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Working for DOGE is a much greater stain on his character (and/or intelligence if he's a true believer). Imagine writing on your resume that you did a cost ef

Working for DOGE is a much greater stain on his character (and/or intelligence if he's a true believer). Imagine writing on your resume that you did a cost efficiency project that added hundreds of billions in costs and killed millions of people. A script kiddie youth hardly compares.

anonym29 2y ago
What DOGE activities are you referring to that added hundreds of billions in costs and killed millions of people?
- woodruffw 2y ago
  They’re presumably talking about things like USAID and PEPFAR. (We haven’t seen the costs of slashing these materialize yet, but with PEPFAR in particular there’s a very good chance millions will die without access to the drugs provided under the program.)
  - sorcerer-mar 2y ago
    Including more than half a million children born with HIV!
  - anonym29 2y ago
    Under this logic, aren't all preventable deaths (no matter how much it costs to prevent that death) the same as murder? Doesn't that technically make all of us guilty of murder if we are not all spending our entire paychecks preventing the deaths of others?
    - mexicocitinluez 2y ago
      This is a false equivalency. No one is saying you need to donate your entire paycheck.
    - woodruffw 2y ago
      No, I’m talking very specifically about things that were previously funded but are not, for what are nakedly callous reasons. (There’s no need for logical extremes here: PEPFAR wasn’t a very expensive program.)
      - anonym29 2y ago
        Why does this not expand to inexpensive programs that haven't been previously funded, but could be? I've read that we can save lives for a handful of dollars per life in Africa with greater access to medical care, mosquito nets, antimalarial drugs, etc. If getting rid of existing affordable aid is murder, why is failing to render new affordable aid not? Doesn't this inherently place an incentivization mechanism and inherent preference for the old ways of doing things, when newer ways can be more efficient and save more lives with fewer dollars?
        woodruffw 2y ago
        The short answer is that removing the aid you were previously providing is more morally salient than not helping in the first place. Short answers aside, could you stop with the indirection? The original question was whether millions of people could die due to funding cuts. The answer is yes, regardless of your moral views about how you should spend your own money.
    - sorcerer-mar 2y ago
      We're not talking about avoiding all preventable deaths. We're talking about taking life-saving treatment away from people who were being effectively treated at a nominal cost. Taking treatment away from them in lieu of a very good reason is tantamount to murder. "Empathy is weakness" or "going after the woke mind virus" or "Organization X is a criminal organization [non-evidenced]" or "we need more cushion for tax cuts for the wealth" do not qualify as good reasons.
- NilMostChill 2y ago
  https://www.wired.com/story/doge-rebuild-social-security-administration-cobol-benefits/ https://www.wired.com/story/doge-rebuild-social-security-adm... Though I'm counting that as future potential costs and deaths. Ignoring the obvious opinion of the author, anybody who has ever worked on any sort of medium to large scale migration, refactoring or rewriting of a computer system knows that's a comically ridiculous timescale and when it inevitably fails there will be consequences, counted in both money and lives. But that's a (very near) future fuck-up that he will almost certainly spin or move the goalposts for. That you can draw a direct line to right now, not much other than all the cuts to critical infrastructure. To be clear, I'm not arguing against cuts and efficiency initiatives, i'm saying he's an idiot who doesn't know what he's doing, so his implementation will be shoddy and dangerous. See: The Cybertruck, The Boring Company, The Decline of X. As you are implying though, nothing major so far, aside from USAID i suppose (or the VA), does removing systems actively (and provably) preventing deaths count? These are systematic problems that will take a while to shake out into their inevitable consequences. He'll probably still fail upwards though, unless he gets luigi'd or just drops dead of a ket induced heart attack or something.
  - anonym29 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - mexicocitinluez 2y ago
      > was taken from others without their consent Wait, what? Since when our tax dollars taken from us without consent? What are you talking about?
      - bakugo 2y ago
        > Since when our tax dollars taken from us without consent? Since forever? You can't just opt out of paying taxes.
swaits 2y ago
Your comment is apparently stained by your political views. It is really far from reality, lacks substance and objectivity, and comes off as unhinged.
- dopidopHN 2y ago
  I had the same initial reaction but time will tell.
- mexicocitinluez 2y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/15/opinion/foreign-aid-cuts-impact.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/15/opinion/forei... Which part exactly is "far from reality, lacks substance and objectivity"?
  - anonym29 2y ago
    In lacking objectivity, is it not objectively false that "millions" have died from this?
    - mexicocitinluez 2y ago
      It's hyperbolic. People WILL die because this funding is cut. And the estimate IS millions.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - somenameforme 2y ago
        The reason people vehemently support the ending of USAID is because while they give aid with one hand, they simultaneously use the other to trigger instability that ultimately leads to conflicts and war. And if even if a single one of these wars can be prevented, you're looking at millions of lives saved - certainly if we include the displaced who lose everything. For instance here [1] is an article detailing various times USAID has been weaponized to try to overthrow various countries. A somewhat amusing one is them starting a Cuban social network with the goal of creating a "Cuban spring" uprising which failed and ultimately just turned into a giant honey pot for Cuban authorities. Recently USAID workers had a to spend an entire day shredding classified docs [2] including with offering guidance for what to do when the paper shredders 'need a rest.' You don't classify operations that are done transparently and in good faith. And this is not even touching on the massive corruption in the entire operation when you end up shipping billions of dollars to loosely accountable NGOs who in turn hand it off to other groups and on down a line to some small amount eventually gets genuinely spent. USAID was involved in the Haiti Earthquake efforts where hundreds of millions of dollars were spent, on something, to eventually construct a total of 6 permanent housing units. [3] Whatever good USAID may have done, could be far more effectively done by another organization without all of their baggage and corruption. --- [1] - https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/04/03/cuban-twitter-and-other-times-usaid-pretended-to-be-an-intelligence-agency/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/04/03/cuban-twitter-and-other... (archive) https://archive.is/IQl36 https://archive.is/IQl36 [2] - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/11/usaid-staff-documents https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/11/usaid-staff-... [3] - https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-half-a-billion-dollars-for-haiti-and-built-6-homes https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-...
bakugo 2y ago
> added hundreds of billions in costs and killed millions of people Could you provide a source for this? Or is this just an r/politics moment?
- mexicocitinluez 2y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/15/opinion/foreign-aid-cuts-impact.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/15/opinion/forei...
  - MPSimmons 2y ago
    https://archive.ph/mm6xg https://archive.ph/mm6xg
  - subsistence234 2y ago
    DOGE didn't abolish PEPFAR, they reduced its budget by 25%. Probably because ~50% of that budget was being wasted. There's likely still a big buffer before anyone runs out of meds. Also there are lots of private donors who would make up the difference (if it's only 20% of Americans, that's more than 65 million people, who can easily come up with 25% shortfall of the $6.5B budget, that's less than $10 per person).
    - mexicocitinluez 2y ago
      > Probably because ~50% of that budget was being wasted. Crazy how you just made this up. > There's likely still a big buffer before anyone runs out of meds. And this. > Also there are lots of private donors who would make up the difference (if it's only 20% of Americans, that's more than 65 million people, who can easily come up with 25% shortfall of the $6.5B budget, that's less than $10 per person). Now you're just being absurd. You're literally describing the tax system that was funding it before it was axed by the guy who can't stop making mistakes.
      - subsistence234 2y ago
        > You're literally describing the tax system that was funding it before it was axed by the guy who can't stop making mistakes. The tax system took from those who didn't want to pay for corruption, only the actual aid. They will continue to pay 75%, and those who wish to pay for the remaining 25% can do so voluntarily.

anonym29 2y ago

What DOGE activities are you referring to that added hundreds of billions in costs and killed millions of people?

woodruffw 2y ago
They’re presumably talking about things like USAID and PEPFAR. (We haven’t seen the costs of slashing these materialize yet, but with PEPFAR in particular there’s a very good chance millions will die without access to the drugs provided under the program.)
- sorcerer-mar 2y ago
  Including more than half a million children born with HIV!
- anonym29 2y ago
  Under this logic, aren't all preventable deaths (no matter how much it costs to prevent that death) the same as murder? Doesn't that technically make all of us guilty of murder if we are not all spending our entire paychecks preventing the deaths of others?
  - mexicocitinluez 2y ago
    This is a false equivalency. No one is saying you need to donate your entire paycheck.
  - woodruffw 2y ago
    No, I’m talking very specifically about things that were previously funded but are not, for what are nakedly callous reasons. (There’s no need for logical extremes here: PEPFAR wasn’t a very expensive program.)
    - anonym29 2y ago
      Why does this not expand to inexpensive programs that haven't been previously funded, but could be? I've read that we can save lives for a handful of dollars per life in Africa with greater access to medical care, mosquito nets, antimalarial drugs, etc. If getting rid of existing affordable aid is murder, why is failing to render new affordable aid not? Doesn't this inherently place an incentivization mechanism and inherent preference for the old ways of doing things, when newer ways can be more efficient and save more lives with fewer dollars?
      - woodruffw 2y ago
        The short answer is that removing the aid you were previously providing is more morally salient than not helping in the first place. Short answers aside, could you stop with the indirection? The original question was whether millions of people could die due to funding cuts. The answer is yes, regardless of your moral views about how you should spend your own money.
  - sorcerer-mar 2y ago
    We're not talking about avoiding all preventable deaths. We're talking about taking life-saving treatment away from people who were being effectively treated at a nominal cost. Taking treatment away from them in lieu of a very good reason is tantamount to murder. "Empathy is weakness" or "going after the woke mind virus" or "Organization X is a criminal organization [non-evidenced]" or "we need more cushion for tax cuts for the wealth" do not qualify as good reasons.
NilMostChill 2y ago
https://www.wired.com/story/doge-rebuild-social-security-administration-cobol-benefits/ https://www.wired.com/story/doge-rebuild-social-security-adm... Though I'm counting that as future potential costs and deaths. Ignoring the obvious opinion of the author, anybody who has ever worked on any sort of medium to large scale migration, refactoring or rewriting of a computer system knows that's a comically ridiculous timescale and when it inevitably fails there will be consequences, counted in both money and lives. But that's a (very near) future fuck-up that he will almost certainly spin or move the goalposts for. That you can draw a direct line to right now, not much other than all the cuts to critical infrastructure. To be clear, I'm not arguing against cuts and efficiency initiatives, i'm saying he's an idiot who doesn't know what he's doing, so his implementation will be shoddy and dangerous. See: The Cybertruck, The Boring Company, The Decline of X. As you are implying though, nothing major so far, aside from USAID i suppose (or the VA), does removing systems actively (and provably) preventing deaths count? These are systematic problems that will take a while to shake out into their inevitable consequences. He'll probably still fail upwards though, unless he gets luigi'd or just drops dead of a ket induced heart attack or something.
- anonym29 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - mexicocitinluez 2y ago
    > was taken from others without their consent Wait, what? Since when our tax dollars taken from us without consent? What are you talking about?
    - bakugo 2y ago
      > Since when our tax dollars taken from us without consent? Since forever? You can't just opt out of paying taxes.

swaits 2y ago

Your comment is apparently stained by your political views. It is really far from reality, lacks substance and objectivity, and comes off as unhinged.

dopidopHN 2y ago
I had the same initial reaction but time will tell.
mexicocitinluez 2y ago
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/15/opinion/foreign-aid-cuts-impact.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/15/opinion/forei... Which part exactly is "far from reality, lacks substance and objectivity"?
- anonym29 2y ago
  In lacking objectivity, is it not objectively false that "millions" have died from this?
  - mexicocitinluez 2y ago
    It's hyperbolic. People WILL die because this funding is cut. And the estimate IS millions.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - somenameforme 2y ago
      The reason people vehemently support the ending of USAID is because while they give aid with one hand, they simultaneously use the other to trigger instability that ultimately leads to conflicts and war. And if even if a single one of these wars can be prevented, you're looking at millions of lives saved - certainly if we include the displaced who lose everything. For instance here [1] is an article detailing various times USAID has been weaponized to try to overthrow various countries. A somewhat amusing one is them starting a Cuban social network with the goal of creating a "Cuban spring" uprising which failed and ultimately just turned into a giant honey pot for Cuban authorities. Recently USAID workers had a to spend an entire day shredding classified docs [2] including with offering guidance for what to do when the paper shredders 'need a rest.' You don't classify operations that are done transparently and in good faith. And this is not even touching on the massive corruption in the entire operation when you end up shipping billions of dollars to loosely accountable NGOs who in turn hand it off to other groups and on down a line to some small amount eventually gets genuinely spent. USAID was involved in the Haiti Earthquake efforts where hundreds of millions of dollars were spent, on something, to eventually construct a total of 6 permanent housing units. [3] Whatever good USAID may have done, could be far more effectively done by another organization without all of their baggage and corruption. --- [1] - https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/04/03/cuban-twitter-and-other-times-usaid-pretended-to-be-an-intelligence-agency/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/04/03/cuban-twitter-and-other... (archive) https://archive.is/IQl36 https://archive.is/IQl36 [2] - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/11/usaid-staff-documents https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/11/usaid-staff-... [3] - https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-half-a-billion-dollars-for-haiti-and-built-6-homes https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-...

bakugo 2y ago

> added hundreds of billions in costs and killed millions of people Could you provide a source for this? Or is this just an r/politics moment?

mexicocitinluez 2y ago
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/15/opinion/foreign-aid-cuts-impact.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/15/opinion/forei...
- MPSimmons 2y ago
  https://archive.ph/mm6xg https://archive.ph/mm6xg
- subsistence234 2y ago
  DOGE didn't abolish PEPFAR, they reduced its budget by 25%. Probably because ~50% of that budget was being wasted. There's likely still a big buffer before anyone runs out of meds. Also there are lots of private donors who would make up the difference (if it's only 20% of Americans, that's more than 65 million people, who can easily come up with 25% shortfall of the $6.5B budget, that's less than $10 per person).
  - mexicocitinluez 2y ago
    > Probably because ~50% of that budget was being wasted. Crazy how you just made this up. > There's likely still a big buffer before anyone runs out of meds. And this. > Also there are lots of private donors who would make up the difference (if it's only 20% of Americans, that's more than 65 million people, who can easily come up with 25% shortfall of the $6.5B budget, that's less than $10 per person). Now you're just being absurd. You're literally describing the tax system that was funding it before it was axed by the guy who can't stop making mistakes.
    - subsistence234 2y ago
      > You're literally describing the tax system that was funding it before it was axed by the guy who can't stop making mistakes. The tax system took from those who didn't want to pay for corruption, only the actual aid. They will continue to pay 75%, and those who wish to pay for the remaining 25% can do so voluntarily.