[fncypants]

Do not both sides any of this. One cannot claim that both sides present misinformation and then not acknowledge that one side is doing so intentionally and the other is not.

Elon tweeted that there was a lot of 150-year-old recipients. That's all he said. [1] So there was a rush to point out why, if this 150 year old number is the only information he's providing of fraud, it is not a prima facie case of fraud. That was a good faith response to a bad faith, selective release of information.

[1] https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/musk-claims-150-year-ol...

So then Musk provides more data, but again, not enough data to provide all the context. What he leaves out is that there have been multiple, prior good faith attempts to investigate these data entries, identify whether there's any fraud, and address any problems. This was the work of inspectors general whose job is to work in good faith to try to resolve these issues.

There is one side acting only in bad faith. If they were acting in good faith, they would raise these issues through legal channels (inspectors general) and then have an orderly, legal process to address them. That is how it has always been done, for a reason. They are not operating legally because they know that what they are doing is in bad faith and would be found out as such.

What we are witnessing is a dismantling of the rule of law. It's important to recognize that and to not to be complicit in it.

[Amezarak]

You're replying to a thread on an article about how someone just made up the 1875 thing to own Elon.

There's definitely a "both sides" problem here. Many more commenters are making totally unfounded assertions about how these systems actually work for the same reason.

You yourself are pontificating about the inspector general's report at a level of expertise beyond what you likely have. I have some familiarity with IGs, though not in the SSA. It has been eye-opening to see people crawling out of the woodwork to talk about their role, their effectiveness, their "good faith attempts", etc. They don't actually know any of this: it's just ammo they found online to "get" Musk since the controversy started.

Why is it so hard to just suspend judgement about these claims, rather than attack them with little basis? Or at least go after it for solid philosophical reasons? I can't understand why the level of discourse on this subject on Hacker News, of all places, is so bad.

[mrguyorama]

>You're replying to a thread on an article about how someone just made up the 1875 thing to own Elon.

That commenter on DailyKos wasn't put in charge of dismantling parts of the government.

Musk Was.

[ModernMech]

The way Musk has acted in the past 4 weeks has caused people here to feel it's not in good faith. Suspending judgement when people are lying to your face is a recipe for getting the wool pulled over your eyes. We have ample reason to think Musk isn't acting in good faith, mainly because of the drive-by posting he is doing and the way he's not working with Congress. He wants to make incredible claims without credible evidence... which just makes his claims incredible.

If Musk were doing what FDR did 100 years ago -- affecting major change by working through Congress -- there would be a different response.