This is what makes this whole discussion so difficult. The US government isn’t as efficient as it could be. No one with any exposure to its inner workings will disagree with that. But the discussion is being framed as “well either you love the government or you love DOGE” but that’s a completely false dichotomy.
I strongly support DOGE’s publicly stated mission. But that’s not what they are doing. The data is there. You can’t save money by cutting people who make $100k a year. We know how to save the government money. We know that every $1 spent on the IRS nets more than $1 and every $1 taken away loses more than $1.[0] We already have agencies and organizations which publicly list fraud.[1]
As this article states the cruelty is the point. That’s been very clearly stated if not directly in the EO but by those involved. We can only move the discussion forward by actually talking about that. If you believe that making the bureaucracy afraid to do their job is a good idea then that’s an opinion you’re allowed to have. But hiding behind the facade of “efficiency” isn’t going to help get anything done.
When I saw this news story about the 5 bullet email it didn’t strike me as an outrageous ask, but then I saw some of the chatter where people were going ballistic about it.
I was interested in the HN response to it. I mean probably a good majority of us on here do daily stand-ups where the previous day’s efforts are bulleted and the day’s target tasks are ID’d. So it doesn’t really surprise me that this hasn’t really provoked the HN outrage we usually see with all things DOGE.
A lot of the concern is about how it's going to be used. Who is even asking for it? For what purpose? Are they even in the chain of command?
Also some positions don't really lend themselves to listing "accomplishments". E.x. what's the guy running the scanner at the airport supposed to write down?
I strongly support DOGE’s publicly stated mission. But that’s not what they are doing. The data is there. You can’t save money by cutting people who make $100k a year. We know how to save the government money. We know that every $1 spent on the IRS nets more than $1 and every $1 taken away loses more than $1.[0] We already have agencies and organizations which publicly list fraud.[1]
As this article states the cruelty is the point. That’s been very clearly stated if not directly in the EO but by those involved. We can only move the discussion forward by actually talking about that. If you believe that making the bureaucracy afraid to do their job is a good idea then that’s an opinion you’re allowed to have. But hiding behind the facade of “efficiency” isn’t going to help get anything done.
[0] https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60037 [1] https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-105833
(New account since I’m closer to this than I’d like to be)
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...
I was interested in the HN response to it. I mean probably a good majority of us on here do daily stand-ups where the previous day’s efforts are bulleted and the day’s target tasks are ID’d. So it doesn’t really surprise me that this hasn’t really provoked the HN outrage we usually see with all things DOGE.
Also some positions don't really lend themselves to listing "accomplishments". E.x. what's the guy running the scanner at the airport supposed to write down?
We could do better. Maybe we just need a fresh start.
And I honest to god think that Trump and Musk are gonna burn our world down to the ground, piss on the ashes, and then demand payment for doing so.
And I dunno, somehow it all just feels so right.
I hope Musk has got double B working on a SOMA recipe for us...