4 ms·

Maybe if the orders weren't so ineptly or maliciously ambiguous and overly broad, then people would have more confidence that safety critical jobs aren't being

Maybe if the orders weren't so ineptly or maliciously ambiguous and overly broad, then people would have more confidence that safety critical jobs aren't being cut.

nickff 2y ago
The "Hiring Freeze" seems to clearly and explicitly exclude cases like this. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/hiring-freeze/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/hiri...
ModernMech 2y ago
I think they really do want to hollow out the federal government, and we should expect things like planes falling out of the sky as part of that. Given the release of this memo[1] offering the buyout of any federal employee who wants to step down, what I think we are looking at is the Musk-Vance-Thiel axis of the MAGA movement is implementing Curtis Yarvin's "R.A.G.E." plan to install a king dictator atop a neo-feudalist executive branch. I wish those words weren't as crazy as they are, but I mean, what else am I supposed to believe when the crazy plan Yarvin is pushing[2] is coming out of the Office of Personnel Management, which is being run by a billionaire who just gave a neo-Nazi salute behind the presidential seal? Under his Moldbug pseudonym, Yarvin gave a talk about "rebooting" the American government at the 2012 BIL Conference. He used it to advocate the acronym "RAGE", which he defined as "Retire All Government Employees". He described what he felt were flaws in the accepted "World War II mythology", alluding to the idea that Hitler's invasions were acts of self-defense. He argued these discrepancies were pushed by America's "ruling communists", who invented political correctness as an "extremely elaborate mechanism for persecuting racists and fascists". "If Americans want to change their government," he said, "they're going to have to get over their dictator phobia."[39] They're trying to do a greenfield government like it's a startup, turning the US government into a company where they are the shareholder lords who own everything and get to decide who the king dictator is, while we are the employee peasants who don't own shit and have a say in nothing. I really wish that weren't my conclusion but those are the literal words of the guy whose plan they are doing. Quote: "get over their dictator phobia". So what else am I supposed to conclude? [1] https://fedscoop.com/trump-federal-workforce-buyouts-legal-or-not/ https://fedscoop.com/trump-federal-workforce-buyouts-legal-o... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin#:~:text=Under%20his%20Moldbug%20pseudonym%2C%20Yarvin,"Retire%20All%20Government%20Employees". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin#:~:text=Under%20...
- mrandish 2y ago
  > I think they really do want to hollow out the federal government, and we should expect things like planes falling out of the sky as part of that. I am no fan of Trump but it is possible that 1) The Federal government has grown far too large and is bloated in many areas. And 2) The size of the Federal government can be reduced while maintaining safety and essential services. I don't know if the current administration is doing or even can do that but it's hard to deny there is a very real problem or that the problem is, at least in concept, solvable. That said, I highly doubt this tragic accident was caused by or related to the change of administration last week. It could just as easily have happened two weeks ago under the prior administration. It's unfortunate that it seems to have become politically polarized (by partisans on both sides) even before the flames had been extinguished.
  - ModernMech 2y ago
    I think that would be a reasonable take if the people implementing this plan (Musk, Thiel, Vance) weren't literally citing Curtis "a government is just a corporation that owns a country" Yarvin as a thought leader. Although you are right they're trying to do what Musk did with Twitter, but the thing is that didn't go very smoothly, and he thinks it went great. At Twitter it meant downtime and also making users feel unsafe. At the federal level, regardless of the motivation (reigning in spending or a neo-feudal takeover), it will mean planes falling out of the sky, an increase in fraud and scams, civil rights violations, and so forth.
    - palmfacehn 2y ago
      I'm not as familiar with Yarvin as I am with partisan media narratives. My problem with these kinds of insinuations, is that one quote or citation of Yarvin is easily spun into the conclusion that the incoming administration is following all of Yarvin's writings, no matter how obscure. Partisan journalists are incentivized to selectively quote Yarvin's works to scare their partisan audience. The wildest and most fearful conclusions gain the most clicks and views.
      - 2y ago
rayiner 2y ago
What’s ambiguous about this order?

Maybe if the orders weren't so ineptly or maliciously ambiguous and overly broad, then people would have more confidence that safety critical jobs aren't being cut.

nickff 2y ago

The "Hiring Freeze" seems to clearly and explicitly exclude cases like this. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/hiring-freeze/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/hiri...

ModernMech 2y ago

I think they really do want to hollow out the federal government, and we should expect things like planes falling out of the sky as part of that. Given the release of this memo[1] offering the buyout of any federal employee who wants to step down, what I think we are looking at is the Musk-Vance-Thiel axis of the MAGA movement is implementing Curtis Yarvin's "R.A.G.E." plan to install a king dictator atop a neo-feudalist executive branch. I wish those words weren't as crazy as they are, but I mean, what else am I supposed to believe when the crazy plan Yarvin is pushing[2] is coming out of the Office of Personnel Management, which is being run by a billionaire who just gave a neo-Nazi salute behind the presidential seal? Under his Moldbug pseudonym, Yarvin gave a talk about "rebooting" the American government at the 2012 BIL Conference. He used it to advocate the acronym "RAGE", which he defined as "Retire All Government Employees". He described what he felt were flaws in the accepted "World War II mythology", alluding to the idea that Hitler's invasions were acts of self-defense. He argued these discrepancies were pushed by America's "ruling communists", who invented political correctness as an "extremely elaborate mechanism for persecuting racists and fascists". "If Americans want to change their government," he said, "they're going to have to get over their dictator phobia."[39] They're trying to do a greenfield government like it's a startup, turning the US government into a company where they are the shareholder lords who own everything and get to decide who the king dictator is, while we are the employee peasants who don't own shit and have a say in nothing. I really wish that weren't my conclusion but those are the literal words of the guy whose plan they are doing. Quote: "get over their dictator phobia". So what else am I supposed to conclude? [1] https://fedscoop.com/trump-federal-workforce-buyouts-legal-or-not/ https://fedscoop.com/trump-federal-workforce-buyouts-legal-o... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin#:~:text=Under%20his%20Moldbug%20pseudonym%2C%20Yarvin,"Retire%20All%20Government%20Employees". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin#:~:text=Under%20...

mrandish 2y ago
> I think they really do want to hollow out the federal government, and we should expect things like planes falling out of the sky as part of that. I am no fan of Trump but it is possible that 1) The Federal government has grown far too large and is bloated in many areas. And 2) The size of the Federal government can be reduced while maintaining safety and essential services. I don't know if the current administration is doing or even can do that but it's hard to deny there is a very real problem or that the problem is, at least in concept, solvable. That said, I highly doubt this tragic accident was caused by or related to the change of administration last week. It could just as easily have happened two weeks ago under the prior administration. It's unfortunate that it seems to have become politically polarized (by partisans on both sides) even before the flames had been extinguished.
- ModernMech 2y ago
  I think that would be a reasonable take if the people implementing this plan (Musk, Thiel, Vance) weren't literally citing Curtis "a government is just a corporation that owns a country" Yarvin as a thought leader. Although you are right they're trying to do what Musk did with Twitter, but the thing is that didn't go very smoothly, and he thinks it went great. At Twitter it meant downtime and also making users feel unsafe. At the federal level, regardless of the motivation (reigning in spending or a neo-feudal takeover), it will mean planes falling out of the sky, an increase in fraud and scams, civil rights violations, and so forth.
  - palmfacehn 2y ago
    I'm not as familiar with Yarvin as I am with partisan media narratives. My problem with these kinds of insinuations, is that one quote or citation of Yarvin is easily spun into the conclusion that the incoming administration is following all of Yarvin's writings, no matter how obscure. Partisan journalists are incentivized to selectively quote Yarvin's works to scare their partisan audience. The wildest and most fearful conclusions gain the most clicks and views.
    - 2y ago

rayiner 2y ago

What’s ambiguous about this order?