5 ms·

Can’t wait for Musk’s team to finally peel back these layers, realize that the code actually implemented the laws, and have to admit they are the idiots and apo

by zten 2y ago

Can’t wait for Musk’s team to finally peel back these layers, realize that the code actually implemented the laws, and have to admit they are the idiots and apologize for wasting the government’s money on a poorly-run audit.

thecopy 2y ago
They wont admit anything
- flir 2y ago
  At least we'll get a good example for the Chesterton's Fence wiki page.
  - krger 2y ago
    Until the Heritage Foundation succeeds in dismantling Wikipedia.
    - flir 2y ago
      That makes me wonder what the Wikimedia Foundation's disaster recovery plan looks like. The crucial bit of infrastructure (and the most vulnerable point right now) might be the domain name.
      - bee_rider 2y ago
        FWIW they have instructions for downloading the whole thing, which mention that it is also downloadable from BitTorrent. So I think it is functionally impossible to delete Wikipedia. I’d be more worried about propaganda being inserted.
        flir 2y ago
        I'm not worried about the data, and even losing the servers would be a hiccup. But whatever site is at www.wikipedia.org is, in the minds of the general public, Wikipedia. Domain names have been seized in the past.
        tomnipotent 2y ago
        I imagine most traffic to Wikipedia is through search, so I imagine such a fate is in the hands of search engines. If a community-driven alternative appeared, we'd have to rely on Google indexing this alternative and ranking it higher than the usurped domain.
        ben_w 2y ago
        Search is also vulnerable. It's been called "wokepedia" (not to be confused with Wookieepedia, the star wars wiki) by Musk and others, telling people not to donate. And also people have been denouncing Google's search results as biased, as being "woke". I'm still not sure what any specific user of the word "woke" means, beyond the Ami/UK right using it as an insult, but I can't tell if it's generic or specific, critiquing something or just telling supporters when to boo and jeer. Does the Ami/UK left still use it to mean "being aware of systemic prejudice", or have they also shifted? I didn't notice at the time when "meme" stopped meaning shared online quiz.
        fc417fc802 2y ago
        > I'm still not sure what any specific user of the word "woke" means In the context you're referring to it is essentially an accusation of certain ideological ulterior motives in communication. Regarding your reference to Google's search results. I have no idea what the current behavior is. However a couple of years ago there were some remarkable differences for certain search terms between different geographical versions of the website. It certainly had the appearance of pushing an agenda at the time.
        skissane 2y ago
        > I'm still not sure what any specific user of the word "woke" means, beyond the Ami/UK right using it as an insult, but I can't tell if it's generic or specific, critiquing something or just telling supporters when to boo and jeer. Does the Ami/UK left still use it to mean "being aware of systemic prejudice", or have they also shifted? It is a mistake to think that negative uses of “woke” are an exclusively right-of-centre thing. Rather than repeat myself, I’ll just link to this comment I posted a bit over a month back - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42695516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42695516 - in which I cite several unabashed Marxists using the word negatively (including Adolph L Reed Jr, and the Trotskyist International Committee of the Fourth International). If you read Reed, he actually means something rather specific by “woke” - whereas classical/orthodox Marxism views non-class-based oppression (race, gender, sexuality, etc) as downstream consequences of class-based oppression, “wokeness” treats them as if they exist independently of class-based oppression, or as upstream of it, or as a higher priority than it Just the other day, Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) was quoted as saying, regarding his own Democratic Party, that “I think the majority of the party realizes that the ideological purity of some of the groups is a recipe for disaster and that candidly the attack on over-the-top wokeism was a valid attack” - https://www.politico.eu/article/us-senator-mark-warner-democrats-brand-really-bad-msc-us-election/ https://www.politico.eu/article/us-senator-mark-warner-democ... - Warner may well be a moderate or centrist Democrat, but I don’t think it makes sense to label him as “conservative” or “right-wing”. He’s not a “conservative Democrat”, in the sense that there was such a thing a decade or two ago [edit: I made some comment here about him not being a member of the Blue Dog caucus, but I’ve removed it because what I was saying didn’t really make sense-the Blue Dog caucus is and was a House caucus, while Warner is a Senator] I don’t think Warner’s definition of “woke” is as precise as Reed’s, but essentially what he means by it is a form of progressivism which prioritises ideological purity over winning the battle for the median voter’s heart and mind
        willy_k 2y ago
        > I’d be more worried about propaganda being inserted. FWIW, it would be far from the first time that’s happened (including for sensitive US issues).
        ddgflorida 2y ago
        It is loaded with propaganda right now.
  - gota 2y ago
    Chesterton's Nuclear Security Program [0] https://www.mlive.com/news/2025/02/doge-fired-hundreds-of-us-nuclear-weapons-employees-now-trump-administration-is-trying-to-bring-them-back.html https://www.mlive.com/news/2025/02/doge-fired-hundreds-of-us...
    - roywiggins 2y ago
      Is it really a Chesterton's Fence if it's covered in signs saying "do not remove" with simple explanations in large, friendly letters?
      - warningforever 2y ago
        Not if you stop understanding or believing the signs. Very well done doc, though overly concerned, on how keep people in the future away from nuclear waste: Into Eternity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayLxB9fV2y4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayLxB9fV2y4
londons_explore 2y ago
Musks team wont be able to make any sweeping changes here that impact eligibility or payouts - thats the kinda thing where angry pensioners form a mob outside the white house and get front page coverage on every news outlet.
- chrisco255 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - jghn 2y ago
    Well good news. There's not pervasive fraud in the system, so that won't happen.
    - profeatur 2y ago
      Source: the beneficiaries of such fraud, were it to occur…
troupo 2y ago
This definitely warrants an /s even if it's obvious :)
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
belter 2y ago
"Fact-checking Elon Musk's claims in the Oval Office" - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyjz24ne85o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyjz24ne85o
throw0101d 2y ago
> Can’t wait for Musk’s team to finally peel back these layers, realize that the code actually implemented the laws […] Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast had an episode on this: the hard part in replacing/updating government system is not the coding part. The hard part is understanding the policies that have been changed and modified over the decades. See "This Is What Happens When Governments Build Software" (Jun 2023): > There's a lot of frustration about the government's ability to build things in the US. Subways. Bridges. High-speed rail. Electricity transmission. But there's another crucial area where the public sector often struggles, and that is software. We saw it with the infamous rollout of Obamacare. We see it in the UX of the Treasury Direct website. And we saw it in the way state unemployment insurance systems broke during the pandemic. So why is it so hard for the public sector to build and maintain software? On this episode we speak with Jennifer Pahlka, the founder and former executive director of Code for America and author of the new book Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better, as well as Dave Guarino, who recently left the Department of Labor after working on upgrading the unemployment insurance system. Both have a long history of working on public sector software systems and they explain why the problem is so tricky. * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMtOv6DFn1U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMtOv6DFn1U One large component is that a lot of business rules and policies have been encoded into the software logic, and (re-)translating that into code in a new(er) language is part of the challenge. Related, "Why COBOL isn't the problem": * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41420217 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41420217
- gota 2y ago
  > Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast had an episode on this: the hard part in replacing/updating government system is not the coding part. The hard part is understanding the policies that have been changed and modified over the decades. That is the hard part in any system, not just government. Especially government, maybe, but not uncharacteristically and certainly not exclusively!
  - ahartmetz 2y ago
    I have read similar things about payroll software. The thing about laws, regulations and payroll is: you do not get to adapt the rules to the software, the software has to implement everything exactly as prescribed. Even that one-off thing from 1977 that still influences a few pensions by a few cents a month.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
drawkward 2y ago
Wait if you like, just dont hold your breath.
lenerdenator 2y ago
You'll be waiting a long time. Rule #1 of the new American oligarch: never admit a mistake
- kolanos 2y ago
  > Rule #1 of the new American oligarch: never admit a mistake Is this really a new rule? By my understanding of history, this has been the standard operating procedure for governments since... well, since they became a thing. And when mistakes are admitted, they're done so very slowly. For example, it took the U.S. government nearly half a century to apologize for the Japanese internment camps.
  - lenerdenator 2y ago
    There was at least the hope that the people in the government would, someday, apologize. Or, failing that, that they would pay at the ballot box come next election. The new guard are far more like the old royalty of Europe. Look at their lifestyles and riches: how could they possibly be wrong? Back then it was called the divine right of kings: they were chosen by God - the literal creator and master of the universe - and thus, by definition, could not be wrong. Today it's the absolution of the market: how could you possibly be that wealthy if you are a screw-up? It's hard to get rich, so those who have become so must be better than the conventional wisdom and decency. Any wrong move is written off as another move in a 4D chess game that the average person just can't understand.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  Musk admitted in the White House interview that he'd made a mistake on the $50m for condoms to Gaza.
  - lenerdenator 2y ago
    He could go one step further and admit that his involvement with any sort of government personnel or logistics decision-making is a mistake until Congress gives his cadre of interns a statutory mandate to do what it's doing.
Bytewench 2y ago
I suspect any admission would be made with far less fanfare than what accompanied the accusations made today.
listenallyall 2y ago
If an audit ultimately finds that the computer code is perfectly aligned with the law, how does that make it a poorly-run audit, or a waste?
- zten 2y ago
  Do you normally tweet your half baked “discoveries” as propaganda in an effort to undermine the government when performing an audit? Edit: I really don’t think the way this audit is being conducted is out of a genuine love for America, or the American citizens, or even out of just wanting to do good work. This is very nakedly a dishonest, petty, and malicious investigation.
  - listenallyall 2y ago
    It's a government audit, not a private company, so the results will be made public regardless. If the audit finds that the computer code is actually correct according to the laws, but it's the laws themselves that are illogical, wasteful, or easy to defraud, that is still quite useful for the public to know. I agree using Twitter is unconventional but again, it's an audit of a massive public program to which virtually every American who pays taxes contributes (except, ironically, many government employees themselves)
    - jcz_nz 2y ago
      None of this works the way you imagine it does. Laws are by necessity interpreted. Courts do this all the time. Musk & his kids have zero knowledge, skill or authority in this regard. System audits require a well defined structure and scope, context, methodology, governance. They take into consideration the IT systems, and the human systems and processes. They clearly define questions to be answered. This is neither. It is a PR exercise to create an appearance of the regime doing “something” that sounds impressive to their base.
ddgflorida 2y ago
No one is wasting money. These audits must be done. I do think however that the chances of anyone over 115, or deceased, collecting money is extremely low.
- haveamission 2y ago
  What makes you have the impression that the government doesn't do audits, with actual professional auditors? Because it does, and does so regularly
cragger60 2y ago
The code doesn't necessa8ry implement the laws. There could easily be a flag on each record that indicates "current recipent" with a value of "n" or "y". The code, in that case could be something like: if current recipient = y, then print check.

by zten 2y ago

thecopy 2y ago

They wont admit anything

flir 2y ago
At least we'll get a good example for the Chesterton's Fence wiki page.
- krger 2y ago
  Until the Heritage Foundation succeeds in dismantling Wikipedia.
  - flir 2y ago
    That makes me wonder what the Wikimedia Foundation's disaster recovery plan looks like. The crucial bit of infrastructure (and the most vulnerable point right now) might be the domain name.
    - bee_rider 2y ago
      FWIW they have instructions for downloading the whole thing, which mention that it is also downloadable from BitTorrent. So I think it is functionally impossible to delete Wikipedia. I’d be more worried about propaganda being inserted.
      - flir 2y ago
        I'm not worried about the data, and even losing the servers would be a hiccup. But whatever site is at www.wikipedia.org is, in the minds of the general public, Wikipedia. Domain names have been seized in the past.
        tomnipotent 2y ago
        I imagine most traffic to Wikipedia is through search, so I imagine such a fate is in the hands of search engines. If a community-driven alternative appeared, we'd have to rely on Google indexing this alternative and ranking it higher than the usurped domain.
        ben_w 2y ago
        Search is also vulnerable. It's been called "wokepedia" (not to be confused with Wookieepedia, the star wars wiki) by Musk and others, telling people not to donate. And also people have been denouncing Google's search results as biased, as being "woke". I'm still not sure what any specific user of the word "woke" means, beyond the Ami/UK right using it as an insult, but I can't tell if it's generic or specific, critiquing something or just telling supporters when to boo and jeer. Does the Ami/UK left still use it to mean "being aware of systemic prejudice", or have they also shifted? I didn't notice at the time when "meme" stopped meaning shared online quiz.
        fc417fc802 2y ago
        > I'm still not sure what any specific user of the word "woke" means In the context you're referring to it is essentially an accusation of certain ideological ulterior motives in communication. Regarding your reference to Google's search results. I have no idea what the current behavior is. However a couple of years ago there were some remarkable differences for certain search terms between different geographical versions of the website. It certainly had the appearance of pushing an agenda at the time.
        skissane 2y ago
        > I'm still not sure what any specific user of the word "woke" means, beyond the Ami/UK right using it as an insult, but I can't tell if it's generic or specific, critiquing something or just telling supporters when to boo and jeer. Does the Ami/UK left still use it to mean "being aware of systemic prejudice", or have they also shifted? It is a mistake to think that negative uses of “woke” are an exclusively right-of-centre thing. Rather than repeat myself, I’ll just link to this comment I posted a bit over a month back - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42695516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42695516 - in which I cite several unabashed Marxists using the word negatively (including Adolph L Reed Jr, and the Trotskyist International Committee of the Fourth International). If you read Reed, he actually means something rather specific by “woke” - whereas classical/orthodox Marxism views non-class-based oppression (race, gender, sexuality, etc) as downstream consequences of class-based oppression, “wokeness” treats them as if they exist independently of class-based oppression, or as upstream of it, or as a higher priority than it Just the other day, Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) was quoted as saying, regarding his own Democratic Party, that “I think the majority of the party realizes that the ideological purity of some of the groups is a recipe for disaster and that candidly the attack on over-the-top wokeism was a valid attack” - https://www.politico.eu/article/us-senator-mark-warner-democrats-brand-really-bad-msc-us-election/ https://www.politico.eu/article/us-senator-mark-warner-democ... - Warner may well be a moderate or centrist Democrat, but I don’t think it makes sense to label him as “conservative” or “right-wing”. He’s not a “conservative Democrat”, in the sense that there was such a thing a decade or two ago [edit: I made some comment here about him not being a member of the Blue Dog caucus, but I’ve removed it because what I was saying didn’t really make sense-the Blue Dog caucus is and was a House caucus, while Warner is a Senator] I don’t think Warner’s definition of “woke” is as precise as Reed’s, but essentially what he means by it is a form of progressivism which prioritises ideological purity over winning the battle for the median voter’s heart and mind
      - willy_k 2y ago
        > I’d be more worried about propaganda being inserted. FWIW, it would be far from the first time that’s happened (including for sensitive US issues).
      - ddgflorida 2y ago
        It is loaded with propaganda right now.
- gota 2y ago
  Chesterton's Nuclear Security Program [0] https://www.mlive.com/news/2025/02/doge-fired-hundreds-of-us-nuclear-weapons-employees-now-trump-administration-is-trying-to-bring-them-back.html https://www.mlive.com/news/2025/02/doge-fired-hundreds-of-us...
  - roywiggins 2y ago
    Is it really a Chesterton's Fence if it's covered in signs saying "do not remove" with simple explanations in large, friendly letters?
    - warningforever 2y ago
      Not if you stop understanding or believing the signs. Very well done doc, though overly concerned, on how keep people in the future away from nuclear waste: Into Eternity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayLxB9fV2y4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayLxB9fV2y4

londons_explore 2y ago

Musks team wont be able to make any sweeping changes here that impact eligibility or payouts - thats the kinda thing where angry pensioners form a mob outside the white house and get front page coverage on every news outlet.

chrisco255 2y ago
[flagged]
- jghn 2y ago
  Well good news. There's not pervasive fraud in the system, so that won't happen.
  - profeatur 2y ago
    Source: the beneficiaries of such fraud, were it to occur…

troupo 2y ago

This definitely warrants an /s even if it's obvious :)

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

belter 2y ago

"Fact-checking Elon Musk's claims in the Oval Office" - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyjz24ne85o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyjz24ne85o

throw0101d 2y ago

> Can’t wait for Musk’s team to finally peel back these layers, realize that the code actually implemented the laws […] Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast had an episode on this: the hard part in replacing/updating government system is not the coding part. The hard part is understanding the policies that have been changed and modified over the decades. See "This Is What Happens When Governments Build Software" (Jun 2023): > There's a lot of frustration about the government's ability to build things in the US. Subways. Bridges. High-speed rail. Electricity transmission. But there's another crucial area where the public sector often struggles, and that is software. We saw it with the infamous rollout of Obamacare. We see it in the UX of the Treasury Direct website. And we saw it in the way state unemployment insurance systems broke during the pandemic. So why is it so hard for the public sector to build and maintain software? On this episode we speak with Jennifer Pahlka, the founder and former executive director of Code for America and author of the new book Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better, as well as Dave Guarino, who recently left the Department of Labor after working on upgrading the unemployment insurance system. Both have a long history of working on public sector software systems and they explain why the problem is so tricky. * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMtOv6DFn1U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMtOv6DFn1U One large component is that a lot of business rules and policies have been encoded into the software logic, and (re-)translating that into code in a new(er) language is part of the challenge. Related, "Why COBOL isn't the problem": * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41420217 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41420217

gota 2y ago
> Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast had an episode on this: the hard part in replacing/updating government system is not the coding part. The hard part is understanding the policies that have been changed and modified over the decades. That is the hard part in any system, not just government. Especially government, maybe, but not uncharacteristically and certainly not exclusively!
- ahartmetz 2y ago
  I have read similar things about payroll software. The thing about laws, regulations and payroll is: you do not get to adapt the rules to the software, the software has to implement everything exactly as prescribed. Even that one-off thing from 1977 that still influences a few pensions by a few cents a month.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

drawkward 2y ago

Wait if you like, just dont hold your breath.

lenerdenator 2y ago

You'll be waiting a long time. Rule #1 of the new American oligarch: never admit a mistake

kolanos 2y ago
> Rule #1 of the new American oligarch: never admit a mistake Is this really a new rule? By my understanding of history, this has been the standard operating procedure for governments since... well, since they became a thing. And when mistakes are admitted, they're done so very slowly. For example, it took the U.S. government nearly half a century to apologize for the Japanese internment camps.
- lenerdenator 2y ago
  There was at least the hope that the people in the government would, someday, apologize. Or, failing that, that they would pay at the ballot box come next election. The new guard are far more like the old royalty of Europe. Look at their lifestyles and riches: how could they possibly be wrong? Back then it was called the divine right of kings: they were chosen by God - the literal creator and master of the universe - and thus, by definition, could not be wrong. Today it's the absolution of the market: how could you possibly be that wealthy if you are a screw-up? It's hard to get rich, so those who have become so must be better than the conventional wisdom and decency. Any wrong move is written off as another move in a 4D chess game that the average person just can't understand.
WalterBright 2y ago
Musk admitted in the White House interview that he'd made a mistake on the $50m for condoms to Gaza.
- lenerdenator 2y ago
  He could go one step further and admit that his involvement with any sort of government personnel or logistics decision-making is a mistake until Congress gives his cadre of interns a statutory mandate to do what it's doing.

Bytewench 2y ago

I suspect any admission would be made with far less fanfare than what accompanied the accusations made today.

listenallyall 2y ago

If an audit ultimately finds that the computer code is perfectly aligned with the law, how does that make it a poorly-run audit, or a waste?

zten 2y ago
Do you normally tweet your half baked “discoveries” as propaganda in an effort to undermine the government when performing an audit? Edit: I really don’t think the way this audit is being conducted is out of a genuine love for America, or the American citizens, or even out of just wanting to do good work. This is very nakedly a dishonest, petty, and malicious investigation.
- listenallyall 2y ago
  It's a government audit, not a private company, so the results will be made public regardless. If the audit finds that the computer code is actually correct according to the laws, but it's the laws themselves that are illogical, wasteful, or easy to defraud, that is still quite useful for the public to know. I agree using Twitter is unconventional but again, it's an audit of a massive public program to which virtually every American who pays taxes contributes (except, ironically, many government employees themselves)
  - jcz_nz 2y ago
    None of this works the way you imagine it does. Laws are by necessity interpreted. Courts do this all the time. Musk & his kids have zero knowledge, skill or authority in this regard. System audits require a well defined structure and scope, context, methodology, governance. They take into consideration the IT systems, and the human systems and processes. They clearly define questions to be answered. This is neither. It is a PR exercise to create an appearance of the regime doing “something” that sounds impressive to their base.

ddgflorida 2y ago

No one is wasting money. These audits must be done. I do think however that the chances of anyone over 115, or deceased, collecting money is extremely low.

haveamission 2y ago
What makes you have the impression that the government doesn't do audits, with actual professional auditors? Because it does, and does so regularly

cragger60 2y ago

The code doesn't necessa8ry implement the laws. There could easily be a flag on each record that indicates "current recipent" with a value of "n" or "y". The code, in that case could be something like: if current recipient = y, then print check.