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Comment by archagon | Hacker News Reader

My point is that the most prominent tech CEO definitely killed people through reckless action, without apology or remorse. The actual number is unquestionably more than ten; almost certainly in the thousands; and, based (again) on research from people who study this kind of thing for a living, likely in the hundreds of thousands.

But even if he “only” killed 10 people (which we know for a fact based on reporting), that should be more than enough to make him persona non grata in polite society.

The actual numbers are more useful for the history books and eventual tribunals. Maybe that data can be gathered more definitively over time; I’m sure people are working on it as we speak.

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Many meaningful change in government policy will cause some people to die. Are you going to tar every politician who makes a decision/law/policy that causes some people to die to be persona non grata?

I think much of people's response to this is driven by emotion, but that's the wrong approach to fighting the current administration and its enablers (organization, protest, daylighting actual problems, and understanding the psychology of the administration all go much further). Further, I think that posting bombastic, unrealistic claims about deaths is just misleading people who are already responding emotionally. Emotions will not get you anywhere in this environment.

Aid could have been tapered; advance warning could have been given. But Musk very publicly delighted in feeding USAID into the woodchipper, causing people to die as a direct result of his hasty actions. He simply did not give a fuck about the damage he caused.

This is not how changes to government policy are done. And yes, I’m livid and will eagerly vote anyone into office who will chase down this monster and force him (and his DOGE boys) to face justice. I am far from alone in this.

He was not government. He was not elected. He was just a random person given the reign of the entire government spending. This whole setup was stupid.

Sure, what Elon and his DOGE buddies did was a travesty. But I believe if we're going to fight this, we can't just rest on arbitrary made-up numbers of foreign deaths as a reason to retain a funding vehicle.

Yeah but what exactly are we to do? If the bar for proof is so high, there isn't a way to meet it as these things are super complex. I'm all for being rational but at some point we need to accept something is stupid and stop trying to prove it so we can do something about it. What I observe up and down this thread is a demand for very specific evidence for something which is stupid on its face.

If your question is "what is the most rational process to follow to reduce the impact of the current administration on US aid funding around the world", then I think getting as many people to vote for democrats is probably the best approach.

It's unlikely anybody can actively prevent the executive wing of the government in the short term, especially with a president who violates all norms and ignores legal decisions.

As a bit of an aside, I would like to know how the US got into the situation where we were being depended upon to provide millions of dollars in aid to prevent millions of deaths- the engineer in me says "there is a root cause that should be solved"

I don't think this is hard to understand. The biggest employers in America have people who are on food stamps. When we deprive people of resources, what else do we expect?

This is not a coherent argument.

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