Is Elon himself in the building?
I thought his boyish minions were doing all the smash and grab shit.
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As someone who works with census data daily â Iâm director of the Missouri Census Data Center â I should point out a few things here.
First, Musk didnât âdeleteâ any census or other data. Regarding the census data, the Bureauâs FTP site was disabled on Friday. However, data.census.gov and the Census Data API are still working⌠for now.
Nevertheless, for those of us in the census data field, this is a HUGE blow. My network, which includes people pretty far up the ladder, are mostly working against a very quickly moving target. Already there are groups issuing statements and collecting signatures. (The Census Project has some things you can sign, if you think it will help: Sign On Opportunities - The Census Project)
Not only the Census Bureau was affected â data access was removed from the BLS, BEA, CDC, FDA, and many others.
The NYT provides a good overview here:
ETA: In case it isnât clear, my comment is NOT in defense of Musk.
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I donât know. Details have been lacking. If so, all the more reason they shouldâve been stopped. Musk has some clout, but a bunch of random college kids messing around in the essential levers of government wasnât even worth a âhands up!â?
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Will no one rid me of this meddlesome billionaire?
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Not meaning to pick on you, but itâs funny people keep calling them boyish, or juniors like you see above, or so on. This is far from the first time someone recruited a bunch of men in their early 20s to help them try to bring down a government, and Iâve never seen people call that out as young before. Seems like itâs pretty typical for militants and revolutionaries and foot soldiers in general honestly. Wonder why these guys get to be painted as kids instead? 
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two words: Hitler Youth.
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Too busy âwinningâ I guess. Seriously, some Congress dumbfuck on the news last night was justifying all this as being great because of how much winning is going on right now. It just makes my head explode.
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Iâm assuming that either a) the local police tried and failed (and that fact is getting lost in the confusion), or b) the local police didnât try because the country is now at the point where Musk can do whatever he wants and law enforcement wonât lift a finger.
Neither is good news.
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Youâre right about that. And please, please donât think Iâm trying to favorably compare these assholes to the guys who led the revolution against the British (although many of them were assholes too) but on July 4, 1776 Hamilton was 21, Aaron Burr was 20, and the Marquis de Lafayette was 18.
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Exactly. The bottom of the crater indicates the impact point of what caused the crater. A-bomb; H-bomb; E-bomb.
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Honestly I think people could stand to valorize the guys who started a war that involved thousands of deaths to found a âbold new experimentâ that has ended upâŚnot really great even compared to other English speaking countriesâŚa lot less. But I was mostly thinking about your average military coup or terrorist operation that you might see in any other country. Somehow nobody ever wonders about young men being involved there.
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Thatâs what they want. Donât let it.
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Back in the 80s, when the impacts of mass media were only just beginning to be felt and understood, Brian Fawcett wrote a book of short stories and a long essay (much more entertaining than it sounds) . The title was âCambodia: A Book For People Who Find Television Too Slowâ. [1]
During the long-form essay on Cambodia, he describes the soldiers of the Pol Pot government as something like: âa teenage gang with power over life and death over everybodyâ. I mentioned the âteenage gangâ part to a friend who knew more about history than I did. He said âYep, lots of revolutions are run on the ground by teenage gangs.â
To be really clear: Iâm not defending or excusing this bunch. Iâm saying âYes, this isnât unusual, so they shouldnât get unusual treatment. They should get the usual harsh justice.â
[1] Back in the 80s, âfinding television too slowâ was an astonishing turn of phrase. Progress?
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Lt. William Calley was 24 years old at the time of the My Li Massacre. No one said he was a youth or too young to be held responsible.
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I mean, I find most online videos too slow, because I can read faster than they talk. Please just write things down so I can find out what I am looking for already! 
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Yep. I have a book on genocide and the commonality is recruiting young people, especially boys and young men, to carry out the atrocities.
My older cousin was drafted during the Vietnam War, and he once said the military leaders liked having 18-year-olds drafted because theyâre compliant and less likely to question their superiors.
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Less Thomas Ă Becket and more like Promise to Wreck-it.
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Thatâs why I have such trouble committing to podcasts and such.
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