[andrewflnr]

"Results may vary" is not an acceptable methodology for the US Government, when millions of lives are potentially at stake.

Ed: among the ways millions of lives could be lost: losing control of our nuclear arsenal or nuclear materials due to haphazardly firing people responsible for maintaining them. Bungling the response to the next pandemic, due to haphazardly firing people, cutting science funding and deleting inconvenient data. Starvation and disease from ceasing aid around the world. There's also the wars likely to result from the collapse of trust in the US as a security partner, but I suppose it's not correct to blame that on DOGE per se, even if it's an extension of the same principle.

[elcritch]

> Bungling the response to the next pandemic, due to haphazardly firing people, cutting science funding and deleting inconvenient data.

That’s possible, however, it’s possible it’ll give a chance to remove autocrats who have suppressed the scientific method in favor of their prevailing opinions or preferences.

There will be a painful period but it could rejuvenate the systems.

[andrewflnr]

But consider, what if we rejuvenated our health infrastructure in a way that isn't blazingly incompetent? Suppose you learned enough about the systems currently being smashed to specifically fire the "autocrats" and leave the competent people? Are you seeing where the importance of detail comes in?

[MichaelZuo]

This seems circular, since your opinion, views, thoughts, etc., are what the opposing factions are rejecting ( or de-legitimizing) in the first place.

[andrewflnr]

People disagree with my opinion, therefore it's circular? Interesting logic.

[MichaelZuo]

Did you read the remainder of the comment?

It seems pretty clear to me at least why it would lead to circular arguments.

[andrewflnr]

At this point, I've presented a handful of fairly straightforward hypotheses about cause and effect. They could be wrong, but it's on you to show that they're actually self-referential. There is no amount or kind of other people's opinions that will make them so.

[MichaelZuo]

Your opinions do not automatically turn into credible “hypotheses”…?

There is no such mechanism.

If there was then the vast majority of political debates on HN wouldn’t even exist.

[andrewflnr]

Who said a hypothesis is automatically credible? Not me.

[nuancebydefault]

Sometimes people (e.g. US voters) will only learn by running into a wall. How all exactly will turn out is hard to tell and frankly maybe we better don't know. I'm tending to the conclusion there's no way around the movement of the big picture, the shifting of geo-political order in the world.

[andrewflnr]

Certainly, global trust in the US is already gone. That's locked in for the foreseeable future.