It's really not the right thing to be bikeshedding. The people calling the shots call themselves the Department of War. No need to die on hills that don't matter.
It's really not the right thing to be bikeshedding. The people calling the shots call themselves the Department of War. No need to die on hills that don't matter.
It's actually a good thing to point out, because it shows that those people are out of control and exceeding their authority, and need to be reined in.
No need to die on the hill, but point out that there's a consistent pattern of lawless power-grabbing.
> it shows that those people are out of control and exceeding their authority
No, the concentration camps and gangs of masked thugs violating civil rights are that sign. Threatening to treat a domestic private corporation like an enemy combatant during peacetime for not immediately caving to military demands is that sign. Trying to take over the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is that sign. The Executive attempting to freeze funds issued by Congress for partisan reasons is that sign.
Department of War is just little boys being trolls.
The action of a failed rebrand belongs to the Department of Defense, and is indeed an example of exceeding their authority. It was not DoD that is trying totake over the Fed, the FTR, or the NRC, so those examples don't work against Hegseth here.
This is like picketing Auschwitz with placards complaining that the "National Socialists" aren't socialists.
I don't see the analogy at all.
Anthropic is in negotiation with Hegseth/DoD. Pointing out all the specific actions that Hegseth is doing are fair game to show that Hegseth is nuts.
Bringing in other complaints against other parties, however bad those other parties are behaving, shows a pattern in other people, which might be helpful too. But hegseth's direct actions are stronger evidence.
Well, who is going to reign them in?
According to the constitution, Congress is the check and balance on this. If congress refuses act as they are supposed to, it's up to the rest of our democracy to exert force on them, shame them, recognize what's going on, talk to our neighbors, etc.
If the current congress doesn't take action, in 2027 it's quite likely they will.
Of course the most likely current course is that nobody reins in Hegseth/DoD right now, but even if there's no official consequences at the moment there should be a memory and political will to change the system to prevent such abuse in the future.
Shaming a congressman works in 2026?
You're talking about an administration that barred the AP from pressed briefings because they didn't call it the Gulf of America. This is not a bikeshed.
> It's really not the right thing to be bikeshedding. The people calling the shots call themselves the Department of War. No need to die on hills that don't matter.
From the first chapter of the book On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder, an historian of Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust:
> Do not obey in advance.
* https://timothysnyder.org/on-tyranny
* https://archive.org/details/on-tyranny-twenty-lessons-from-t...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Snyder
I wouldn’t call a brief comment on the matter dying on a hill fcs
Commenting on the matter just makes it easier for the media to yap about Anthropic being "woke" rather than focusing on the Department of War's demands.
TIL of Bikeshedding, or Parkinson’s Law of Triviality.
Defined as the tendency for teams to devote disproportionate time and energy to trivial, easy-to-understand issues while neglecting complex, high-stakes decisions. Originating from the example of arguing over a bike shed's color instead of a nuclear plant's design, it represents a wasteful focus on minor details.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality
---
I deal with this day in and day out. Thank you for informing me of the word that describes the laughable nightmares I deal with on the regular.
Get a prop with difficulty/importance quadrants and silently tap sign on meetings