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Comment by ahwelitif | Hacker News Reader

There's so much partisan noise about DOGE going around -- At this point, I don't know what to believe anymore. Elon lies constantly, abuses employees, backstabs partners, and is probably a racist; At the same time, his companies have created seemingly impossible/fantastic technologies/tools that have changed the world forever.

Is DOGE a genuine effort at desperately needed reforms to save America from bankruptcy? Is it a secret plot to take full control of the federal government like a dictator's coup? Is it a mix of both at the same time (ie; recent Saudi and Chinese 'anti-corruption' campaigns)?

What should I believe?

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I get ya, but if one could apply some kind of Occam's razor is hard to defend DOGE's approach after all the mishandlements, false discoveries, bullying,and dangerous firings.

The one common thread with elons companies and their success is that it strongly appears the more he is prevented from having direct control, the better they do. He has direct control of doge so it's going pretty poorly.

Well, we know can't be to "save America from bankruptcy" because as a currency issuer, the federal government of the USA can't go bankrupt the way a currency user like a corporation or state government might.

It can go bankrupt in the same way that Zimbabwe did with hyperinflation... even losing the USD as the world currency would be catastrophic. So yes, we can very much go bankrupt.

Respectfully, this is not accurate. Zimbabwe's debts were not denominated in their own currency. You are repeating a claim which has been debunked for decades, and is based on a misunderstanding of how our monetary system works.

Yes. But an important key fact here is that this is true as long as the USD is the world currency. It's the world currency since the US is the global super-power both in international support and military strength.

By cutting spending on foreign countries the US is forcing these countries to turn elsewhere for aid which will come in the currency of the new provider and with strings attached. This can cause a domino effect which will significantly weaken the USDs standing and force the US to take up "real" debt.

DOGE could very well bankrupt the USA if they aren't careful. They don't seem careful or self-aware.

"buy when there's blood on the streets" - I definitely hope this is not their actual plan.

Considering the COBOL Metre date screw-up, it's pretty obvious that the folks doing this don't understand the most basic underpinnings of the systems they're poking and prodding.

For those who missed it, DOGE claimed there were tons people who were about 150 years in the system. In actuality, the the default date in COBOL is May 20, 1875 (the date of the Metre Convention) which works out to about 150 years old.

Elon Musk publicly stated: "cursory examination of Social Security, and we got people in there that are 150 years old. Now, do you know anyone that's 150? I don't know. They should be in the Guinness Book of World Records... So that's a case where I think they're probably dead."

That's how little Musk understands about computer systems he's supposedly responsible for analyzing. And Elon has publicly stated he'll often be wrong wrt DOGE.

EDIT: Elon also posted a Tweet showing age buckets, but according to other Social Security Association folks, they didn't filter out dead people or non-recipients. When you do, only 89,106 are aged 99+. Less than the number of living centenarians in the US: https://x.com/justinwolfers/status/1891678450487841007

If this post is accurate (big if), wouldn't it prove that theory false?

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1891350795452654076

Yeah this is the part I find hard to suss out. If they said we have people who are 104 and the next oldest is 150 holy shit. That's case closed, but the link you sent makes me suspicious of the bias on the other side...

I agree with original comment. I just don't know who to trust to do a deep enough dive to give me good information.

This page I found ( https://iter.ca/post/1875-epoch/ ) had a link to some data from SSA: https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v71n4/v71n4p33.html , and the "Individuals by YOB" section does indeed not show anything special about 1875 (and has people from before then).

"And here's the number of RECIPIENTS of social security in each age bucket with the death field set to false (and recipient set to true). A mere 89,106 are aged 99+, not the tens of millions suggested by @elonmusk."

https://x.com/justinwolfers/status/1891678450487841007

Also Elon's other Tweet is: "Yes, there are FAR more “eligible” social security numbers than there are citizens in the USA. This might be the biggest fraud in history."

Lawful permanent residents (LPRs), asylees (noncitizen who has been granted asylum in the United States), refugees, some temporary non-immigrants, etc all get social security numbers. Elon doesn't appear to research much before posting and has publicly stated that he'll often be wrong with respect to everything DOGE.

That whole thing was debunked AFAIK. Well, it kind of self-debunked since the original tweet that was posted as a reply to said "over 150 years old", not "exactly slightly under 150 years old", and "a number in ISO8601 format", but see e.g.: https://iter.ca/post/1875-epoch/ DOGE has plenty of ways to demonstrate ineptitude without us making some new ones up.

It was debunked, but to show Elon's bucket list was also poorly compiled by folks who don't understand the database they are pulling from: https://x.com/justinwolfers/status/1891678450487841007

I believe you're still within the edit timer for that comment, please help reduce the spread of misinformation.

News for you. Elon Musk is not an engineer. Elon Musk does not know computer science. Yes, he's able to read books and learn subjects but he has never worked as a software engineer in any professional setting. You attribute competence to him in so many areas where he does not deserve it.

What “impossible goals”? It’s easy just to randomly fire people, act illegally and not to think of the downstream consequences. Any private CEO would have his head handed to him by handling things do ham fistedly

I edited my comment to be more clear.

As an ethnically Syrian person, Elon Musk has posted enraging racist epithets about me every single day on his Twitter. I strongly dislike him as a person for his firehose of slander against helpless refugees who aren't so privileged/fortunate as me. Look at how he is speaking towards poor Ukraine!

Despite this, his companies have without a doubt changed the world. His investments into e-banking, reusable rockets, mass market EVs, ChatGPT, Starlink, green energy, etc. sound like something from a comic book into how outsized an impact they make.

He threw money at the problem? Are you really giving him credit for ChatGPT?

Yes, he threw money to build up teams to solve hard problems. According to this Wikipedia article he was a co-chair of OpenAI when it was founded in 2015: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAI#:~:text=A%20total%20of%... I'm open to being wrong on that though.

According to your citation, there was a total of $130 million invested between 10 people.

He wasn’t actually involved in any of the engineering ir decision making or putting the team together.

You shouldn't depend on others to dictate your beliefs to you. You're allowed to believe whatever you like.

Though it doesn't matter how fervently you believe. The universe doesn't care.

Sure but this is a discussion forum and nihilism makes for uninteresting conversation.

And people are invested in their lives and welfare even if all we are is dust floating blindly through the void of an uncaring universe, or whatever.

How is it "nihilist" to say that objective reality doesn't care about your beliefs?

I can believe the sky is pink until I'm blue in the face. The sky won't change colors because of it.

DOGE may be genuine but while the fed exists and money is a commodity, it’s really kinda moot. Yes there’s awful wasteful spending in the government but it’s peanuts compared to devaluing your labor by ~3% annually to enable a debt based economy. Try to pull off fractional reserve banking in any other context and you’ll be called a cheat and a thief.

DOGE is yet another distraction to keep the left and the right bickering while the billionaires continue to grow the wealth gap. The dollar is the global currency and its monetary policy is set by private entities that don’t care much about the other 99.99% of us - just enough to keep a revolt from happening.

> his companies have created seemingly impossible/fantastic technologies/tools

His engineers/employees... not him.

Besides, I'd be wary of calling electric cars "seemingly impossible/fantastic".

"his companies have created seemingly impossible/fantastic technologies/tools that have changed the world forever."

What would those be?

I mean, SpaceX has revolutionized satellite launching, but that's about it. The rest of Phony Stark's success is mostly about being a hype man in the right place at the right time.

For years he coasted on the reputation of being a dorky, space/environment obsessed autist, but in the last few years it's become obvious that most of his admirable traits were just him masking. Now that he doesn't feel that's necessary we're seeing what happens when the richest man in the world swallows the red pill and it ain't pretty.

You should believe what your eyes and ears tell you, after corroborating multiple sources and reading accounts of or speaking with people who have been directly affected by what's happening. Read Project 2025, the playbook is out in the open.

All of this is going to require critical thinking skills and unfortunately you can't gain that by reading tips. Assuming you do gave critical thinking skills, it's pretty clear what's taking place and that soft truths are often used to hide deep lies.

Only believe what you can verify with your own two eyes; otherwise, you leave yourself open to manipulation from propaganda. We live in a post-truth era. Embrace it!

> What should I believe?

For one thing, do not blindly believe what you read here on Hacker News, where there is a clear anti-Musk slant. I'd recommend more rational places like https://www.themotte.org/ where these topics can be discussed in a relatively calm manner. You are likely to come up with more informed opinions than otherwise.

That site is also calling out Musk for being a Nazi-saluting fascist, which is a good thing.

It's not anti-Musk to believe what he says about himself. You should re-examine why you feel the need to push your own slant.

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