduated high school that have root-level access to things:
* https://futurism.com/elon-kids-gutting-opm-doge
Beside being party loyalists, do they have any kind of qualifications?
If you can’t understand that difference, you’re missing something very critical.
One is serious because a foreign adversary is compromising us; the other is serious because we are apparently designing the compromise ourselves via the whims of a demagogue.
You don't need read-write access for auditing. You don't need root/admin-level privileges.
So far the only evidence of that is a wired article [1] with anonymous sources, even those source were not 100% sure about it.
Since then wired has posted another article [2] claiming the access have been revoked after announcements from senior officials, which again is from anonymous sources.
I'm really skeptical of these anonymous sources tbh.
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-associate-bfs-federal-...
[2] https://www.wired.com/story/treasury-department-doge-marko-e...
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-21-year-old-u...
Did the ancient scrolls involved accounting ledgers? Because some kind of auditing experience would be useful to figure out how where Treasury or USAid payments went.
I'm surprised you didn't throw in jabs like "racist misogynistic eugenicist" like some reports...
No not strange, because Elon etc. will cause more damage to their corrupt careers than other security breaches.
Why don’t you just state your opinion instead of being vague?
To be clear: I am not here to defend companies with weak cybersecurity, but the impact of these leaks is virtually nil. "One hundred million" sounds like a huge number, but it provides little insight on the realised impacts.
Say what you will, but Musk has a track record of executing well at preposterous speed, so for legacy players/media this sorta of PR campaign is about the most they can muster.
At the end of the day thought, we'll all have to compare real word results versus those PR narratives and I am positive i know which way that will swing. You just can't PR bullshit you way out something like a 250ton piece of stainless sticking a landing.
I highly disagree, and these stories makes his incompetence more obvious. As well as proving various anecdoctes years ago from SpaceX/Tesla that Musk was someone you needed to work around, not with.
He has been promising Tesla full auto-pilot every year for about 9 years. Just around the corner he said. I even shelled out $10K for it on top of the price of my car, 6 years ago. He said the car would pick up the owner from the airport. That was about 5 years ago.
Musk says a lot and promises a lot. A lot of it never materializes. And he seems be going insane at a rapid pace as of late. I have been wondering if the ketamine that he says he has been taking is really turning his brain into mush.
because they made a public show of it. That's the big difference. Meanwhile, Healhcare is already under more scutiny than ever and want to bury a lede of hacking.
Before DOGE, somebody obviously had to have this access as well, and similarly could have copied and stored. Why be concerned with DOGE but not their predecessors? Honest question.
My point is that there is plenty to dislike here, but if your argument against him is: he is a nazi, you have already lost, because you do not understand the sentiment out there.
Is one of the issues that an audit log of actions was created? Because it seems to me some of the levels of access given to the DOGE folks mean that auditing and traceability has now gone out the window like a Russian oligarch.
I'm a sysadmin who 'just' runs a bunch of HPC stuff—nothing 'important' like HIPAA or SOX—and even my systems have some level of auditing and logging.
This is basically my point and that point is the same point I make for Zuck, Thiel and others. There is already plenty of real things to complain about.
How about we focus on those?
The argument from the DOGE side is that entrenched interests are operating opaque systems and gating access to the information needed to identify inefficiencies. It's not a bad argument because it's no secret that you end up with waste in big companies or government programs and everyone should want to improve efficiency.
However, it's a bad faith argument because the public's being told they're being disenfranchised by a lack of transparency at the same time they're being told to accept a solution that has no transparency or oversight.
When you have tech billionaires with a lifelong goal of controlling payments since starting PayPal in the 90s, is it unreasonable to be skeptical of their motivations when they've managed to gain access to the government's payment system? Aren't these the same people sucking up our private information and telling us if we've got nothing to hide we've got nothing to fear? Why do they need to operate in the shadows?
<< is it unreasonable to be skeptical of their motivations when they've managed to gain access to the government's payment system? Aren't these the same people sucking up our private information and telling us if we've got nothing to hide we've got nothing to fear? Why do they need to operate in the shadows?
I don't want to argue for DOGE, because their fanbase is doing it on various fora already ( including this one ).
But to answer your question, it is not unreasonable at all. Those questions should be asked and, ideally, answered.
It is vital that the government officials are watched, their performance evaluated and our political will enforced by means we deem necessary. From where I sit, what is good for goose, is good for gander.
If I hesitate, it is around the level of emotion this generates. Some of it is warranted ( I would lie if I said I am not concerned ), but it does not help with making an appropriate response. In fact, that level of emotion actively inhibits making good choices.
You have to give it to him. It does look like Trump actually had a plan this time around.
As for the oversight requirement, it is fully and completely satisfied by: 1.) A guy who has the technical acumen, drive, and attention to detail to catch a rocket out of mid air with chopsticks. 2.) A man who won a presidential election twice (and could possibly have been 3 times if the Hunter Biden laptop story wasn't corruptly and improperly squashed).
The largest proportion of the complaints from media outlets come from defunded operations. Its in everyone's fiscal best interest for these audits to continue, and for them to be completed by people completely outside of the government's patronage (grant and funding) networks.
Every dime that the USAID spent was allocated via Congress through the budgeting process.
And many (11/12) of the published stories about supposed wasteful spending were not true:
* https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/07/usaid-tru...
More importantly, even if sending money to USAid is wasteful, that is Congress's prerogative. The President's job is to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed": if Congress wants to spend money on Foo then that's what he is supposed to do.
A thread on the general process:
> Every year, the White House (via OMB) puts together a federal budget proposal to Congress. Every federal agency (incl USAID) sends OMB their budget wishlist.
[…]
> So to be clear: every dollar that USAID requests from Congress goes through White House review.
[…]
> Once USAID gets its budget from Congress, it must go straight back to Congress again with a further level of detail on how it will satisfy the various budget directives - via "Congressional Notifications."
* https://twitter.com/JeremyKonyndyk/status/188866737886876071...
" “$32,000 for a ‘transgender comic book’ in Peru”
This is wrong. USAID did not fund this, and it was not specifically transgender. Instead, the grant says the State Department provided $32,000, under the guise of public diplomacy, to Peru’s Education Department “to cover expenses to produce a tailored-made comic, featured an LGBTQ+ hero to address social and mental health issues.” "
So the comic existed, but it was funded by another equally corrupt department? This doesn't make USAID look any better at all, it just means Trump and Elon's team need to do MORE of what they have been doing, and expand their scope further.
I don't really care that a 2500 page omnibus spending bill that no one could read in full (minus an AI) specifically said that some pork goes to some unethical and corrupt action. Its evil and it needs to stop. If the government's normal checks and balances cant fix it, the answer is not to give up and let corrupt liberals desecrate the union. The answer is to fulfill the promise of the 2nd Amendment and to break the system of government in whatever way is necessary until it is no longer tyrannical. Remember that a 2% tax on tea without sufficient and effective representation is an acceptable threshold for such actions.
Federal IT has tons of policies designed to prevent unauthorized access and mistakes. People go through background checks, they only work on secured networks using official devices, everything is logged and audited, and circumventing it is a crime with penalties potentially leading to jail time. Some of those policies have strong legal requirements for oversight: even if you’re not doing anything other than your job, the agency needs to be able to show how work is done to auditors, Congress, FOIA requests, etc. Anything with national security implications should be designed to avoid a single compromised person from being able to avoid detection, too, especially for people trusted with administrative access to IT systems.
These guys are widely reported to be using personal emails and devices (violating the record and transparency laws) and even if they’re acting entirely in good faith they are bypassing policies designed to contain the damage due to mistakes. For example, what happens if one of them gets an email with an attachment claiming to have evidence of politically incorrect activities and runs the payload on a device/network which has had safeguards removed by executive fiat?
We know there's a limit of tolerance for this because Matt Gaetz didn't make it through. But "modern day Tony Stark" was fine.
I'm also not convinced this is a "security breach." They're being allowed to do it. It's more like an unforced error, if anything. Not that it changes anything material about the situation.
That said - a small majority of congress is currently complicit in this, but I expect that to reverse as many Republican states will have congresspeople whose constituents are affected. I'd expect by May of this year some of this will have been reversed.
Sadly that's too long and some damage will be done perhaps permanently...
With everything he has lied about why assume he wasn't also lying about that? He has been caught lying about being good at videos games.
there's no fair market value for Twitter because there's only one Twitter. If you're rich, money is just a means to an end. you see something, you take it. If you think you can save a couple (billion) bucks on your way out, why not give it a shot? it's already yours
Most people are not very "in the loop", nor do they put much thought into long term consequences or even the concept of ulterior motives; performative (yet socially consequential) things like distracting everyone by paying a team of people to play PoE for him so he can lie about it and generate widespread and inconsequential outrage is an insignificant cost to him. He is poised to be a trillionaire within the term of this administration, and I fully believe he is going to become one by continuing this pattern of pointing at distractions while rifling through our pockets.
Yes, the salute was the same thing. Not to say he couldn't have white nationalist tendencies, but the outrage is what he wanted. He's been doing it on Twitter for years, retweeting clearly incendiary and offensive things with "Interesting" or "Huh". This has been the alt-right playbook for years.
From the perspective of the owners of this data, the US citizens and others that live in the country, this is very much a security breach; the data that was supposed to be secure is no longer secure.
I do not disagree with your sentiment though, but a little pedantry is needed here. It's not necessary for this to be a security breach to be bad. Given how poorly this data is being handled even among those who are "supposed" to have it, it's likely there will be a legitimate security breach soon enough.
If they are adversarial enough to justify such wresting from the grasp of the US government, is that not already a problem, compounded by the fact that if they are already in an adversarial position there's no reason to assume they are acting alone in that position? Why believe any claim by them if they are already taking pains to take a position as an adversary?
It's taking their say-so that they are a domestic adversary rather than a foreign adversary, as if that made all the difference. I can't agree that it makes as much difference as they claim it makes.
Did you say the cattle owns the ranch? Or you mean the cattle owns the feed?
No, the cattle owns nothing, you own nothing.
As for data being secure or not secure - how do you know any of this is true? Because journalists are good faith arbiters of truth without any conflicts of interest or personal bias?
> Musk’s DOGE teen was fired by cybersecurity firm for leaking company secrets
https://fortune.com/2025/02/07/musks-doge-teen-edward-corist...
This is Elon who is neck deep in the cesspool parts of the internet and attracts the same kinds of people.
They will continue to break every rule they can and ignore the legal push back as much as possible. They know that there is little they could do here that will result in any criminal prosecution.
Batten down the hatches and expect worse to come, the safeties are off.
They were wrong. Now that Elon is applying the same philosophy to all of his companies and now the federal government, people are once again saying he doesn’t know what he’s doing.
At a certain point, you have to ask yourself if these people who complain like headless chickens are actually serious people …
Secondly it's doubly unimpressive because I believe Musk could have actually maintained very similar revenue levels, but the haphazard and immediate way of laying everyone off was incredibly counterproductive.
The revenue reduction was also more related to political positioning/image than technical capacity of the platform.
[0] article quote:
"During the last full year prior to Musk’s takeover, Twitter reported adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) of about $682 million and about $5 billion in revenue.
In 2024, X had an EBITDA of about $1.25 billion and annual revenue of $2.7 billion.
While X’s revenue is about half of what it used to be, the company’s costs are just about a quarter of what they were before.
As per the WSJ, investors noted that these were better figures than they had anticipated."
Even this [1] hilariously biased article is forced to admit in the middle that yes, X's profits have gone up since Musk took over.
"Now X also, of course, has reduced its overheads significantly, by culling around 80% of staff, so X’s profit margins are now much better as a result."
[0] https://www.teslarati.com/elon-musk-x-doubled-ebitda-since-2...
[1] https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/x-is-still-far-from-pr...
Net profit is profit.
Not to mention the absurdity of comparing something like Twitter to the federal government. It shows the staggering arrogance and ignorance of people in tech who think that.
From what it appears, Late 2024, Fidelity wrote down their loans by 79% [1] and then sold it early 2025 for 97 cents on the dollar (of the reduced value) [2].
I really struggle to believe that the banks are just taking this massive loss by mistake and that the value is actually still there.
[1] - https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/29/fidelity-has-cut-xs-value-... [2] - https://nypost.com/2025/02/05/business/banks-sell-5-5b-of-x-...
Fidelity was not part of the banks that sold their loans. Also it was a partial sale. The banks that sold their loans at just under their original valuation and profited, apparently. Original source reuters: https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/banks-sell-down-55-...
> At 97 cents, it is likely they sold at a profit, he added.
I would guess that the 3 cents loss on the loan value still results in profit due to payments which amounted to more than 3 cents + loan expenses.
Fidelity did write down their loan tremendously, but in October they increased it a bit. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fidelity-boosts-valuations-st...
I don't agree with parent that xitter is worth what he paid for it, far from it. EBIDTA isn't the whole story. But things do look better than a few months ago. So far I haven't seen a viable contender for a xitter replacement. I can't believe I'm saying this but I'm actually rooting for Threads.
a) Trust and Safety teams were disbanded which led to the EU now investigating the company for breaching DSA Risk Management provisions. If X is banned from EU this decision will be a major part.
b) Content Moderators were fired which has led to an increase in the amount of bots, spam etc which has directly attributed to a major loss in revenue as advertisers require a trusted platform.
c) Fidelity, an X investor, has valued the company at 20% of when it purchased. That is indicative of widespread wealth destruction.
Brand safety is also essentially turned off. This was a staff-intensive feature because brands can’t delete other users’ tweets the way they can hide or delete or turn off comments in Meta platforms and Youtube. They had to have help from Twitter staff, and now they don’t.
Finally, Twitter’s ad targeting is horribly broken and there is little recourse. Again, that customer service was staff-intensive and therefore a target of cuts.
Elon dramatically shrank Twitter into a much smaller service and company. And that’s a fine approach for a private company, because customers can just go elsewhere (Threads, Mastodon, Bluesky, Truth Social, etc) if they don’t like it.
It will not work as a way to improve the federal government. If you take away highway funding and healthcare and national defense, there is not an alternative federal government that American citizens can switch to.
It’s a dramatic demonstration of how poorly many business leaders understand what government does. Tech leaders can move fast and break things because they operate inside the protected, optimized space created by what government does. Break the government and you also break all the assumptions that give license to innovation.
The same will be true in our country. What Elon's doing now will work out great for him and neo Nazis, not so great for people that Elon and neo Nazis hates.
- The bot problem is much worse than before the acquisition
- Search is completely broken, borderline unusable
- Financial data is hidden, so no way to compare
US government was simply never designed for scenarios like this.
I wonder why.
You could argue there have been 4 Republics - articles of confederation, Washington, Lincoln, FDR marking the turning point. The world has changed a lot. It feels like the time is right to rethink the federal governments scope and function and how it relates to her people and the world.
People have higher expectations of what their government should be able to do.
DOGE is usurping Congress' role.
Or it was designed such that the exutive branch may not appoint or use independent organisations or consultants to perform audits?
I dont think that is accurate.
What is extraordinary is doing so with (a) no thought to privacy or security, (b) using teenagers with no security clearances, (c) by a billionaire who seems to just be going after his enemies e.g. USAID was investigating SpaceX.
Everyone has the necessary clearance. People need to stop treating clearances like a magic totem, the executive can grant access like candy if they wish, and often does when expedient.
DC is organized around minimizing the need for a formal clearance/access process because it is slow. Between the executive carte blanche and various title authorities with their well-understood loopholes, you can often just do things.
Then why did a Federal Judge just restrain DOGE from their work because of a violation of the Privacy Act: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-york-and-18-states-sue-trum...
That doesn't mean doing so it can't be a problem when they do. This article is exactly why doing so is problematic and justifies the existence of the clearance process.
If they hadn't circumvented the process, the FBI would have found this information instead of Wired, and it could have been handled properly instead of in the public by the media. Going around this process opens people up to being blackmailed or extorted -- what if foreign intelligence found leverage over one of these people before our media and used it to extract government secrets? We don't even know if these people have been trained to handle classified and sensitive information. Do they even know their own rights and responsibilities?
The first is the obvious one. Congress is captured by a bunch of ineffectual assholes that either don't care enough to stop this or actively support ceding power to the executive.
But the second is that Congress has no actual enforcement mechanism. There are a few Congress members that are trying to stop this, but the executive can just play games with the court and lock out Congress members from any sort of oversight. If the executive refuses to abide by the laws of the country, who has control to stop it?
Three years ago J.D. Vance and others were already thinking about this and anticipating court cases:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right...
To quote the article: “I think Trump is going to run again in 2024,” [Vance] said. “I think that what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.” “And when the courts stop you,” he went on, “stand before the country, and say—” he quoted Andrew Jackson, giving a challenge to the entire constitutional order—“the chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.”
They've been preparing themselves to ignore judicial rulings and they may well do that.
https://www.newsweek.com/jd-vance-comment-questioning-court-...
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gx3j5k63xo
---
My two cents. Congress has a singular enforcement mechanism: impeachment.
If the Congress refuses? A constitution doesn't envision the government ceasing. What happens next requires a lot of imagination because it's not written in any text.
There's an example of Principate from when the Roman republic ceased and the empire began. It had the veneer of a republic, and maybe it fooled some people, I don't really know. But today it's considered an empire, not a republic, for the > 250 year period of the Principate. It was an autocracy, with an emperor. The senators were decoration.
The better question is what are all the Congressmen doing cozily on Capitol Hill. Like, not one has walked over to these departments to try and physically stop these kids from gaining the keys to the kingdom?
(EDIT: Whoops, they have.)
Look at Seoul. The balls on those lawmakers saved their democracy. I’m not seeing that strength or resolve in the Congress anywhere.
The right moment is only obvious in retrospect.
Instead, we have whatever this is. Doesn't look like it's complying with the normal process of the political system, which is designed to punish an electoral bait-and-switch. Looks more like Russian elections and populace-management.
Now it's my understanding that members of congress can't be truly arrested during session; so the above argument doesn't entirely stick for me.
Source? The House isn’t close enough to a supermajority, and the Senate goes by actual votes.
MAGA outlet Tucker Carlson had Mike Benz on this week. Mike Benz had been vocally opposed to all CIA or foreign interference programs during the election campaigns. This week he recanted, talked without his usual eloquence and said that USAID is not all that bad! So MAGA is being reprogrammed.
If nothing really changes, the Democrats (who were avid neocons in the past four years) won't mind. Which could explain the meek protests of Schumer etc.
The treasury story is way more difficult, we have to wait for more information.
Almost certainly not. The President can’t reorganise e.g. the CIA and Federal Reserve under HHS, for example.
Where I agree with you is in USAID not being politically worth the fight. And after the last 8 years (and Biden’s twilight) it’s hard for Democrats to argue for the rule of law per se.
Any sentence that begins with "The President can't" can safely be disregarded. The executive branch has all the lawyers, all the guns, virtually all the media, and (now) all the money.
Everything we were taught was an ironclad law of American constitutional governance has turned out to be a "guideline," a "custom," a "tradition," a "gentlemens' agreement," or "nothing that my pet judges can't fix."
Not to mention the blanket ruling from the supreme court that says "if the president does it, it's legal."
Judges do exist, and they matter more than any lawyer.
> virtually all the media
How does the executive branch control the media?
1: https://www.npr.org/2025/01/04/nx-s1-5248299/cartoonist-quit...
2: https://www.npr.org/2025/02/06/nx-s1-5288181/why-cbs-stands-...
Also, bear in mind the history of America's most popular cable news network. Fox News is the propaganda arm of the Republican Party, and that was always the idea. After Watergate took down Nixon, the GOP swore the same oath that the Holocaust victims did: Never again. Never again would something like Watergate be allowed to play out in an unbiased, uncontrolled media environment. Ailes and Murdoch answered the call (https://theweek.com/articles/880107/why-fox-news-created) and the rest is history.
>Statute law also places USAID under "the direct authority and policy guidance of the Secretary of State".[4]
Source?
Something something terrorism, but i don't buy it. terrorism is the scapegoat for which we have massively eroded privacy and rights, in the same way that CSAM is the scapegoat for trying to ban encryption every 5 years.
Voting for the President is in part voting for this. They don't need to ask permission from the bureaucracy nor can they be impeded by process because it is a Constitutional authority.
Americans really do seem to know nothing about how the Federal government works. This kind of drama happens every four years, they've just never paid attention before. Every administration change brings in a coterie of poorly vetted people like this and gives them the keys to the kingdom. Dialing up the outrage media this particularly time is manipulative. I've been close enough to this action across several administration changes to be pretty blasé about what has occurred so far.
History has one answer for the deployment of reams of young fiery-loyalist men to the front lines: cannon fodder.
Musk also believes (either arrogance, or true belief) that much of this stuff can be figured out from first principals without much need of traditional experts.
Politics vs policy, or something like that?
The expression of power by inflicting suffering is seen as a flex. USAID and its mission are in opposition to their aims — you are to be cowed by power, not be look kindly upon the kindness and mercy of the US.
The idea is that your organization may be doing inefficient or horrible things, but it also has one cute puppy who depends on it. Any time someone wants to shut your organization down, you just point to the cute puppy and say "you wouldn't want this puppy to die, would you?".
This is truly the post truth world. I wouldn’t be surprised if many here who are making counter arguments either hate the US and what it stands for or are outright malicious actors
And if you think USAID is the only place where there are horrible first, second, and third order effects to what DOGE is doing, you're being completely naive. There are huge numbers of people in the federal government who deal with life-or-death matters every day. Air traffic controllers. VA clinicians. What are the consequences of sending these people daily emails telling them they're unproductive and they should quit or get laid off? Telling them that you want them to be "traumatized"?
You should look very deeply into your soul.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Government_Effic...
They chose long ago to block out negative thoughts and information, today is no different.
Do you feel all of these programs should have been funded, or make sense when we are blowing through money and crushing people with inflation? Do you find the concept of auditing these organizations as bad, or is it bad because it's someone else doing it? If so can you explain why these actions weren't taken with the prior administration?
The point being, step out of a partisan hat, or an emotional state of X person is Y. Look at the federal governments spend, fraud, waste, and abuse is prevalent. Someone has to do the hard part and clearly leaving everyone to manage themselves doesn't work. More so when they can't pass their own audits.
I don't take issue with auditing. I take issue with the possible illegal firing of officials that are meant to provide oversight, skipping over security clearances to provide sensitive data access to unvetted indivduals, and attempting to illegally cut spending when only Congress has that authority.
> The point being, step out of a partisan hat, or an emotional state of X person is Y. Look at the federal governments spend, fraud, waste, and abuse is prevalent. Someone has to do the hard part and clearly leaving everyone to manage themselves doesn't work. More so when they can't pass their own audits.
Let's be clear here because I see a lot of MAGA repeating this incorrectly. You are referring to a few agencies like the Pentagon when you say they can't pass their own audits. Most federal agencies have no problem passing their audits and all of those audits are available through GAO. https://www.gao.gov/federal-financial-accountability. The majority of agencies pass GAO audits. In fact if Elon was only targeting agencies that failed GAO audits I would have much less of a problem.
I think you are the one that needs to take off the partisan hat.
Passing an audit of " you spent x at y" isn't the same as "why are we spending X at y". He's doing the later, surely you can agree with that.
As for you partisan hat dig, i'm in fact not. I don't lean or vote how you're implying. In this particular instance, I've seen the excess of fraud, waste, and abuse through multiple agencies and organizations first hand. I've seen the pallets of USAID cash that were handed out without regard. I've also seen the increased prices, the national debt rising, and the general glut of how our government operates. So yes, while I may disagree with the process, the fact is no one else has taken a legitimate attempt at solving this problem. So in that manner I support the cleanse.
Finally, if you want to talk about the 'why' money is being spent, that's congress's domain. If we throw the laws out now then what use are laws. If you want to talk about rising debts, then look at the tax cuts Trump wants to renew that we can't pay for.
Why would the USAID be investigating Musk? USAID primarily focuses on foreign aid, humanitarian assistance, and development programs rather than regulatory or investigative actions.
By the way, the reason the USAID is at the top of the list for DOGE to audit is because they were the most resistant and combative when the idea of them being audited came up. But they won’t be the only ones facing an audit - the administration said they are looking at all agencies. In fact, just today President Trump literally said in a pre-Super Bowl interview that they will be looking at the Department of Defense soon and expect to find billions or maybe even hundreds of billions in waste.
This seems like exactly the kind of broad audit the US government needs, not just at the national level but every level of government.
Musk doesn't have the context or detail on what is wasteful or not. Those decisions are made in Congress. If you believe him you believe you can just look at who is being paid and a short description and identify waste. That notion is idiotic.
Musk and crew aren't informed or qualified enough to make decisions about any of this. They're just ignoring the law and made themselves judge jury and executioner.
Sadly, Musk will just create waste, not fix it.
We have to be clear going into the future. Musk is not doing things this way because he's an idiot, he's doing it because he is waging an ideological war. If he says something is waste and fraud, it's waste and fraud by definition. They don't care about whether there is waste and fraud, they just care about implementing their vision, and "reducing waste/fraud" is apparently the magic phrase that everyone agrees allows them to seize unchecked powers.
One good example of sensationalism from journalists is the claim this is a "Data breach". That's neither true, nor helpful.
This is not accurate. Most jobs in the federal government, including at the treasury, do not require security clearances. You’re confusing background checks, which are very basic, with the different types of security clearances, which aren’t required for something like a financial audit.
I mean at least make it look like this is what you’re accomplishing. They’re not even trying to convince anyone, we’re just supposed to trust.
It's also not a situation of where we are spending money, but why. I have yet to see any reporting that can defend the vast majority of spend in USAID let alone the other organizations. Further when you look at the disclosures of how much money is actually making it to the organizations vs overhead it's even worse.
This is painful and it will impact people, but as a country we have to fix the books. If it goes to far, come election time we elect the people we need to fix it. Ultimately this was something he campaigned on and it's something he's doing. Like it or not, it's been a pretty transparent process.
Not at all. Musk has cherry picked a few things to share. Other than that, we know nothing. And most of what he's cherry picked have been shown to be incorrectly understood. Transparency would be third party auditors who setup a process, executed the process, and documented as they went. We literally have no idea what's going on.
So what you're saying is they have no idea what they're doing. Just cut it and "see what happens" and if it's really bad, "we'll just bring it back." You realize that we won't see the true effects of lots of things for many months and possibly years? It's not binary.
You really haven't seen reporting defending PEPFAR, for example, as a program of USAID? The same org that also track and help prevent Ebola outbreaks? That funded hospitals for innocent civilians in Gaza?
Why is the first priority of the GOP Congress to renew and expand the Trump tax cuts, which the government is estimating to cost at least $4 trillion dollars and will mostly accumulate to the top 0.1%? It's also estimated that it will explode the federal debt.
This is a government by and for oligarchs like Musk. He's attempting distraction while the plan is to grossly enrich themselves.
You were having a discussion about the merits of specific behaviors and when someone pushes back on the merits, you just keep defaulting to "well they won the election."
You've done it multiple times now.
Everyone knows they won the election. Everyone knows the way to win power back is to win the election next time. People are having a discussion with you about the merits of what they're doing with that power currently.
Critics on both sides—whether anti‑Trump or anti‑Elon—tend to focus on slogans or sensational accusations rather than on what really matters: the proper channels of accountability. If you object to how power is being wielded or believe that policies are harming the nation, then the proper remedy isn’t to simply rail against the outcome. It is to participate in the democratic process. Challenge those actions in court, push for legislative reforms, and, importantly, vote for candidates who will implement the changes you want. That is the only non‑ad hoc, non‑refutable solution available.
It may sound repetitive to say “win the election” over and over again, but that is the point. Every time someone dismisses an objection with “they won the election,” they are implicitly saying: “If you don’t like how the current system is working, use the power that the system itself provides.” The legal processes and checks and balances aren’t just theoretical ideals—they’re the only way to address grievances without devolving into personal attacks or populist demagoguery.
So yes. If you don't like CURRENT thing.. you'll have to vote and better convince others your candidates the right one. The team that won is the team with power. Just as with Biden the team that won had their actions, people didn't like it, and here we are.
EDIT: I'd also ad that it's confrontational for you to directly assume people are in a cult because they don't follow your views.
They are likely not legal and have been told to stop by a judge. Vance has suggested ignoring the ruling and Elon is whining about impeaching judges now.
> the proper channels of accountability
Who is exactly is accountable to what is happening right now? Musk? Hahaha. There is zero accountability, transparency, or oversight in what is happening.
> people are in a cult
It's not an assumption. When people follow someone or a group to a religious extreme that is a cult. Everything Trump or now Musk does is somehow explained away in a very 'we were always at war with Eurasia' way. This list is really never-ending, but Trump was going to lower prices (the eggs!) and now he says they are going to go up. MAGA's are about backing the blue, unless Trump is pardoning people who beat police officers. What about Hilary's emails on a private server, but it's ok that Musk loading confidential government data to who knows where. Can you believe Hunter is on the board of a company and may be profiting off his families name? Forget about Trump coin, Kushner getting billions from the Saudis, the list goes on. And it highlights that MAGA doesn't really have any views other than 'our team good, their team bad'.
It's wild to me that people are that into someone like Trump or Musk. I'm not into anyone like that except maybe my family. When Trump said he could shoot someone in the street and people would still follow him, he was right. That also means it's a cult. What would they have to do for you to say throw them in jail?
You're not providing any solution to the actual perceived problem. You're not providing any counters beyond your candidate that failed to get the support necessary to win. You don't have to like it, this is what it is, the left lost not only the election, but your "I know better than you" smarmy attitudes are resulting in those of use that are socially liberal, being pushed further right for a sense of sanity.
At this point the conversation isn't going anywhere and i'm satisfied that we are cleaning out all this graft, you (collectively) are not. We will not agree on this and i'm ok with that. I get it, it sucks losing control of narratives and funds, all I can say is what i've said before, if you don't like it vote for change.
Please elucidate what graft 1) they missed, 2) you've found, and 3) justifies withdrawal of life-saving treatments for millions of people while inflicting enormous damage upon our country's international image?
[1] https://oig.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/2024-12/0-000-25-0...
Am I to interpret your “well go win the election!” to mean that you (personally) approve of said decisions and their relative priority?
It seems odd you can’t just state that, and instead deflect to a totally different topic of how people win power (which, of course, we all know).
1. Stopping life-saving treatments for 560,000 children
2. Stopping life-saving treatments for another 20 million people
Ganoushoreilly thinks this might be actually the right course of action, because s/he believes the funding is not audited and "there might be fraud." S/he appears ignorant of the easily discoverable fact that this funding was last audited a jawdropping, wildly irresponsible four months ago. By actual independent auditors.
This conversation has delved into hyper emotional responses, i've tried to keep it to the point of topic at hand. I've made it clear we have different opinions and it's not going to change. I'm not engaging further after this.
It's frankly mind-boggling that we can be in the middle of conversation about USAID/PEPFAR, you say "yes I agree with this prioritization," I reply back with what that prioritization actually is, and then you... jump to thinking that I'm talking about half a million children transitioning genders?
Yeah, totally not a cult. Lol.
https://www.state.gov/pepfar-latest-global-results-factsheet...
The fact that the president is taking one extreme, illegal action after the next in rapid succession is itself extremely alarming and unprecedented in American history. The fact that the Vice President has publicly declared that courts have no right to overrule the President's illegal actions is equally alarming.
Go outside, take a walk, breath, it's going to be ok.
That doesn't give him the right to shred the Constitution.
> You have a process to rectify it if you feel so inclined.
A process that the Vice President has said the President is free to ignore.
You're justifying an all-out assault on the Constitution of the US. The President isn't following "the process" - which seems not to concern you in the slightest.
The scandal is now super deep. They just caught FEMA funding another $60 M going to hotels in NYC! Prepare for this to get deeper. I hope they root out all corruption. My hat is off to them, I'm extremely overjoyed they're finally fixing our government. This is the best government the USA has ever had.
It didn't, and I'm disappointed to see that there are people on HN who fall for such absurd falsehoods.
See corrections at the bottom. It's confirmed that $8.2M from USAID and other us gov agencies went to politico!
$44k is nowhere near "most" of USAID's budget. It's less than 0.0001%. If you want USAID to stop subscribing to publications, that's a very minor change. You don't shut down an entire agency over that.
> Also, the $8.2 million figure cited refers to payments in the 12 months leading up to February 2025, not dating back to 2016.
Talk about lying profusely. USAID is an ARM of the CIA, why would you want that?
You said USAID spends most of its budget on Politico and apartments near Langley. Are you going to admit that that was nonsense, before switching to your next argument?
What is there to defend? Congress passed a law saying there must be an international aid agency. Congress appropriated money to that agency with general directives on how it should be spent, and exercises regular oversight over that spending. The grants given by the agency are transparent and publicly availabile.
You or I might not like every grant USAID gives, but that's for Congress to address. In fact, the USAID spending I have the biggest problem with - the arms funding to Ukraine - is specifically congressionally mandated. The largest program after that, I believe, is AIDS prevention and management in Africa, which is a great use of US tax dollars that only a truly evil person would object to.
If you don't like something that USAID is spending money on, the answer is for Congress to exercise its oversight, and possibly change the law to alter how USAID works. The president has no legal authority to shutter the agency. He's required to implement the foreign aid laws that Congress has passed, and those laws say that USAID must exist.
How has it been transparent? They're not releasing any reports or giving any reasoning behind anything other than it's "corrupt". They're being the opposite of transparent, which is by design. And they're moving fast so there is no time to react to it all. It's very clear what's actually going on, you can choose to ignore it all you want, but it's going to hit you personally eventually.
I agree that we should lean into audits and responsibility. The good faith way to do that would be laws passed by congress and executed by the executive.
There is no possible spin that legitimizes current events. I would say we have a constitutional crisis, but it seems like the blitzkreig was successful and the constitution became irrelevant.
No spin is required, the people voted for this. Unfortunately one side wasn't able to convince the people that they didn't need this. That's where we are. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. You make adjustments and move on.
This is nonsense. It's like the police investigating themselves and finding no wrongdoing. You have a separate oversight organization do the audit because of conflict of interest and corruption.
> USAID was a viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886098373251301427?mx=2
> Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act on September 4, 1961, which reorganized U.S. foreign assistance programs and mandated the creation of an agency to administer economic aid.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Agency_for_Int...
I’m very opposed to an executive branch that audits programs they have political problems with, and use these no-oversight audits to kill agencies. That’s just authoritarianism.
If you look at the federal budget, the vast majority of it is spent on a few big-ticket items (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the military). The programs Musk is attacking are a tiny part of the federal budget, and are already transparent, for the most part. You can go look up who is getting what grant from which agency. But it's all peanuts to start with.
This is the end stage of cable news like Fox and social media.
Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election, and now, he's operating as if the Constitution and the law simply didn't exist. Birthright citizenship, as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment? Executive order to eliminate it. Agencies established and funded by Congress? Eliminated by Elon Musk with no consultation. Musk hasn't even been confirmed by the Senate, as the Constitution requires. Trump just appointed him czar of everything, and now he goes around firing people and shutting down congressionally mandated agencies.
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
Even if entire agencies were bullshit, and that’s incredibly unlikely and unrealistic, it’d do absolutely nothing meaningful to our spending compared to our biggest expenses. This is a problem for a lot of people without backgrounds in economics or who are used to very, very, large numbers. A few billion dollars sounds like a lot, but it’s literally not even a tenth of a percent of our budget.
If they cared about reducing the budget, and finding inefficiencies they would nationalize the healthcare system since we as a nation pay nearly double that of any other country and have worse outcomes. It’s empirical they do not care about efficiency, based on their targets, they care about power. USAID was investigating NeuralLink that’s why it was targeted. Thats it.
Let's see where we are in 6 - 12 months, then if he hasn't touched anyone else I'll accept your point of him not targeting anything of value.
Bad idea: having someone hire a bunch of H1-Bs[0] to take root access onto a bunch of Treasury Department servers and leak everything they get their hands on by asking an LLM to do the work for them
[0] My politics considers migration as a human right. However, since we don't live in that world yet, we have to consider that H1-Bs are hired not for their merit as programmers but for their willingness to wear golden handcuffs in exchange for potential future immigration opportunities.
https://oig.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/2024-12/0-000-25-0...
I'm all for limited government and shutting down all foreign aid, but this is why I hate Trump and Maga. They ruin everything by playing checkers and not chess. How did Musk not see that sending unvetted kids into the US Treasury was going to blow up in his face.
Now Musk is saying he is going to get Ron Paul to audit the Fed, finally. Does he not see that sending a 90 year old to audit the fed is going to be even more of a clown show?
on the face of it, this sounded absolutely terrifying reading it on wikipedia. But, on closer inspection of the CNN article used as a source
> Farritor was granted access to basic IT including email and Microsoft 365, one of the people said. The chief information office only does a small amount of IT and cybersecurity work for the National Nuclear Security Administration, they said, including providing connectivity and running basic internet services for NNSA’s headquarters. It does not run IT systems for the nuclear agency’s labs controlling the nation’s nuclear stockpile.
Genuinely had me scared for a moment there.
the wikipedia summary of the information could be clearer, as it leaves room for me to make an inference on the statements provided -- but those inferences are based on my own biases and my own fuzzy stupid human brain thing filling in the blanks.
which is exactly why there are links to the underlying source material. so I can go and dive in deeper to see that, actually, my brain filled in the blanks wrong. it's my brain filling in the blanks. no-one else's brain is doing it for me. no-one is "hacking" my perspective. I screwed up by reading into something wrong and making assumptions out of fear. It is my personal responsibility to verify and challenge my own assumptions, especially those based on fears and worries.
basically, it's my own damn fault. please don't blame someone else for something that is my own damn fault.
there are plenty of badly poorly edited wikipedia articles out there -- i was reading one last night which literally had an entire paragraph that consisted of "The BBC released a timeline of events on their website". That was the whole paragraph. No reference for that statement either! This is part of the nature of community based, a.k.a. amateur, created notes. Oh look, an argument for professional fact checking and copy editing appears out of nowhere.
I recently read about how Trump is "crashing" the stock market, and I was like oh crap, but when I checked it was only down a few points. Not only will I now ignore this source, but it's also probably nudged my overall distrust a little bit. Possibly the person writing the article figured it was important enough to warrant notice (it is) but realized no one would pay attention if it didn't sound urgent, so they gussied it up a lot... Imagine how much more dire it was after it got shared a few more times. If I got my news from Facebook then I might have thought democracy had collapsed and roving bands of gun toting anarchists had taken over.
Forbes has a page "realtime billionaires list"[1] where they track the day to day wealth changes. Musk lost $12.5 billion today, Larry Ellison lost $2.8 billion today, Mark Zuckerberg gained $820M today.
When a few points means billions to the people who fund and own media outlets, who are also famously competitive and willing to do anything to make the numbers go up, it becomes more clear why we hear of the market "crashing" but it doesn't seem much different to us. (and that's outside the usual political complaining about everything the 'other' party does, whatever it is).
[1] https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/
Let's not pretend like this stuff doesn't have some sort of effect on the conversation, or our ability to have the conversation, or to debate it rationally and from first-principles. At the very least, we are here arguing pedantic minor points whilst the real issues are left un-debated. The purpose of the media should be to distill, enlighten, inform, and definitely not mislead with a very specific agenda which it very clearly does. You point me to any news article from any news outlet, including Reuters and I will show you how they twist literal facts into bias. At this point, I see them as no different than politicians.
Unfortunately for the left-wing intelligentsia, the media, and their allies - the average day to day people are waking up and the general opinion floating around more and more is having the effect of exposing the MO of how the media pushes an agenda (whether purposefully or not).
The mean age is definitely higher than 25, due to a handful of very old (relatively speaking, compared to 25) people including Musk himself.
The median age does appear to be below 25.
I’d be worried about real spies gaining access in person given the confusion of who is doge or not.
I'm sorry but what are these guys working on that's taking precedence over this?
PS: I’m just guessing here. I have no clue how DOGE operates.
Their day-jobs at other various Musk enterprises.
If they shit the bed, which they do frequently, no worries, they’ve already sold the next deal elsewhere and now their firm may be out from that organisation for a year or two and one of the others will come in and screw up for a few years and then they’ll be back.
Incidentally and because this should be a basic competency of government, the Australian government, owing to a huge number of significant scandals including one in which PwC used the information in crafting taxation law and then sold it to international corporations to fucking obliterate any sense of Chinese walls (in which no one has gone to jail and most careers have emerged semi intact, if with a bunch of egg that any self respecting person would go and take a long hard look in the mirror at themselves for having been involved in) - the last 3 years has seen a modest relocation of these basic functions of government internally.
Which one of our political party leaders is now campaigning on removing, in order to bring back the gravy train to the incompetent consulting fucks. (Both our primary party leadership need to have a stern talking to because one side is actively trying to channel MAGA energy, and the other seems unwilling to do anything useful.
So turns out I had a bit to get off my chest, I hope no one found that too boring
These kids are doing it the first time with little/no oversight it seems. A bit like sending troops into a war with no training.
Source - spent more than half my career as a consultant.
considering that knowledge decays (often rapidly) as a function of time since the last instruction, "experience" seems like it might be of far less value than temporal proximity to a previous college education.
Young people and major feats of achievement are not mutually exclusive things.
Musk also did very well by plainly lying (which I would call market manipulation) about Tesla products; the Cybertruck video where Musk claimed it was faster than a Porsche while towing a Porsche was a lie[4]. A 2016 video demonstrating self-driving was faked[5]. Musk's statements about what the Tesla Semi can do were not just generous marketing, they are impossible[6], claiming 500 miles range and PepsiCo reports they can't even carry a load of Lay's potato chips for 500 miles and on heavier loads they can only travel 100 miles. Faked self parking videos, faked SolarCity videos, faked Optimus humanoid robot videos, faked CyberTruck towing an F150 video[7]. The Optimus robots at the October 2024 event were remote controled and remote-voiced by humans[8]. They walk like Honda Asimo robots walked 25 years ago but they're being spun like they are Boston Dynamics killers. Musk's talk of tentacle arms to recharge Teslas never turned into anything (though BYD in China has had public automated electric-car battery-swap stations for years now). Musk's talk of full self driving first promised, what, 2017? turned out to be misleading with cars not even having the hardware to do a good job of it. Musk's early plans for completely automated Model 3 factory faded very quickly with them reverting to humans in marquees.
Yes Musk has done pretty well with investors letting him get away with a lot of broken promises and taxpayers letting him get away with a lot of subsidies and customers letting him get away with a lot of shoddy products. Lucky for him the Tesla engineers were competent true believers(tm) and delivered decent Model 3 and Model Y but that should only give them a similar valuation to other car companies, shouldn't it?
[1] https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-201...
[2] https://itep.org/tesla-reported-zero-federal-income-tax-in-2...
[3] https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/10/investing/elon-musk-tesla...
[4] https://www.insidehook.com/autos/no-one-exposes-elon-musk-li...
[5] https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-faked-video-in-2016-pr...
[6] https://www.autoevolution.com/news/tesla-semi-gets-debunked-...
[7] https://dawnproject.com/teslas-history-of-faking-demonstrati...
[8] https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/13/24269131/tesla-optimus-r...
Their jobs and approaches were protected by middle/upper management constructing stories for Musk about how it was revolutionary, and all he heard was agreement.
Fidelity estimates X (Twitter) is worth 80% less than when Musk bought it[1].
The Boring Company has raised ~$795M of investment valuing it at $5.6Bn and in 7 years it has delivered a 2.4 mile tunnel under Las Vegas which cost $48M and $4.5M/year. It was going to use self driving Teslas but actually they pay drivers to drive the cars, to move 1-3 people at ~40 miles per hour, and The Boring Company subsidises it by another couple of million per year. This money could have bought a lot of buses which would move more people more cheaply. Bus Rapid Transit, but worse.
[0] https://seekingalpha.com/article/4487247-how-spacex-makes-mo...
[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/02/business/elon-musk-twitte...
[2] https://fortune.com/2023/11/20/elon-musk-boring-company-las-...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boring_Company#Inactive_an...
That's not a good comment, especially in the light of dang's callout at the top of this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42992992 "don't post low-information / high-indignation comments that could just as easily appear in any related thread. Such generic comments make discussion less interesting and more activating.".
The issue is that one can write as many paragraphs as they want, if the goal of those paragraphs is to obscure some basic truths then they will gain:
- laudation from sycophants;
- mere rejection from "basic facts enjoyers".
Your dismissal of Musk's accomplishments and companies for political reasons is also a dismissal of all the people who have trusted him with their time and effort to build all those wonders. What they've accomplished is great, and it obviously would not have happened without him.
Or it can be just arrogance. (In fact, even when it's reasonable, it probably also contains some arrogance...)
No, this is a common fallacy.
The main reason to get crazy rich and successful is statistics: be lucky. I.e., accidentally do the successful things. And usually starting rich helps, so you have the opportunities.
Crazy success is not a measure for capability. There is no correlation. Yes, it is sad, so despite this, the fallacy is a great motivation for many.
Its about assuming most people operate on dogma and heuristics. This is extremely true in my opinion.
By making this assumption, you dispel bad practices and behaviors that might have built up within an organization. Even more importantly you can reveal why certain chesterton’s fences exist.
It falls to pieces when people with this mindset attempt to work up against the constraints of physics, or other unchanging limits. Those limits can be constructed on, and relied upon. Going back to first principles in these cases inevitably results in massive losses in the repetition of the uncountable quiet failure-corners of history.
We will find out which one we are dealing with.
Or the tax code...
>sometimes you really are better off throwing it away and coming up with something reasonable from scratch.
Many people don't understand this and are totally, fully incapable of understanding this simple concept, hence all the opposition
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trum...
Do you have another solution to that, or do you not care about that in a dog-eat-dog way?
> "My answer would be the career bureaucrats"
Why is this used as a slur? There's such a thing as a career diplomat, and we'd hope they would learn more about the country they were diplomat-ing in over that career - who can make things happen in the government, how the consulate can get things done, build relationships with people in power. Similar with a career bureaucrat in principle, having a head full of details about which supply chains are reliable and resilient, which people are experts in border issues or international currency issues or state laws vs. federal laws, building relationships with them.
It's not how it pans out.
>Property taxes impose a cost to the ownership of a property which disincentivizes leaving it empty, which is better for almost everyone else except the property owner.
All that will disproportionately affect the poor not the rich who can actually afford the taxes.
>Do you have another solution to that, or do you not care about that in a dog-eat-dog way?
I do. Property in one thing that I think should be equally divided among individuals, with individuals being able to use/rent in whatever manner they please within certain confines (lots of assumptions here and lots of if and buts, but it's huge discussion).
>> "My answer would be the career bureaucrats"
>Why is this used as a slur?
It is intended to be a slur, infact the word bureaucrat itself is a slur. Being a bureaucrat is a negative skill or a parasite etc. unlike a lot of other specializations. Ofcourse exceptions may exist. Personal questions: have you done your taxes beyond simple salaried income tax? Have you bough/sold property? have you run a small/big business? have you run a payroll? Alternatively are you familiar with the amount of complexity introduced by the govt in the questions I asked you?
That's interesting, and rather goes up against the free markety ideas that the people with the most valuable use for land/property should be able to buy as much of it as they want from people with less valuable uses (who can sell it at market rates). I am interested and do wonder how that might work, and if it would work. Although I note that thing_you_like is allowed to be nuanced and complex, and thing_you_dislike must be bad because it's complex.
> All that will disproportionately affect the poor not the rich who can actually afford the taxes.
That happens when a speeding ticket is a fixed $100. Norway can give speeding fines up to 10% of the driver's annual salary. A bad property tax disproportionately hurts the poor, not all property taxes.
Your parent comment "Perhaps the most important question to ask is not who will gain - rather who stands to lose?" is the entire reason taxes get complicated - because every change is a change that someone gains and someone else loses. Any thing which is paid for by taxes has an argument over who should pay the tax, and how much of it; do parents pay tax for schools? Society benefits from more educated people, so does everyone pay? Is it an income tax because people who benefitted more from education can earn more? Is it part of property tax because family homes need schools built nearby? Solve for something all councillors/senators agree on - after they negotiate, for every thing and every slider.
> Personal questions: ...
They would be relevant if I had said the tax code was in any way optimal, good, efficient, should not be changed, or should not/could not be improved. My position is not that. It is if we give the greedy fat kid free reign to rewrite the rationing system the only expected result is all the food ends up on their plate and none on anybody else's.
We've seen Musk taking union busting actions, we've seen Musk's daughter accuse him of abuse, we've seen Tesla and SpaceX benefit from billions of taxpayer funding while Tesla arranged to pay no income tax on its billions of income, Musk has demonstrated lack of caring for the interests of other humans, the expected outcome of him rewriting the tax code is that he and his companies pay no tax and therefore others pay all of it. We've also seen years of Musk dashing off an unworkable ill-thought-out idea off the top of his head, so after "I pay no tax" the remainder is probably some pre-planned maximally self-interested tax code written by Peter Thiel et al, or some dashed-out-in-ten-minutes wildly unbalanced hopelessly unworkable napkin tweet.
I would like to see laws implemented with test conditions for how we will know if they are working, with a mandatory sunset period for reviewing them and if they aren't meeting the test conditions they automatically expire. I would like to see the tax code be mandatory computer-implementable with low tax filing complexity as a priority consideration.
> "It is intended to be a slur, infact the word bureaucrat itself is a slur. Being a bureaucrat is a negative skill or a parasite etc."
One person's bureacratic parasite is another person's necessary management. I enjoy Yes Minister[1] and am annoyed by the waste it parodies and mocks, but also acknowledge that a necessary and significantly sized part of any large system is the organization and management and implementation of the system itself; the UK's NHS is often criticised for having too many administrators, and at the same time for not having enough administrators to be able to do the work of organizing and making it more efficent on top of the work of keeping it running.
The sec...
While the general impression of free market that is commonly touted does imply what you say, even in its current form people don't carry free market ideas to it's extreme: for example someone could argue that in a true free market you could kill your competitor to gain an edge.
>Although I note that thing_you_like is allowed to be nuanced and complex, and thing_you_dislike must be bad because it's complex.
There are areas where complexity may be needed and not avoidable. (for example a rocket ) . Something similar goes for the land division that I talked about. What I can assure you is that if a land division is not considered, the complexity ( and associated atrocities) are magnified in other areas like the tax code.
>I would like to see laws implemented with test conditions for how we will know if they are working, with a mandatory sunset period for reviewing them and if they aren't meeting the test conditions they automatically expire.
As much as I agree with you on this I don't think it'll happen in practice, simply because most humans are completely incapable of even conceiving those kind of ideas. If you are a developer like me, you are well about the average IQ - so what may seem trivial to you and me is not for the common man or the common elected representative that he elects.
> tax code was in any way optimal
The tax code especially for income tax and property tax, can never be optimal, or if it's optimal it's only for a short time. Because by it's very nature it's predatory. (it's another huge topic as to what can be taxed)
>One person's bureacratic parasite is another person's necessary management.
This mostly true of private companies, less so for a government that writes check to itself.
>I enjoy Yes Minister[1] and am annoyed by the waste it parodies and mocks,
While you did not answer my questions which were directed to you as a person( I assume that most of your answers would be 'no'). I'm glad that you're familiar with "Yes Minister". (I had seen it a few decades back.). Anyway I'm arguing for minimal government and for minimizing any scope creep of the powers that the government may have. Easier said than done. (the mostly legalized and easy to obtain gun ownership in US is one example, which if I interpret correctly was intended to keep the government in check)
Because, I don't think Musk had ever shown issues understanding or even precisely manipulating people's sentiments with bare hands which some of us struggle even with tools, while also there being countless examples him showing lack of understanding of laws, order, code, all such brittle dehumanized systems in general.
All his successes owes to his mastery of orchestrating humans as animals, not machines or humans as intelligent constructs. Why are we nearly dead set that it's opposite of that?
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42993901
He's long turned about face with that, but that goodwill can die really, really hard (only took until now for Wall Street to very slowly start pulling out). As we see with Donald Trump somehow being relevant some 4 decades after his celebrity fame for a national election.
>Why are we nearly dead set that it's opposite of that?
My impression is that Musk knew to surround himself with good people. Be it coincidence, a Charisma check, or simply throwing cash at them, those people clearly did amazing things and he was the face of it all.
This is more or less the opposite, and his crude behavior navigating government IMO could not have gone worse. He had at least 2 years to sow the seeds and he's instead taking "Drill Baby, Drill" a bit too seriously. I could be very wrong and underestimating him. But he feels more like someone who demands the spotlight, not a mastermind with a precise vision. Those good people are not around him anymore; Trump sure as hell doesn't have a vision past tax cuts for billionaires.
But this audience is more diverse in it's views and is perhaps more willing to challenge it's idols and leaders. Keeping this audience on your side is a constant dialogue where you are constantly challenged and it's a symbiotic-adversarial relationship that results in a stronger whole. Only by getting challenged in a constructive discussion can truly great ideas be born.
But this is hard work and in some sense annoying. Inevitably he gets surrounded by sycophants and yes-men, because these people butter his ego, and comes to realize that there's an audience around who will unquestionably eat up anything their leader says irrespective of it's truthfulness. An audience who doesn't care whether their leaders are good, just that the leader is on their side.
And thus we find ourselves in the current situation, with an entire establishment in the US who will happily broadcast broad faced lies, but these lies are only for their own audience who believes them without question. Or they just don't care at all, because it's not about the truth, it's only about tribalism.
"first principles" doesn't mean "go back to 2 + 2 and reinvent the rest of math".
I agree with him. Corruption often get a pass when covered in layers of legalize.
So to me this argument sounds the same as "how can young kids think they can program like experienced engineers".
Another answer is that financial auditors don't have ALL the technical skill for this scope of project. Light SQL skills tend to be the upper end of technical accounting (many workers on a project is good for corporate billing). Reports indicate Doge is employing graph analysis, LLMs, etc. Getting the data looks like a SW problem perfect for young people. I have no evidence that this how the organization functions, but I can imagine them as technical analysts, who simply pass information to higher ups who do have organizational experience.
Which leads me to my favorite quote from TFA: "must have killed all those test pigs with some bugs"
Though I note at SpaceX he seems to hire actual rocket scientists.
One might as well ask "if you want to stop HIV/AIDS in Africa why pay a bunch of young kids with international relations degrees instead of AIDS researchers". Grunt work takes grunt effort.
To be fair, having been part of many an corp at this point ( you would think they would want to have accurate data ), that assumption is not flawed.
Elon has contempt for rules and laws. Blame the fuckups on the deep state or whatever. He will run wild until the president cuts off his head.
When you build a machine like this you should ask, "would I be comfortable if my political opposites had control of this?" If the answer is no, then you DON'T BUILD IT.
Meanwhile someone goes in there to try to break up this 30 year pile of technical debt and it's all lawsuits and handwaving theatrics to try to stop it.
I think the medical industry can easily be regulated without the government having access to my actual medical file. They regulate cars without having any idea how I drive mine. They regulate planes without sitting on the flight deck themselves.
It's like we know how to build good businesses, good databases, have solid user control practices, but then we give the government a pass because it's imagined to be "really hard." It's laughable.
Aren't we still waiting for Trump's tax returns?
> Individual income tax information for 2023 was released on 7 November 2024. Public information can be browsed on tax office workstations and requested by telephone: How to search the public information on income taxes and real estate taxes
> The following data is included in the public information on individual income taxes:
> name, year of birth, county earned income subject to state taxation
> capital income subject to state taxation, income subject to municipal taxation, income tax, municipal tax
> imposed taxes and charges in total, amount of back taxes or tax refunds
So I can call the IRS - get the date of birth and tax declaration, i.e. income from work and income from capital of anybody (except those with protected identity).
Address and date of birth etc. you can just check any map-site lite hitta.se.
Or a PI. The cost there is less than $2000 typically.
I fundamentally disagree that earning money or saving it should be taxable in and of itself. We should encourage that as much as possible. But others differ.
All the government professionals I've met who work with that data are very careful with it. The guiding star is "Never let anyone use our data to find out something about any individual. Then, if you still can, publish someone useful."
>Meanwhile someone goes in there to try to break up this 30 year pile of technical debt and it's all lawsuits and handwaving theatrics to try to stop it.
They only had to get security clearances and follow the Constitution. Clearances are routine, so shouldn't be a problem (unless the person being cleared is a problem). The Republicans control all branches of government, and cost-cutting is very popular among all voters, so writing a better budget is possible. Things won't collapse if they work on it until before the midterm elections. It just seems like Trump is testing how far he can walk along the path to tyranny.
Maybe it's a question of wording, but I would agree if the word were "inexperienced" instead of teenage (in reality, they are young adults).
I have no horse in this DOGE race and all the discussions, but I find this "reverse ageism" (for lack of a better term) quite sad, 'cause it does not sound condescending but infantilizes youth and hides one of the biggest elephants in the room in the modern world, which is the real lack of representation of youth in politics (and maybe in the public service?) [1][2].
I was a 19-year-old holding an assault weapon in my daily work in the military with the power to terminate the lives of almost 99.99% civilians, friends with 23 starting piloting USD 5 million machines, and it's just sad to see that we as a society do not see young adults as capable as their older counterparts.
I speculate that at least in Europe, due to this credibility bias in favor of older politicians, we are facing one of the biggest violations of the intergenerational pact, which is the fact that this same youth will end up without retirement [3].
[1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/congress-age-de...
[2] - https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/both-republicans-and-de...
[3] - https://www.dw.com/en/pension-fund-crisis-looms-in-germany-a...
The foxes were already in the hen-house before DOGE turned up, either, as many seem to think here, there are now competing foxes in there, or a clean up is happening. I've yet to see any evidence of actual damage done by DOGE, so why is everyone ignoring the evidence of actual damage that they've found? Can we work that one out?
I’m guessing they don’t post that on Xitter, do they? Do they even post what exactly they did there?
The problem is that same admin who ran up second largest national debt increase is now doing some inconsequential fraud hunting before running up likely the largest debt ever.
I don't know about exactly but I found this tweet[0] informative, this is just a part:
> To be clear, what the @DOGE team and @USTreasury have jointly agreed makes sense is the following:
> - Require that all outgoing government payments have a payment categorization code, which is necessary in order to pass financial audits. This is frequently left blank, making audits almost impossible.
> - All payments must also include a rationale for the payment in the comment field, which is currently left blank. Importantly, we are not yet applying ANY judgment to this rationale, but simply requiring that SOME attempt be made to explain the payment more than NOTHING!
That does sound like sound financial management, and pretty basic, which does make me question the whole system.
> The problem is that same admin who ran up second largest national debt increase is now doing some inconsequential fraud hunting before running up likely the largest debt ever.
That is almost fair criticism, let down by the doom-mongering, and ignoring that a) they're actively cutting things, and b) no pandemic (yet).
[0] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1888314848477376744
As for “doom-mongering”, you don’t have to take my word, just listen to what republicans are saying: $3T in tax breaks extension, possibly offset by $1T in cuts. Not even accounting idea of cutting income taxes. You do the math.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/house-gop-rushing-...
I think the reaction is more about wanting some older adults in the room as well, not about having no younger adults in the room.
Younger people always want to knock down Chesterton’s fences whenever they see them; I know, because I was recently young.
But asking the elders why those fences exist is always a good idea; then, knock them down if the issue is resolved. Humility and curiosity are required for that.
Who would you trust more, a teenager with active military training and awareness on how to handle a gun or a teenager picking up a gun off the floor for the first time?
If these teens all had followed proper protocol, went through a full security clearance process and training on how to handle sensitive data there would be no issue. They did not. And they are definitely not old enough to have had experience dealing with highly sensitive systems. So you've got people that are not qualified to handle data, working on systems they are not experienced enough to work in, kicking over load-bearing pillars that they can't see.
I would not trust a random 19 years old with assault gun, I would not trust that guy if we were alone in the room where his superiors do not see. But, I would be afraid of him raping me more then him using that gun without order.
your argument starts well, but then compares the top well behaved military machine with a war lord arming children and throwing them on the front.
No, he didn't. He founded x.com as a payment system which was substantially less popular then paypal. Due to a bunch of mergers of parent companies, x.com and paypal had to merge. Musk became CEO and the whole thing was later sold to ebay, he left and cashed out big. That whole timeline unfolded in just a couple of years.
So his actual experience is not that long. And besides that all unfolded in 1999. I have no idea what your age is but that was a different time and payment system knowledge from that time isn't worth that much nowadays.
Musk is not concerned with producing false accusation for example. Obviously he could find corrupt auditors and probably did, but those are slower. They take more time to produce what was asked from them.
There is a claim that many federal payments do not have information necessary for traditional financial audits. Maybe a team of forensic auditors would be more apt?
1. https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-24-106890.pdf
a lot of doge/elon's team is from the various tech companies he owns, so of course, they're going to be teenagers and senior people are pretty much laid off.
think about the next tech layoff you hear in the news (facebook/meta, etc) and think about what portion of the layoff is younger than 20 and what portion are older than 40.
If it's working, why would it matter? The most curious thing in all these discussions is that the elephant in the room is never addressed: they already found on hundreds of billions of pure fraud and funding for extremely dubious endeavors.
But nobody talks about that: everybody attacks the messenger. Everywhere.
Are people not happy that the fraud team already uncovered the following:
The examples are endless and yet everybody shoots the messenger. If out of hundreds of dubious endeavour (money to publish trans book for children in Guatemala: I mean, come on guys), if one happens to be justified spending or a wrongly attributed spending, then people will focus on that to attack DOGE.But the elephant in the room is constantly dodged: why? The elephant in the room is there. And it's a gigantic elephant.
Why is it that to some, like me, it looks like USAID (and certainly more with more revelations to come) is basically a gigantic money laundering operation combined with the push of a worldwide leftist agenda?
And the curious thing: people keep crying "attack on democracy" although DOGE keeps exposing, day after day, actual attacks on democracy, where US taxpayers dollar were used to fund a leftist agenda.
To me DOGE is doing something right. Instead of shooting the messenger, discuss the actual findings they already did.
Explain to me how you defend $40m+ going to fund gain-of-function bat viruses and how you defend Biden pardoning Fauci who lied about it in Congress? Because that's what DOGE is exposing.
That’s… normal? Just because you don’t like a leftist agenda doesn’t mean it’s an attack on democracy. You might be surprised to hear that those leftist presidents were actually democratically elected. Much like, as much as it pains me to say it, Trump.
For example: '$8m to the supposedly independent "Politico"' is for subscriptions. So what? The rest is the same sort of nonsense: innuendo, smears and outright lies.
It was 30-40 million for all depts to poltico.
You can not be “independent journalists” when your largest single client is the US Gov.
Politico running the Russia hoax, Hunter’s laptop, and dismissing the wuhan lab leak are three examples of them being on the Biden admin’s side.
Can you point to a single time Poltico backed up a theme or narrative that benefited Trump but turned out to be wrong?
USAID only spent 24,000: https://www.usaspending.gov/search/?hash=7d6ee070efa2439992b...
Please stop repeating misinformation. For your own sake, and for the sake of those around you, please also consider where you're getting information from.
Seems like your first point is "fake news" as they say?
So it seems like its not working, what info we do get is false or slanted to support a narrative. Social media posts are making people hysterical. It's not clear why your other 7 bullet points are things to be concerned about. As you pointed out a few times, we don't have context into these deals. Your jumping to conclusions assuming the worst for some reason.
https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-chelsea-clinton-foundati...
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/clinton-foundation-paid-fo...
The second similarly wasn’t a DOGE find and is vaguely sourced because it was from Nancy Mace’s political fundraising and there’s a direct financial incentive to misrepresent what was actually funded. If you read the actual grants, they’re studying things like gender-based differences in how wounds heal or whether transgender people have different responses to things like HIV vaccination or other medical treatments - and unless your position is that transgender people shouldn’t exist, it’s hard to argue that a tiny fraction of a percent of government spending going to medical research is fraud.
Similarly, there is still no evidence that COVID was caused by gain of function research even if it would be really useful politically.
Finally, not understanding why the United States invests money building influence internationally is not fraud. We spent trillions invading Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s profoundly unsurprising that we spent money trying to improve our reputation in those countries.
But not a single administrator skimming off their department's budgets, which I would imagine is 90% of government fraud.
Also no-one is shooting the messenger. Mainly they are complaining that completely unauthorised people are rooting through all government data with no oversight. No matter what your politics, the president should have got these people vetted and followed the carefully designed processes to keep this data safe. If you're not seriously concerned that one day your tax info is going to turn up in an unsecured AWS bucket, then I can offer you a unique video of out-takes of Neil Armstrong falling off the LEM ladder for just $5,000.
> TRENDING! Trump’s Power Brew: The Coffee That Fuels His Peak Energy and Keeps Him Unstoppable! If You Want to Lose Weight and Have Maximum Energy 24/7, You Need to Try This Coffee!
The second result is the comment above. I cannot find any more information on this otherwise.
> $110m to find water in Afghanistan
I assume that's the same as the whitehouse.gov [1] talking point:
> Hundreds of millions of dollars to fund “irrigation canals, farming equipment, and even fertilizer used to support the unprecedented poppy cultivation and heroin production in Afghanistan,” benefiting the Taliban
The source they link for that is a Breitbart article [2] from 2018 and it talks about 20 year old project that ran for 3 years.
> Between 2005 and 2008, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) devoted at least $330 million in funding to failed ADP projects intended to deter farmers and traffickers from cultivating and trafficking opium.
During the $2+ trillion war in Afghanistan, the US government tried to spend $330 million to damage the Taliban's primary source of revenue. It didn't work and the funding stopped in 2008.
The DOGE "proof" of waste is a 7 year old news article talking about a 20 year old program that only ran for 3 years while George W Bush was the president.
That's the only big number in their official statement regarding the waste. They're going 20 years into the past and once you throw out the dubious claim above, the "waste" they're saying exists is a few million dollars. They didn't even put the $8 million Politico thing on whitehouse.gov because it's been debunked too.
A couple million dollars in waste for an organization that distributes about $44 billion [3] in foreign aid every year is a giant nothing burger and American's are eating it up like it's kobe beef.
> everybody attacks the messenger
He's not the messenger. He's the source of the misinformation.
1. https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/02/at-usaid-wast...
2. https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2018/06/21/feds-...
3. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/06/what-the-...
People are not shooting the messenger. The messenger has no credibility, and no demonstrated interest in earning it as long as they can hold power otherwise.
The media is portraying it as a left-right issue. This is presumably because it is easier to incite the opposition party.
This is an opening salvo on what has been termed "the deep state", "permanent Washington" or "the swamp".
Given the highly volatile, and legally gray, situation; I'd expect the front line people who usually grant access are at least flagging these requests to their boss, who flags to their boss etc. Is everyone up the chain just giving a shrug and saying "seems legit, give them the access".
Of course people don't want to loose their jobs, but I would have expected someone in a senior leadership position to take a stand in preventing this (unless their all on board?)
Especially if you're sending someone in to shut down entire departments and freeze communications.
They let you do it.
Several recent news stories have described situations where the agency head resisted and was removed.
USAID: 0.6% of the budget CFPB: 0.011% of the budget
It has nothing to do with saving money and is well beyond the executive order than instantiated the agency.
If all they do is disrupt things enough for some crypto dorks and Russians to make a play it was all worth it.
It appears that they passed audit just a few months ago:
> Opinion: Williams Adley concluded that USADF’s financial statements as of September 30, 2024, and September 30, 2023, are presented fairly, in all material respects, and in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.
> The audit firm also found no reportable noncompliance with provisions of applicable laws, regulations, contracts, and grant agreements.
> The audit firm found no material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting but found deficiencies in the internal controls over the Funds Held Outside of Treasury process. We collectively identified these deficiencies as a reportable significant deficiency.
https://oig.usaid.gov/node/7291
It sure looks like retaliation hit job.
From images routinely failing to load, to the current mess of logins that is the dualistic nature of x.com vs twitter.com (where which accts appear logged in fluctuates constantly), to my favorite bug, where it's always stuck in dark mode in mobile browsers...
And that's just technologically. Firing moderators, letting neonazis run rampant, and driving away advertisers and non-nazis...
Honestly, they might as well have brought back the Fail Whale.
But as always you need to curate the ones you follow to get a "for you" that's interesting.
Sure, but letting neo-nazis run rampant is not just a problem of my personal curation, but a society-wide issue.
Overall though I’d expect much worse problems to occur from firing the majority of a workforce. If that had happened at my workplace there’d be lots of data loss, downtime and show stopping bugs. Because the work people do is essential to the product and although we have some level of redundancy to reduce key man risk, that wouldn’t work if 80% of people left.
There is no proof of anything bad. Regardless how many people want that to be false, oddly.
So I guess tough to not think that the worldwide media that has been receiving government money would be mad and willing to focus on ”a handful of 20 year olds” as a means to discredit.
What I find strange is that it’s working so well. So many people here KNOW so much that hasn’t been reported or happened.
You’re being manipulated by the people who are mad their paychecks are being cut.
> Farritor was granted access to basic IT including email and Microsoft 365, one of the people said. The chief information office only does a small amount of IT and cybersecurity work for the National Nuclear Security Administration, they said, including providing connectivity and running basic internet services for NNSA’s headquarters. It does not run IT systems for the nuclear agency’s labs controlling the nation’s nuclear stockpile.
As to this part of your comment:
> and you think you've got sober and thoughtful take to offer on this situation, do you?
Please take note of Dang's comment at the top of the page, hyperbole and hysteria are not interesting.
[0] https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/06/climate/doge-energy-depar...