DOGE staffers flew to California to try and release water themselves during LA fires
DOGE staffers flew to California to try and release water themselves during LA fires
The pair traveled to California after reportedly trying to pressure a top government official to open the water pump
Summary
DOGE staffers Tyler Hassen and Bryton Shang tried pressuring the Bureau of Reclamation to open a California water pump to aid Los Angeles during January’s wildfires, though the system couldn’t reach the city.
When denied, they flew there to do it themselves but failed due to maintenance and access restrictions.
Critics called DOGE a “slapstick operation of 20-somethings they’re seeing as whiz kids but have zero knowledge.”
Trump later ordered dam releases, flooding farmland. Critics called DOGE’s actions reckless and uninformed.
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I'm not clear on why they doubled down on this, when it was apparently clear that the water was not going to go where they wanted it to go?
You think their goal is to help?
Well, I was thinking that at the very least they did not want to broadcast their idiocy, but clearly I need to reevaluate.
Was it idiocy or malice?
Idiocy can explain a lot, but malice makes everything they've done and everything they're trying to do make a lot more sense.
These acts are intentional and, even if these kids don't understand, the people who are calling the shots do and these are not mistakes (even if they claim otherwise); They have been planning this for years and have the backing of multiple billionaires who are clearly more than happy to facilitate all this.
This is why "Hanlon's Razor" is kind of bullshit. People should stop using it because, at the very least, it does not apply anymore.
I'm pretty sure Hanlon specifically mentions that it must be "adequately" explained, and these events are not adequately explained by stupidity alone.
Then I guess my frustrations are more with the people who misuse it.
My admittedly tepid understanding of both Hanlon's and Occam's Razor and how it relates to DOGE fuckery tells me that in this and many other cases, Hanlon's Razor doesn't fit as well as Occam's Razor because the more straightforward reason is that malice is a simpler explanation for their behavior than stupidity, which is somewhat counterintuitive regarding their actions.
It's a general rule, not an absolute law, generally I think it should be the default assumption but past a certain point, it has to be intentional.
Also, there are a lot of malicious idiots. It's not anywhere near an XOR choice.
¿Porque no los dos?
So many news articles questioning how these acts could be expected to help and hwo foolish they are when the answer is much, much simpler - the damage is in purpose. The harm is on purpose. The rest of the US can no longer assume "good intentions" from their caretakers. It's all malice from here on out.
I was thinking that at the very least they did not want to broadcast their idiocy
That would require a level of self-awareness greater than that of a paramecium.
I think that might be a little harsh towards paramecia.
They can be pretty sure that the idiots that support them won't find out how moronic their efforts really are. Sure, NORMAL Americans know how stupid this is, but who cares about that?
No, longtermism is just a way for idiot rich monsters to clear their conscience
Because they are idiots. They assume that because they might be good at one thing that they're good at everything.
It's like:
Everyone sane: "This kills the patient. Flat out."
Them: "We're willing to take that risk! Do it!"
Because the water would go where they want it to go. You just don't understand where they want it to go or why.
You think they want it to go to where the fires are. That's wrong.
They want it to go into the central valley to refill the giant lake and swamp ecosystem that used to be there.
They don't care about the short-term needs of people who need to drink or put out fires or grow crops. They are making decisions entirely from the perspective of longtermism. They see restoring the central valley's swamp ecosystem as the overwhelming long-term good, regardless of any short-term consequences.
Right idea, reckless implementation. It's also not clear that just dumping as much water as possible into the central valley is the best way to restore the swamp ecosystem. So much of the valley's hydrology and ability to retain water have been damaged since the cotton farmers drained the lake after the civil war. This is a restoration that needs to be done slowly and deliberately, both to not kill people who currently rely on that water and to manage the environmental impacts on the basin of suddenly reintroducing water that it's spent 150 years adapting to live without.
I have not seen any evidence of this plan, nor any long-term planning from the administration in general. Can you support this claim?
I make no claim of long-term planning.
Longtermism is a philosophy that Musk has been writing about for many years.
Elon isn't one for careful planning.
He is one for careless disregard of short-term consequences while seeking what he has determined to be a long-term good.
I have personally argued for restoring the central valley swamp ecosystem in California. Doing so should be a delicate task, because the valley is no longer hydrologically or morphologically tuned to swampland. The entire overland water transport hydrological system in the valley was redesigned by humans to support farmers in a dry basin decades after the cotton farmers drained it.
Just dumping water into what used to be the lakebed is reckless. It is an action taken with no long-term planning for rebuilding an ecosystem that emerged from the last ice age thanks to careful maintenance, gardening, and stewardship by indigenous peoples; building this ecosystem required human ingenuity and careful planning; so will rebuilding it. It is an action taken without even short-term planning for what happens to the water next as it refills a basin now adapted to dry conditions; it is one of our nation's agricultural powerhousen.
I believe that he thinks that just putting the water in the right place without anyone helping develop the new swamp ecosystem is enough to restore California's wetlands. Maybe he's right, on a long enough timescale. I think we should prefer to be careful and to work with the various relevant communities in that area to ensure that any further changes we make to this ecosystem are done responsibly.
I'm confused. Wasn't Trumps mission to drain the swap? Why is he now trying to fill it back up? Is he that old and senile he doesn't know what the plan is anymore?
Wasn’t Trumps mission to drain the swap?
No, that's just another lie he told to get power.