There's so much partisan noise about DOGE going around -- At this point, I don't know what to believe anymore. Elon lies constantly, abuses employees, backstabs partners, and is probably a racist; At the same time, his companies have created seemingly impossible/fantastic technologies/tools that have changed the world forever.
Is DOGE a genuine effort at desperately needed reforms to save America from bankruptcy?
Is it a secret plot to take full control of the federal government like a dictator's coup?
Is it a mix of both at the same time (ie; recent Saudi and Chinese 'anti-corruption' campaigns)?
I get ya, but if one could apply some kind of Occam's razor is hard to defend DOGE's approach after all the mishandlements, false discoveries, bullying,and dangerous firings.
The one common thread with elons companies and their success is that it strongly appears the more he is prevented from having direct control, the better they do. He has direct control of doge so it's going pretty poorly.
Well, we know can't be to "save America from bankruptcy" because as a currency issuer, the federal government of the USA can't go bankrupt the way a currency user like a corporation or state government might.
It can go bankrupt in the same way that Zimbabwe did with hyperinflation... even losing the USD as the world currency would be catastrophic. So yes, we can very much go bankrupt.
Considering the COBOL Metre date screw-up, it's pretty obvious that the folks doing this don't understand the most basic underpinnings of the systems they're poking and prodding.
For those who missed it, DOGE claimed there were tons people who were about 150 years in the system. In actuality, the the default date in COBOL is May 20, 1875 (the date of the Metre Convention) which works out to about 150 years old.
Elon Musk publicly stated: "cursory examination of Social Security, and we got people in there that are 150 years old. Now, do you know anyone that's 150? I don't know. They should be in the Guinness Book of World Records... So that's a case where I think they're probably dead."
That's how little Musk understands about computer systems he's supposedly responsible for analyzing. And Elon has publicly stated he'll often be wrong wrt DOGE.
EDIT: Elon also posted a Tweet showing age buckets, but according to other Social Security Association folks, they didn't filter out dead people or non-recipients. When you do, only 89,106 are aged 99+. Less than the number of living centenarians in the US: https://x.com/justinwolfers/status/1891678450487841007
That whole thing was debunked AFAIK. Well, it kind of self-debunked since the original tweet that was posted as a reply to said "over 150 years old", not "exactly slightly under 150 years old", and "a number in ISO8601 format", but see e.g.: https://iter.ca/post/1875-epoch/
DOGE has plenty of ways to demonstrate ineptitude without us making some new ones up.
News for you. Elon Musk is not an engineer. Elon Musk does not know computer science. Yes, he's able to read books and learn subjects but he has never worked as a software engineer in any professional setting. You attribute competence to him in so many areas where he does not deserve it.
What “impossible goals”? It’s easy just to randomly fire people, act illegally and not to think of the downstream consequences. Any private CEO would have his head handed to him by handling things do ham fistedly
As an ethnically Syrian person, Elon Musk has posted enraging racist epithets about me every single day on his Twitter. I strongly dislike him as a person for his firehose of slander against helpless refugees who aren't so privileged/fortunate as me. Look at how he is speaking towards poor Ukraine!
Despite this, his companies have without a doubt changed the world. His investments into e-banking, reusable rockets, mass market EVs, ChatGPT, Starlink, green energy, etc. sound like something from a comic book into how outsized an impact they make.
DOGE may be genuine but while the fed exists and money is a commodity, it’s really kinda moot. Yes there’s awful wasteful spending in the government but it’s peanuts compared to devaluing your labor by ~3% annually to enable a debt based economy. Try to pull off fractional reserve banking in any other context and you’ll be called a cheat and a thief.
DOGE is yet another distraction to keep the left and the right bickering while the billionaires continue to grow the wealth gap. The dollar is the global currency and its monetary policy is set by private entities that don’t care much about the other 99.99% of us - just enough to keep a revolt from happening.
I mean, SpaceX has revolutionized satellite launching, but that's about it. The rest of Phony Stark's success is mostly about being a hype man in the right place at the right time.
For years he coasted on the reputation of being a dorky, space/environment obsessed autist, but in the last few years it's become obvious that most of his admirable traits were just him masking. Now that he doesn't feel that's necessary we're seeing what happens when the richest man in the world swallows the red pill and it ain't pretty.
You should believe what your eyes and ears tell you, after corroborating multiple sources and reading accounts of or speaking with people who have been directly affected by what's happening. Read Project 2025, the playbook is out in the open.
All of this is going to require critical thinking skills and unfortunately you can't gain that by reading tips. Assuming you do gave critical thinking skills, it's pretty clear what's taking place and that soft truths are often used to hide deep lies.
Only believe what you can verify with your own two eyes; otherwise, you leave yourself open to manipulation from propaganda. We live in a post-truth era. Embrace it!
For one thing, do not blindly believe what you read here on Hacker News, where there is a clear anti-Musk slant. I'd recommend more rational places like https://www.themotte.org/ where these topics can be discussed in a relatively calm manner. You are likely to come up with more informed opinions than otherwise.
A sledgehammer doesn't need to be able to turn a screw. Perhaps states might take advantage of this, but the incompetency of toadies at technology won't impact their competency at wreaking destruction.
My read of this post is it's just this guy's word vs doge's. Doge says they allow nulls for TAS, author says they don't. I'm pretty sure in the author's example, though, the payment _could_ be created with a NULL vendor, as I'm pretty sure NULLABLE is default for int in PostgresSQL. Depending on the scenario, this may be "bad" or it may be intentional. What would really matter is "does the system actually transfer funds or cut checks without a TAS". In ERPs I work with, a payment without a vendor is allowed in a draft state, but to get an actual check, you need a vendor.
Most of these types of articles I'd imagine will be right but there is some truth in the argument that "Ah, you see, the system is merely so complicated and murky that you can't understand it!" is damning too
When seeing the approach to how Elon/DOGE applied themselves to air traffic control after the incidents, I'm not falling into the Gell-Mann amnesia effect. This group is just incompetent and going to re-learn all the mistakes within each domain that led to industry getting to where it has through a series of hard won lessons.
One would hope so.. they've already begun blaming things like "DEI" so I find it unlikely. It will probably be decades (if ever) before the lessons are relearned and implemented.
When a foreign key field is left empty, that implies that no foreign key relationship was claimed. By definition a primary key cannot be no. But a foreign key, which is a representation of another table's primary key, can be null. It merely means that no foreign key relationship is claimed.
Readit News
Is DOGE a genuine effort at desperately needed reforms to save America from bankruptcy? Is it a secret plot to take full control of the federal government like a dictator's coup? Is it a mix of both at the same time (ie; recent Saudi and Chinese 'anti-corruption' campaigns)?
What should I believe?
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Dead Comment
For those who missed it, DOGE claimed there were tons people who were about 150 years in the system. In actuality, the the default date in COBOL is May 20, 1875 (the date of the Metre Convention) which works out to about 150 years old.
Elon Musk publicly stated: "cursory examination of Social Security, and we got people in there that are 150 years old. Now, do you know anyone that's 150? I don't know. They should be in the Guinness Book of World Records... So that's a case where I think they're probably dead."
That's how little Musk understands about computer systems he's supposedly responsible for analyzing. And Elon has publicly stated he'll often be wrong wrt DOGE.
EDIT: Elon also posted a Tweet showing age buckets, but according to other Social Security Association folks, they didn't filter out dead people or non-recipients. When you do, only 89,106 are aged 99+. Less than the number of living centenarians in the US: https://x.com/justinwolfers/status/1891678450487841007
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1891350795452654076
Dead Comment
As an ethnically Syrian person, Elon Musk has posted enraging racist epithets about me every single day on his Twitter. I strongly dislike him as a person for his firehose of slander against helpless refugees who aren't so privileged/fortunate as me. Look at how he is speaking towards poor Ukraine!
Despite this, his companies have without a doubt changed the world. His investments into e-banking, reusable rockets, mass market EVs, ChatGPT, Starlink, green energy, etc. sound like something from a comic book into how outsized an impact they make.
DOGE is yet another distraction to keep the left and the right bickering while the billionaires continue to grow the wealth gap. The dollar is the global currency and its monetary policy is set by private entities that don’t care much about the other 99.99% of us - just enough to keep a revolt from happening.
His engineers/employees... not him.
Besides, I'd be wary of calling electric cars "seemingly impossible/fantastic".
What would those be?
For years he coasted on the reputation of being a dorky, space/environment obsessed autist, but in the last few years it's become obvious that most of his admirable traits were just him masking. Now that he doesn't feel that's necessary we're seeing what happens when the richest man in the world swallows the red pill and it ain't pretty.
All of this is going to require critical thinking skills and unfortunately you can't gain that by reading tips. Assuming you do gave critical thinking skills, it's pretty clear what's taking place and that soft truths are often used to hide deep lies.
Dead Comment
For one thing, do not blindly believe what you read here on Hacker News, where there is a clear anti-Musk slant. I'd recommend more rational places like https://www.themotte.org/ where these topics can be discussed in a relatively calm manner. You are likely to come up with more informed opinions than otherwise.
It's not anti-Musk to believe what he says about himself. You should re-examine why you feel the need to push your own slant.
It's not the default...
That is likely to also be true for taking over the entire Federal government.
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