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Comment by Koala_ice | Hacker News Reader

I thoroughyl expect the Deparment of Government Efficiency to recommend U.S. Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) be shut down to save previous taxpayer dollars.

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Am I the only one that is not excited about the next four years being constant banter of this nature? I loathe it. Nothing personal against your comment but the new administration hasn't even gone into office and I cannot get away from this.

They have already announced what they are going to do, with the pro-Trump side saying he's not serious or will mellow out the plan before he takes office, and the anti-Trump side saying he will do exactly what he says he's going to do.

Basically a repeat of 2016.

not a repeat of 2016 at all. he's got every lever of the government at his disposal. stacked supreme court, three branches of government on his side. hiring the worst people for every job possible and hiring only for fealty to him.

this will be much worse than 2016.

He had both chambers in 2016 too, on similarly narrow majorities. The hiring has consistently been for allegiance. The court has changed a little. One thing you don't mention that is perhaps the biggest thing is temperance for reelection. But overall, I don't see much reason that it will be that much different from last time. Talking about things being much worse seems like an emotional statement.

It always falls in the middle. There's a reason politicians are known as liars. Of course they won't do everything they claim on the campaign trail.

Politicians bend the truth or promise what they are later unable to deliver (and often had no chance of delivering). But I think Trump usually tries to deliver on whatever he said in the campaign (like in 2016), like you can expect wide reaching tariffs in January or February (especially since half-way competent advisors, congress, and the courts are probably not going to moderate him as much this time).

Maybe make any computer purchases in December just to be safe.

That would be pretty ironic if Trump is able to deliver more on his promises than other politicians.

Why would it be ironic? He has less regard for the political group and general stability than a more run of the mill politician and now there is explicit immunity for anything he wants to do, like when he sold classified documents but "declassified them in his mind" right before once he got caught.

We watched four years of this already, including a rally with gallows being built in the crowd being told to march on the Capitol (he claims figuratively, and everyone just misunderstood, despite all the posts and planning and travel and tour groups). Last time it was absurd news headline after headline just to distract from the other things going on. We saw some bonkers stuff that would have disqualified other candidates in the past (or at least most candidates probably thought it would).

At this point I think his promises are easier to deliver on and he doesn't care about (and has been made immune from) the consequences that usually temper a politician's ability to deliver. Tariffs, no health plan, another wall (remember when he pardoned bannon for stealing the money they raised for the wall?), "stopping the war in Ukraine" but without a free Ukraine at the end, and decimating government regulatory agencies.

The weirdest part of this narrative for me is how the supporters say he wont do what he promises and the detractors fear he will. I don't know enough history to know if that is common but it sure feels backwards to me.

"The weirdest part of this narrative for me is how the supporters say he wont do what he promises and the detractors fear he will. I don't know enough history to know if that is common but it sure feels backwards to me."

That's pretty common on all highly polarized topics. Happens all the time with stuff like democrat candidates and firearms seizures - supporters walking it back and detractors believing ever word.

Trump is probably the first politician in history where supporters claim he isn’t going to do what he says he is going to do (“take Trump seriously, not literally!”) while his detractors claim that he is. It’s already a weird spot in history.

That's pretty common on all highly polarized topics. Happens all the time with stuff like democrat candidates and firearms seizures - supporters walking it back and detractors believing every word.

when was the last time this happened at the presidential level?

I'm actually not bantering.

I'm also jaded by the constant snark I/we have to resort to to cope and disconnect from the insanity that is today's world

I’m glad you used the word snark since that exact word in the HN guidelines

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

They are like this literally any time a Republican is in the White House. They were like this when Dubya was President too, even though today they act like he's some sort of elder statesman just because he hates Trump.

What? Dubya was selected by the Supreme Court. He started a war after peddling bullshit evidence in front of the whole world. Dubya was and is a piece of shit.

Two wars, but who’s counting?

There were some people (former staff of his) openly asking him, before the election, to denounce Trump. He didn't do that. November 6, he issued a congratulations to Trump. A piece of shit and a coward .

>> but the new administration hasn't even gone into office and I cannot get away from this.

Well, it cuts both ways. New administration should not be talking till they are in office.

Respectfully, why not? That's the whole point of campaigning. I seriously hope an incoming administration has a plan before they get to office. "I wouldn't change anything" fortunately doesn't seem to win elections when everything's sideways.

Campaigning is customarily done before elections, not after.

Campaigning is done right happens between elections. In most countries you only have 4/6 weeks. As Kim Campbell of Canada famously said an election is not the time to debate issues. Now the US has a much longer campaign period.. and elections every 2 years. They are always campaigning.

I hope that the incoming President is not campaigning at this time, nor at any time in the future.

Every US President is constantly campaigning. Not necessarily for his own re-election but to create public pressure on Congress to support his agenda, and then to get votes for his endorsed successor.

That makes no sense

Many other countries have that. It’s like not giving you admin credentials before you contract start. But there’s no credential, the admin power comes from talking. And as a manager of managers, they has to restrain themselfes.

These people have been inundated with the drivel of a billion dollar propaganda machine run by the most expensive campaign in history.

It's gonna take a while before they're back to normal again. I've heard so many "office of government efficiency" jokes in the last week I am tired of it too. But, in their defense if all you hear is how this administration is going to be the fourth reich (lol), destroy the country (lol), introduce fascism (lol), kill people (lol), etc you're going to react in a sarcastic way to anything you can grasp onto.

Though tbf, again, "office of government efficiency" seems like an oxymoron.

Elon chose the name to be a joke.

You’re accusing the wrong side for making a mockery of government institutions.

It is a Doge coin joke, right?

edit: But then again P.A.T.R.I.O.T act etc is a thing so hard to tell if actual joke or just going with how US politicians like to be witty while naming stuff.

What if we use Trump's actual words?

We’ve had them in office before, plus plenty of public statements over the last 10 years.

It’s not exactly baseless speculation. People have things to base their guesses on.

Being right or wrong is often irrelevant to the question of “does it belong on HN?”

Not only do other HN commenters largely agree that it belongs to HN, they decided that it deserves to be the top comment on this discussion, at the time I authored this comment

Which is sad for someone who has been here for well over a decade. I never came here for political banter, I came for technical discussion. Facts, truths and subject matter experts. HN is slowly becoming less concentrated version of that.

Pretending that “politics” exists as something separate or invasive is not only ignorant, it’s dangerous.

If this were a thread about IBM machines of the 1930s, would it be playing “politics” to note that those machines were sold to Nazis and supported by IBM through sub-contractors even while we were at war with them? Is it crossing a line to mention they were used to facilitate the Holocaust?

"I don't want to discuss politics" when it's directly related to the topic at hand, is a complaint from the decadent class. It affects peoples lives, it's relevant, it's entirely plausible given the situation.

People are going to have to deal with the presence of politics in regular life for the unforeseen future, because the luxury of avoiding politics is generally the sign of having good governance.

Let's not pretend everyone is aghast at the goals of this administration. We just had an election and these viewpoints resoundingly won the day.

A non-trivial component to this election was this constant, smug nagging. "We know better, you're all so stupid".

If you turn out to be right, enjoy your smug "I told you so", but until then - these views are a minority and are very tiring to constantly see/hear/read.

Why is tiring to hear a minority especially in this forum?

It wouldn't be of it was not just different variations of "Hitler Hitler Hitler, Russia Russia Russia!"

We've been hearing how doomed democracy is for the better part of 10 years now. It's really old...

Oh, you’ll be hearing it for much longer. Greetings from Germany.

Wait, when you see someone say "department of government efficiency" and mention corruption you hear "hitler hitler hitler"?

Maybe you're just really tired of hearing any criticism of blatant corruption and I'm sorry you're feeling that way. I bet that feels really discouraging and tedious and adversarial.

To me this comment reads as a callout of corruption, not fascism. The hitler criticisms you mentioned, in my experience, have been for things like the maga hats with the nazi font, the republican convention stage in the shape of the SS glyph, and the claim that immigrants are watering down the proper American bloodlines.

To your other request that people stop sharing their concerns: just because a lot of people vote for something doesn't mean it's inherently ethical nor does it mean people should be silenced. My assumption is most people don't want corruption or abuse or racism or fascism; if you think that too then you might have better success helping people understand why they are mistaken about what looks like corruption instead of telling people to just stop sharing opinions you're personally tired of reading.

Ah great, he doubles down on it. Good stuff.

You just have to hear it and I can't visit the city I was born in, so you will keep hearing it.

Because you are sharing legacy media's views. We can turn on a tv for that.

In fairness, we can turn on a tv for any view. There's like a gazillion channels. Just pick your poison.

Doesn’t Fox News routinely get the highest ratings too?

I'm not Nielsen Ratings or anything, but that would be consistent with what I would think. Fox viewers being older, and older being consistent with tv viewers. Younger being consistent with TikTok, YouTube, InstaFaceTwit intake.

Fox has the youngest demo (500,000 for Jessie Watters) and most viewers. At night or during the day. Interesting cnbc has the oldest audience and least. Gutfeld crushes all late night shows (Tonight show, Late Show, Kimmel).

https://www.newsweek.com/chart-shows-network-ratings-2024-el...

“Young” among tv viewers is different from “young” among social media tiktok’ers. The article you linked actually says that exact thing:

> “suggesting younger voters were either less engaged, or getting their election night information from other sources such as social media and at-home streaming, which are not tracked by Nielsen.”

Young people won’t watch tv unless there’s a game or tv series on they’re interested in. Even then, a lot of them will DVR it on Hulu or something. If you want those eyeballs, you’re going to need to be creative. And tv networks can’t be as creative as instaFaceSnap, Netflix and TikTwitGram.

> legacy media

Doesn't Fox News have the highest viewer numbers of any of the news stations? What fraction of local news stations are owned by Sinclair? I don't think you get to call "legacy media" out for being liberal when such a large part is not.

No, fox News isn't the highest. ABC,CBS and NBC News have more viewers.

Combined? Fox takes all of the top 10 positions in overall/demo group. Top among the youth / all / daytime / nighttime.

only some special minorities can be heard while others are shut down

Your browser has an X button (I suspect)

I don't know man?

The vote was like 50.1 to 48.2 at latest (accurate) count. Which is terrible news to everyone. Because, unless my math is wrong, that means there were more people who were so unmoved by either party that they couldn't be arsed to go out and vote, than there were voters for either party.

And all those people are pissed off.

Personally, I think stuff like comments on HN and Twitter are gonna be a good pressure valve over the next few years. Maybe even some Onion, Saturday Night Live and Daily Show for those masses. Because if those people ever get what they perceive to be a reason? I mean, they've already shown fairly consistently that they're no longer interested in the whole non-violent democratic norm of voting thing. And if a guy like Trump can't even bring them out, that means they're not at all interested in anything either side is selling.

After looking at those numbers, I guess I just wouldn't be so sure that the people making these comments are liberals. Or even independents for that matter. Independents on the sidelines are, at least, reasonable and vote. What we have boiling outside the stadium, so to speak, is something different entirely. And if they'll satisfy themselves yelling insults at the people inside the stadium then we should all probably let them. Don't make the mistake of thinking it's a bad thing.

If a lion starts chewing on your football, let it have the football. Don't be foolish. Just back away and go get another ball to continue your game with the opposing team.

That's a pretty simplistic analysis. People largely voted on immigration and inflation. You can't infer anything about what they thought on other issues.

Inflation was caused by increased government spending, no?

The last COVID stimulus package added from 1 to 4% to inflation, but that was transitory. The wider rise was largely due to other factors such as supply chain disruptions from the pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The latter significantly raised oil prices worldwide which in turn raised costs for all kinds of things.

Here's an article that covers a lot of the factors [1].

[1] https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2024/joe-biden-kamala-...

A source with less partisan politics involved:

https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/federal-spendi...

I trust a survey of economists over a random study. That study might be right, but it also might be wrong, and I don't have the expertise to say which.

You are not alone in this sentiment. It is beyond the pale that the denizens of a 'hacker forum' are often so narrow-minded when it comes to engaging those who think outside of the personal zone of ideological preference. The same people who have been yammering about the importance of 'diversity' are dead set against diversity of opinion. Grow up, folks, get outside your comfort zone and engage some of those deplorables, irredeemables, garbage, rednecks, hillbillies and bible thumpers instead of howling along with the masses. Go ahead and try, you may find they are more like you than you've been told by the chattering classes. Sure you'll have disagreements over certain things but that does not make them the evil monsters your moral mentors have been claiming they are. Just... grow up.

I don't think GP was talking about ordinary people, they were making a comment about a politician's declared plans.

> engage some of those deplorables, irredeemables, garbage, rednecks, hillbillies and bible thumpers instead of howling along with the masses

You are aware that no one in this thread has called anyone deplorable, irredeemable, garbage, a redneck, a hillbilly, or a bible thumper, right?

Your aggrievement and imagined slights is precisely how people like Trump and Musk manipulate you. And apparently the manipulation works really well.

Trump is not your retribution. Trump doesn't care about America. Trump doesn't care about Americans. Trump only cares about himself.

Hacker News' eventual death started the moment it joined the hysteria over the Lab Leak Theory. Since then it has trended more and more to be like Reddit, with ideological tribal concerns occupying an increasingly large mindshare. This drives away people who want to have earnest conversations in good faith, giving even more power to the ideologues. It will be a long death spiral but you can see it happening day by day.

I'm not sure what hysteria about lab leaks? I mean maybe it did, maybe it didn't.

The idea that the novel coronavirus didn't escape from the local coronavirus R&D laboratory never had anywhere near enough evidence to be credible.

It was pretty much the WHO simply repeating the claims of the Chinese government, who had already tried to cover up the outbreak (with any warnings sent to the WHO coming from Taiwan instead).

It was about as believable as the completely baseless claims that the emergency use authorised vaccine was safe and effective.

I've genuinely never seen "hysteria" from the people talking about the lab leak theory. The closest I've seen is from people who were extremely keen for no one to mention the theory. Not because of some cover-up, but I think just because that was what everyone was telling everyone else to do, hysteria-style.

I’ve engaged with these people a good bit actually. They’re very normal people, in that they largely don’t know much about politics but have strong opinions.

In this context, diversity refers to characteristics, not to differences of opinion. That said, diverse thinking can be valuable when used for prosocial purposes.

Can you mention one thing that Trump or Musk ever did out of altruism?

Trump set up a whole university!

And he ran a charity!

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2017/06/06/how-don...

Musk seems quite well meaning. Neuralink, the early Starlink donated to Ukraine, trying to move the world to Solar/electric etc.

Trump... dunno.

> trying to move the world to Solar/electric etc.

Is he, really? He recently announced that he supports Trump's position of getting rid on EV subsidies, stating that it hurts Tesla's competition more.

I love the argument you’re making. If you’re against socialist policies, it serves as indication you don’t like the things I find good.

Please don’t ask me to fund anyone else’s EV purchase. It doesn’t matter to me one bit who’s in office to get rid of that evil policy, I’d still love it.

Just adding that Mudk has shown that he is willing to completely ignore ethics and many times (almost?) cross the line of legality too.

Paying people to vote for Trump

Manipulating the stock market

Manipulated the crypto market multiple times

Tried to force Tesla employees to go to work during Covid

Sorry, how does your question relate to my comment?

It sucks for everyone. What you want us to do? Pretend it ain't so?

It doesn’t suck for the majority of people in the country. For them, it’s what they’d love to see.

Funnily enough, comments like yours are also what they’d love to see. Seeing leftists in tears over the policy changes we’re going to see is a great form of entertainment for many people.

It will suck soon enough for those thick enough to be gleeful about it now.

Are you a betting man? I’d be happy to have a large wager with you about that.

We're all making bets all the time. I am positioned as I wish to be. Godspeed to you and your assets.

> For them, it’s what they’d love to see.

Apparently not: https://www.axios.com/2024/11/15/trump-elon-musk-focus-group...

Any other left wing propaganda you’d want me to know of?

> I loathe it

They are planning to appoint a nutjob who has publicly that he admitted cutting off the heads of whale carcasses with a chainsaw and dumping dead bears in the Central Park for "fun". Presumably he is also consuming those rotting animals carcasses that he keeps finding somehow (how else do you get brain worms?) to be the new US health secretary.

Seriously... what else do you need to know?

He has respect and years of experience in this field and a strong vision. Your talking points are things we might here on the view.

What do I need to know? Tech oriented, factually grounded discussion. The thing I come here for that allows me to partially escape reality and enjoy the finer things in life. I can tune into Fox, CNN, Facebook, or a myriad of places for political banter.

As a non-american watching the election, this was one of the reasons I didn't want the result to be the way it went. Just for having to hear about it constantly from everywhere.

No, we need more SNL trump impressions, Trump pundits, and corny jokes

Can't be much more worse than an off topic comment.

Yes, it will be annoying to have people make jokes about the people in overwhelming position of power.

Who knows ? Maybe it won't even be possible for the whole four years ?

A certain faction always think the rule on keeping politics out of forums doesn't apply to them, because their politics are too correct and important. I experience this problem in groupchats where the very people who furiously demanded people not bring politics into the group and to make the group politics-free routinely push their own politics. They say their politics are too important to not bring up.

These same people LEFT other groups dedicated to politics so presumably if others respond in kind by discussing their own politics, they will leave the last groupchats too. This is why a certain faction is such an echo chamber. Incidentally, I was just banned from r/Archaeology for arguing that a post arguing that archeologists should prepare to fight the fascist takeover was too political.

There is no leaving out politics. Everything is political.

There is no leaving out politics as long as it aligns with a certain political spectrum otherwise it's no politics.

Not even remotely farce. I hope the rest of the world is taking notes...

Doesn't each major government do independent safety testing/has independent safety requirements, anyway?

VW diesel-gate

How many of the independents caught that?

Interestingly, it was a study commissioned by a non-profit, and performed by a university: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal

oh, great, so none.

Diesel gate involved also many others manufacturers

> Opel (General Motors) publicly demonstrated (while representatives from the TÜV Hessen were present) a Zafira that met the NOx emission limits. At the same time, Opel started clandestinely pushing an engine software update that limited NOx emissions in Zafiras that were already on the road.

> German newspaper Bild am Sonntag reported that US authorities investigating Mercedes have discovered that its vehicles are equipped with illegal software to help them pass United States' stringent emission tests. The claimed defeat devices include a Bit 15 mode to switch off emissions control after 16 miles of driving (the length of an official U.S. emissions test), and Slipguard which tries to directly determine if the car is being tested based on speed and acceleration profiles

> Dodge Ram 1500 and Jeep Grand Cherokee trucks, had software that allowed them to exceed NOx pollution limits, undetected by the usual testing methods.

> BMW was sued in 2018 when certain models were named as producing several times more nitrogen oxide emissions than laboratory tests indicated

UK, French and German government agencies lobbied for weaker testing. Probably because of car industry lobbyists, and all the blah blah about "we sell cars, people stay employed, economy keeps going, you get reelected.". Ah, isn't democracy beautiful... https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/24/uk-franc...

> Ah, isn't democracy beautiful...

With a dictator they'd just bribe him. Not like that's a solution, either.

um, that can be read both ways. they very well could be taking notes on how to move in the same direction, not the opposite

This is why we need the Department of Department of Government Efficiency Efficiency so we can ensure the governmental efficiency of the Department of Government Efficiency.

Nobody needs to take notes, we’ve known what this is for a hundred years. We spent most of the last century trying to get rid of autocracy in various places, there’s entire libraries worth of books detailing this playbook at this point.

The good old autocracy that tries to get rid of autocratic policies and institutions. You can’t make this up.

autocracy is about concentration of power, correct. bureaucratic is not autocratic. it‘s the opposite. Removing checks and balances is a bad thing, yes.

Unfortunately, they are. They have discovered that this kind of behavior gets people into office.

Expect to see more of it.

The authority and requirement to operate FARS extends from US Title Code.

Aside from that misuse and intentional misunderstanding of the FARS statistics is readily used by Tesla as a justification for their FSD system.

Agreed. This seems like just the sort of government waste that department has been created to eliminate.

If that happens, that would be the most efficient form of regulatory capture yet!

That’s not what regulatory capture is

These next 4 years will be a hoot and holler...

He had been "joking" about a third term already: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/13/us/politics/congress-reso...

So let's see if a Trump with total immunity will really leave gracefully this time.

I'm looking forward to the military coup! it seems that America is turning into a new Turkey. you can either have freedom or democracy, but not both.

A president can't pardon himself. He can still be held responsible for this crimes that he's already done. they'll just be shelved for a time. With any justice we'll come back to his crimes after this presidency proves to be a complete failure. I personally don't believe that Americans will allow anyone to become dictator.

Well, they have certainly allowed a convicted felon to become president, so I’m not as convinced of their ability to defend themselves. Any Netflix showrunner designing Trump as a character would have been called of for such a flat caricature of a narcissistic villain, but somehow people thought that would be a good leader.

Even if Trump does not ruin the USA, I have forever lost my respect for its citizens.

He does not need to pardon himself if he has presidental immunity for offical acts for the rest of his life. That just hinges on the definition of offical acts, which will be made by a partisan and corrupt supreme court.

And all USG vehicles to be replaced with Teslas to save money on gas /s

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