15 ms·

I'm reminded of the story of the Air Force designing cockpits for the "average" pilot, only to find that > out of 4,063 pilots, not a single airman fit within

by koch 2y ago

I'm reminded of the story of the Air Force designing cockpits for the "average" pilot, only to find that > out of 4,063 pilots, not a single airman fit within the average range on all 10 dimensions [0] Surely, there are so many employees in general that probationary employees aren't needed. And surely, most government employees don't need to purchase things on a daily basis, so we can inhibit their credit card use. And most contracts about XYZ aren't crucial, so we can cancel them. But, my goodness, there is so much nuance and breadth to the things a government does, let alone the government that is responsible for the largest military and that props up a big part of the world economy, that compounding these rash decisions will have far-reaching and serious blowback. I'm all about efficiency, but why be stupid about it? The plane that we're all on is being dismantled midair, the engines have been turned off, and we're just gliding now. Gliding or falling, anyway [0] https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/when-u-s-air-force-discovered-the-flaw-of-averages/article_e3231734-e5da-5bf5-9496-a34e52d60bd9.html https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/when-u-s-air-force-disc...

UncleMeat 2y ago
Because this isn't about efficiency. The people radicalized to these actions are trying to destroy the government. They haven't been especially subtle about it in their writing. The ideal outcome is not the same government outcomes but at 70% of the cost. The ideal outcome is the collapse of the federal bureaucracy so that the lords of capital can scoop things up and create their little kingdoms.
- euroderf 2y ago
  > The ideal outcome is the collapse of the federal bureaucracy so that the lords of capital can scoop things up and create their little kingdoms. This is, of course, the model for Russian oligarchs.
- WesolyKubeczek 2y ago
  Is the US going the way the aftermath of which is described in Neuromancer, or is it going to be Snow Crash, complete with visas to every city state, and the "US" part that's left deluded that they are in control?
  - Joel_Mckay 2y ago
    The film describes a "Despotism" (1946) cycle, and ultimate conclusion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdVB-R6Duso https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdVB-R6Duso Keep in mind people voted for this knowing the plan, but this book documents human behavior in general politics under a new ruler: "The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics" (Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith) https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845 https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Po... Removing political guardrails and community due-process is what is happening. A king and his fool is unsustainable, thus... people with brains and money will simply start to vote with their feet and leave while they are able. Have a great day =3
    - kibwen 2y ago
      > people with brains and money will simply start to vote with their feet and leave while they are able That worked in 1935. It doesn't work in 2025, in a world with nuclear-tipped ICBMs. We're all stuck on this planet together now; there's no escaping from a US with a mad king at the helm.
      - Joel_Mckay 2y ago
        "nuclear-tipped ICBMs" Not unless someone is suicidal, the ultimate glass-cannon is practically only an economic-weapon designed to bankrupt anyone foolish enough to compete in such programs. Besides, there are rumors of far worse things now like geriatric Fox media. lol =3
        slg 2y ago
        >Not unless someone is suicidal There are plenty of examples of rulers suddenly becoming suicidal once the walls start closing in on them.
        Joel_Mckay 2y ago
        Narcissists love themselves more than anyone else, and would never deny the world of their joy in collateral misery. lol =3 "Don't Be a Sucker" (1947) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23X14HS4gLk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23X14HS4gLk
- averageRoyalty 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - gaganyaan 2y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025
    - skyyler 2y ago
      Yeah, the plans have been laid out in the public for a while. We're seeing it happen in real time.
      - alabastervlog 2y ago
        There are also various public talks and other published pieces by members of the admin, laying out exactly what they're planning to do (and now are doing) and why. I dunno when they figured out they can just conduct conspiracies in public and nobody will call them on it, so there's little reason to bother with secrecy, but that's how they work now, and it's been weird to watch. I first noticed it with Bush II when prominent members of his administration published multiple pieces (before he was elected) calling for war with Iraq, and stating that the US should take essentially any half-decent excuse to go to war with Iraq even if that excuse itself is bad, then... did exactly that! And got away with it! Inexplicably, the media would interview them on the topic of going to war with Iraq and didn't make all the questions about that. It was barely a footnote to media coverage of the run-up to the war, which was so damn weird when anyone could just go read the text of these pieces themselves, with familiar names on them, telling us exactly how they were planning to fuck us. Didn't matter, they could just straight-up publish "here's how we're going to screw the public" and then screw the public exactly that way, and laugh all the way to the goddamn bank (literally, in many cases—they made so friggin' much money off the post-9/11 security apparatus and the wars)
        cindylmcindy 2y ago
        The public WANTS to be lied to. They were basically asking for it. People in positions of power gave the public exactly what they want.
- SigmundA 2y ago
  >Because this isn't about efficiency. Being alive and happy is not effcient.
- AStonesThrow 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - mcmcmc 2y ago
    If it’s austerity why are they raising the debt limit by 4 trillion and awarding massive contracts to their cronies (or themselves)? They are not trying to cut costs, they are trying to reallocate wealth away from the working class and into billionaire pockets.
    - ivewonyoung 2y ago
      > awarding massive contracts to their cronies (or themselves)? Source(s) that this is actually happening?
    - packtreefly 2y ago
      That's the endgame I see. Oligarchy. Kleptocracy. Morons cheering because they're deluded enough to believe that the definition of "pork" is when the government transfers money directly to lower and middle class via paychecks. Congress will authorize contractors to do these jobs instead. We get back privatized versions of the old government services at a higher price, and the money goes into the bank accounts of the rich. I'd like to read the CBO report on what this shit will actually cost over ten years.
  - digitaltrees 2y ago
    The government was on life support because of the same people killing it now. If you want to shrink the government, you first break it, then say it’s broken and must be reduced as a result. The alternative was followed from the 30s during FDR until arguably the 80s…make the government effective, and it was immensely successful.
    - ty6853 2y ago
      That was dependent upon an interpretation of the 10th amendment achieved via intimidation to pack the courts. Before that most the regulatory apparatus would not be constitutional. What many of us are welcoming is an end to most regulation of most intrastate commerce except as authorized by the constitution. It is time to undo the damage of Wickard v Filburn.
- reaperducer 2y ago
  Because this isn't about efficiency. Last weekend the Washington Post published some internal DOGE memos showing this is absolutely true. What's happening has nothing to do with efficiency. It's all about ideology.
  - dan_quixote 2y ago
    Got a link handy? I'm not finding it so far.
    - throwaway491521 2y ago
      https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2025/doge-playbook-dei-trump/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2025/dog...
      - reaperman 2y ago
        https://archive.is/7FMD9 https://archive.is/7FMD9
      - gruez 2y ago
        The original claim was "these actions are trying to destroy the government", but the article only seemingly says they're trying to destroy DEI?
        Onawa 2y ago
        Phase 2 consists of placing on leave employees in non-DEI roles — who DOGE determines are somehow tied to DEI — as well as other employees working at offices whose existence is mandated by law.
        ThePowerOfDirge 2y ago
        But DEI is what made JD Vance who he is today. To quote an article: "The truth is, if it was not for the Yellow Ribbon Program I would not be going to law school." https://www.politifact.com/article/2025/feb/19/ask-politifact-did-jd-vance-benefit-from-dei-initi/ https://www.politifact.com/article/2025/feb/19/ask-politifac... Why are they trying to destroy it? Are they saying that they do not want more DEI, JD Vance-type people, that one is enough?
- andsoitis 2y ago
  > The people radicalized to these actions are trying to destroy the government. The federal government, right? They are in favor of state and local government, but object to federal, which they assert reduces the ability for states to have different rules and regulations that can drive competition amongst different legal frameworks.
  - imbusy111 2y ago
    I thought this was already settled during the American Civil War, yet we're back at it again.
    - andsoitis 2y ago
      Apparently not! An opposite question is interesting: why not abolish state governments and only have the federal government? I haven’t thought about it deeply so don’t have a strong sense that it would be better than the status quo, though I suspect it might.
      - fallingknife 2y ago
        Centralization and size comes with inefficiency and slow decision making. It also comes with economies of scale. For something like the Medicare, the economy of scale dominates and it makes much more sense to be federal. When it comes to running schools, there really isn't much economy of scale so it makes much more sense to run it locally.
        gottorf 2y ago
        Economies (and diseconomies) of scale exist, of course, but aren't central to what is the responsibility of the federal government and what is the responsibility of the state governments. That, of course, is laid out rather plainly in the founding legal document of the country.
      - int_19h 2y ago
        The more people are ruled by a single government that is ostensibly a representative democracy, the less representative said democracy actually is. This should be rather evident - you can't grow parliament size indefinitely if you want it to continue functioning as a deliberative chamber, which in turn means that every parliamentarian represents more and more people, which in practice means that they don't represent them well.
- mindcrime 2y ago
  > The people radicalized to these actions are trying to destroy the government. It's worse than that. They're also incompetent. Look, I'm a radical anarcho-capitalist / libertarian / voluntaryist myself. I'm fine with the idea of "destroying the government" in general. BUT, even I would say that there's a right way to go about it, and that that involves dismantling things slowly and incrementally, identifying replacements (where available) for government services that are being wound down BEFORE winding them down, minimizing the harm done, taking "collateral damage" into consideration etc. These people are doing the equivalent of "destroying the government" by just randomly lobbing hand grenades all over the place, with no knowledge, consideration, or concern, for the outcomes.
  - scarab92 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - CasualSuperman 2y ago
      If the only thing on the planet you care about is efficiency, sure. How about the human lives impacted by all of it?
      - the_snooze 2y ago
        "Efficiency" is such a dumb thing to optimize for singlemindedly. Overly efficient systems are brittle and can't adapt to shocks. Look what happened to the efficient global supply chain when that ship blocked the Suez Canal. Imagine if we demanded "efficiency" from fire departments; they'd only hire as many firefighters as they need to respond to the average number of emergencies per day, then totally flop when there's a mass casualty event.
      - throwawayq3423 2y ago
        Having a fast moving and inefficient government is what attracts people to the US! To live and invest there. Fast moving governments can destroy things, make them unpredictable and unstable based on the whims of a few. In this case an unelected billionaire with conflicts of interest and a pardon for all his crimes waiting for him in Dec of 2028. People hate that.
- outside1234 2y ago
  The ideal outcome is that government fails, then they can point at the failing government and ask, why do we want to pay for something that is failing.
  - zdw 2y ago
    This - it's basically meme of the guy shooting the person behind him in the chair and then being incredulous.
  - nozzlegear 2y ago
    What's their plan after that though? Privatization, I guess?
    - saulpw 2y ago
      Ever read Snowcrash?
      - danielodievich 2y ago
        Yeah, their vision is us living in burbclaves of New South Africa, Mr Lee's Hong Kong and Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates and the bankrupt US Government with trillion dollar notes not to be used as toilet paper because it is illegal and clogs the plumbing.
      - marviel 2y ago
        so glad someone else sees this.
      - nozzlegear 2y ago
        I haven't, not yet anyway. I did read Termination Shock by the same author, though. I loved it, and promptly added Snowcrash to my TBR list.
    - hooverd 2y ago
      [flagged]
_DeadFred_ 2y ago
We're going to get a great lesson on why 'command economy' style top down management doesn't work, from the guys who hate command economies.
- tw_wankette 2y ago
  Aren't they taking away the 'command' part of the government? No government, no command.
  - exe34 2y ago
    they will simply migrate the responsibility into the hands of a few billionaires who will act in their own best interest.
  - kibwen 2y ago
    This is committing the classic mistake of forgetting that a government is just a corporation with an army behind it. "The government" isn't going away; just the one where you had any semblance of say in its operation.
    - amyames 2y ago
      [dead]
    - digitaltrees 2y ago
      This is exactly the insight that shifted me from being libertarian to progressive. Humans create organizations to coordinate behavior. Corporations are good for risk taking ventures, governments are good for social cooperation and coordination. Different purposes, time scales and objectives. Both are important and necessary. We should make them the best they can be.
    - pstuart 2y ago
      Government ultimately is power over the citizenry -- it will always exist in one form or another whether it's the Church, the Mob, Warlords, etc. I believe our existing government is the least-worst option. The goal is literally the end of democracy and a king reigning over techno-feudalist "states". They make no secret of this.
akmiller 2y ago
> that probationary employees aren't needed Remember that "probationary" doesn't mean new. I just learned this, but apparently when getting a promotion it puts you back into the "probationary" period at your new role. So people with 10+ years of service are being let go because they had recently been promoted.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
  Saw posts of national park rangers with 10+ years of experience who were fired for being "probationary" employees because they were recently promoted. It's really, really hard to believe I have anything in common with people cheering on this cruel incompetence.
  - blitzar 2y ago
    Could be a round of promotions and pay raises coming so that they can fire more people and claim to save extra money.
    - Balgair 2y ago
      I mean, that would imply some form of intelligence to all this. And, well, this first month has shown there is no intelligence.
  - m4rtink 2y ago
    Firing any probationary employees withou a real cause is cruel, has zero dignity and looks totally stupid. But this makes it even worse! Like what is the great thing that needs to be done right now that justifies trampling over peoples lives like this ?
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - hakfoo 2y ago
      That's what's fascinating. Given the capture of all three branches of government, they could presumably get all their wishes "above the board." Congress would willingly rubber-stamp shrinking the government to three nuclear missiles and the guy who polishes the exhibits at the Smithsonian, but actually enumerating what they want and waiting for it to wend through procedure was too slow. Part of that might be that they know it's a smash-and-grab operation: the moment they started the cuts, the alarm was already ringing and it's only a matter of time before (Congress | the courts | Luigi Mangione | Several million annoyed pensioners) man up and interrupt the process. (exactly the nature of the interruption is clearly TBD). When the dust clears, the fascinating thing to study will be the real priorities. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the collateral damage is a smoke screen around very specific grudges against specific people and agencies-- the financial equivalent of burning down the entirety of San Diego because your ex-wife lives there. There was the whole USAID/Starlink angle already, but surely other people got theirs.
kibwen 2y ago
There's a certain sort of anti-intellectualism that revels in the idea that if there doesn't exist a simple solution, then there must not exist any solution. It is either an inability to grasp the notion of complexity, or a childish refusal to. Therefore, any system that is too complex for them to understand must be demonized and destroyed.
- the_snooze 2y ago
  It's a lot like the old McNamara fallacy. It's especially tempting for technically-minded people to fall into. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy
- NetOpWibby 2y ago
  Beautifully said
- blacksmith_tb 2y ago
  Reminds me of H.L. Mencken's "There is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong." 1: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken#1910s https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken#1910s
  - MichaelZuo 2y ago
    What’s the “well-known solution” to cancer?
    - RunningDroid 2y ago
      https://xkcd.com/1217 https://xkcd.com/1217 aka "just remove the cancer"
      - MichaelZuo 2y ago
        How is that “neat, plausible”? I’ve never heard of any “solution” to cancer, well known or not, that was neat and plausible.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
scarab92 2y ago
[flagged]
- fatbird 2y ago
  Anyone with experience in a large org will hate this because it's a stupid, hamhanded way of forcing people to continually beg for the resources to do their jobs. Leaders think it's brilliant because it relieves them of the need to know what's actually going on in their organization, externalizing their responsibilities. "Unplug it and see who screams" is not effective systems management. People aren't rockets.
  - scarab92 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - brazzy 2y ago
      It mainly allows you to quickly destroy your organization's ability to do anything, including repairing the damage you just did. Which is, of course the goal: to destroy the United States. They already explicitly said that's the goal.
    - fatbird 2y ago
      Organizational inertia can be cut through without causing a tremendous amount of pain and disruption. Stopping things by default is a very lazy way to do it. Doing it this way is a strongman fantasy that inflicts large costs: now your employees aren't doing their jobs, they're going through a round of "justify yourself" (when you should have had the organizational controls in place already). And there's nothing new about this strategy, either. I read about these tactics decades ago in management self-help books. They were just as crappy and inhuman then as now.
  - mac-attack 2y ago
    I agree and would add that people aren't machines either. The concept of 'fire everyone and rehire who is essential' seems to lack comprehension of human psychology. It seems analogous to 'cheat on everyone and marry the person who stays' in that you are settling for the people who have the least self-respect and/or the least amount of options outside of their current position.
themagician 2y ago
A big part of what the government does is provide stability. It's supposed to be slow an inefficient. It provides a lot of jobs to people who are otherwise unemployable. If we aim for 100% efficiency we end up with massive unemployment, because a lot of jobs and businesses are just not necessary. We all just got to experience that first hand, as when COVID hit something like 1/3rd of people either stop worked or worked massive reduced hours and the truth of the matter is the world kept spinning JUST FINE, save for a some inconveniences. The more efficient things becomes, the more another mechanism is needed to control people, so you are going to eventually have to bring back some kind of formal class system or slavery.
- rlpb 2y ago
  > It provides a lot of jobs to people who are otherwise unemployable. You seem to be implying that this is a desirable property of government. I don't think that's true, and I think that the Broken Window Fallacy applies to your argument. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
  - joshbetz 2y ago
    Perhaps inefficiency is not desirable, but it should be deliberative. These rash, uninformed actions will have consequences.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- buerkle 2y ago
  "It provides a lot of jobs to people who are otherwise unemployable.", what a ridiculous and condescending statement. If that was true, the number of federal employees would be much higher but in fact the number has stayed relatively flat for over 50 years at 2.8 million federal employees. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES9091000001 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES9091000001
  - 2y ago
King-Aaron 2y ago
> Surely, there are so many employees in general that probationary employees aren't needed. I did read somewhere - and I may be incorrect - but a lot of internal employees are put on 'probation' after internal promotions, and not all probationary staff are like new hires.
timewizard 2y ago
> that compounding these rash decisions You're only observing reporting about these actions. There's very little in the way of actual reporting on impacts. Are we actually objectively measuring government performance in any real way? > will have far-reaching and serious blowback. I doubt that it will be "far" or "serious." We did all of those things before credit cards even existed. It will be "minimal" and "altered on a case by case basis." > The plane that we're all on is being dismantled midair, I'm on the ground. Your government employees are in the plane. It's concerning to be sure, but not anything we can't fix if it goes poorly.
- whynotmaybe 2y ago
  You (and other comments on this subject) reminded me of the old joke we had when working on the server farm and we found a server that wasn't registered to any specific owner. We joked that we just had to unplug it and wait for something to fail or for someone to complain. As a non citizen of USA, I'm genuinely curious of what will happen now that it seems that this joke is a normal way of doing this. "Let's shut everything down and see what we're really missing! We'll fix it if needed be. " 55 years ago the Cuyahoga River caught fire (it wasn't the first time) and the fix was to kickstart the EPA.
  - timewizard 2y ago
    > we just had to unplug it and wait for something to fail or for someone to complain. You could also have kept better records in the first place so this sort of thing didn't happen. > that this joke is a normal way of doing this. You'll find that there are many differences between the operation of a profitable company and a government. > and the fix was to kickstart the EPA. The _natural human response_ once the media got involved was to start the environmentalist movement. Most of the work to cleanup the river was done by Cleveland and Ohio state. Which is just quibbling over details. What you should really explain is why the EPA needs credit cards to do what they do.
    - whynotmaybe 2y ago
      > You could have kept better records... Each time I see or hear that kind of remark (because it's said everywhere in the world) , its paradoxical nature baffles me. Many people want government agencies to be efficient, professional and productive... but they don't want to pay for it with their taxes. The pure définition of wanting the cake and eat it too. > Why the EPA needs credit cards... As I said, I'm genuinely curious to see how all of this will pan out. My opinion clearly don't matter on such weirdly hyperbolized subjects that I personally qualify as trivial.
maxlin 2y ago
This does kind sound like the same kind of doomsaying people did of Twitter. Now it's functionally better than ever and the centerpoint of where conversations happen, possibly even more than before. Maybe let the guy iterate. That's what he does. Remove things till there's actual pain and not just moaning. Moderate by that. Has worked actually wonders till now.
yubblegum 2y ago
> I'm all about efficiency, but why be stupid about it? USA is bankrupt and the elites have known this since 2008. Trump and co. are the front for the bankruptcy proceedings and the rest is stage management. So this is class warfare in a system that is about to lose its preeminent (power) position in the world. As for alliances, I can guarantee every power center in East Asia has taken note of how US just threw Europe under the bus under the pretext of "change of presidency" as if! I wonder if the future holds a civil war or a revolution. One of the two is a given at this point.
- yubblegum 2y ago
  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-20/-mar-a-lago-accord-chatter-is-getting-wall-street-s-attention https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-20/-mar-a-la...?
RickJWagner 2y ago
Other administrations ( even Trump 1 ) had their chance. Now somebody is finally addressing the debt/deficit. If you think someone else can do better, have them explain their plan in detail.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

by koch 2y ago

UncleMeat 2y ago

Because this isn't about efficiency. The people radicalized to these actions are trying to destroy the government. They haven't been especially subtle about it in their writing. The ideal outcome is not the same government outcomes but at 70% of the cost. The ideal outcome is the collapse of the federal bureaucracy so that the lords of capital can scoop things up and create their little kingdoms.

euroderf 2y ago
> The ideal outcome is the collapse of the federal bureaucracy so that the lords of capital can scoop things up and create their little kingdoms. This is, of course, the model for Russian oligarchs.
WesolyKubeczek 2y ago
Is the US going the way the aftermath of which is described in Neuromancer, or is it going to be Snow Crash, complete with visas to every city state, and the "US" part that's left deluded that they are in control?
- Joel_Mckay 2y ago
  The film describes a "Despotism" (1946) cycle, and ultimate conclusion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdVB-R6Duso https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdVB-R6Duso Keep in mind people voted for this knowing the plan, but this book documents human behavior in general politics under a new ruler: "The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics" (Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith) https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845 https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Po... Removing political guardrails and community due-process is what is happening. A king and his fool is unsustainable, thus... people with brains and money will simply start to vote with their feet and leave while they are able. Have a great day =3
  - kibwen 2y ago
    > people with brains and money will simply start to vote with their feet and leave while they are able That worked in 1935. It doesn't work in 2025, in a world with nuclear-tipped ICBMs. We're all stuck on this planet together now; there's no escaping from a US with a mad king at the helm.
    - Joel_Mckay 2y ago
      "nuclear-tipped ICBMs" Not unless someone is suicidal, the ultimate glass-cannon is practically only an economic-weapon designed to bankrupt anyone foolish enough to compete in such programs. Besides, there are rumors of far worse things now like geriatric Fox media. lol =3
      - slg 2y ago
        >Not unless someone is suicidal There are plenty of examples of rulers suddenly becoming suicidal once the walls start closing in on them.
        Joel_Mckay 2y ago
        Narcissists love themselves more than anyone else, and would never deny the world of their joy in collateral misery. lol =3 "Don't Be a Sucker" (1947) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23X14HS4gLk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23X14HS4gLk
averageRoyalty 2y ago
[flagged]
- gaganyaan 2y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025
  - skyyler 2y ago
    Yeah, the plans have been laid out in the public for a while. We're seeing it happen in real time.
    - alabastervlog 2y ago
      There are also various public talks and other published pieces by members of the admin, laying out exactly what they're planning to do (and now are doing) and why. I dunno when they figured out they can just conduct conspiracies in public and nobody will call them on it, so there's little reason to bother with secrecy, but that's how they work now, and it's been weird to watch. I first noticed it with Bush II when prominent members of his administration published multiple pieces (before he was elected) calling for war with Iraq, and stating that the US should take essentially any half-decent excuse to go to war with Iraq even if that excuse itself is bad, then... did exactly that! And got away with it! Inexplicably, the media would interview them on the topic of going to war with Iraq and didn't make all the questions about that. It was barely a footnote to media coverage of the run-up to the war, which was so damn weird when anyone could just go read the text of these pieces themselves, with familiar names on them, telling us exactly how they were planning to fuck us. Didn't matter, they could just straight-up publish "here's how we're going to screw the public" and then screw the public exactly that way, and laugh all the way to the goddamn bank (literally, in many cases—they made so friggin' much money off the post-9/11 security apparatus and the wars)
      - cindylmcindy 2y ago
        The public WANTS to be lied to. They were basically asking for it. People in positions of power gave the public exactly what they want.
SigmundA 2y ago
>Because this isn't about efficiency. Being alive and happy is not effcient.
AStonesThrow 2y ago
[flagged]
- mcmcmc 2y ago
  If it’s austerity why are they raising the debt limit by 4 trillion and awarding massive contracts to their cronies (or themselves)? They are not trying to cut costs, they are trying to reallocate wealth away from the working class and into billionaire pockets.
  - ivewonyoung 2y ago
    > awarding massive contracts to their cronies (or themselves)? Source(s) that this is actually happening?
  - packtreefly 2y ago
    That's the endgame I see. Oligarchy. Kleptocracy. Morons cheering because they're deluded enough to believe that the definition of "pork" is when the government transfers money directly to lower and middle class via paychecks. Congress will authorize contractors to do these jobs instead. We get back privatized versions of the old government services at a higher price, and the money goes into the bank accounts of the rich. I'd like to read the CBO report on what this shit will actually cost over ten years.
- digitaltrees 2y ago
  The government was on life support because of the same people killing it now. If you want to shrink the government, you first break it, then say it’s broken and must be reduced as a result. The alternative was followed from the 30s during FDR until arguably the 80s…make the government effective, and it was immensely successful.
  - ty6853 2y ago
    That was dependent upon an interpretation of the 10th amendment achieved via intimidation to pack the courts. Before that most the regulatory apparatus would not be constitutional. What many of us are welcoming is an end to most regulation of most intrastate commerce except as authorized by the constitution. It is time to undo the damage of Wickard v Filburn.
reaperducer 2y ago
Because this isn't about efficiency. Last weekend the Washington Post published some internal DOGE memos showing this is absolutely true. What's happening has nothing to do with efficiency. It's all about ideology.
- dan_quixote 2y ago
  Got a link handy? I'm not finding it so far.
  - throwaway491521 2y ago
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2025/doge-playbook-dei-trump/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2025/dog...
    - reaperman 2y ago
      https://archive.is/7FMD9 https://archive.is/7FMD9
    - gruez 2y ago
      The original claim was "these actions are trying to destroy the government", but the article only seemingly says they're trying to destroy DEI?
      - Onawa 2y ago
        Phase 2 consists of placing on leave employees in non-DEI roles — who DOGE determines are somehow tied to DEI — as well as other employees working at offices whose existence is mandated by law.
      - ThePowerOfDirge 2y ago
        But DEI is what made JD Vance who he is today. To quote an article: "The truth is, if it was not for the Yellow Ribbon Program I would not be going to law school." https://www.politifact.com/article/2025/feb/19/ask-politifact-did-jd-vance-benefit-from-dei-initi/ https://www.politifact.com/article/2025/feb/19/ask-politifac... Why are they trying to destroy it? Are they saying that they do not want more DEI, JD Vance-type people, that one is enough?
andsoitis 2y ago
> The people radicalized to these actions are trying to destroy the government. The federal government, right? They are in favor of state and local government, but object to federal, which they assert reduces the ability for states to have different rules and regulations that can drive competition amongst different legal frameworks.
- imbusy111 2y ago
  I thought this was already settled during the American Civil War, yet we're back at it again.
  - andsoitis 2y ago
    Apparently not! An opposite question is interesting: why not abolish state governments and only have the federal government? I haven’t thought about it deeply so don’t have a strong sense that it would be better than the status quo, though I suspect it might.
    - fallingknife 2y ago
      Centralization and size comes with inefficiency and slow decision making. It also comes with economies of scale. For something like the Medicare, the economy of scale dominates and it makes much more sense to be federal. When it comes to running schools, there really isn't much economy of scale so it makes much more sense to run it locally.
      - gottorf 2y ago
        Economies (and diseconomies) of scale exist, of course, but aren't central to what is the responsibility of the federal government and what is the responsibility of the state governments. That, of course, is laid out rather plainly in the founding legal document of the country.
    - int_19h 2y ago
      The more people are ruled by a single government that is ostensibly a representative democracy, the less representative said democracy actually is. This should be rather evident - you can't grow parliament size indefinitely if you want it to continue functioning as a deliberative chamber, which in turn means that every parliamentarian represents more and more people, which in practice means that they don't represent them well.
mindcrime 2y ago
> The people radicalized to these actions are trying to destroy the government. It's worse than that. They're also incompetent. Look, I'm a radical anarcho-capitalist / libertarian / voluntaryist myself. I'm fine with the idea of "destroying the government" in general. BUT, even I would say that there's a right way to go about it, and that that involves dismantling things slowly and incrementally, identifying replacements (where available) for government services that are being wound down BEFORE winding them down, minimizing the harm done, taking "collateral damage" into consideration etc. These people are doing the equivalent of "destroying the government" by just randomly lobbing hand grenades all over the place, with no knowledge, consideration, or concern, for the outcomes.
- scarab92 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - CasualSuperman 2y ago
    If the only thing on the planet you care about is efficiency, sure. How about the human lives impacted by all of it?
    - the_snooze 2y ago
      "Efficiency" is such a dumb thing to optimize for singlemindedly. Overly efficient systems are brittle and can't adapt to shocks. Look what happened to the efficient global supply chain when that ship blocked the Suez Canal. Imagine if we demanded "efficiency" from fire departments; they'd only hire as many firefighters as they need to respond to the average number of emergencies per day, then totally flop when there's a mass casualty event.
    - throwawayq3423 2y ago
      Having a fast moving and inefficient government is what attracts people to the US! To live and invest there. Fast moving governments can destroy things, make them unpredictable and unstable based on the whims of a few. In this case an unelected billionaire with conflicts of interest and a pardon for all his crimes waiting for him in Dec of 2028. People hate that.
outside1234 2y ago
The ideal outcome is that government fails, then they can point at the failing government and ask, why do we want to pay for something that is failing.
- zdw 2y ago
  This - it's basically meme of the guy shooting the person behind him in the chair and then being incredulous.
- nozzlegear 2y ago
  What's their plan after that though? Privatization, I guess?
  - saulpw 2y ago
    Ever read Snowcrash?
    - danielodievich 2y ago
      Yeah, their vision is us living in burbclaves of New South Africa, Mr Lee's Hong Kong and Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates and the bankrupt US Government with trillion dollar notes not to be used as toilet paper because it is illegal and clogs the plumbing.
    - marviel 2y ago
      so glad someone else sees this.
    - nozzlegear 2y ago
      I haven't, not yet anyway. I did read Termination Shock by the same author, though. I loved it, and promptly added Snowcrash to my TBR list.
  - hooverd 2y ago
    [flagged]

_DeadFred_ 2y ago

We're going to get a great lesson on why 'command economy' style top down management doesn't work, from the guys who hate command economies.

tw_wankette 2y ago
Aren't they taking away the 'command' part of the government? No government, no command.
- exe34 2y ago
  they will simply migrate the responsibility into the hands of a few billionaires who will act in their own best interest.
- kibwen 2y ago
  This is committing the classic mistake of forgetting that a government is just a corporation with an army behind it. "The government" isn't going away; just the one where you had any semblance of say in its operation.
  - amyames 2y ago
    [dead]
  - digitaltrees 2y ago
    This is exactly the insight that shifted me from being libertarian to progressive. Humans create organizations to coordinate behavior. Corporations are good for risk taking ventures, governments are good for social cooperation and coordination. Different purposes, time scales and objectives. Both are important and necessary. We should make them the best they can be.
  - pstuart 2y ago
    Government ultimately is power over the citizenry -- it will always exist in one form or another whether it's the Church, the Mob, Warlords, etc. I believe our existing government is the least-worst option. The goal is literally the end of democracy and a king reigning over techno-feudalist "states". They make no secret of this.

akmiller 2y ago

> that probationary employees aren't needed Remember that "probationary" doesn't mean new. I just learned this, but apparently when getting a promotion it puts you back into the "probationary" period at your new role. So people with 10+ years of service are being let go because they had recently been promoted.

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
Saw posts of national park rangers with 10+ years of experience who were fired for being "probationary" employees because they were recently promoted. It's really, really hard to believe I have anything in common with people cheering on this cruel incompetence.
- blitzar 2y ago
  Could be a round of promotions and pay raises coming so that they can fire more people and claim to save extra money.
  - Balgair 2y ago
    I mean, that would imply some form of intelligence to all this. And, well, this first month has shown there is no intelligence.
- m4rtink 2y ago
  Firing any probationary employees withou a real cause is cruel, has zero dignity and looks totally stupid. But this makes it even worse! Like what is the great thing that needs to be done right now that justifies trampling over peoples lives like this ?
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  - hakfoo 2y ago
    That's what's fascinating. Given the capture of all three branches of government, they could presumably get all their wishes "above the board." Congress would willingly rubber-stamp shrinking the government to three nuclear missiles and the guy who polishes the exhibits at the Smithsonian, but actually enumerating what they want and waiting for it to wend through procedure was too slow. Part of that might be that they know it's a smash-and-grab operation: the moment they started the cuts, the alarm was already ringing and it's only a matter of time before (Congress | the courts | Luigi Mangione | Several million annoyed pensioners) man up and interrupt the process. (exactly the nature of the interruption is clearly TBD). When the dust clears, the fascinating thing to study will be the real priorities. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the collateral damage is a smoke screen around very specific grudges against specific people and agencies-- the financial equivalent of burning down the entirety of San Diego because your ex-wife lives there. There was the whole USAID/Starlink angle already, but surely other people got theirs.

kibwen 2y ago

There's a certain sort of anti-intellectualism that revels in the idea that if there doesn't exist a simple solution, then there must not exist any solution. It is either an inability to grasp the notion of complexity, or a childish refusal to. Therefore, any system that is too complex for them to understand must be demonized and destroyed.

the_snooze 2y ago
It's a lot like the old McNamara fallacy. It's especially tempting for technically-minded people to fall into. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy
NetOpWibby 2y ago
Beautifully said
blacksmith_tb 2y ago
Reminds me of H.L. Mencken's "There is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong." 1: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken#1910s https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken#1910s
- MichaelZuo 2y ago
  What’s the “well-known solution” to cancer?
  - RunningDroid 2y ago
    https://xkcd.com/1217 https://xkcd.com/1217 aka "just remove the cancer"
    - MichaelZuo 2y ago
      How is that “neat, plausible”? I’ve never heard of any “solution” to cancer, well known or not, that was neat and plausible.

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scarab92 2y ago

[flagged]

fatbird 2y ago
Anyone with experience in a large org will hate this because it's a stupid, hamhanded way of forcing people to continually beg for the resources to do their jobs. Leaders think it's brilliant because it relieves them of the need to know what's actually going on in their organization, externalizing their responsibilities. "Unplug it and see who screams" is not effective systems management. People aren't rockets.
- scarab92 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - brazzy 2y ago
    It mainly allows you to quickly destroy your organization's ability to do anything, including repairing the damage you just did. Which is, of course the goal: to destroy the United States. They already explicitly said that's the goal.
  - fatbird 2y ago
    Organizational inertia can be cut through without causing a tremendous amount of pain and disruption. Stopping things by default is a very lazy way to do it. Doing it this way is a strongman fantasy that inflicts large costs: now your employees aren't doing their jobs, they're going through a round of "justify yourself" (when you should have had the organizational controls in place already). And there's nothing new about this strategy, either. I read about these tactics decades ago in management self-help books. They were just as crappy and inhuman then as now.
- mac-attack 2y ago
  I agree and would add that people aren't machines either. The concept of 'fire everyone and rehire who is essential' seems to lack comprehension of human psychology. It seems analogous to 'cheat on everyone and marry the person who stays' in that you are settling for the people who have the least self-respect and/or the least amount of options outside of their current position.

themagician 2y ago

A big part of what the government does is provide stability. It's supposed to be slow an inefficient. It provides a lot of jobs to people who are otherwise unemployable. If we aim for 100% efficiency we end up with massive unemployment, because a lot of jobs and businesses are just not necessary. We all just got to experience that first hand, as when COVID hit something like 1/3rd of people either stop worked or worked massive reduced hours and the truth of the matter is the world kept spinning JUST FINE, save for a some inconveniences. The more efficient things becomes, the more another mechanism is needed to control people, so you are going to eventually have to bring back some kind of formal class system or slavery.

rlpb 2y ago
> It provides a lot of jobs to people who are otherwise unemployable. You seem to be implying that this is a desirable property of government. I don't think that's true, and I think that the Broken Window Fallacy applies to your argument. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
- joshbetz 2y ago
  Perhaps inefficiency is not desirable, but it should be deliberative. These rash, uninformed actions will have consequences.
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buerkle 2y ago
"It provides a lot of jobs to people who are otherwise unemployable.", what a ridiculous and condescending statement. If that was true, the number of federal employees would be much higher but in fact the number has stayed relatively flat for over 50 years at 2.8 million federal employees. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES9091000001 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES9091000001
- 2y ago

King-Aaron 2y ago

> Surely, there are so many employees in general that probationary employees aren't needed. I did read somewhere - and I may be incorrect - but a lot of internal employees are put on 'probation' after internal promotions, and not all probationary staff are like new hires.

timewizard 2y ago

> that compounding these rash decisions You're only observing reporting about these actions. There's very little in the way of actual reporting on impacts. Are we actually objectively measuring government performance in any real way? > will have far-reaching and serious blowback. I doubt that it will be "far" or "serious." We did all of those things before credit cards even existed. It will be "minimal" and "altered on a case by case basis." > The plane that we're all on is being dismantled midair, I'm on the ground. Your government employees are in the plane. It's concerning to be sure, but not anything we can't fix if it goes poorly.

whynotmaybe 2y ago
You (and other comments on this subject) reminded me of the old joke we had when working on the server farm and we found a server that wasn't registered to any specific owner. We joked that we just had to unplug it and wait for something to fail or for someone to complain. As a non citizen of USA, I'm genuinely curious of what will happen now that it seems that this joke is a normal way of doing this. "Let's shut everything down and see what we're really missing! We'll fix it if needed be. " 55 years ago the Cuyahoga River caught fire (it wasn't the first time) and the fix was to kickstart the EPA.
- timewizard 2y ago
  > we just had to unplug it and wait for something to fail or for someone to complain. You could also have kept better records in the first place so this sort of thing didn't happen. > that this joke is a normal way of doing this. You'll find that there are many differences between the operation of a profitable company and a government. > and the fix was to kickstart the EPA. The _natural human response_ once the media got involved was to start the environmentalist movement. Most of the work to cleanup the river was done by Cleveland and Ohio state. Which is just quibbling over details. What you should really explain is why the EPA needs credit cards to do what they do.
  - whynotmaybe 2y ago
    > You could have kept better records... Each time I see or hear that kind of remark (because it's said everywhere in the world) , its paradoxical nature baffles me. Many people want government agencies to be efficient, professional and productive... but they don't want to pay for it with their taxes. The pure définition of wanting the cake and eat it too. > Why the EPA needs credit cards... As I said, I'm genuinely curious to see how all of this will pan out. My opinion clearly don't matter on such weirdly hyperbolized subjects that I personally qualify as trivial.

maxlin 2y ago

This does kind sound like the same kind of doomsaying people did of Twitter. Now it's functionally better than ever and the centerpoint of where conversations happen, possibly even more than before. Maybe let the guy iterate. That's what he does. Remove things till there's actual pain and not just moaning. Moderate by that. Has worked actually wonders till now.

yubblegum 2y ago

> I'm all about efficiency, but why be stupid about it? USA is bankrupt and the elites have known this since 2008. Trump and co. are the front for the bankruptcy proceedings and the rest is stage management. So this is class warfare in a system that is about to lose its preeminent (power) position in the world. As for alliances, I can guarantee every power center in East Asia has taken note of how US just threw Europe under the bus under the pretext of "change of presidency" as if! I wonder if the future holds a civil war or a revolution. One of the two is a given at this point.

yubblegum 2y ago
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-20/-mar-a-lago-accord-chatter-is-getting-wall-street-s-attention https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-20/-mar-a-la...?

RickJWagner 2y ago

Other administrations ( even Trump 1 ) had their chance. Now somebody is finally addressing the debt/deficit. If you think someone else can do better, have them explain their plan in detail.

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