I’m happy in spend my youth during the 90s so none of the stupid things I did is on the internet or on digital photography. All those happy silly things are tucked away on analog print somewhere only I can access it.
Being a Xennial is truely a blessing and I regret for kids not to have that anymore.
Xennial here, too, and I muse about this often. I don't think I'd ever framed it quite like you have, that I'm a part of the last group of people who don't have our youthful misdeeds immortalized on the internet. That's a big one, to be sure.
But I do think of other aspects. People born from the late '90s onward don't really know a world without the WWW, and don't (or barely) remember a world without smartphones and tablets. They don't remember a time before texting. A time when you had to plan ahead if you wanted to meet your friends somewhere, and if something went wrong, it was difficult to communicate to figure out what was going on.
They don't remember when getting computers to do things was hard. When it was common to build your own machine from parts, and when you'd almost always upgrade parts in your existing computer instead of buying a new one. They don't remember when laptops were a luxury, and when people instead brought pencil and paper to class so they could take notes. They don't remember floppy disks, and many don't remember CD-ROM or DVD-ROM, or their burnable counterparts.
They don't remember printing out directions, and not having GPS navigation in their pockets. They don't remember having to use paper maps, and actually plan out routes ahead of time for any non-trivial car trip.
They don't remember CRT TVs in classrooms, or "portable" film projectors. They don't remember slides or overhead projectors or microfilm. They don't remember bulky camcorders that recorded to VHS tapes. Everything is high definition for them. Many younger folks have never seen a music CD or cassette tape; ironically many have seen vinyl since it's become retro-popular again.
Certainly there are things that we don't (or barely) remember, like "party line" phones and black-and-white-only TVs. But man, it seems like there was an unusually huge burst of technological progress while we were growing up.
I could not agree more, but you put it up much more eloquent than I did.
I miss VCR rentals, my cassette player and the magic of my first XT computer with MFM disks. I miss the apple //c and hopping online just to check for some information. I miss the craftsmanship of all those self made websites where you kept a list of URL’s. I miss the points where people put stuff on the internet just to share and what they made and were proud of it. I miss the trips with friends to the arcade hall where we would take turns on operation wolf. E-Mailing the friend you made during the holidays and be able to send pictures was some kind of magic.
I truely hate what the internet has become. A centralized corporate greed machine that exploits people and squeezes them for maximum profits. People are more interested in likes and retweets than in genuine contact.
I am getting old… grumpy… bitter because the thing I loved was taken from me.
[dead]
Born in 1989 and I feel like I was one of the last kids to grow up with and without l those things, I can remember almost all them disappearing.
I remember driving back to college both with printed directions and then with navigation on an iPhone.
" But man, it seems like there was an unusually huge burst of technological progress while we were growing up."
Lets see, if it remains unusual, or if we all have to adopt even more drastically while we are alive.
(My biggest adoption right now is rather, that the era of peace is over)
He got a legal threat when he was 19 and claimed to be no longer hacking people's paypals. We don't actually know that he was a minor when he stopped.
I think it's fine to say that things done even at 19 or younger shouldn't be with people forever. But it's certainly newsworthy, given the types of sensitive information DOGE staff are given access to. People can decide for themselves if it's a problem or if it's actually smart to hire people with hacking backgrounds for reasons some folks here in Hacker News would argue. The idea it's out-of-bounds to even report on it, not by you but others here, is wild.
I'm glad that even if you found my teenage hacking handle, the forum it was used on is long defunct and not indexed by the wayback machine.
I drifted away from security research in my early 20s partly because of the fear instilled reading about Kevin's trials and tribulations[1]...
I think teens today think they're elite when they forget that bitcoin and even pre-paid cards, nor ubiquitous wifi were present in those times.
It's a lot easier to be anonymous nowadays -- gone are the days of scanning for poorly secured SSH boxes to use as jump boxes, now someone can go off to Starbucks and spin up a whole ass botnet or just get a burner sim to use for a month as a hotspot.
They conflate that ability to hide in the noise as a mark of skill, and then they make mistakes.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20050619225554/https://www.linux...
I was a menace online until around 2008. I'm so glad most of my history is erased, and nobody knows my old aliases.
Now in my 40s working for big enterprise.
He is probably more of a menace now than before tho
based on what?
Change control meetings, architecture review boards, requirements reviews, release approvals, etc. etc.
People forget that Robert Morris of Y Combinator was a convicted felon, in fact the first under CFAA IIRC (not that I believe his intent was nefarious at the time). He’s fine now.
He’s owned it though. Did his probation and community service.
Many, maybe most of us did stupid things, it’s part of a hacker youth. Owning it, admitting it, that’s a big part of building trust and proving to others that you’ve grown and changed.
Kinda hard to not own it when you’re convicted.
also wasn't his dad NSA?
Dismantle many democracies in your time? Then not that similar.
Looks like he was a script-kiddie, at most he dismantled some game-cheating sites. Maybe he used back-orifice to open someone's cd drive for the lolz.
(This assumes he wasn't just making it up)
Sounds a very familiar background.
His support of a horrendous reigime today is unrelated to his actions in his youth.
I dunno, DOGE's activities feel very much like a public policy version of being a script kiddie.
the implication of 'script kiddie' is also low hanging fruit and things like website vandalism.
DOGE is dismantling the western global order and destroying generations of government institutions. these are far, far more damaging than anything a script kiddie could ever do, and will impact generations of Americans + many other countries.
Democracy = spending tax dollars
You are a contemporary yuppie, congratulations!
Obligatory 'username checks out' comment :)
> Reuters noted that the Deputy Attorney General’s office is in charge of investigations into various crimes, "including hacking and other malicious cyber activity."
Assuming this is true, wouldn't a history of hacking activity actually be an upside? I don't like Musk but I'm not a fan of the negative spin. Hell, when I was 15 I'm sure some things I did could now be charged as "hacking" or "cyberterrorism" or something much harsher than the actual reality under today's laws.
edit after reading further along:
> Among them was Jonathan Rusch, a 25-year DOJ veteran prosecutor now in academia, who told Reuters that Stanley's apparent history of disclosing illegally acquired data should have prompted "serious concerns."
Is this guy a veteran who prosecutes, a guy who prosecutes veterans, or something else? It feels even weirder to spin the Doge employees as inexperienced kids (which they may be) but then to call a 25 year old critic a veteran prosecutor.
I don't think the article is saying that the prosecutor is 25 years old. It's saying that he has 25 years of experience as a prosecutor.
Haha thank god. I really confused myself reading that. I am truly an idiot today.
And if the current laws prevent you from getting a security clearance, then that is what it is. Sure the laws can be changed, but in this context it’s probably better to exclude some “reformed” people than letting “criminals” through.
I feel like this was a lot of people that grew up on the computers and the Internet in the 90s/early 2000s before social media took off. If anything this gives him credibility. Beats being a boot camp graduate normie.
Agree. I grew up in the era of phreaking and when I see something like this it makes me happy. We want the tinkerers, the curious, the people always pushing on the margins.
It is not necessary to be an asshole with no regard to others to be curious. Maybe we should stop glamorizing these.
For all I love to dunk on Musk and the 47th... there is a lot of truth in the words that most talented nerds start out as hackers in the negative interpretation of the word or get other kinds of run-ins with the law. Hell, many years ago one of the three letter agencies complained that they have to reject too many people for weed convictions.
At the core of it, companies (and the three-letter agencies) want highly experienced people, and the most experience, creativity and wisdom can be had by, well, breaking rules. When you're up against other nation states, you need people with the mindset to question things.
A lot of people like to tell themselves that breaking into other people's computers is about curiosity or activism or some other such virtue.
I don't see it. What I see is post-hoc rationalisation to justify lust for a feeling of power and control over others.
Practically any virtue you ascribe to "hackers" you can give to those kids that break into people's cars and take them on joyrides.
To me its more about the intent and actions. If you figured out how to hack something, and possibly leave a note for the admin to fix their systems, thats one thing.
If you figure out how to hack something, and your first thought is to trash / destroy the system, thats the crime.
So personally: > "where Stanley, at 15, bragged about fucking up servers" is more damning to me then the actual hacking part.
I disagree. I definitely have the curiosity to break into things all the time. There's a difference between unlocking a car, leaving a note saying "I unlocked your car" and locking it again, and unlocking it to crash it.
That's not as innocuous as you put it. From Godfather's horse head to the Bibilical story of Saul's robe, that can have a very different meaning and feeling.
I think both of those things do give people that rush of power and control over others. Certainly one is harmless and the other... not so much.
It doesn't give me a rush of power or control, I just like solving puzzles, and locks are puzzles.
I don't know how to explain that the feeling of solving a puzzle is a "rush of power". If it weren't, you'd be equally happy fiddling with a pile of puzzle pieces and making no attempt to solve it as you were to searching for a solution.
There isn't anything inherently unethical about enjoying power, but neither is it in any way virtuous.
This comment redefines the "power" as it's defined above, in particular by forgetting that it's "over others":
> I think both of those things do give people that rush of power and control over others.
That was presumably unintentional; I just wanted to point out that it's a different philosophical topic.
I don't strictly disagree with the idea but it's not the same as saying that someone solving a sudoku is doing it for the sake of having power over the puzzle's creator and/or the curator of the book/app that included the puzzle. It seems more likely that they're doing it instead because when they would solve puzzles in the past they would get a hit of dopamine, which taught them that solving puzzles is rewarding. I think this seems to fall under "rush of power" per this meaning but it's not "rush of power and control over others" per the initial one.
I still disagree. You're making a false dichotomy that there can be either "rush of power" or "nothing". Instead, I feel a sense of achievement at a job well done. To say that that's "power" requires stretching some definitions.
You can take the position of "achievement isn't a feeling of power" if you'd really like to, in which case I simply say find and replace all prior uses of "feelings of power" with "feelings of achievement" and the argument still stands. I'm happy to use whatever definitions you want. Taking joy from your success in doing things (whether you refer to it as achievement or power) is simply not an valid ethical justification when it is at the expense of violating other peoples right to control of their possessions.
I don't know that the argument stands with "feelings of achievement". I agree that you can't justify a moral infringement by taking pleasure in it, but upthread you were trying to distance the motivation from virtuous ones like curiousity and activism. Being driven by achievement is absolutely a virtue. I'd argue it's the same virtue that drives curiousity, and you've essentially just said exactly that ("the feeling of solving a puzzle is a 'rush of power'" s/power/achievement).
solving puzzle pieces is trivial. you just keep looking for the right parts till it fits. it is designed to be solved. unlike a car door.
Security systems also give you power and control over others. Whether or not it's harmless to break them is a case-by-case question.
> I don't see it. What I see is post-hoc rationalisation to justify lust for a feeling of power and control over others.
There's always two sides to a medal. I think that the executive branches of government - across the Western world - suffer from lethargy caused because barely anyone in public service is willing to question, much less stretch or even bend, the rules in power.
A government obviously cannot be purely made out of rulebreakers and, frankly, toddlers and imbeciles. We see this in the current US administration. But it cannot be made out of "we always did it this way" people either, because that's how you end up with systems and processes that are so hopelessly fossilized that no one even understands why these systems are the way they are.
I'm talking about the virtues that you've just tried to paint on people that practice breaking into other peoples computers for fun.
It seems like what you are looking for is a discussion about whether or not it it is ethical for bureaucrats and elected officials ought to circumvent or ignore their countries democratic processes and laws.
I'm sure there are some ethical justifications for doing this in some hypothetical situations, but really I'm not sure it's as useful to be discussing hypotheticals rather than specifics in this space.
> It seems like what you are looking for is a discussion about whether or not it it is ethical for bureaucrats and elected officials ought to circumvent or ignore their countries democratic processes and laws.
What was the saying, three felonies a day? Society doesn't work out when people behave like role models all day long, the economy would grind to a standstill. That's why you get stuff like "shadow IT" and whatnot. Processes tend to grow ("scope creep") and no one is interested in cutting the crap.
And what qualifies a nerd and hacker to audit systems whose full impact they don’t know and whose programming language they aren’t experienced in?
Would you ask a rocket scientist to do a brain surgery?
They'd get training presumably. I wasn't qualified for my current job. Luckily they have training! And people to help.
They got trained in all the department activities and laws they now work in?
How many years of training were that?
You seem to think that every government agency does highly specialized incredibly specific work that you couldn't possibly have any idea how to manage. That's absolutely not the case. Sure there are absolutely certain jobs etc. where that may be the case - certain engineering departments in perhaps DOE come to mind, that sort of thing.
99% of the government is not that. It's paperwork, databases, forms. Not saying it's not important work, I'm saying it doesn't take a genius to look at the workflow for the vast majority of the government and understand it, and see opportunities for better efficiency.
> It's paperwork
Paperwork, with a mind-numbing set of rules you need to pay attention to, that can affect people's lives in very serious ways. Just a couple days back a guy with protected status was deported to a gulag in El Salvador by a "clerical error".
Can you explain how DOGE and deportations are related?
Deportations of people with protected status happen when someone doesn’t pay the attention needed while doing paperwork.
The point being DOGE people are incompetent to assess the work of a government they have zero knowledge about.
I lost the thread a bit. Are we talking about Doge? Yes that is a abysmal. No defence for that.
But in general people need to learn some stuff on the job. E.g. hire an 18 year old hacker and by 20 they are leading projects, debugging code, preparing for SOC compliance etc. Is possible.
Most of the rocket scientists I know would refuse to perform brain surgery on the basis of qualifications. The maturity and professionalism shows itself in the discretion.
Managing the government isn't brain surgery. It's not that specialized.
Hire a burglar to give home security advice.
This absolutely happens a lot, not at the individual level but security companies absolutely hire former criminals without violent convictions who know what they're talking about and have turned their life around.
You basically just described rebellious youth, which we have all been at some point in our lives. And this statement is complete and utter bs. The problem is that comrade muskov is not a technical person, he is just a "marketing strategist" (quotation marks since I don't want to offend people who actually know what they are doing). Here's the painful truth: most governments have appalling security practices and it's a miracle that the world still exists. Finding vulnerabilities or leaks is not a hard task and it only requires patience - there are dozens of such examples in my own country alone and the only reason no one has sounded the alarm is because two things are going to happen: media scandal for 2 days, then everyone will forget about it and the second thing that will happen is that whoever rings the alarm will be dragged in by security agencies for years to get questioned about what they were looking for and they will not accept "I know you are morons and I don't trust you with handling my data in a service that is completely open to the general public". "Run-ins with the law" has nothing to do with talent and if anything, it's the absence of a talent if that resulted in "run-ins with the law". That is a clear indication that the people involved have no idea what they are doing and just managed to connect two simple dots after a "complete 2 hour hacking crash course - FREE, pls subscribe for more". The simple fact is that musk has no goddamn clue about what he is doing or talking about: "the government does not run relational databases". Right comrade, cause precisely the usa spending service which you are referring to is not a django app using psql: https://github.com/fedspendingtransparency/usaspending-api/b...
""Politics are polarizing because humans tend to label people and put them into buckets," Stanley said. "Once labeled, individuals are often treated according to the bucket they are placed in, rather than considering each topic. This oversimplifies complex issues and contributes to division."
Which is exactly what most politicians do to non-policitians....
"We're sorry" (c) Southpark
Hardly just politicians
Seamus was coming out of the pub with his son when he stopped and put an arm around the youngster. He nodded towards the village in front of them and said, “You know, I built half the homes in this village but nobody calls me Seamus the homebuilder.”
Then with a wave of his arm, he said, “And I worked on half the roads in this village but nobody calls me Seamus the roadbuilder.”
Seamus sighed, put his two hands on his son’s shoulders and, looking him hard in the eye, said, “But you f**k one sheep …”
According to the previous party that ruled the country, my entire existence was "ideological" and I was a "rainbow disease".
And then those same politicals complain, why everything is so tribal :P
Things are also being labelled left/right, where they really should be labelled humane/inhumane or normal/sociopathy, criminal/not.
If people knew the kinds of things I did and said online in my youth I'd be cancelled too.
Kids do and say stupid things. Kids get into trouble.
This is especially true if you grew up with a keen interest in computers, programming and for some reason, gaming.
I had interest in programming and never tried to exploit someone elses systems. What stopped me was knowing that it would "wrong thing to do", that it would be unethical. People here will pontificate for hours over kids reading less or whatever and then turn around and treat activities like this as a proof of something positive.
There are plenty of kids who are not acting like, well, entitled assholes. They have interest in programing, gaming, computers and enough impulse control to not do these. It is not something positive - even if you grow out of it.
Yes, not everyone with interest in games and programming was a degenerate like me. With that being said, there sure were a lot of us.
Getting cancelled is one thing, gaining security clearance and unconstrained access to everyone's health/tax/social security/etc. data is another.
Working for DOGE is a much greater stain on his character (and/or intelligence if he's a true believer).
Imagine writing on your resume that you did a cost efficiency project that added hundreds of billions in costs and killed millions of people.
A script kiddie youth hardly compares.
Your comment is apparently stained by your political views. It is really far from reality, lacks substance and objectivity, and comes off as unhinged.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/15/opinion/forei...
Which part exactly is "far from reality, lacks substance and objectivity"?
In lacking objectivity, is it not objectively false that "millions" have died from this?
It's hyperbolic. People WILL die because this funding is cut. And the estimate IS millions.
The reason people vehemently support the ending of USAID is because while they give aid with one hand, they simultaneously use the other to trigger instability that ultimately leads to conflicts and war. And if even if a single one of these wars can be prevented, you're looking at millions of lives saved - certainly if we include the displaced who lose everything.
For instance here [1] is an article detailing various times USAID has been weaponized to try to overthrow various countries. A somewhat amusing one is them starting a Cuban social network with the goal of creating a "Cuban spring" uprising which failed and ultimately just turned into a giant honey pot for Cuban authorities. Recently USAID workers had a to spend an entire day shredding classified docs [2] including with offering guidance for what to do when the paper shredders 'need a rest.' You don't classify operations that are done transparently and in good faith.
And this is not even touching on the massive corruption in the entire operation when you end up shipping billions of dollars to loosely accountable NGOs who in turn hand it off to other groups and on down a line to some small amount eventually gets genuinely spent. USAID was involved in the Haiti Earthquake efforts where hundreds of millions of dollars were spent, on something, to eventually construct a total of 6 permanent housing units. [3]
Whatever good USAID may have done, could be far more effectively done by another organization without all of their baggage and corruption.
---
[1] - https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/04/03/cuban-twitter-and-other... (archive) https://archive.is/IQl36
[2] - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/11/usaid-staff-...
[3] - https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-...
> without all of their baggage and corruption.
It's not corruption - it's all by design. USAID is the soft-power side of foreign policy. Aid is distributed according to political needs and the desire to influence and produce specific outcomes for certain groups, while maintaining a notion of fairness and generosity and facilitating diplomacy.
Still, objectively speaking, millions will die because the US threw out the baby with the bath water.
But it also looks like they threw the baby out on purpose while intentionally misleadingly marketing themselves as bathwater dumpers.
Oh yes. The destruction of trust in public democratic institutions is part of the plan.
>Whatever good USAID may have done, could be far more effectively done by another organization without all of their baggage and corruption.
So what exactly is being proposed to fill in the gaps created by getting rid of it? Where is this perfect organization that will step in (with appropriate funding) to continue all of the good works and none of the bad?
If we're to assume that the goal in destroying USAID was to end corruption, then it stands to reason that a thoughtful and effective replacement would have been considered prior to its dismantling. The absence of such a replacement and the lack of any discussion pertaining to it renders your argument disingenuous.
The nature of our political system is such that in the future, whether in 4 years or 12, the 'other side' will be in control and generally work to undo what the previous administration did, even if only out of spite. So most of the stuff being cancelled in contemporary times should be viewed more as being rebooted, with a bit of a delay.
But personally I would question whether just giving things to people is truly helping them. For instance take the earlier NYTimes post talking about USAID providing AIDS medicine. If we truly care about Africa's AIDS issue, then why are we just providing medicine instead of helping them to building out manufacturing/labs in Africa, independently manned, and capable of independently producing generic medicine without foreign assistance? USAID was funded with tens of billions of dollars. How much does one lab/plant cost?
In any case, shouldn't the goal of truly benevolent aid to create a scenario where you will realistically no longer need to provide aid in the future? Of course if you teach a man to fish, that man's no longer dependent upon you. But if you just give a man a fish each day, he'll do whatever you demand to keep getting that fish.
Even more disingenuity. You are simultaneously defending cynical abuse of government systems and high-minded altruism.
>The nature of our political system is such that in the future, whether in 4 years or 12, the 'other side' will be in control and generally work to undo what the previous administration did. So most of the stuff being cancelled will, in some form or another, be rebooted in the future, even if only out of spite.
"Everybody is awful. Especially the people with whom I disagree."
>But personally I would question whether just giving things to people is truly helping them. For instance take the earlier NYTimes post talking about USAID providing AIDS medicine. If we truly care about Africa's AIDS issue, then why are we just providing medicine instead of helping them to building out manufacturing/labs in Africa, independently manned, and capable of independently producing generic medicine without foreign assistance?
Your argument is that we should industrialize Africa countries to make their own medicine rather than giving it to people who are literally dying? I suppose that orphans and grieving parents should take solace that there's a long term plan being discussed by people who have no intention of following through on it.
>Shouldn't the goal of truly benevolent aid to create a scenario where you will realistically no longer need to provide aid in the future? Of course if you teach a man to fish, that man's no longer dependent upon you. But if you just give a man a fish each day, he'll do whatever you demand to keep getting that fish, let alone when his life depends upon it.
That man should, of course, starve to death so your taxes are reduced by a fraction of a penny. We all know that Rwanda is just a week away from being a global manufacturing powerhouse anyway.
This is not an either/or scenario. If one wanted to maintain the handouts while simultaneously working to ensure they won't be necessary in the future, we absolutely could. And it doesn't take years to spin up plant and lab, months at most. But we do nothing of the sort, and there's no logical reason for this, unless the entire point is to create dependencies.
And when I speak of the US political system I'm obviously not speaking of this side or that. Both sides operate the same way in regards to each other, with all the sophistication of two children in a playground spat.
---
Actually there's even a simple litmus test here to evaluate your own belief in "high-minded altruism." Imagine Russia or China decided to start pumping billions into projects in rural America: food banks/free healthcare/etc - lots of free stuff, but with no effort to create sustainability. Beyond this there would be no strings attached and no further aims than improving the life of rural Americans. Would you again support such "high-minded altruism"?
We're well past hypotheticals here and it is pointless to talk about what we "could" do. The decision has been made to let food and medicine expire in warehouses and to withhold funds to aid organizations both domestically and abroad. There's no second part to this plan. Promises have been broken and will not be renewed.
Also, local NGOs absolutely care about sustainable solutions to problems. Aid workers are not some mustache-twirling, dependency-creating villains.
The argument against "giving a man a fish" is very convenient for people that don't want to do anything to help. Starving people need food. They don't love starving. They're not starving out of spite or to make us feel guilty. Even if it's their own fault they're starving, basic morality mandates that we try to help. I'm not religious, but less misery in the world, by any means necessary, seems a worthy goal.
As for Russia and China helping out rural America, I wish they would. At least someone would be helping then. I would, in fact, welcome their assistance in urban areas as well. I do regular volunteer work with a little free pantry nearby and it is cleaned out every single day. That is a societal failure and the US government just made it worse on purpose.
I'm responding out of order to your statements, but the "both sides" argument you have here is a false equivalence. I don't love the Democratic party, but there is a wide gap in cynical manipulation of the law and procedure between them and the Republicans. Are you intimating that Democrat legislators sat on Supreme Court nominees while waiting out a Republican presidency? That a Democrat-controlled congress abdicated their budgetary and oversight responsibilities to a Democrat president? There is a clear difference in respect for institutions between our two political options and saying "they're both bad" seeks to minimize the misconduct of American far-right conservatives and overstate the failings of our wembling, capitulating, center-left Democratic party.
I understand that you are most likely tired of reading this from me and I appreciate the time you have taken to do so.
NGO workers may not be 'mustache-twirling villains' but USAID literally is, well perhaps sans the mustache. They are actively and regularly used to destroy and/or manipulate countries while operating under the pretext of aid. Their purpose is not to help other countries, but to manipulate them.
What I'm saying about sustainability is not some outside angle. Look at most of any effective charity doing work in impoverished places and it's always about sustainability. In the most typical example you don't simply give water to people - instead you encourage, and if necessary - assist, them in building wells. Charity will eventually run out for one reason or another, and when your entire system has been built with no focus on sustainability you can create catastrophic scenarios.
And I don't really think there is some huge gap in between the parties - they both keep stooping to ever new lows in order to get one off on 'the other side' all while they are both are in almost complete harmony when it comes to corporate handouts and warmongering. As I'm sure you're aware I could list a zillion things the DNC has done, but I don't really see the point? Do we give each side -1 point for each time they screwed people over, and see who gets the lowest score.. and probably still not change our views? It's pointless.
And no, why would I be tired of reading what you're writing? What fun is there is in talking to somebody you agree with? 'Yeah man, you're so right, and so I am. Yeah... yeah.' Having a good healthy debate is far more pleasant. For instance in our little conversation you really shattered my stereotypes by stating you'd be happy with Russia or China providing support to rural areas, and that's always a fun thing!
>NGO workers may not be 'mustache-twirling villains' but USAID literally is, well perhaps sans the mustache. They are actively and regularly used to destroy and/or manipulate countries while operating under the pretext of aid. Their purpose is not to help other countries, but to manipulate them.
Since the tone of our conversation has turned more reasonable, it is my hope that you can see how sweeping this generalization is. Given the amount of misinformation surrounding USAID (just check Snopes, man), I'm loath to accept this claim on its face. I reject your assertion that the world is better by destroying USAID and replacing it with nothing. This is costing lives both foreign and domestic. If I withheld promised food and medicine from starving and sick people, they would die and it would be my fault. I don't see any reasonable conclusion otherwise. You can try to argue otherwise, but I would refuse to endorse such vile callousness.
>What I'm saying about sustainability is not some outside angle. Look at most of any effective charity doing work in impoverished places and it's always about sustainability. In the most typical example you don't simply give water to people - instead you encourage, and if necessary - assist, them in building wells. Charity will eventually run out for one reason or another, and when your entire system has been built with no focus on sustainability you can create catastrophic scenarios.
I'm not trying to be obtuse, but I'm not seeing your point here. You're advocating for a "correct" kind of assistance and the world just doesn't work that way. There's many different kinds of charity and assistance and they all serve different purposes, so your argument is just simplifying a complex interplay of variables to a single equation.
I applaud the long-term strategic view you are espousing, but you appear to be falling into the trap of assuming that all of these problems actually have solutions. We can wax poetic about teaching a man to fish, but that man is going to die if we don't give him a damn fish first. The clean, elegant solutions to global problems you're alluding to aren't being implemented because they're difficult and fraught with peril. This is going to be a little offensive, but do you honestly believe that no one else thought of trying to make these beneficiaries self-sufficient? It's hard and people were (and are) trying.
Regarding a point system about political malfeasance, why not? If we're going to engage in relativism, we should at least know how they stack up relatively rather than waving our hands and saying "everybody sucks." It's irresponsible and intellectually lazy.
Also, if you can list a single Democrat misdeed on par with January 6, delaying Supreme Court appointments, or abdicating the power of the purse then please do. Just one. Anything. The catch here is that is has to have actually happened. It can't be some slopped-up "they wanted to do this" or unrealized conspiracy. It has to have actually happened in America on Earth within the last 3 decades.
After that, I'm okay with counting as well. We all need to keep track of how power is applied with neither tribalism nor nihilism.
Apologies in advance for the link bombing in this response. I want to make it clear that what I'm saying is not off the cuff.
USAID was founded in the early Cold War era precisely as a weapon against the Soviet Union and the "international communist conspiracy." An amusing quote that is taken verbatim from the Foreign Assistance Act, which you can read here. [1] You can also see this is the funding prioritization. USAID was being funded with ~$50 billion. That's substantially greater than the budget of, for instance, NASA even as we approach the dawn of the space age. The government does not value "high-minded altruism" more than it does maintaining supremacy in space, but they certainly value maintaining dominance of other countries above it. You can also see the exact issues I'm focusing on in academic analyses, such as here [2].
USAID also operates in complete contradiction to international agreements on aid such as the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. [3] You will note that point #1 is "ownership" which is again focused entirely on sustainability by ensuring that developing countries own the means to sustain themselves. Rejection of this is not normal and USAID was actively criticized for such. FOCAC [4] is the analog Chinese equivalent (for Africa at least) and they are actively and they're openly attacking USAID's behavior in a way that has generally been highly effective in developing true soft power in Africa, because it's not like these countries don't know what we're doing.
Quoting the Wiki on FOCAC, the Chinese position is that "Each country has the right to choose, in its course of development, its own social system, development model, and way of life in light of its national conditions... Moreover, the politicization of human rights conditionalities on economic assistance should be vigorously opposed to as they constitute a violation of human rights." And FOCAC has indeed been highly involved in the deploying of permanent structures, training of locals, and much more.
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As for the US political stuff - ok fine. I'll raise you formally legalizing indefinite detention without trial, including of American citizens on American soil, signed into law, and advocated for, by Obama. [5] I'm really tempted to on some rant here, but again I just don't see the point.
[1] - https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-1071/pdf/COMPS-107...
[2] - https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-22219-3_...
[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_level_forums_on_aid_effec...
[4] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_on_China%E2%80%93Africa_...
[5] - https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/president-obama-signs-in...
This may be a good point to recap. It is not my intent to misstate your rationales here, so please tell me if I have mischaracterized your viewpoint. Nuance is tragically difficult to convey on HN.
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Your initial argument, which I believe we're still discussing, was "Whatever good USAID may have done, could be far more effectively done by another organization without all of their baggage and corruption." The implicit assertion here is that USAID was rightfully defunded and that that was correct given the way it has conducted itself since 1961. You have submitted evidence regarding its creation and the underlying intent therein as well as documented instances of poor, ineffective behavior.
My argument is that the manner in which USAID was defunded is indefensible because it was done without consideration of existing obligations, thereby creating a vacuum of support.
To this point, I haven't seen any argument to my issue with the method of USAID's dismantling. We're talking about real harm to real people's lives and livelihoods and you've ignored that aspect entirely and countered with more information about the organization.
Let me say it plainly: I do not care about USAID the agency and its history. I care about the careless way in which its contracts and programs were ended. Saying and proving that USAID was bad doesn't justify canceling the good works for which it was responsible.
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A second point of discussion was on the nature of effective charity. This is an altogether deeper topic, so bear with me on this:
You are advocating that charitable organizations should be working to solve root problems and not just providing material assistance. Additionally, you have stated that charitable contributions are not a sustainable means of helping people in the longer term.
My argument is that that you always need both.
As I've done more and more volunteer work and gotten out of my comfort zone of affluence, I've become much more dismissive of any proposed "perfect" or "optimal" solutions. There is a tendency, especially in America, to reject any solution that doesn't completely solve a problem. The alternative to the rejected solution typically being to continue doing whatever is currently being done.
Can you see how this appears to be what you're engaging in? Giving food to poor people is not an optimal solution. I agree that it would be better if the poor people got their own food, but that's not happening right now. Stopping the conversation at what "should" be happening might make us feel better about ourselves, but it does nothing to combat human misery.
This point is also a distraction from my fundamental question: Should USAID have been dismantled without a transition plan? I don't mind that we've veered off into the nature of effective charity since that is a topic in which I have an interest, but I believe that we're here because of a rationalization on your part to downplay the impact of USAID's work.
Since we're talkin about people and their actual lives, we have to be aware of outcomes. There is no shortage of talk about "how" to help people and a dearth of people actually doing something about it. USAID, in a very real way, was involved in doing some positive things both domestically and abroad. That is gone now and your argument seems to be that the outcomes could have been better if something that never happened was done instead.
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Following that, there is a side discussion relating to what I'll refer to as "bothsidesism":
Your original assertion is that defunding USAID is not as severe as it may seem now because the other party will come back and rebuild that organization when they're back in power. You expand the argument to say both sides operate in largely the same manner.
My response, minus substantial snark, is that the is that there are exceedingly clear differences in conduct between the two political parties, particularly as it relates to abuse of power and procedural rules.
Thanks so much for reminding me about indefinite detention. I hope Dianne Feinstein rots for eternity for shoehorning that clause into a budget bill. It was disgusting then and they tried to backpedal into limiting it and just making it worse. I don't see how legally drafting, passing, and signing a terrible provision on a bill is on par with the abuses of procedure that I mentioned.
You are correct, though: this part of the discussion will not be particularly fruitful. I would ask that you reflect on the horror show that has been the last 2 months and ask yourself what the news would look like if Joe Biden did any of the same things.
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Finally, jlcases reminds us that serious discussion on the internet is even more difficult in the age of AI. Thanks, jlcases!
My view with cancelling USAID is that the world is a better place because of such. Could it have been made even better if somehow we were able to selectively pick and choose 'worthy' programs and work to transition them out? Maybe, but perfect is not the enemy of good. And the reason I say maybe is because I have high doubts such a transitioning could have been done effectively in anything like a remotely viable timeframe. What genuine impact is felt with USAID's demise will be able to filled by the countless other aid organizations working in places like Africa.
And while perfect is not the enemy of good, bad certainly is. And altruism without consideration of the consequences can easily become harmful. A recurring example is with food. A country will suffer some force majeure and be flooded with ongoing international donations of food. This sends the price of most basic foodstuffs plummeting, local farmers lose their livelihood, and suddenly the country becomes completely dependent upon foreign powers for food. This also happens when countries are encouraged by global organizations to lower food tariffs. This is one of the many ways that altruism can be weaponized - intentionally hurting by "helping."
As for the politics stuff, I do not agree that refusing to advance a Supreme Court Candidate is worse than enabling legal indefinite detention of citizens without trial or representation. And, with all due respect, I'm fairly certain you don't think so either. I can't comment on the past two months because I'm generally quite supportive of it, though I did not vote for Trump either time.
In general though I think the notion of an 'advanced economy' is farcical: You take all of the most critical parts of your economy, ship them off elsewhere, and largely replace them with superflous luxury goods and services. I see this as both exploitative and unsustainable, and it creates behemoth multinational corporations that, in many ways, end up having even more power than governments. I'd like to imagine we learned a lesson or two from the East India Company. But perhaps it's like 1984, we did learn lessons - just the wrong ones.
We are unfortunately destined to disagree on these points and definitely some others. You do write very well and I believe you have some reasons for your positions, but they don't appear logically consistent to me.
Just to descend into pedantry: "Perfect is the enemy of the good." That's the aphorism. The misapplication undercuts the argument you're making from a composition standpoint. It's like you're saying "the sword is mightier than the pen."
Your position on ending USAID is impractical on a moral basis. If the solution you're comfortable with is to risk people dying when the alternative was to take a period of time to responsibly transition obligations, then I conclude that the immediate welfare of those people is less important to you than the shuttering of USAID. Was the situation so dire that we couldn't even ship food and medicine for which we had already paid? This is the equivalent of addressing the trolley problem by arresting the bystander and turning your back on the whole troublesome thing.
This fragment is also disappointing for me: "[...] if somehow we were able to selectively pick and choose 'worthy' programs [...]". Somehow? All of USAID's programs were actively reporting status and commitments and that information was not utilized. I understand that you support one of the outcomes, ending USAID, but the collateral damage was entirely avoidable. You're creating a false urgency here and I can't quite determine if it is a blind spot in your reasoning or a rhetorical trick.
You also counter with:
1) a "slippery slope" argument that leads to the expedient conclusion that we should leave everything to someone else because we wouldn't want to harm someone by helping too much and then having something go wrong thereby leaving them in a worse position than they would be otherwise. That's very convenient.
2) an implicit accusation that all USAID programs existed without consideration of consequences. I say "all" because the existence of any USAID programs that were thoughtfully implemented with sustainability in mind are prevented from sliding down your slippery slope because anyone else would have to do as good as or better than USAID in order for it to make any difference in the outcome.
Can you see how fallacy-ridden your reasoning is here? You should reconcile these beliefs against an ethical framework. Just pick one or two and think about it.
This turned out surprisingly lengthy. I want to support my claims with examples to make it clear that this isn't just hand-waving or off the cuff claims, so such as it is!
I am not opposed to shipping aid that was already paid for if it would go to waste otherwise, but when we speak of transitioning programs in general, that would require an audit of each and every program - which is likely impossible. The reason is that when USAID does things it is done indirectly, by relying on contractors, subcontractors and other entities. Let's consider the rebuilding of Haiti. They were involved in that operation, spearheaded by the Red Cross, which ended up spending hundreds of millions of dollars to build exactly 6 permanent housing units, and exactly 0 people were held accountable. How could this happen?
If you look at their disbursements they're always going to go to plausible sounding entities, for plausible sounding amounts of funding, that plausibly contribute to a goal in a logical way. So to actually audit this you need to get down on the ground level, worldwide, and start auditing those contractors. But each of them will also be doing the exact same thing on down a chain with ever less reliable accounting and other variability. Even if you can finally get to a 'leaf node' they may have plausible shells entities setup, may have 'gone out of business', or maybe they never even existed and it actually turns out the leaf-1 node sent you on a wild goose chase. It's just not really practical. This is why I think auditing each program is simply not viable.
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My fundamental argument is that USAID is an agency that uses aid as a weapon, which misaligns their efforts. This was the point of their founding and has been clearly demonstrated by contemporary actions as well, let alone the classified programs they were involved in. Because of this, I think their dismantling is making the world a better place. Could it have been done even better? Maybe, but then we're back to the above. You can also see this weaponization in Haiti.
After the earthquake USAID decided to spend some of their funding [1] getting people to vote for this [2] fine fellow and against this [3] lady, a constitutional law professor and widow of a former president. "Her platform for the presidency included a focus on education of the youth of Haiti, and lifting the long-standing and restrictive constitutional conditions on dual nationality. She specifically promoted opening government positions for members of the Haitian diaspora. Manigat also aimed for a more independent Haitian state, one less reliant upon and subject to foreign governments and NGOs."
Instead USAID encouraged people to vote for a musician with no political experience who was "notorious for his cursing on stage, cross-dressing as well as using homophobic slurs." He'd eventually end up being sanctioned by the US and Canada for being involved in drug trafficking to the US, human rights violations, and overtly backing armed Haitian criminal gangs. His reign also unsurprisingly featured excessive corruption, him taking millions in bribes (in a country with a GDP/capita of less than $4k), and more.
It's likely that the main reason USAID was backing him is because his opponent was in favor of a more independent Haiti. Who would have been better for Haitians? But who would be better for the US? Hahaha, I'll grant the drug trafficking kind of makes that a harder question than it should be, but obviously I mean in more of a geopolitical Haiti-US sense than a personal one. Haiti remains in a completely horrific state, and I don't think "aid" that comes with these sort of strings attached is helping anybody, and is certainly causing substantial suffering. And this is a fairly softball example of weaponized aid!
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[1] - https://cepr.net/publications/revealed-usaid-funded-group-su...
That's great to hear! Building that semantic structuring module, especially with a MECE approach, would significantly enhance the pipeline's value for complex downstream tasks like knowledge graph creation or advanced RAG systems.
The challenge often lies in defining the right hierarchical taxonomy and relationship types for diverse document domains. If you're exploring approaches, principles from enterprise knowledge management and structured ontologies might offer useful parallels.
Excited to see how this evolves! It addresses a critical gap in the ML data preparation landscape.
Saying "millions have died" when nobody has died is disingenuous, even if one honestly projects that millions will die. You don't get to use the past tense until the event actually happens.
Realistically, it will be at least in the tens of millions
I had the same initial reaction but time will tell.
> added hundreds of billions in costs and killed millions of people
Could you provide a source for this? Or is this just an r/politics moment?
DOGE didn't abolish PEPFAR, they reduced its budget by 25%. Probably because ~50% of that budget was being wasted. There's likely still a big buffer before anyone runs out of meds.
Also there are lots of private donors who would make up the difference (if it's only 20% of Americans, that's more than 65 million people, who can easily come up with 25% shortfall of the $6.5B budget, that's less than $10 per person).
> Probably because ~50% of that budget was being wasted.
Crazy how you just made this up.
> There's likely still a big buffer before anyone runs out of meds.
And this.
> Also there are lots of private donors who would make up the difference (if it's only 20% of Americans, that's more than 65 million people, who can easily come up with 25% shortfall of the $6.5B budget, that's less than $10 per person).
Now you're just being absurd.
You're literally describing the tax system that was funding it before it was axed by the guy who can't stop making mistakes.
> You're literally describing the tax system that was funding it before it was axed by the guy who can't stop making mistakes.
The tax system took from those who didn't want to pay for corruption, only the actual aid.
They will continue to pay 75%, and those who wish to pay for the remaining 25% can do so voluntarily.
What DOGE activities are you referring to that added hundreds of billions in costs and killed millions of people?
https://www.wired.com/story/doge-rebuild-social-security-adm...
Though I'm counting that as future potential costs and deaths.
Ignoring the obvious opinion of the author, anybody who has ever worked on any sort of medium to large scale migration, refactoring or rewriting of a computer system knows that's a comically ridiculous timescale and when it inevitably fails there will be consequences, counted in both money and lives.
But that's a (very near) future fuck-up that he will almost certainly spin or move the goalposts for.
That you can draw a direct line to right now, not much other than all the cuts to critical infrastructure.
To be clear, I'm not arguing against cuts and efficiency initiatives, i'm saying he's an idiot who doesn't know what he's doing, so his implementation will be shoddy and dangerous.
See: The Cybertruck, The Boring Company, The Decline of X.
As you are implying though, nothing major so far, aside from USAID i suppose (or the VA), does removing systems actively (and provably) preventing deaths count?
These are systematic problems that will take a while to shake out into their inevitable consequences.
He'll probably still fail upwards though, unless he gets luigi'd or just drops dead of a ket induced heart attack or something.
[flagged]
So given you didn't address any other part of the reply am i to assume you agree ?
Future consequences and poor outcomes based on current day incompetence and mismanagement ?
To address your reply:
If you don't know the phrase "there is no ethical consumption" then looking it up might be interesting reading for you, it's a large part of the plot from the last half of "the good place", if that helps at all.
Anyway ,it's the same idea but taken to it's logical conclusion, everything everyone does is causing harm in some way somewhere down the chain and therefore it's impossible to do anything without some harm being caused.
If that's your point then i agree, but specifically here i was pointing out the direct point to point link between removing monetary aid and the deaths of people relying upon that aid.
You asked for costs on money and lives, and while i think billions and millions were hyperbole there are still directly attributable deaths, even now.
The key part here is the "directly"
The difference between "physically taking away someones food until they starve to death" vs "participating in a societal structure that routinely lets people starve to death" one is direct taking an action to achieve an outcome, the other is not.
I think those numbers will grow significantly larger in relatively short order, i think it's naive to think DOGE is running on any platform of competence but it's entirely possible i'm wrong.
However, there's not a lot of evidence i am wrong,
There are two points I'd like to address here.
>So given you didn't address any other part of the reply am i to assume you agree ? Future consequences and poor outcomes based on current day incompetence and mismanagement ?
With your post I was replying to? I do agree with large parts of it. I think Elon Musk brought a "move fast and break things" approach to the Federal government, which has traditionally not been a place where that approach is welcome, and the "break things" part certainly carries a different level of impact when the thing being broken is the single income source of many people who either neglected to adequately financially prepare themselves for retirement, were unable to avoid unexpected financial difficulties in life, or otherwise wound up in a situation where they were left otherwise destitute in old age (e.g. romance scammers stole their entire private retirement balance). That said, to answer the core question being asked: "does removing systems actively (and provably) preventing deaths count [as killing people]?", I don't necessary think so as a rule of thumb. I see a fundamental difference between initiating an act of violence designed to deprive someone else of their life or safety, and overly hasty bureaucratic maneuvering to attempt to streamline efficiency, however reckless the latter may be carried out. This doesn't necessarily mean I condone the approach DOGE is taking, either.
>To address your reply: You asked for costs on money and lives, and while i think billions and millions were hyperbole there are still directly attributable deaths, even now.
I am sorry if I phrased my question poorly, I was not attempting to ask whether this could or would cost hundreds of billions of dollars and/or millions of lives, but rather whether it has cost billions of dollars and/or millions of lives, as the original post made by ZeroGravitas seemed to imply, from the way I read it.
Ah, that makes sense.
As i alluded to in my post i don't think it has hit the hyperbolic numbers provided in the original post.
I suspect they will be hit in the short-ish term 1-3 years, but these kinds of things are notoriously difficult to calculate, especially when the actual data around it will almost certainly be purposefully obfuscated.
As you said though ,that wasn't what you were asking.
"Move fast and break things" is a concept referring to not worrying too much about breaking existing solutions or integrations while *improving* them.
Declaring a laughably unrealistic timescale to replace a system millions of people rely upon to survive isn't innovative or groundbreaking, it's reckless and dangerous, bordering on callous.
There could genuinely be an argument made that he's so narcissistic and delusional that he genuinely doesn't realise how badly this is going to pan out, in which case the intent might not be malicious but accidentally killing tens/hundreds of thousands of people because you don't think things through isn't a good enough excuse for me personally.
But then you get statements like "empathy is a weakness" that point to him at least partially understanding what's going to happen and just not caring.
i'd like to address a specific reference in your reply:
> neglected to adequately financially prepare themselves for retirement, were unable to avoid unexpected financial difficulties in life
To me that shows a fundamental misunderstanding of just how difficult modern financial stability is to achieve for a large proportion of the population.
Living paycheque to paycheque can sometimes be neglect yes, but i'd wager that far more instances of that are due to the increasing gap between cost of living and actual wages.
It's difficult to plan for retirement when you work a 60 hour week and are only just covering rent and food.
It also doesn't address the fact that social security is funded by taxes, it's not a handout, people make financial decisions based on the information they have, the information they had was "pay your taxes and when it comes time to stop working you'll get some assistance".
If you want to kill it, fine, stop taxing people to pay in to it, removing it after an entire lifetime of paying in to the system is basically theft.
>To me that shows a fundamental misunderstanding of just how difficult modern financial stability is to achieve for a large proportion of the population. Living paycheque to paycheque can sometimes be neglect yes, but i'd wager that far more instances of that are due to the increasing gap between cost of living and actual wages. It's difficult to plan for retirement when you work a 60 hour week and are only just covering rent and food.
I try to take a very humble approach in evaluating what I'm entitled to. I don't believe that I'm automatically entitled to a large enough income to build long-term prosperity just because I am working 60 hours a week. At the end of the day, if I spend 60 hours digging ditches to lay fiber that is mostly used for Netflix, Youtube, and adult video content, I have delivered less value to society than if I spent 60 hours developing a new pharmaceutical drug that saved a hundred thousand lives, haven't I? It's certainly not fair, but life does not drop all of us into the adult world with an equal upbringing, an equal education, or the equal training necessary for us all to produce the same amount of value. If I want to achieve a higher income, I see that as fundamentally a "me" problem, not a problem with other people - it means I have a duty to go above and beyond, to work harder, to study longer, to research which skills have higher demand in society, to educate and train myself, and to strive for the goals that I want to achieve, because I don't believed I'm really "owed" much besides the right to life, liberty, private property, and the pursuit of happiness, which is not the same thing as a right to happiness itself, I might add. This also means I don't think I'm entitled to wage increases that match the rate of inflation. If I want to extract more value from employment, I have a duty to make myself more valuable.
I don't necessarily think everyone is capable of becoming a multi-millionaire, but I do think (almost) everyone is capable of working harder, studying more, watching less TV, buying less "wants" rather than just "needs" (recall that the most prolific purchasers of lottery tickets are the bottom two quintiles), of saving up money diligently, of being more frugal than we are, etc. Obvious exceptions apply to people with profound mental or physical disabilities, of course, but most of us are not quadriplegics or suffering from severe schizophrenia - and even those kinds of barriers haven't prevented people like Stephen Hawking or Terry Davis from going on to produce profound and noteworthy outputs. Obviously that's not the bar for people suffering from such disabilities, but I think most people are capable of much more than we give them credit for.
>It also doesn't address the fact that social security is funded by taxes, it's not a handout, people make financial decisions based on the information they have, the information they had was "pay your taxes and when it comes time to stop working you'll get some assistance". If you want to kill it, fine, stop taxing people to pay in to it, removing it after an entire lifetime of paying in to the system is basically theft.
I agree that this is a problem, and simply stripping people of benefits they spent a lifetime paying into is as fundamentally unfair as forcing them to pay into a program with no choice to opt out was. The solution needs to be compassionate, and it logically follows to me that the people calling for radical reform should be the first to offer self-sacrifice to be part of the solution. I'm a big proponent of allowing everyone to have the option to permanently opt out of receiving benefits for life from these programs, in exchange for a small tax credit or deduction to offset the FICA taxes they will continue to pay in to help fund benefits for the current or near-current retirees. I'd be the first to volunteer for such a program.
I think that rather than a fundamental misunderstanding this is more of a fundamentally different outlook between us.
I understand the draw of seeing 'value' as a metric by which to judge things but i don't generally take that approach myself.
I find that what constitutes 'value' is too nebulous a concept on which to place foundations.
That isn't to say it isn't useful and that i don't use it, just that it's less of a core belief than it is a useful tool in some contexts.
To take your example of netflix, youtube and adult content, some may see that kind of entertainment as a valuable contribution to modern society and thus by being the facilitator you are contributing to society as a whole.
Youtube especially is the vehicle for a lot of information dissemination (both good and bad, for whatever metric you use for such things).
Spending that time making a pharmaceutical drug that then gets bought and shelved because it undercuts profit margins on an existing product because of corporate greed means you'd have essentially contributed to profit margins rather than society as a whole.
Or just absorbed my the private medical complex as a whole.
See : Insulin
And i wasn't implying people were owed anything for just existing, i specifically implied they were owed the service that they had paid in to for their whole lives.
Whether or not you are entitled to wage increases in line with inflation isn't the point i was making (the economics behind it are fascinating though), i was saying that the idea that people being negligent as a major contribution to lack of retirements funds is a faulty premise in a lot of cases, because it isn't that they could have and chose not to , it's that they never had the opportunity.
> I don't believed I'm really "owed" much besides the right to life, liberty, private property, and the pursuit of happiness,
I agree with the not owed much sentiment but i can't see how you resolve that with "except these somewhat substantial concepts", especially when you throw "private property" in there.
Working from a baseline you aren't owed anything means you aren't owed those things, you go back to pre-civilisation times, you get what you earn and keep what you can defend.
As soon as you start introducing societal concepts such as the right to liberty or private property then you introduce the idea of societal expectations and obligations, from all included parties, including governing bodies.
Even societies with small tribal numbers had the idea of looking after the elderly to a degree.
> I try to take a very humble approach in evaluating what I'm entitled to
and it seems a very privileged view of how modern society currently 'works'.
A lot of the things you have said are applicable to a specific subset of the population, namely lower-middle to upper-middle class ( the traditional class system is a shitty metric but people know it so... ) .
They don't work for anybody near the poverty line and don't apply to people who are already wealthy.
> I don't necessarily think everyone is capable of becoming a multi-millionaire,
Agreed
> but I do think (almost) everyone is capable of working harder, studying more, watching less TV, buying less "wants" rather than just "needs"
Look up the actual poverty line statistics to see what kind of numbers you are looking at for who can afford "needs".
> (recall that the most prolific purchasers of lottery tickets are the bottom two quintiles)
There is a reason for that and a reason why it's sometimes considered a "poverty tax".
With no good options for upward mobility the idea of a very low chance at changing your life is much more appealing.
People with money don't need to win the lottery, so why would they buy lottery tickets?
> of saving up money diligently, of being more frugal than we are
Partially agreed, see my response about actual poverty statistics.
> Obvious exceptions apply to people with profound mental or physical disabilities, of course, but most of us are not quadriplegics or suffering from severe schizophrenia - and even those kinds of barriers haven't prevented people like Stephen Hawking or Terry Davis from going on to produce profound and noteworthy outputs. Obviously that's not the bar for people suffering from such disabilities, but I think most people are capable of much more than we give them credit for.
How about the ones that aren't actively providing 'value' or are in fact providing negative 'value'?
That is one of the reasons i find 'value' based belief systems, when considering people, to be a weak foundation.
Stephen hawking is a bad example because he was 'valuable' before his disability kicked in fully.
Modern society is set up for the 'average' person, anybody deviating from that average is working from a starting deficit.
> I agree that this is a problem, and simply stripping people of benefits they spent a lifetime paying into is as fundamentally unfair as forcing them to pay into a program with no choice to opt out was. The solution needs to be compassionate, and it logically follows to me that the people calling for radical reform should be the first to offer self-sacrifice to be part of the solution.
Agreed and currently the head of the division in charge of creating and applying those solutions (or deciding to cut existing ones) in the US government thinks empathy is a weakness and is a multi-billionaire.
> I'm a big proponent of allowing everyone to have the option to permanently opt out of receiving benefits for life from these programs, in exchange for a small tax credit or deduction to offset the FICA taxes they will continue to pay in to help fund benefits for the current or near-current retirees. I'd be the first to volunteer for such a program.
This is interesting as a concept, though i doubt many of the current governments could pull off the administrative side of such a system.
I also think, they'd actively fight any such suggestion, because given how things are now they'd have a large proportion of the current and future generations opting out, not because the governments want to provide a safety net, but because they couldn't deal with the shortfall in the budget.
This would need to be part of a much larger suite of programs and support mechanisms, you think there's a homeless/drug addiction/crime problem now, just wait until you get a whole generation of people who have concrete proof they won't have a viable means of survival once they hit retirement age.
> was taken from others without their consent
Wait, what? Since when our tax dollars taken from us without consent? What are you talking about?
> Since when our tax dollars taken from us without consent?
Since forever? You can't just opt out of paying taxes.
Wait, is the government forcing you to work? Did I miss that somewhere? Is there a provision in the constitution that forces an American citizen to get a job and pay taxes?
That's not even pointing out that you 100% have control of who makes tax policy through this little tiny mechanism called voting.
> Wait, is the government forcing you to work?
No, my own body forces me to work, because fulfilling the basic needs required for my survival costs money.
I'd like to address two points here: the first being the idea that taxes are voluntary, and the second being implicit claims about the nature of the democratic process itself. I will raise some labelled and ordered questions if you care to respond, I understand that this is a subject that can lend easily to hostility, but I want to remind everyone that I am not necessarily refuting what you are saying here, I am just asking follow-up questions to achieve a better understanding of your point of view. I hope we can continue this dialogue respectfully, and if at any point any points I am raising strike you as disrespectful or unkind, please let me know.
First: If paying taxes hypothetically became completely optional, and there were no legal penalties for not paying them (coercion, threat of force, state-sanctioned violence),
1a. Do you think tax revenues would stay almost the same, or be dramatically reduced by this change?
1b. Do you suppose most people would still voluntarily choose to pay taxes of their own free will if there were no individual consequences for not paying them?
1c. If answering in the negative to 1b, how do you characterize taxes being any more "voluntary" than the act of handing my wallet to an armed robber can be considered "voluntary"? i.e. if the motivating force that compels me to pay is a threat of force (either implicitly and roundaboutly, through the legal system, which eventually ends with one staring down the barrel of a gun, or explicitly and expediently, just skipping the other steps and going straight to staring down the barrel of a gun), isn't that ultimately the same act of extortion being justified with / "backed up by" the same threat of force from the same mechanism (firearm) regardless of whether it is by one man calling himself a robber or a million men calling themselves a government?
Second: As individuals, we do not exercise "control" through the democratic process, we express preferences.
2a. From my understanding (please correct me if this is wrong), the DNC has made it clear in both 2016 and in 2024, that the voters do not get to pick the nominee, the DNC's superdelegates do, and they retain the right to nominate candidates that do not have the majority or plurality of popular support even from within their own party, right?
2b. Expanding out to a broader level, does your comment intend to suggest or imply that all results of democratic processes are inherently and automatically voluntarily consented to by the populace on the basis that we were all allowed to vote on it?
2c. If the proposition made in 2b were true, wouldn't that necessarily imply that we both voluntarily consented to the election of Donald Trump, or the invasion of Iraq in search of WMD's that didn't exist? I can't speak for you, but I certainly did not consent to either of those.
2d. If, on the other hand, the proposition made in 2b were false, why is it we can choose not to consent some democratic process outcomes, like a president that we disapprove of, but not others, like the specific details of tax policy?
Sure you can: move!
Or do you mean "you can't benefit from all of the security, infrastructure, and social investments in our country and not pay taxes to it?"
Hasn't this frequently been used as a go-to talking point of xenophobic nationalists pretty extensively in the past? I'm not accusing you of expressing either xenophobic or nationalist sentiment, but don't we have a social responsibility to avoid legitimizing these types of highly divisive talking points?
Also, isn't there room for a middle ground here? I'd love to sign up to opt out of receiving any social security or medicaid benefits permanently for the rest of my life in exchange for a small tax credit or deduction, smaller than the amount I'd expect to receive out of these programs. What's the downside there, if I'm still paying in grossly more than I'm receiving in benefits, and could be liberating taxpayers from a financial responsibility to me that they already can't afford, and which I don't need? I'd prefer to be part of the solution to the deficit, but me leaving the country only exacerbates the problem, given that I pay in close to an order of magnitude more than I get back in return.
I'm anti-war and not a fan of the defense industry, shouldn't I be allowed to stay and express policy preference for less defense spending, even though I benefit from it?
We also cannot assume that everyone is drawing from collective infrastructure investment just because we're all forced to pay into it. Some people use well water, have their own microgrid that is disconnected from the public one, and go out of their way to only utilize private toll roads, private medical services, etc for ethical reasons. Shouldn't we at least give people the freedom of choice to opt out of taking from the collective pool of resources if they do not need to, and in turn, because their utilization is lower, offer them some form of limited incentive to do so, as long as they are still paying in more than they're getting out of the system, ultimately?
Is it fair to give gifts to people who did not ask for them or want them, and then expect the same sacrifices in return from the recipients, regardless of whether not these public services are even utilized or necessary?
> I'd love to sign up to opt out of receiving any social security or medicaid benefits permanently for the rest of my life in exchange for a small tax credit or deduction, smaller than the amount I'd expect to receive out of these programs.
And if you go broke and end up starving on the street, everyone else just needs to bear that cost either through watching you starve to death or by paying to feed you?
It turns out that in practice, the number of people who think they can achieve your proposed outcome is far, far higher than the number that actually does achieve it.
> I'd prefer to be part of the solution to the deficit, but me leaving the country only exacerbates the problem, given that I pay in close to an order of magnitude more than I get back in return.
Sure but you're not leaving the country because, like GP, you are aware you get far more value from your taxes in indirect services.
> shouldn't I be allowed to stay and express policy preference for less defense spending
Sure can! Vote.
> Sure you can: move!
To where? Another country that also forces you to pay taxes? I'm sure there are places in the world where taxes don't exist, but if they were places worth living in, I'm sure way more people would be moving there.
> Or do you mean "you can't benefit from all of the security, infrastructure, and social investments in our country and not pay taxes to it?"
Nobody said anything about whether or not the benefits that result from taxation are worth it. Just that it's mandatory, which it effectively is for the vast majority of people.
It's how they are used, not the taken part - they are taken according to law, thus consent.
Though, money printing (i.e, inflation or borrowing money from the FED) basically seems to happen without consent.
> It's how they are used, not the taken part - they are taken according to law, thus consent
They're also used according to law. That's why there's sometimes talk of a "government shutdown" in the US: it happens when Congress is close to their deadline to write/pass the budget law.
They’re presumably talking about things like USAID and PEPFAR.
(We haven’t seen the costs of slashing these materialize yet, but with PEPFAR in particular there’s a very good chance millions will die without access to the drugs provided under the program.)
Including more than half a million children born with HIV!
Under this logic, aren't all preventable deaths (no matter how much it costs to prevent that death) the same as murder? Doesn't that technically make all of us guilty of murder if we are not all spending our entire paychecks preventing the deaths of others?
No, I’m talking very specifically about things that were previously funded but are not, for what are nakedly callous reasons.
(There’s no need for logical extremes here: PEPFAR wasn’t a very expensive program.)
Why does this not expand to inexpensive programs that haven't been previously funded, but could be? I've read that we can save lives for a handful of dollars per life in Africa with greater access to medical care, mosquito nets, antimalarial drugs, etc.
If getting rid of existing affordable aid is murder, why is failing to render new affordable aid not? Doesn't this inherently place an incentivization mechanism and inherent preference for the old ways of doing things, when newer ways can be more efficient and save more lives with fewer dollars?
The short answer is that removing the aid you were previously providing is more morally salient than not helping in the first place.
Short answers aside, could you stop with the indirection? The original question was whether millions of people could die due to funding cuts. The answer is yes, regardless of your moral views about how you should spend your own money.
This is a false equivalency. No one is saying you need to donate your entire paycheck.
We're not talking about avoiding all preventable deaths. We're talking about taking life-saving treatment away from people who were being effectively treated at a nominal cost.
Taking treatment away from them in lieu of a very good reason is tantamount to murder. "Empathy is weakness" or "going after the woke mind virus" or "Organization X is a criminal organization [non-evidenced]" or "we need more cushion for tax cuts for the wealth" do not qualify as good reasons.
All this was pretty common back in the AOL days. Kelly Hallissey would call your parents, you'd get 2 char screen names just by editing the HTML source code before submitting, end users would run Sub7 and let you control their computers, DosFX and PatOrJK were thriving sites, Dolan would get pounds of dog food delivered to his house by anons for pissing them off.
I did my fair share of hacking when I was 20. Most of it was out of curiosity and stupidity and I tried to never produce any damage. Have I compromised a big website or government server I never leaked credentials or defaced anything. In fact I never bragged publicly and I tried to be quiet, unseen and tried to erase my traces.
I’ve heard about a guy nicknamed Condor who had similar issues but turned out to be one of the best of all times..
What I want to say is that you can’t always judge a person by his past
> hacking
> distributing pirated e-books, bootleg software, and game cheats.
I guess words can mean anything you want them to in 2025.
The article describes actual hacking related activity, you just have to read more than 2 sentences to get to it.
I still don't think it's particularly damning given how many of us were tinkering with hacks and exploits at 15, but you're not being accurate here.
I see that now, but I think I was well-justified in not reading the rest of the article after the opener.
That first sentence set the tone and intent of the rest of the article, and it's a failure of the article to start with what I quoted instead of making it clear what really occurred.
You are quoting only a few words out of the article to create a false impression. Here's another short excerpt, an alleged quote:
> I no longer hack into Paypals, gain root access into other peoples computer (sic), or exploit online websites
I see, thank you for pointing that out. The article should have led with that instead, then. I immediately exited after the ridiculous opener that I quoted. Shoddy writing is shoddy writing.
But let's be clear: I was not out to create a false impression, and I resent your accusation without giving benefit of the doubt.
Irony that the person who assumed the worst of the article author is offended by bad faith accusations.
But I do believe you that you just didn't read it.
I didn't assume anything? I pointed out a specific issue with the opening passage, and how it failed to properly explain the premise of the article, and was quite misleading. It utterly failed its purpose, and it was entirely reasonable to not read any further.
You continue to grossly mischaracterize my comments, and you also are exhibiting an unnecessary attitude that is not conducive to healthy discussion. I thanked you for pointing out what you did. Please re-evaluate how you engage with people.
Not trying to justify the other commenters but, for what it's worth, you actually seem to have misread the sentence from what I can see in your original comment. In particular, the way you separated the phrase "hacking and distributing [stuff]" into the pull quotes
> hacking
> distributing [stuff]
makes it appear as though you read it like "hacking: distributing [stuff]" instead of "hacking and distributing [stuff]". I believe to your point, it would be ridiculous for them to write "was reportedly caught bragging about hacking: distributing pirated e-books, bootleg software, and game cheats" but that's not what they wrote. They are referring individually to "hacking" and "distributing" as separate and distinct things.
You are absolutely correct, upon further review I seem to have misread it. Thank you for pointing that out, that's definitely an error on my part. Thank you for assuming good faith as well.
> Stanley, at 15, bragged about "fucking up servers," a now-deleted Internet Archive screenshot reportedly showed. Another, reneg4d3.com, was launched when he was 16. There, Stanley branded a competing messaging board "stupid noobs" after supposedly gaining admin access through an "easy exploit,"
I'd expect a large percentage of high talent adult developers to have done exactly this at 15 years old if not more.
Pathetic of journalists to be reporting on essentially totally normal 15 year old nerd and neurodivergent things from 20 years ago.
Doing a crime when underage doesn't stop it from being a crime even if tons of people have done it in the past. Bragging about committing a federal crime is not something we should normalise regardless of the neurodivergence (or lack thereof) of the individual.
It does seem to me that some people in this thread are condoning unauthorized computer access (which is a federal crime).
> condoning unauthorized computer access
Yeah I'm condoning it, if you're young, just doing it for fun and not causing any real damage. I think that's fairly normal among computer nerds even if it is a federal crime.
So you also condone people breaking into personal cloud accounts for "fun"? If someone young breaks into a house for "fun" and not causing any "real" damage, you condone that too? How about a commercial building? When does the line stop?
What does "real damage" even mean here?
There is clearly a difference between signing into some server just to see if you can, and breaking & entering into a building. Yes of course they're both wrong, you may even think they should both be serious federal crimes, but it's a very clear difference in degree at the very least.
"Real damage" means exactly what any reasonable person would think it means, I don't even understand the question. If you break a door or window to gain access, that's real damage. If you SSH into a server there is no real damage. If you delete files, there is real damage.
You are still condoning unauthorized computer access. You are accessing facilities or resources that you are not authorized to access. Just because you are typing on a computer does not make it any less worse.
"Real damage" means more than that. You can enter a building without breaking a door or a window, not sure where you got the notion that is not possible. If you enter a building there is no physical damage but the reputation of the security company managing the building gets damaged once it's found out.
Just because you don't see it, does not mean that the damage is not there. Similarly, if you SSH into a server, the company handling the security gets its reputation tarnished. In both cases, there is a financial penalty that those companies will suffer. Someone in some company will be under crazy stress because of your actions. Just because you don't get to meet that person does not mean that the damage is not real. Similarly, accessing someone's private cloud and viewing their files will cause someone emotional distress. Again, you won't see it but does not make it any less real. Imagine, someone spying on you while you sleep (whether online or in person) or while you are in the toilet, again there is no "real damage" according to you but the emotional distress is very much real.
All those people hacking web cams for "fun" without causing "real damage" are indeed causing emotional distress which very much falls under real damage.
I suggest you review your definition of "real damage" as it is likely to get you into trouble one day. You should not be condoning federal crimes.
Respectfully, I suggest you spend a bit more time actually making sure you're responding to what people have actually said and not just what you think they're getting at.
> You are still condoning unauthorized computer access.
Not at all, literally the opposite. You need only to read past one sentence in my post to see: "Yes of course they're both wrong"
> You can enter a building without breaking a door or a window, not sure where you got the notion that is not possible.
Not once did I say it wasn't possible. I was using that as an example: "If you break a door or window to gain access, that's real damage." If. As in, it's not required to do this, but this is an example of "real damage."
> Similarly, if you SSH into a server, the company handling the security gets its reputation tarnished.
If you tell people, yes. And that constitutes real damage. If you SSH into a server to prove to yourself you can do it, and then log out, you have still committed a crime but you have not committed any real damage.
There are absolutely people in this thread making the arguments that you're responding to. Unfortunately I wasn't one of them.
People will defend or denounce hackers not on the actual activity but will base it on politics.
Ic someone aligns with the hacker hacktivist then that person is good. (All the Anonymous activity a decade back), if they don’t like their politics then they want to bring the weight of federal regulation down on them.
People are hypocrites.
For example, Manning, Schwartz. they are typically seen in good light.
Then there is the scourge of those who hack for money (ransomware) that just about everyone hates.
Swartz was acting to make locked-up information (information derived from research largely paid for with tax dollars) free, because he believed it was an injustice to charge people for it.
Stanley was hacking Paypal and defacing other people's forums and websites, for the lulz.
While I think it's safe to say both committed crimes, I'm a lot more sympathetic to Swartz than to Stanley. Anonymous is a bit more grey: they perhaps exposed things that needed to be exposed, but they were often indiscriminate and hurt people in the process.
This isn't politics or hypocrisy; it's thinking critically about different circumstances and applying common-sense ethics and morality.
> Then there is the scourge of those who hack for money (ransomware) that just about everyone hates.
Didn't he mention he hacked other people's PayPal accounts?
Your examples are not about politics per se, but motivation.
I don't really care about ransomware distributors either. I think the burden is on the victim defend their own systems.
I agree that we should be skeptical of the idea that we should judge people in their 30s based on things they did in their teens... but I'm a "high talent adult developer" who had a modem in the '90s and didn't do anything anywhere near as shitty when I was that age.
I dunno. People change a lot as they grow up. But it says something that he was committing computer crimes as a teenager. And now he's participating in the dismantling of a democracy. So I feel like his current actions do actually reflect the crap he pulled as a teen.
> and didn't do anything anywhere near as shitty when I was that age.
Being honest could you even have done it at 15, hard to be virtuous about not doing something you're not capable of.
I used to boast about hacking stuff to my friends at that age, couldn't actually do it though, wasn't smart enough was just teenage bravado.
> hard to be virtuous about not doing something you're not capable of.
I am a good shooter and never in my life I fired a gun in the general direction of another living thing. I simply don't see a point in doing it.
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The context is that administration bypassed the typically vetting processes for almost everyone and is flaunting various rules openly (see signal controversy). Those processes for vetting are important to ensure that folks won't betray the U.S.A. and can be trusted.
This individual might be highly talented and completely trustworthy, but because of how the administration is operating opens everything up for scrutiny including things that should have a bit of scrutiny.
The whole signal thing is an excellent example and I know several people who voted for Trump who agree that was a boneheaded move (having a signal chat at all let alone accidentally adding a journalist to it).
What evidence do you have that DOGE (which is just USDS that everybody loved during the Obama administration) has bypassed any vetting for its employees?
Lots of articles about skipping vetting or bypassing normal process.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/21/politics/trump-temporary-secu...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/15/trump-cabine...
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/22/judge-extends-doge-...
He hacked into PayPal accounts as a kid and now still is messing with people’s lives and livelihoods, the little shit deserves everything he is getting. Bring neurodivergent isn’t a get-out-of-jail free card, bad decisions have consequences.
How do you feel about Aaron Schwartz?
Aaron Swartz believed it was unjust to lock up research papers behind paywalls when most of that research was paid for with tax dollars.
I don't see how you can seriously compare him to someone hacking Paypal and defacing people's websites for fun. Well, unless you're just trying to argue in bad faith, that is.
People commit crimes because they believe it's morally right all the time. That doesn't mean it's not a crime, and the fact that Swartz committed multiple series crimes has never been disputed. It's simply a question of whether you think it was a justifiable crime or not.
So if you don't think Swartz's crimes were justified, you're just talking about two people who both committed crimes. You don't need to be arguing in bad faith to think that they're comparable even if their motives were different.
Imagine if he was an essentially normal 15 year old, and caught breaking into a car instead of into a computer. And didn't spend a few years in college learning to coexist with society. He'd probably still be living in a concentration camp.
Maybe in China
What is pathetic about reporting facts?
Sounds like genuinely good coder in his teens.
I'd definitely hire a decade or two later.
Author seems clueless.
Many here are approaching this as "kids do dumb stuff", which is true, but I don't think that's the point.
The issue is DOGE's almost complete lack of transparency and the fact that they're given unprecedented access to systems that handle trillions of dollars where they come up with nonsencial data like they claim there are 350 year olds collecting Social Security [1].
Normally, leadership positions in government agencies are political appointees, who go through a vetting process and confirmation hearings in the Senate, or they're long-term civil servants. DOGE is exploiting a grey area to designate its staffers as "special government employees", which means neither of these vetting processes apply.
So do I care about this particular employees teenage antics? Not really. But why were they selected for their position at DOJ? And at DOGE? What do they do, exactly? What makes them qualified for that? These are things we should know.
Let me give you a recent example of just insane and seemingly kleptocratic this administration is. DOE just awarded a $1.4 billion contract to manage the SPR [2]. This is something DOE has done until now. Why are they appointing a private company to do it? Who knows? And who are they awarding it to? Well, that's where it gets interesting [3].
We seem to have handed a $1.4 billion to a company that invested in self-storage units to manage the SPR and that company may be linked personally to the Secretary of Energy.
We are witnessing the destruction of the executive branch at the hands of unappointed, unaccountable individuals and I guarantee you the next step will be to privatize these government functions that have been made to fail by gutting them for the sole purpose of transferring wealth from the government to the wealthiest.
[1]: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/social-security-doge-100-150-ye...
[2]: https://www.energy.gov/articles/department-energy-awards-man...
[3]: https://www.tiktok.com/@mrglobaltoo/video/748924589307029431...
Exactly right- why are people talking about Christopher Stanley's teenage antics in regards to an article about Christopher Stanley? Shouldn't everyone be parroting your political views instead?
And good point on Christopher Stanley being unappointed- why isn't every employee of the executive branch appointed? It's all so confusing
What a non-story.
TL;DR
Approx 20 years ago, whilst still a child, a staffer in a contempory politically unpopular US gov dept, bragged on the internet.
Just to note: I'm no trump administration supporter and wouldn't be even if I was American.
Yeah, I am disgusted by what this guy and his fellow DOGErs are doing today, but I really hope I -- currently in my mid-40s -- wouldn't be judged by how I acted in high school.
Though the kind of hacking he did sounds like it was worse than anything I did online in the 90s with my 28.8 modem. I mean, he committed actual computer crimes, and not for any sort of noble purpose.
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Why do so many journos keep making these politically motivated articles.
They're going full mask off, even.
>report says...
>experts see...
I am disappointed arstechnica is among them, too.
This article doesn't seem especially pernicious. The subject matter is newsworthy. The article has a position which you may or may not agree with but it's not unusual in that regard. It's probably slightly better in that regard than most pieces of writing that have a bearing on politics.
> They're going full mask off, even.
What does this mean?
>What does this mean?
"to go mask off" means to drop a façade, and show the true nature.
Here, it means they are not even trying to hide what they are doing anymore: Digging into every DOGE employee they can identify, and slandering them for political gain.
Why else would they care what a random administration employee did in this free time when he was 15 years old?
It is disgusting articles like this are what passes as "journalism" these days.
> slandering them
Is anything in the article factually incorrect? If not, then it's not slander. (Well, not libel. Slander involves speech, while libel is for words.)
It seems these websites did exist, and he admitted to doing all this destructive, anti-social hacking as a teenager. These seem to be facts.
Sure, the article is taking a moral stance on that, but most do. And I happen to agree with them that someone like this guy should be nowhere near sensitive governments systems, especially part of a task force of people who are dismantling democracy in the US.
> These seem to be facts.
Actions the person in question freely admitted having done.
Slander (or more properly in this case "libel") involves saying things that aren't true. Is that actually happening here?
Grep for "alleged".
Not convicted of, but alleged. They are simply digging into DOGE employees and throwing as much shit as they can, in the hopes that something sticks.
You didn't actually answer GP's question.
It would be politically motivated to ignore it.
"Hackers" in the Hollywood sense of the term, which applies here, are a red flag in many real-world scenarios.
And they lack the excellent soundtrack of the movie. Also, rarely are good looking like the ones depicted.
> Why do so many journos keep making these politically motivated articles.
Because a bunch of journalists were being paid by the government to be politically-motivated propagandists, and that gravy train went away because of DOGE.
There's a ton of threads on HN about Doge, but if you search with "site:news.ycombinator.com Internews Network".....only 1 result, in the comments.
from: https://x.com/wikileaks/status/1888072129327083979
USAID has pushed nearly half a billion dollars ($472.6m) through a secretive US government financed NGO, "Internews Network" (IN), which has “worked with” 4,291 media outlets, producing in one year 4,799 hours of broadcasts reaching up to 778 million people and "training” over 9000 journalists (2023 figures). IN has also supported social media censorship initiatives.
The operation claims “offices” in over 30 countries, including main offices in US, London, Paris and regional HQs in Kiev, Bangkok and Nairobi. It is headed up by Jeanne Bourgault, who pays herself $451k a year. Bourgault worked out of the US embassy in Moscow during the early 1990s, where she was in charge of a $250m budget, and in other revolts or conflicts at critical times, before formally rotating out of six years at USAID to IN.
Bourgault’s IN bio and those of its other key people and board members have been recently scrubbed from its website but remain accessible at http://archive.org. Records show the board being co-chaired by Democrat securocrat Richard J. Kessler and Simone Otus Coxe, wife of NVIDIA billionaire Trench Coxe, both major Democratic donors. In 2023, supported by Hillary Clinton, Bourgault launched a $10m IN fund at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). The IN page showing a picture of Bourgault at the CGI has also been deleted.
> USAID has pushed nearly half a billion dollars ($472.6m) through a secretive US government financed NGO, "Internews Network" (IN), which has “worked with” 4,291 media outlets, producing in one year 4,799 hours of broadcasts reaching up to 778 million people and "training” over 9000 journalists (2023 figures). IN has also supported social media censorship initiatives.
This kind of work is extremely important for making the US be seen as the "police of the world" rather than a bully, who will turn a blind eye to genocide when convenient, but will shell civilians if people who come from the same city threaten commercial routes.
For instance, the US strongly condemns the Venezuelan government. At the same time, it doesn't condemn the Saudi government, even though it is obvious for anyone to see the massive human rights infringements that happen there. The US government also doesn't condemn the Bukele government and, currently, they even give Bukele money by paying him to torture prisoners deported from the US.
Do you see a pattern here? Of course the US needs all the favorable media coverage it can get.
>This kind of work is extremely important for making the US be seen as the "police of the world" rather than a bully
My position is we wouldn't need to spend this money spinning bullshit tales if we were neither the world's police nor the world's bully.
> if we were neither the world's police nor the world's bully.
I too would prefer a more peaceful US (and you could continue spending in making the world aspire to be more US-like via USAID). I like the idea behind the country, but the more I understand about the implementation, the less faith I have on it being an example to be followed.