Hacker News Reader

Comment by jonahbenton | Hacker News Reader

The silence from cybersec, with a couple of exceptions, about DOGE is stunning to me. Not this story but what I thought the headline referred to.

View on HN

You see this in other areas too like academia being afraid they will get the ire of the administration and lose money. For a lot of firms they don't want to suddenly get their government contracts dropped by speaking out. This is how things slowly become more authoritarian, and freedom of speech dies. This is also why the gradual expansion of executive power was not good.

If the threat of financial loss stops people from criticizing actions, imagine what it would be like if you would be investigated and jailed on sham charges like in some other countries.

> imagine what it would be like if you would be investigated and jailed on sham charges like in some other countries

Some other countries? The US is renditioning people without due (any!) process ostensibly based on their tattoos. I'm not saying this to be pithy but to sound (or at least amplify) the alarm.

>what I thought the headline referred to.

I thought the same.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1913023007263543565.html

Is this discussed on HN ? Edit: Yep, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43691142

My feeds have been screaming about DOGE for months, until at some point it just turned into depressing cynicism. Nobody cared about the warnings from experts, and nobody cares now that their predictions are coming true. What's the point of speaking out now? Nobody will listen, anyway.

I suppose it makes sense: for most of the Americans who voted, this is what they voted for.

plenty are, it's just major outlets won't do anything to stir the pot. the "both sides are the same" execs at big news outlets won't let them.

Have you considered that almost every worker in tech, indeed almost every American, supports what's happening?

If people genuinely support what is happening then the only two possible conclusions are that they have no idea what is happening or they are extraordinarily stupid.

Because I am generous, I always assume it's the first. And, I can't fault them. They are under constant bombardment of propaganda and lies around what DOGE is doing. I mean, DOGE can't be honest to save their lives. So, of course constituents are misled.

The idea of DOGE, of course! But over and over anecdotal conversations about the huge difference between mental model of what one thinks DOGE would be doing vs all of the reporting about what is actually happening- Elon Musk's "approval" is bottoming out for a reason, the town halls are angry and nearing violence for a reason. Nobody wants what is actually happening.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com