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See the post on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/provisionalidea.bsky.social/post/3lhujtm2qkc2i
According to many comments, the US government DOES use SQL, and Musk is not understanding much what's going on.
That's weird, I thought I used SQL databases from government agencies regularly. Guess I was mistaken.
Elon’s shock and fury about the database key sounds like he got a report from an out-of-breath 20 year old DOGE kid who thinks they’re hot shit and discovered some massive flaw.
Elon also seems like the kind of person that believes a database schema is all that’s needed to govern a population.
He’s mad because it isn’t blockchain
I'm sure folks on here know this, but you know, there's also that 10K a day that don't so...
What makes this especially funny, to me, is that SSN is the literal text book example (when I was in school anyway) of a "natural" key that you absolutely should never use as a primary key. It is often the representative example of the kinds of data that seems like it'd make a good key but will absolutely fuck you over if you do.
SSN is not unique to a person. ~~They get reused after death, and a person can have more than one in their lifetime (if your id is stolen and you arduously go about getting a new one).~~ Edit: (See responses) It seems I'm misinformed about SSNs, apologies. I have heard from numerous sources that they are not unique to a person, but the specifics of how it happens are unknown to me.
And they're protected information due to all the financials that rely on them, so you don't really want to store them at all (unless you're the SSA, who would have guessed that'd ever come up though!?)
It's so stupid that it would be hilarious if people weren't dying.
Small correction to an otherwise great explanation: SSNs are not recycled after death.
**Q20: *Are Social Security numbers reused after a person dies?*****A: No. We do not reassign a Social Security number (SSN) after the number holder's death. Even though we have issued over 453 million SSNs so far, and we assign about 5 and one-half million new numbers a year, the current numbering system will provide us with enough new numbers for several generations into the future with no changes in the numbering system.
"Several generations" well that is fucking garbage
Nah. It’s worked for 50 years and if we get another 30 then it’s done its job well. Government is supposed to review and adjust things as time goes on and Social Security Numbers weren’t intended to uniquely identify citizens. They probably expected an overhaul to be done by 2020.
They fact that we haven’t reworked portions of it and rely on SSNs to identify citizens shows that we haven’t had a forward-thinking Congress in the last 20 years at minimum.
Thanks for (starting to) explain this concept to people not accustomed to how the US does their shit.
See, where i live, we used to have for example a Tax-Number. That was a thing the taxdepartment used to identify a person. But if you move from city a to city b, that numbers changes. So if you move a lot, you will have numerous of these.
Now, some 15 years back, the Tax-ID was introduced (fellow residents at this point will lnow it might be Germany) and this number is a one-in-a-kind ID that will only be assigned to you. They create it shortly after birth. My sons first registraion ID was this, before anyrhing else. You will also get a uniqie healthcare-ID that also works like that.
So...how does that work in the US and why is habing a changing number that is not unique helpful? Or what is Elon not getting? I dont get it either because I dont know how this works for you.
Thanks in advance to shed light on this.
You know, the thing that always seemed really scary about the OG Nazis is that they were competent, intelligent, put-together people that were just fucking evil. Then you look at the US Nazis and the fucking bozo density is off the charts, but they seem to be succeeding anyway.
Three possibilities come to mind:
the OG Nazis were dumb as bricks lmao. Weird nerds with massive egos half of which believed in magic.
Hitler and Himmler believed in "World Ice Theory" which was put forth by some German crackpot who stated the base matter of all reality was ice.
Every German person I’ve ever met talks so confidently about shit that you just kinda assume they know what they’re talking about, until they start talking about a domain you’re an expert in and you realize they’re actually kinda dumb but with good vocabulary.
OG Nazis were looking for aryans in Tibet.
He got community-noted for being wrong. Per usual, it's only a matter of time before he deletes his post.
More likely, he'll delete the community note
Elon starting to comment on technical matters was the moment I learned he was actually completely beyond incompetent, since I have some actual expertise on the subject. Right around the time he bought Twitter and commented publicly on its architecture.
This is further evidence to that point
His response to the 2018 Thai Cave rescue is what made me realize how big of a shit stain on society he is.
Jesus Fucking Christ !!!
What does Elmo think the government use ? MongoDB, because its Web Scale [0]?
Ah, a classic watch. :-)
Elon probably thinks that SQL is MS SQL Sever, MySQL, or some such.
A government official known for performing a nazi salute just broadcast an ableist slur.
Cool cool cool
Musk doesn't understand database design (or the existence of PRIMARY KEY ()), surprise.
“Your tax dollars are being stolen”
Rare moment of clarity from our global barony.
Isn’t Oracle a big government supplier with millions if not billions worth of contracts?
Elon is a fraud but for someone who claims he created one of the Web’s first e-commerce sites this level of ignorance is embarrassing
He paid some people to pretend he's the founder, then used that title to build a reputation of being genius and what not. And he's been getting rich off of investor capitol ever since.
I don't know which company he did and didn't start himself. But I know he definitely didn't write the code behind ebay or paypal
Someone needs to explain to Musk how to debug with the JSON so that the ipv6 GUI does not overflow into the git API front-end
SSNs are literally just handed out to hospitals and social security offices in batches and given out in sequential order. They were specifically and intentionally designed to be a terrible system of ID numbers because people actually used to care about their privacy. There are countless people who've gone their whole lives using the wrong social security number and gotten their benefits just fine, because unlike everyone else in this dumpster fire of a country the social security office has never been stupid enough to rely on just a single number.
Tax dollars are definitely being stolen... by this unelected buffoon
This retard thinks the government doesn't use SQL...
It's hard to figure out what he's talking about , when he says the "whole social security database". Like in which tables are they duplicated? Does it mean the entire row is duplicated or just the SSN, it might make sense to be duplicated depending on the schema. Is it an append only db, so there might be updated columns on the same ssn and you need to filter by the latest update timestamp? Who knows.
But also, saying that there's a "social security database" and then following that up by the govt "doesn't use SQL" so.. the db is actually just a spreadsheet? A .txt file? The SSNs are just written down in someone's notebook? Lol
SSNs are reused. Someone dies and their number gets reassigned. The database could easily be keeping track of all previous assignments for any given SSN.
Remember, SSNs are designed for social security and nothing else. They got picked up as a unique ID by private interests as a hack. They were never supposed to be as widespread in use as they are. The federal government using it this way is the specific, designed use case.
SQL is not web-scale
Musk seems to think Musk is a tech genius, but really he was just born into money and used it to buy a bunch of companies. In fairness he was able to recognise which companies to buy, doesn't mean he knows anything about databases though.
In fairness he was able to recognise which companies to buy
I think this is just survivorship bias. There are millions of wealthy individuals investing in companies every single day. Occasionally these gambles pay off and make people extremely wealthy.
Most of the time the people who succeed just spend their incredibe wealth and live a quiet happy life.
But there are others who crave attention. These individuals bully their way into prestigious positions and pretend that they're leading the company.
Elon is that kind of person. He started wealthy, bet his money on companies that succeeded. Then took the CEO role so he would get credit for the companys' successes.
If ever people dare stop paying attention to him he'll do something drastic to recapture the spotlight on.
He's the kind of person who will stand on stage and do a nazi salute just because he wants you to look at him.
REAL GOVERNMENTS USE EXCEL SHEETS /j
Wasn't it the uk or something that messed up a vote due to excel's row limit?
I think it was something to do with COVID stats during the initial outbreak, but yes, yes it was the UK government and their bizarre love affair with stupid tech choices.
He used to be regarded as tony stark. Nah he is Justin Hammer. Steals ideas implements them shit and has no idea about anything
Maybe Musk needs to learn about data normalization and natural keys.
I'm curious what the actual data looks like. I've spent quite a bit of time auditing large data systems.
I would expect these databases to be largely denormalized with very wide tables, I would expect them to favour natural keys like a SSNs, and built around per department use cases.
I would not expect them to be highly normalized because then when you need something from another department you need them to ensure consistency.
These systems probably have like 50 years of legacy code or more in them too.
A pretentious asshole billionaire is going to be preaching us about massive fraud. Because he totally earned all his wealth through back breaking honest hard work. Give me a fucking break.
That man will be doing to same thing to important shit right now.
Sounds like he got confused looking at a view of a join.
SELECT holder_name, amount
FROM account JOIN transaction ON transaction.account_id=account.id;
-- WTF!! THERE'S DUPLICATES!!!
He definitely doesn't know what deduplicated means...