[HN Gopher] Moving on from 18F
___________________________________________________________________
Moving on from 18F
Author : mkeeter
Score : 308 points
Date : 2025-02-18 19:18 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ethanmarcotte.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (ethanmarcotte.com)
| stuartd wrote:
| For anyone (like me) who doesn't know what 18F is:
|
| > 18F is a digital services agency within the Technology
| Transformation Services department of the General Services
| Administration (GSA) of the United States Government. 18F helps
| other government agencies build, buy, and share technology
| products. The team consists of designers, software engineers,
| strategists, and product managers who collaborate with other
| agencies to fix technical problems, build products, and improve
| public service through technology.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18F
| GeneralMayhem wrote:
| 18F - and its sibling the US Digital Service, before it was
| eviscerated to become the host for the DOGE parasite - is
| exactly the sort of thing you would create if you want
| government to run efficiently. Creating room for well-meaning
| technical experts to offer their expertise across the
| government, without being locked into a lifelong public-sector
| career path, is a _fantastic_ idea. Even at its worst, it 's
| taking work that could otherwise go to beltway-bandit
| contractors, but in-house, with all the cost and friction
| reduction that that implies. At its best, it's able to spot
| cross-agency opportunities that no other agency would see on
| its own.
|
| If you're still on the fence about giving the current
| administration the benefit of the doubt, dismantling these
| agencies based on zero analysis is perhaps the clearest
| possible evidence that "efficiency" is not the primary goal, or
| in fact a goal at all.
| monero-xmr wrote:
| The metaphor is wrong. The parasites are government
| organizations (parasites) leeching nutrients (tax dollars)
| from the host (tax payers). DOGE is the anti-parasitic
| medicine.
| atemerev wrote:
| I would prefer some medicine without vice signalling with
| particular gestures from 1930s, thank you.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| This is the first time I've seen the term "vice
| signalling" and it seems to fit. I suspect this is not
| the last we'll hear of that term.
| hoten wrote:
| If we're done having fun with words, would you like to take
| this opportunity to provide some reason to think this true?
| Specifically, how DOGE is combatting inefficiency.
| monero-xmr wrote:
| How would cutting spending be a parasite? The goal is to
| cut spending.
| hoten wrote:
| That does seem to be the goal. But the facade is that it
| is wasteful spending being cut.
| MyOutfitIsVague wrote:
| The parasitic act is cutting spending while leveraging
| the position to increase their own revenue. The guy
| "cutting spending" is getting contracts and tax cuts out
| of the deal, and killing watchdog agencies and anything
| else that might try to stop him. It's almost poetically
| parasitic. He's inside the host, sucking it dry, while
| killing anything that can get in his way.
| GeneralMayhem wrote:
| While I agree with you, the "parasitic" act I was
| referring to was specifically taking over the USDS. The
| image I had in mind was the fungus that mind-controls
| insects.
|
| Trump doesn't have the authority to create new federal
| agencies, so he claims to have repurposed the authority
| of an existing one, retaining only the shell for
| appearances. I don't think that can possibly be
| constitutional - it entirely defeats the point of
| Congress having that authority, and is effectively a
| line-item veto if the law can say "this agency will exist
| for X purpose" and the president can simply ignore the
| "for X purpose" - but it doesn't matter if neither
| Congress nor the courts are willing to do anything about
| it.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| The USDS is irrelevant, it was taken over to provide a
| fig leaf of legality and legitimacy to Elon's
| depredation.
| fragmede wrote:
| The question is if one is dumb enough to buy Tweets from
| the DoGE Twitter account as anything resembling reality.
| There's plenty of "evidence" there for morons to buy.
| hoten wrote:
| Of course, but to start the uphill battle of calling out
| the bullshit, we have to at least know which bullshit to
| counter.
|
| For me, the only charitable interpretation of DOGE is
| that they have accidentally figured out how to spread
| incompetence (not wholly unfamiliar to much of the
| government) to the small islands that fended it off
| (gutting 18F/USDS). The cherry was accidentally firing a
| chunk of the nation's nuclear experts to save a dime, and
| then clawing them back.
|
| I think any claim of DOGE doing good work has to address
| those things in a convincing manner (in addition to why
| the existing processes are lacking; GAO). I haven't seen
| that attempted by anyone.
| MyOutfitIsVague wrote:
| The parasites are trying to raise the national debt by 4
| trillion USD, to pass on as tax cuts to only the richest
| people in the country. DOGE is playing whack-a-mole against
| figures that are 5 orders of magnitude smaller, while
| ignoring the waste that pads their own pockets.
| monero-xmr wrote:
| The ideal world is zero tax. Failing that the minimal
| possible tax. Paying taxes is not in itself virtuous, nor
| is spending tax money a good thing.
|
| We cut spending, then we cut taxes
| btilly wrote:
| Let's not cut taxes until after the deficit is zeroed
| out.
|
| Preferably until after the debt is going down, so that
| the next generation doesn't have to pay interest on our
| poor decisions.
| MyOutfitIsVague wrote:
| How do we fund road repairs and constructions with zero
| tax? Medical care for the poor who can't afford medical
| care or insurance? Public education in general?
| ethbr1 wrote:
| And critically, are these things _more cheaply_ centrally
| provided by a government?
|
| Not providing a medical safety net or social security net
| seems like it's saving money... until one has to account
| for the downstream costs those decisions have.
| monero-xmr wrote:
| If we decide to do these things with tax dollars, then as
| a society our goal should be the best outcome for the
| lowest cost. Many seem to have forgotten this
| MyOutfitIsVague wrote:
| How could they even be done at all without tax dollars?
| That was the question.
| margalabargala wrote:
| Road repairs would be done by their owners, who will sell
| road access to anyone wealthy enough to deserve to be
| able to use a road. /s
| linkregister wrote:
| All civilizations have funded public works with taxes,
| whether through income taxes, taxes on production (crop
| yields, mineral extraction), customs (tariffs), or by
| labor obligations (corvee).
|
| Even libertarian enclaves end up recreating taxes by
| another name (use fees, tolls).
|
| Voters should (and do) prioritize public spending versus
| taxation. Sometimes they are inefficient (Greece,
| Argentina pre-2025), but many states get it right
| (Estonia, Sweden).
| bentcorner wrote:
| > The ideal world is zero tax
|
| This is true but useless. It is like saying the ideal
| sorting algorithm is one that does nothing because your
| data is already sorted.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Taxation is a public good.
| EnergyAmy wrote:
| It's astounding that this is crystal clear, and yet you still
| have people like the sibling commenter trying to find ways of
| defending Musk. It reminds me of the quote comparing
| Libertarians to cats:
|
| > Libertarians are like house cats in that they are convinced
| of their fierce independence while utterly dependent on a
| system they don't appreciate or understand
|
| People like that shouldn't be allowed to vote. I don't
| actually believe that, but it's hard to watch Idiocracy
| happen in real time and watch low-information people cheer it
| on.
| rl3 wrote:
| While a lot of us both relate and agree, I'm not sure the
| rhetoric is helpful here. If the flame wars are kept to a
| minimum, the submission keeps trending, and awareness
| rises. This one in particular is very important for the
| tech community.
|
| I think the crux is that too many people are taking what's
| being said at face value. The banner of cost cutting and
| lean government was chosen because it's hard to argue with,
| assuming it's true and done responsibly - which it isn't.
| Randomly firing 200 people that worked at NNSA is one of
| the most profound examples of this, let alone gutting 18F.
|
| For anyone paying attention, it's indeed crystal clear the
| move is being used to install loyalists while "saving" an
| amount of money that's order(s) of magnitude less than the
| grift they've granted themselves, _after_ cutting the very
| watchdogs setup to stop that kind of grift. Heck, even the
| word grift is charitable when it's more like outright
| brazen corruption.
|
| However, convincing everyone of this difficult insofar that
| it requires them to a) not take these people at face value,
| and b) swallow the pill that not only were they wrong for
| trusting said persons in the first place, but they
| potentially even voted in the administration that's doing
| the damage.
|
| Getting people to admit that they were wrong, even to
| themselves, is pretty hard these days. Hopefully it becomes
| too obvious to ignore, and that process becomes easier when
| it's replaced by a feeling of betrayal. Because if there's
| one things American love on either side of the aisle, it's
| getting angry.
|
| 18F was one of the finest examples of a non-partisan agile
| tech organization that was highly efficient and effective.
| It was just trashed it for no good reason at all.
| foobarian wrote:
| It's telling that all the cost cutting is happening in
| the 1% slice of the pie, not the defense slice of the
| pie. There be dragons most likely.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Exactly. It's like declaring you're going to lose weight
| and then just trimming your fingernails.
| rurp wrote:
| The fact that such an obviously false pretext is being
| used and accepted by so many followers is one of the most
| depressing parts of all of this. It is _incredibly_ clear
| that this is not about saving money or balancing the
| governments finances, but so many people blindly believe
| whatever Elon or Trump tells them. At this point I 'm not
| sure there's any limit to what their followers will
| believe and support, which is extremely chilling.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| You have to purge the people that are actually mission-
| oriented because they are not sufficiently subservient.
| Also, the voting base seems to hate the fact that federal
| workers tend to enjoy a lot more stability in their job
| than private sector workers do.
|
| What boggles my mind is that the feds were made into
| political enemies so quickly and the public had zero
| empathy for the callous method that they were fired in.
| Meanwhile, in Dec 2024, you didn't see the level of bile
| aimed at the feds like you see it today. And worse, very
| few people seem to realize that they've been politically
| hoodwinked. They'll simply retcon their belief that
| they've always disliked the feds that much, and their guy
| is finally giving them their just rewards.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| Supposedly, the DoD is next. I like to believe they'll
| end up kicking the proverbial hornets nest by angering
| the Northrop Grumman/Lockheed/PE firms owning defense
| contractors, but I'm not optimistic that will deter them.
| thegreatpeter wrote:
| Ethan literally wrote "a far-right President" won, so I
| wouldn't consider 18F non-partisan.
| otterley wrote:
| Do you contend that he is not one? If not, why not?
|
| To use an example from the other end, it's not
| particularly partisan to claim that a communist is on the
| far left of the political spectrum.
| eadmund wrote:
| It all depends on what one means by 'right' vs. 'left.' I
| don't think that those labels -- which I believe
| originate in seating conventions in peri-revolutionary
| France -- are particularly relevant to American politics.
| Is free trade right-coded or left-coded? Tariffs? Drug
| policy?
| otterley wrote:
| Sorry, what is your point? The subject here is whether it
| is partisan to describe someone as having a far-right
| ideology, and whether that appellation is generally
| accurate. This term is well understood.
| rl3 wrote:
| > _Ethan literally wrote "a far-right President" won, so
| I wouldn't consider 18F non-partisan_
|
| a) That's a fair way to describe it regardless of
| political leanings, and moreover even if it wasn't, I
| fail to see how that's somehow able to be extrapolated to
| the entire org.
|
| b) Last I checked government employees are allowed to
| express their opinions, which would be relevant had the
| man not resigned - meaning what you've read is a personal
| take. Like the vast majority of people, I doubt he took
| politics to work.
|
| c) Consider 18F was started under the Obama
| administration and continued through the first Trump
| administration.
|
| The federal government is being actively dismantled right
| now in ways that are unprecedented - even for every
| Republican administration in recent history.
|
| I think it's reasonable to say "far-right" isn't partisan
| in that context. It's accurate.
| kjs3 wrote:
| One employee uses a phrase, thus the entire organization
| is biased. That does seem to be what passes for critical
| thinking these days.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Qft. USDS/18F was the correct answer to "Many US government
| departments have similar needs, but insufficient IT expertise
| (or authority) to deliver well."
|
| To which the obvious solution was to create a center of
| excellence for those skills, then offer them across the
| government. Most critically, including paved roads of the
| "right" way to do things (but which no individual agency was
| willing to fight to get approved).
|
| PS: Fuck DOGE/Elon for having enough hubris so as to think
| they can do better. Although my guess is Hanlon's razor, with
| addendum, applies.
|
| >> _Never attribute to malice that which is adequately
| explained by stupidity._ (or ego)
|
| To repeat my previous framing of this: it's easy to sell
| younger technologists on a two step plan to make things
| better. (1) Destroy the old (2) Build the new. Unfortunately,
| they don't yet understand the latter is orders of magnitude
| more difficult than the former.
| dkhenry wrote:
| I worked for the USDS in the early days and I am very
| familiar with 18F, and I don't think your comment tracks.
| There were lots of issues with agencies using 18F, and not
| much of the federal IT spend migrated to 18F during its 10
| year history, even though most of the products they
| launched were good.
|
| Even USDS teams didn't always take up 18F on its products,
| and instead would utilize outside contracts for a majority
| of their projects. Realistically the government needs to do
| better then 18F was doing and there are many reforms needed
| to actually have a paved road agencies can drive on.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Appreciate the comment! If you had a magic wand, what are
| the main problems you would unblock to create
| better/cheaper/faster government IT outcomes, based on
| your experience?
| dkhenry wrote:
| The way funding was allocated is entirely broken, and it
| was the biggest problem with doing anything in the
| government. Our budget process at the federal level is
| entirely broken. Congress tries to micro-manage the
| budget to get their cut of funds to their sponsors, and
| their is no political appetite to have a more reasonable
| budget process ( like Congress approve top line budget,
| and lets the agency choose how to spend the money ). The
| Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) doesn't
| work for inter agency procurement, and IMO is not a good
| system for any kind of procurement. The Federal
| Acquisition Regulation (FAR) should be thrown out, as it
| has proven its self to be worse then having literally no
| rules at all. All the rules about Veteran Owned, and
| Small Disadvantaged Businesses are just mechanisms for
| fraud. Companies would "dissolve" and then new companies
| would form that could win those bids, and then they would
| hire everyone from the large company that just dissolved.
| roguecoder wrote:
| We are seeing right now why a high-level budget process
| like that wouldn't work: there is no guarantee of ongoing
| alignment in the executive branch, and it creates
| enormous opportunities for procurement capture.
|
| Bringing things in house with things like 18F is the most
| promising solution we've seen to those procurement
| problems, but has been fought tooth & nail by the same
| people currently dismantling the roadblocks between them
| & taking taxpayer money without even delivering results.
| js2 wrote:
| FWIW, the head of USDS under Obama (Jennifer Pahlka)
| wrote a whole book about it:
|
| https://www.recodingamerica.us
|
| Interview with the author:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/06/opinion/ezra-klein-
| podcas...
|
| Recent opinion piece by the author:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/opinion/democrats-
| elon-mu...
|
| (Those may be paywalled and I'm out of gift links.)
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I've never worked in the federal space, but I have
| extensive experience in state and local.
|
| One the fundamental issues with government vs. private
| sector is accounting. Governments are often exempted from
| following GAAP, and the rules are inverse - the
| government's cost to borrow is cheap and the government
| doesn't pay taxes, so capex is usually smarter than opex.
| Capex is locked in, while opex is subject to the whims of
| the legislature.
|
| The other core issue with government is separation of
| powers. You cannot have an efficient process to make
| decisions because fundamentally the system is designed to
| do what's right from a legal perspective, which is often
| in opposition to what is efficient.
|
| Setting expectations is important too. The government at
| all levels is excellent at operations. When I setup a
| housing authority system, that authority delivered 50,000
| rent checks on the 1st of the month, every month. You
| know what I want the treasury to do? Pay bond coupons
| every month and audit clean.
|
| Moving fast isn't necessarily what you want. In fact, the
| system of government was designed to be slow. For people
| who attest to idol worship of the Constitution, they sure
| missed the boat there.
| netsharc wrote:
| > Fuck DOGE/Elon for having enough hubris so as to think
| they can do better.
|
| I wonder if he truly believes he's got a giga-brain. In
| that respect I dare say I'm better than him because I know
| my limitations.
|
| Or does he have the world's biggest impostor syndrome,
| which he treats with drugs? Although I can imagine he feels
| pretty smart, because he can do anything and he still have
| a legion of followers (similar to Zuck's "They trust me.
| Dumb fucks.").
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I've worked with mini-Elons. They think they're Jesus.
| He's a gambler with good instincts, but eventually your
| number comes up.
| zerocrates wrote:
| Perhaps more widely known very recently for being the subject
| of an Elon tweet saying "that group has been deleted," though
| whether he was referring to 18F as a whole or just those
| working on the free filing system for the IRS was unclear.
| js2 wrote:
| 18F has been discussed on HN quite a few times, though not too
| much recently:
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?q=18f
|
| Here's its GitHub org:
|
| https://github.com/18F
| khazhoux wrote:
| Are there any metrics to show 18F or USDS are strong successes?
|
| My impression has always been that it is a well-intended but
| low-impact effort.
| tehjoker wrote:
| Hard to say who's responsibility it is but federal websites
| have gotten noticeably less shitty over time and I always
| feel more at ease on a website that obviously had their
| input.
| pimlottc wrote:
| You could always read one of USDS's reports to Congress to
| get an idea on what they've done:
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=%22report+to+congress%22+%2B.
| ..
| snowwrestler wrote:
| One of the big wins was login.gov which is modern, easy to
| use, more secure, and less expensive than the crazy array of
| ancient agency-specific login systems it was in the process
| of replacing.
|
| What happens to it now, I have no idea. It's probably going
| to be scrapped in favor of "login with X".
| arjie wrote:
| If login.gov is scrapped, I would imagine the guys who are
| best positioned to take over would be id.me (who already
| have the irs.gov contract and more).
| snowwrestler wrote:
| ID.me might be in the worst position. There was already a
| big public backlash against it, so previous IRS
| leadership was working to replace it. And it doesn't send
| any money back to Elon Musk, so future IRS leadership
| won't want to save it either.
|
| (Only half joking...)
| itronitron wrote:
| Like when a state considers itself a global superpower but
| hasn't had any notable impact on an unremarkably sized rock
| orbiting an average sized star in a barely noticeable galaxy?
| bsimpson wrote:
| That's too long for me to read, so apologies if the answer was
| too subtle for "Find in page..."
|
| > I'm not leaving under a "deferred resignation".
|
| > ...
|
| > Instead, I resigned from my position as a product designer,
| submitting two weeks' notice...well, two weeks ago.
|
| If they're offering you a buyout and you don't want to work
| there, why wouldn't you take it?
| steveklabnik wrote:
| The part you cut out explains it:
|
| > (Though it's possible I almost was; more on that later.)
|
| The part from later in the post that explains it:
|
| > In a terrible coda, a large number of probationary employees
| were summarily let go at my agency just before my last day.
|
| He wasn't offered a buyout. He quit, and then later, a lot of
| people were let go. He believes it's probable he would have
| been one of them had he stayed.
| linkregister wrote:
| Everyone in the federal government received an email from OPM
| entitled "A Fork in the Road", offering the opportunity to
| receive a buyout in exchange for their resignation.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| He was a probationary employee, so if he didn't quit he likely
| would have been fired anyway (probationary employees don't get
| the buyout, and it's very possible rank-and-file won't get it
| either... it's budget that would have to be approved by
| congress)
| linkregister wrote:
| The tradeoffs from not wanting to read the article: the writer
| linked to another article explaining that accepting the
| deferred resignation contains the following risks:
|
| 1. Not getting paid: the agreement is written such that the
| government may rescind it unilaterally. It is also contrary to
| existing law in US Code that cap severances to $25k. If it is
| "administrative leave", then that is capped to 10 days per
| year.
|
| 2. Violating non-competes. If a person is still employed by the
| US government, they may be prohibited from working for a
| contractor or other employer with conflicts of interest.
|
| Article by American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE):
| https://www.afge.org/article/afge-cautions-feds-not-to-be-tr...
| adenylyl wrote:
| My understanding is that probationary employees weren't
| eligible for the deferred resignation offer.
| simonw wrote:
| Musk tweet on 18F: "That group has been deleted" -
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1886498750052327520
|
| Among other things, it frustrates me that Elon's work here has
| echoes of "what happens if we bring in experts from the tech
| world to help make government IT more efficient" while ignoring
| that that's what 18F did, and it worked really well.
| mambodog wrote:
| he doesn't want experts, he wants people who will be
| subservient to him. expertise would get in the way of that,
| because experts would likely understand that he has no idea
| what he's talking about, and not respect his dictates. see:
| everyone who knew how things worked at twitter.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| That seems overly reductive. Opposition is more effective
| when we strongman our opponents rather than strawman them.
|
| It's possible (probable?) Elon actually things "his" people
| are more talented.
| ryandrake wrote:
| It is possible, but not probable. The M.O. of the entire
| administration has been to replace expertise with loyalty.
| No reason to believe this group is any different. This was
| also the case in 2017.
| roguecoder wrote:
| If so, he is utterly unqualified to participate in hiring
| or firing.
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| It's not like this is new behavior from him. He wants
| people who agree with him and will do what he asks. He
| doesn't want pushback, and he definitely doesn't want to be
| told he's wrong.
|
| https://www.yahoo.com/news/data-scientist-resigned-
| twitter-b...
| hooverd wrote:
| However, steelman-ing shouldn't imply a lack of object
| permanence.
| foobarian wrote:
| Speaking of twitter, things were looking pretty grim right
| after the takeover, with users and advertisers dropping left
| and right and it seemed like its days are numbered. What
| happened? It looks like it's still chugging along.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Musk shrank Twitter until its load (technical and
| financial) was small enough to be carried by the resources
| it had available. Revenue is way down but so is traffic,
| staff, and technical expenses. There's still a website and
| app that loads, but it's not what Musk bought.
|
| Basically, Twitter is sustainable now because so much of
| its user base migrated away.
| thegreatpeter wrote:
| Seems like Twitter is bigger than ever.
| tyre wrote:
| Elon isn't trying to make the government more efficient.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| You and I both know this but the amount of people here who
| drink the kool-aid is astounding. Nothing about this adds up
| to making the government more efficient.
| paulgb wrote:
| Also, he was quote-tweeting something that referred to slashing
| IRS Direct File, which is probably one of the most no-brainer
| efficiency improvements the government could make. The main
| reason it's been opposed for so long is just because filing
| taxes for people is a big industry and they have lobbying
| dollars.
| neilv wrote:
| Question for lawyers.
|
| I can understand and respect someone leaving on principle, or
| someone simply unable to tolerate an immediate situation.
|
| But if a government employee is feeling under occupation by a
| destructive invader, and possibly expecting to be terminated, do
| they keep significant legal options open by _waiting it out_ ,
| rather than resigning, if they can tolerate to do so?
|
| For example, let's say that significant elements of legislative
| or judicial branches decide not to play along with the current
| maneuvers, and take corrective action. Or let's say that
| employees are able to sue for reinstatement, with damages? Or to
| sue rogue individuals personally, in some way that pierces
| whatever immunity the rogues might think they enjoy. Does the
| wronged person have a better case if they don't resign?
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Not a lawyer, but I wonder about this as well though more from
| the standpoint of trying to stay in there to be a witness to
| the destruction and to try to do what you can to slow it down.
| Though in this case, as he was still probationary he wouldn't
| have had that option. They (DOGE) found out that it's hard to
| fire federal government employees, but they found the loophole
| with probationary employees.
| layer8 wrote:
| Not a lawyer, but by resigning voluntarily, you basically
| relinquish all options regarding keeping the job that you would
| otherwise have had. You can't later invoke that you didn't
| really mean to resign.
|
| It's also often more advantageous to wait to be let go in order
| to collect severance pay. (Though likely not for the OP due to
| his probationary status, and there is also a big question mark
| regarding pay for the current government layoffs.)
| ajross wrote:
| All your questions presuppose an executive branch that is bound
| by the decisions of the judicial branch. This one isn't, or
| certainly doesn't feel that it is. So the answer is practical,
| not legal. The control they can exert is the control they can
| get away with exerting without undue cost. That might involve
| accepting the results of law suits from disgruntled employees,
| or it might not. Certainly right now they seem disinclined.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| There is a point about timescales.
|
| The judicial is, by design, retroactive: transgressions are
| made, cases are litigated, decisions come down, and then
| redresses are made [0]
|
| The executive is, by design, immediate: decisions are made
| and implemented, then can be legally challenged
|
| The gray area between the two is judicial restraining orders,
| where the facts of the case and/or the possibility of
| unredressable outcomes support the _immediate_ nullification
| of an order, while the case is being litigated.
|
| [0] https://www.npr.org/2025/02/11/nx-s1-5293078/a-constituti
| ona...
| Spooky23 wrote:
| When you have due process rights, it's always better to wait it
| out. Eventually the law will catch up, and even if you don't
| get your job back, you'll likely get money.
|
| This situation is unpredictable, there's likely to be civil
| unrest when one of these idiots makes a truly destructive move.
| The more plausible options you have, the better.
| j2kun wrote:
| Expecting this article to get flag-killed, as all politically-
| inclined submissions critical of Elon seem to be these days.
| jonas21 wrote:
| All politically-inclined submissions supportive of Elon are
| also quickly flag-killed. Perhaps it's for the best.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| > Perhaps it's for the best.
|
| It is not. We bear a lot of the responsibility for creating
| this situation, we shouldn't be able to just turn away from
| it now that it ended up where it was always going to.
| anon7000 wrote:
| It's definitely very political.
|
| But also very relevant to us, because Elon is applying tech
| business practices to the federal government. Move fast &
| break things (great for R&D, awful for organizations that are
| _supposed_ to be stable), mass-layoffs (and subsequently re-
| hiring after you figure out what broke), thinking that there
| 's no value in the legacy systems (and not keeping anyone
| around who might have known that), etc.
|
| It's important for us to realize that while tech has been an
| economic powerhouse, our culture and management practices
| aren't all good. Esp when it comes to tech CEOs who have been
| very successful, have a big ego, and think they can do better
| at anything.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| > _All politically-inclined submissions supportive of Elon
| are also quickly flag-killed._
|
| Funny, I haven't seen anything remotely commendable about
| Elon get submitted in months. Doesn't seem like a real issue.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Know a good alternate platform? I'm all ears.
| blueflow wrote:
| You could go to reddit or the fediverse.
| justin66 wrote:
| > fediverse
|
| Is that suggestion ever made unironically?
| darknavi wrote:
| I use Lemmy which is a halfway decent Reddit drop in
| these days.
|
| It is not politically diverse though.
| qwerpy wrote:
| Reddit is definitely a better place for the overly
| emotional/political comments that come up here, but it's
| very one-sided. A good or bad thing depending on your side.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| There was an article a while back about using HN as an IdP.
| I've thought about setting up a society-politics forum using
| HN as identity.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| I just saw a thread of several comments here completely
| disappear - I was in the middle of replying to one of them.
| layer8 wrote:
| You can turn on _showdead_ in your account settings. You
| still can't reply to dead comments, but you can see what
| disappeared.
| fragmede wrote:
| turn on show dead in your profile
| MyOutfitIsVague wrote:
| The vast majority of politically-inclined submissions get
| killed in general. A lot of people just flag politics.
| lostdog wrote:
| Most articles about politics are boring or repetitive, and
| should be flag killed and discussed elsewhere. I have plenty of
| other places where I can read the regular news.
| siliconc0w wrote:
| Mandatory service for the government would go a long way to
| educating the public just want these organizations do and
| building empathy for the problems they face.
|
| There is a significant risk of civil unrest as the competent
| employees are pushed out and government ceases to be able to
| function while private companies take advantage of lack of
| regulation to try and further extract value from captured
| markets.
| xg15 wrote:
| I think exactly this has been the deliberate strategy of a part
| of the US' political class for a long time - "starve the beast"
| and all. This seems like the final culmination of those plans.
| jjuel wrote:
| Tell the people the government is inefficient and cannot work
| as intended. Defund said government so it doesn't work as
| intended. Privatize the work and profit. A playbook as old as
| time. Except they are doing it bigger and more brazenly than
| ever.
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| > Mandatory service for [...] building empathy
|
| I understand your thought-process here, but I'll say it really
| doesn't work out like that in-practice.
|
| E.g. mandatory schooling certainly didn't make me build-up
| empathy for teachers and institutions, it had quite the
| opposite effect in my case.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I wonder how one can experience public schooling (20 years
| ago or now) and not have sympathy for the struggles of
| teachers.
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| Oh, in retrospect/hindsight, absolutely.
|
| But in-person, when you're on the spectrum, in the 1990s,
| when the senior staff put their stock in discipline - not
| understanding - does not build empathy on either side.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Fair.
|
| Heh, I remember being a distraction and being put in the
| back of the class. And when I finished tasks quicker than
| others, I couldn't be quiet. I was put in the hallway to
| do base 5 math in 3rd grade.
| 1shooner wrote:
| For those not familiar with the author, Ethan Marcotte literally
| wrote the book on responsive web design (and coined the phrase).
| I point that out about because I think it is (or was) relevant
| that someone with such a place in digital design history had
| chosen public service.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| There are very few people that would be better suited for a
| role like this than Ethan, any major web company would be
| fortunate to have him on staff... and the fact that he chose to
| work at 18F speaks volumes about the work they were doing
| there.
| lelandfe wrote:
| Oh wow, I didn't even realize. His old A List Apart articles
| were pretty formative for my career. (I also have fond memories
| of that site's Kevin Cornell/Bearskinrug illustrations)
| eob wrote:
| There was an SF office of 18F -- IIRC it was in the building to
| the right of the Civic Center park as you looked at it from the
| Bart stop. They were great folks from every encounter I had with
| them.
| Temporary_31337 wrote:
| I think this one is hard to defend but let me tell you a similar
| story in the UK. Gov uk was redesigned by some of the smartest
| people and generally I still praise a lot of digital
| transformation from that era. But after a while people got
| complacent and not much is happening or improving recently. So in
| that sense stirring the hive might be a good thing- even if 18F
| delivered good things in the past. Unfortunately with doge and
| Musk I don't really see how something better comes out of the
| chaos- destroying things just for the sake of it is not good
| enough plan and basically is missing the second part- what
| happens after the revolution.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| I still don't understand what getting rid of 18F accomplished.
| Someone on HN said they were "openly partisan"[0] but neglected
| to explain how.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43059187
| ajross wrote:
| 18F was staffed by a bunch of young tech folks who lean left.
| That makes them enemies subject to persecution. I really don't
| think there's any more complexity than that. Expect this kind
| of thing to be the norm in the future.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Unfortunately things like accessibility (which 18F provides
| guidance on) has been rolled into 'DEI' by the current
| administration, and is therefore a partisan issue.
|
| 18F was also designed for remote work, which oddly has become
| another partisan issue.
| roguecoder wrote:
| Anything that prevents government contractors from extracting
| maximal taxpayer dollars for their shareholders is in
| opposition to current partisan goals.
|
| As a result, simply being nerds committed to principles like
| "software should work" or "government information should be
| accessible, as required by law" is now considered "openly
| partisan": https://technical.ly/civic-news/18f-profile/
| hooverd wrote:
| They promoted things like "accessibility", which is woke of
| course.
| w10-1 wrote:
| Paraphrasing lines not to cross:
|
| 1. Working remotely
|
| 2. Killing or surveilling people
|
| 3. Discussing work with someone outside work
|
| The resignation stemmed from the possibility of 3.
|
| By contrast, some people stay in their positions or businesses
| notwithstanding adjudications of fraud, abuse, treachery, etc.
|
| Of those two kinds of people, which will most successfully
| infiltrate and control an organization?
|
| (As a hint, Stalin was not a leader but a bureaucrat who managed
| to oust all the actual leaders, and did Putin with the
| oligarchs.)
|
| I respect the author's choice as the best alternative, and
| respect his speaking up for the organization. I just wish we
| could give him a better alternative.
| corpMaverick wrote:
| May be an opportunity to find talent for State or City
| governments that want to create their own digital services
| agencies?
| jballer wrote:
| To recap: OP resigned because he feared what _might_ happen in a
| meeting with USDS. It might have required him to kill someone, or
| explain his work to a contractor. Somehow these are presented as
| equally-odious propositions.
|
| He openly refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of USDS,
| referring to it as "a so-called 'department'", and neglects even
| a cursory investigation into whether it may in fact be a
| legitimate executive agency established by Obama, staffed by
| government employees with requisite clearances and authority.
|
| It's wild to me that so many smart people think the White House
| should be boxed out of the day-to-day operations of GSA and OMB,
| whether by law or tradition, despite being undeniably responsible
| for their actions.
| rat87 wrote:
| Yes people don't want Trump corrupting the government.
|
| Corruption is bad. Power is easy to abuse.
|
| Checks are hard when a president doesn't care about the law or
| the constituon kr the damage he does to the country.
|
| There's a reason several departments are supposed to be at arms
| length from the president.
|
| Many of these reforms happened after Nixon. Now assuming the
| country survives it's clear we need something more. Possibly
| some administrative agencies need to be placed under the
| judicial branch to avoid executive corruption. Also impeachment
| needs to be much easier, arguably we need something like a vote
| of no confidence where a malcious president can be replaced by
| the VP. Although even that might not work like a lot of
| problems relating to the trump disaster era its hard to
| overcome reflexive partisanship
| jballer wrote:
| I went to a USDS recruiting event in the Bay Area a decade
| ago. The whole pitch was that they were Obama's elite squad
| of private-sector tech workers, on brief tours of duty,
| taking orders directly from the White House about what to
| work on.
| roguecoder wrote:
| Being required to meet with private citizens, who won't even
| admit their own names, and being expected to subject oneself to
| them in violation of actual laws, is not a "what might happen".
| It is already potentially a crime. It is certainly a coup
| against the lawful governance of our nation.
|
| Not wanting to collaborate with a coup is an entirely
| reasonable line to draw.
| mightyham wrote:
| > This is a wholesale attack on the American safety net, led by
| billionaires and far-right politicians who are frighteningly
| comfortable with fascism and autocracy. The last month has been
| called a coup by politicians, researchers, and watchdogs alike.
|
| I find it amusing that many left-wing people are only now getting
| up in arms about the extent to which our government has been
| infiltrated by money interests. I understand not wanting to work
| for Trump's government, but why not just leave it at that? If
| this person was willing to work for the Biden administration
| regardless of it's billionaire influences, it betrays that this
| issue, for them, is a rationalization and not a reason.
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| Your summary is "both sides" crap. I agree, money has too much
| influence on both parties. But which party refunded $1T in
| taxes which were already due and being held aside via
| accounting tricks (eg, Apple routing all their profits to a
| tiny subsidiary in Ireland to avoid paying US taxes)? Which
| party cut the capital gains tax? Which party is going to cut it
| again? Which party supported Citizens United and which
| objected?
|
| Finally, there is a matter of changing the laws to be in your
| favor vs flouting the laws and doing what is in your favor.
|
| And you find this "amusing."
| mightyham wrote:
| Both sides are bad, that much is obvious. If that's all you
| gleaned from my comment, you completely missed the point
| being made.
|
| I'm also not going to argue with you about which party is
| more controlled or hurting the country more. That is a
| terribly uninteresting online discussion to have.
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| I reread your comment. All I got out of it was "both sides
| are bad" and implied that the guy who wrote the article was
| being hypocritical for quitting due to what Musk is doing
| but didn't quit during the previous administration.
|
| You say I completely missed the point you were making. I
| guess so. Can you state it directly as I can't unearth it
| by reading between the lines.
| arunabha wrote:
| Setting aside the politics of the issue(which is _very_
| polarizing) this is the part which troubled me the most
|
| > "Instead, they found themselves on a call with people who
| wouldn't say where they worked in government; in a few cases,
| some people wouldn't disclose their last names, or any part of
| their names"
|
| This is terrifying if this is true. Forget this happening in a
| Government department, if I were in a meeting to discuss the
| details of my work with people I didn't know and refused to
| provide basic identification, the standard response would be to
| call security.
|
| Whether you agree or disagree with the goals of DOGE, I think we
| can all agree that the approach chosen is incorrect.
|
| Edit: - Fix formatting
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| Yep. And there are established processes to handle reduction in
| force (RIF) directives and performance issues.
|
| None of that was followed. No attempt was even made.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| Drastic cost cuts are usually not simply performance issues
| and usually the mistake of top management (usually
| overhiring), but of course it hurts most the employees.
| throwaway492810 wrote:
| 18F/TTS repeatedly was cited by the Inspector General for
| breaking rules and making false statements, often for political
| reasons. E.g:
|
| March 2023: "GSA Misled Customers on Login.gov's Compliance with
| Digital Identity Standards" (refused to use mandatory facial
| recognition because it believed it was racist) [1]
|
| June 2017: "Investigation of Whistleblower Reprisal Complaint"
| (finding that an Obama political appointee retaliated against a
| career official for blowing the whistle on mismanagement) [2]
|
| April 2017: GSA acknowledges "gross mismanagement" [3]
|
| October 2016: "Evaluation of 18F" (finding that it spent
| thousands of dollars on things like "inclusion bots") [4]
|
| May 2016: "GSA Data Breach" [5]
|
| February 2017: "Evaluation of 18F's Information Technology
| Security Compliance" (misrepresented severity of breach) [6]
|
| [1] https://www.gsaig.gov/sites/default/files/ipa-
| reports/Alert%...
|
| [2]
| https://www.gsaig.gov/sites/default/files/foia/Investigation...
|
| [3]
| https://osc.gov/Documents/Public%20Files/FY17/DI-17-0642/DI-...
|
| [4] https://www.gsaig.gov/sites/default/files/ipa-
| reports/OIG%20...
|
| [5] https://www.gsaig.gov/sites/default/files/ipa-
| reports/Alert%...
|
| [6] https://www.gsaig.gov/sites/default/files/ipa-
| reports/OIG%20...
| snvzz wrote:
| An example of highly relevant, yet flagged with political
| motivation.
|
| We should try and do better than that.
| otterley wrote:
| Did you check out the links? They don't align well with what
| is claimed (especially the first link). Posts from throwaway
| accounts should generally be treated with skepticism.
| lostdog wrote:
| Wow, the first link has absolutely nothing to do with
| facial recognition or racism. That poster is either
| outright lying or posting LLM garbage.
| kjs3 wrote:
| That poster knows its target audience. It wants readers
| like the first response from snvzz who say "look at all
| those impressive looking links that I'm told support my
| preconceived notions! Clearly, this is a person of
| gavitas who I must upvote, defend from criticism and
| forwarded to my equally uncritical echo chamber!".
| droptablemain wrote:
| The only insight I got from reading this is that the author
| doesn't like the president or his administration. Big whoop.
| jonah wrote:
| For everyone talking about why things are being done like they
| are, take a look at this article linked to in the post:
|
| Understanding DOGE as Procurement Capture
|
| https://www.anildash.com/2025/01/04/DOGE-procurement-capture...
| karlzt wrote:
| It seems a coincidence that today is February 18.
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(page generated 2025-02-18 23:01 UTC)