> I wonder what level of compartmentalisation inside DHS means they didn't see this as having sufficient downsides?
This was not a carefully-weighed decision based on a cost-benefit analysis. This was a political order, consistent with the administration's policy of "cut everything, recklessly, indiscriminately."
There are many problems going on right now, but in terms of cuts this is one of the most problematic: everything is secret, with no oversight or deliberation. It's indistinguishable from corrupt malice because it's not done with open thoughtfulness.
I just can't believe your take on this. The White House press secretary has directly said, multiple times, "this is the most transparent administration ever". /s
In reality, this entire process is insanity. We've had examples of government spending overhaul in the past - early(?) 90s - both sides worked together, cut lots of spending across programs, downsized tens of thousands of federal workers, and balanced a budget, to the point where we had a surplus. It was tough, took time, wasn't perfect, but was deliberated and debated and far far far more open and transparent than all this. But their goal was actually improving government (even if that meant reducing some areas). The current 'leadership' goal is to dismantle/destroy as much as possible, as this is led by people who think government in general should not exist.
I can't tell what argument you're making within the context of my post?
The OP said indiscriminately, which means they're cutting uniformly across the board. I responded with "mostly discriminately" which means they're more selectively cutting based on prejudice. You then linked me a data point where you show they cut funding because it has the word "homo" in it and tell me to "get a hold of myself".. but your link would directly support what I've said?
It is clear from context that the original comment is using "indiscriminately" in a sense of "without due care; thoughtlessly". Your first reply comes across as simply contradicting it, i.e. asserting that actually these cuts were made with an appropriate level of thoughtfulness. Your point that there are criteria which are being applied is a useful contribution, but you should have expanded on this in your original comment, as it was not clear that you were reframing the discussion in this way.
Respectfully, I took the word at face value and made what I thought was a fair, albeit half-jokingly correction. Certainly, I understood the context of the original post and I expected that this community would understand my follow up comment which is using correctly applied English. For whatever it's worth, I see no synonyms for indiscriminately that would fall under "without due care; thoughtlessly" on Merriam-Webster. Even if I understood what the OP was saying, it was not technically the correct verbiage to use. I would have thought I'd receive a similar level of "allowable nuance" in my comment that the OP was afforded.
He came in quite hot and has made no acknowledgements of my rebuttal. To be honest, taking a deep breath and giving me a more sensible response than what I got could have gone a lot way.
We're allowed, and should be encouraged, to write with a small amount of nuance and creativity.
My intent was to argue by counterexample. That grant being cut merely because of containing the prefix homo is an example of indiscriminate cutting, in my opinion. Actually effectively cutting grants that only related to homosexuality or something would've been discriminate.
However, I might still be misunderstanding you, pardon me.
> That grant being cut merely because of containing the prefix homo is an example of indiscriminate cutting, in my opinion.
I disagree. I think it would be considered "discriminate cutting".
> Actually effectively cutting grants that only related to homosexuality or something would've been discriminate.
I agree and that's the point I was making. They're just cutting grants with the word "homo" in them because it meets their criteria of interest for cutting. Whether they deal with homosexuality or not is not a discriminate vs indiscriminate topic, but a topic of DOGE's competency in actually executing on their discriminate cutting vision.
Most of the general population can’t read above something like a fifth grade level. Here on HN it’s higher, but I wouldn’t say it’s safe to assume you can just engage in even mild word play without risking being misinterpreted, unfortunately.
Written word play, especially in such a short sentence, will be hit or miss with even capable readers because one's interpretation will be devoid of interpersonal context (including nonverbal signals) and heavy on other context such as expecting some in this community to continue to defend Elon/DOGE because we've seen it plenty on HN to date.
Indiscriminate means at random or without judgement. The comment you're arguing with clearly (and cleverly) said the cuts are not random. As one data point, I did not read the comment as contradicting anything, but as agreeing and expanding.
You have got to stop engaging with the idea of “woke” as a specific ideology to stand against. It’s like you purposefully intend to misunderstand common shared meanings of words.
Afaik there's never been a DEI initiative (or similar, I'm not American) that I've ever heard of to hire more gay people specifically. Most of us would hate to be hired for our sexuality rather than our skills.
There's nothing "woke" about it and screaming woke woke woke isn't going to change the fact that we exist and you don't like it. I'd tell you what I really think of you but it would invoke Dang.
You misinterpreted that comment, which was sarcastically pointing out a study which was purportedly cut simply because it had the word part “homo” in it.
If I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt (which I hate), it's a shotgun approach; cut things relentlessly and see what falls apart. Chaos engineering applied to a country and / or the world.
That’s exactly what it is, and they said as much repeatedly while campaigning. Voters, in their zealotry against the perceived status quo, failed to realize how much of what we have right now you don’t want to cut recklessly, as well as just how reckless the people that they were choosing to do that job were.
wunderkind is a loanword, it's one of those cases of a German word being used but being odd in English since it's so similar.
Like kindergarten which is often speller as "garden".
You stated Endgegner was not used lightly in Germany when it was. You seemed to think Wunderwaffe was used lightly in English when it was not. And searching for Endgegner and Endlösung found our comments and a few opinions they sound similar. No evidence or claims of origin. I conclude Endgegner does not originate from Endlösung probably.
Certainly, so we have to critically look at the terms and check which have been used by the Nazis to promote their ideology. It is a call to make in each case.
Absolutely not. They are not broadly experts, and they are not making these decisions after careful consideration, as evidenced by their continual acts of stupidity and basic errors and cutting things despite having no idea what it is they are cutting. Musk got in an argument with someone who said DOGE cut funding for a cancer treatment program, and Musk was calling the person a liar, and the person provided evidence and Musk admitted it was an accident. They are a clown car of idiots who vastly overestimate their own knowledge and underestimate how much good the government actually does. They think they can just slash and burn and there will be no negative consequences because they think the government is worthless.
She was an Objectivist. She considered social security to be "legalized plunder". Then when she needed it, she decided to take it.
One of her wonderful worldviews was to rejects altruism as a moral imperative, arguing that individuals should live for their own rational self-interest. Social security, based on the idea of supporting others, contradicts this principle.
It takes strong and complex social glue to create a place where millions can safely follow their own self-interest.
Which means anyone whose wisdom matches their self-interest is going to understand that different things have very different efficiencies at different scales.
And some things happen to be dramatically more efficient/person and more effective, the larger the scale they can be coordinated at.
>It takes strong and complex social glue to create a place where millions can safely follow their own self-interest.
This exactly. All of these people who profess to believe in objectivism could easily move to a failed state and do anything they want to with zero government intervention. But they don't do that. They want all of the benefits of a working government with none of the things required to actually create a working government.
Also, even if you don't need it yourself, it's far nicer to live in a society where people's basic needs can be met otherwise we end up living in some kind of Mad Max apocalyptic wasteland where people with nothing and nothing to lose roam the country looking for targets.
I don't see altruism as being outside of my own self-interest. I think that you get what you give, so having to give up some money to the public good is OK (usually not awesome, but OK).
> One of her wonderful worldviews was to rejects altruism as a moral imperative, arguing that individuals should live for their own rational self-interest. Social security, based on the idea of supporting others, contradicts this principle.
This position was already pointed out by Plato (in the Gorgias IIRC) as being inconsistent. Political systems are made up by people - if a society, in particular a democratic one, has certain systems in place, then this is probably because it was (at least believed to be) in the people's self interest.
What's funny, and it might be because of the translation, but I first thought her book where all entrepreneurs are hidden away in a sort of parallel country was a dystopian satire and a joke about some people sense of self importance. Then I learned about her (and when the book was written too) and realised her book was to be read as it was written, 'seriously'. Which makes it silly, but a funny story.
They've done their degrees and masters in Computer Science, and many of them dropped out. But they focused on AI, so I'm assuming this makes them great at statistics, but does this mean they are great at security? Given the way they've gone through a variety of departments, I'd say they aren't.
The DOGE crew are incompetent. Witness their firing of all the people who look after the nuclear stockpile and Ebola research.
Hang out around here for a while and you will realize quickly that us tech bros mostly just know tech stuff. Our perceived intelligence in topics which we don't spend our time on is called hubris and we are swimming in it at all times.
Vampire capitalism. They want civilization to break down so they can offer a solution for profit. The enemies of all people and life on the planet are a tiny group of oligarchs and their supplicants.
I agree, given the right definition of “capitalism”.
Unfortunately “capitalism” has two quite different meanings. Which are rarely clarified in use.
Capitalism with a big C, a too common overarching ideology, gets bent to mean whatever the greedy, unethical and rich want it to mean so they can get more money.
But small c capitalism, evolving from both practical and ethical foundations, is a system so useful it has multiplied the benefits of civilization. But it is just one such system.
It can’t do everything, it needs other independent systems (justice, dispute resolution, rules of clarity, risk & trust limiting systems, for starters) to work, and extending it to places it doesn’t work causes great harm.
(Like when perversely applied to those enabling systems, in big C form, as is happening now.)
Hah. I’ve been hearing this No-True-Scotsman for Capitalism for decades now. It’s what we’ve got and is widely understood as capitalism. I won’t repeat your last sentence but the sentiment is similar.
It's no different from what apologists for Communism and any number of other -isms will tell you. "B...b...but it's never really been tried." Capitalists are as entitled to that excuse as anyone else.
It's almost as if no economic, social, or political system known to mankind will stand up for long under a determined onslaught of corruption.
This was not a carefully-weighed decision based on a cost-benefit analysis. This was a political order, consistent with the administration's policy of "cut everything, recklessly, indiscriminately."