| ▲ | TheOtherHobbes a day ago |
| >Do you have any actual evidence of this? Apart from the exfiltration of data, the complete absence of any savings or efficiencies, and the fact that DOGE closed as soon as the exfiltration was over? >Corporations and governments are made of actual people. And we know how well that goes. >"the state" doesn't have one grand agenda for enslavement. The government doesn't. The people who own the government clearly do. If they didn't they'd be working hard to increase economic freedom, lower debt, invest in public health, make education better and more affordable, make it easier to start and run a small business, limit the power of corporations and big money, and clamp down on extractive wealth inequality. They are very very clearly and obviously doing the opposite of all of these things. And they have a history of links to the old slave states, and both a commercial and personal interest in neo-slavery - such as for-profit prisons, among other examples. All of this gets sold as "freedom", but even Orwell had that one worked out. Those who have been paying attention to how election fixers like SCL/Cambridge Analytica work(ed) know where the bodies are buried. The whole point of these operations is to use personalised, individual data profiling to influence voting political behaviour, by creating messaging that triggers individual responses that can be aggregated into a pattern of mass influence leveraged through social media. |
|
| ▲ | _fat_santa 19 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| > Apart from the exfiltration of data, the complete absence of any savings or efficiencies, and the fact that DOGE closed as soon as the exfiltration was over? IMHO everyone kinda knew from the start that DOGE wouldn't achieve much because the cost centers where gains could realistically be made are off-limits (mainly social security and medicare/medicaid). What that leaves you with is making cuts in other small areas and sure you could cut a few billion here and there but when compared against the governments budget, that's a drop in the bucket. |
| |
| ▲ | mattmcal 19 hours ago | parent [-] | | Social security, Medicare, and Medicaid are properly termed "entitlements", not "cost centers". You're right that non-discretionary spending dwarfs discretionary spending though. | | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz 19 hours ago | parent [-] | | Entitlements cost quite a bit of money to fulfill. Quibbling over terminology doesn't erase the point - that a significant portion of the Federal budget is money virtually everyone agrees shouldn't be touched much. | | |
| ▲ | mattmcal 19 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | You're not wrong, I edited my comment. That said, I think it is important to use clear terminology that doesn't blur the lines between spending that can theoretically be reduced, versus spending that requires an act of Congress to modify. DOGE and the executive have already flouted that line with their attempts to shutter programs and spending already approved by Congress. | |
| ▲ | bigbadfeline 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >Entitlements cost quite a bit of money to fulfill. Entitlements are funded by separate (FICA) taxes which form a significant portion of all federal income, they are called entitlements for that specific reason. > Quibbling over terminology doesn't erase the point - that a significant portion of the Federal budget is money virtually everyone agrees shouldn't be touched much. Quibbling over quibbling without mentioning the separate account for FICA/Social Security taxes is a sure sign of manipulation. As is not mentioning that the top 10% are exempt from the tax after a minuscule for them amount. Oh, and guess what - realized capital gains are not subject to Social Security tax - that's primarily how rich incomes are made. Then, unrealized capital gains aren't taxed at all - that's how wealth and privilege are accumulated. All this is happening virtually without opposition due to rich-funded bots manipulating any internet chatter about it. Is it then surprising that manipulation has reached a level of audacity that hypes solving the US fiscal problems at the expense of grandma's entitlements? | | |
| ▲ | dragonwriter 13 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Entitlements are funded by separate (FICA) taxes which form a significant portion of all federal income, they are called entitlements for that specific reason. No, they aren't, categorically, and no, that’s not what the name refers to. Entitlements include both things with dedicated taxes and specialized trust funds (Social Security, Medicare), and things that are normal on-budget programs (Medicaid, etc.) Originally, the name “entitlement” was used as a budget distinction for programs based on the principle of an earned entitlement (in the common language sense) through specific work history (Social Security, Medicare, Veterans benefits, Railroad retirement) [0], but it was later expanded to things like Medicaid and welfare programs that are not based on that principle and which were less politically well-supported, as a deliberate political strategy to drive down the popularity of traditional entitlements by association. [0] Some, but not all, of which had dedicated trust funds funded by taxes on the covered work, so there is a loose correlation between them and the kind of programs you seem to think the name exclusively refers to, but even originally it was not exclusively the case. | | |
| ▲ | bigbadfeline 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | > No, they aren't... You aren't following the conversation in this thread, my reply wasn't about the definition of "entitlements" but about the separate taxes and the significant tax income from them, which is true for the real entitlements - Social security and Medicare. More precisely, the question is about the tax structure that results in a shortfall, it seems strange to argue about cutting Social Security and Medicare when both corporate profits and the market are higher than ever while income inequality is at astronomic levels. I can't say much about Medicaid but I know the cost of drugs and medical care have been going up faster than anything else, so there might be some other way of addressing that spending. I'd be perfectly fine with demanding a separate tax for Medicaid and discussing it separately, that would be the prudent way of doing it. |
|
| |
| ▲ | thfuran 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | But fulfilling obligations isn't inefficiency or fraud, and that's what DOGE purported to be attempting to eliminate. | | |
|
|
|
|
| ▲ | 19 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| [deleted] |
|
| ▲ | mason_mpls 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I think we’re mistaking incompetence with malice in regards to DOGE here |
| |
| ▲ | fragmede 17 hours ago | parent [-] | | Hanlon's razor is stupid and wrong. One should be wary and be aware that incompetence does look like malice sometimes, but that doesn't mean that malice doesn't exist. See /r/MaliciousCompliance for examples. It's possible that DOGE is as dumb as it looked. It's also possible that the smokescreen it generated also happened to have the information leak as described. If the information leak happened due to incompetence, but malicious bad actors still got data they were after by using a third party as a Mark, does that actor being incompetent really make the difference? | | |
| ▲ | nhod 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sorry, no. Hanlon's razor is usually smart and correct, for the majority of cases, including this one. In this case, it is a huge stretch to ascribe DOGE to incompetence or to stupidity. Thus, we CAN ascribe it to malice. Elon Musk and Donald Trump are many things, but they are NOT stupid and NOT incompetent. Elon is the richest man in the world running some of the most innovative and important companies in the world. Donald Trump has managed to get elected twice despite the fact (because of the fact?) that he a serial liar and a convicted criminal. They and other actors involved have demonstrated extraordinary malice, time and time again. It is safe to ascribe this one to malice. And Hanlon's Razor holds. | | |
| ▲ | derangedHorse 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Setting aside the concept of "stupidity" for a second because it's too hard to generally define for the sake of argumentation, one can absolutely be successful at some things and incompetent at others. Your expectations of their overall competency, as with most assumptions of malice, is what fuels your bias. | |
| ▲ | fragmede 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I like the cut of your jib. |
|
|
|
|
| ▲ | mapontosevenths a day ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > The people who own the government clearly do. Has anyone in this thread ever met an actual person? All of the ones I know are cartoonishly bad at keeping secrets, and even worse at making long term plans. The closest thing we have to anyone with a long term plan is silly shit like Putins ridiculous rebuilding of the Russian Empire or religious fundamentalist horseshit like project 2025 that will die with the elderly simpletons that run it. These guys aren't masterminds, they're dumbasses who read books written by different dumbasses and make plans thay won't survive contact with reality. Let's face it, both Orwell and Huxley were wrong. They both assumed the ruling class would be competent. Huxley was closest, but even he had to invent the Alpha's. Sadly our Alphas are really just Betas with too much self esteem. Maybe AI will one day give us turbocharged dumbasses who are actually competent. For now I think we're safe from all but short term disruption. |
| |
| ▲ | Spooky23 21 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Orwell did not. He modeled the state after his experience as an officer of the British Empire and the Soviets. The state, particularly police states, that control information, require process and consistency, not intelligence. They don’t require grand plans, just control. I’ve spent most of my career in or adjacent to government. I’ve witnessed remarkable feats of stupidity and incompetence — yet these organizations are materially successful at performing their core functions. The issue with AI is that it can churn out necessary bullshit and allow the competence challenged to function more effectively. | | |
| ▲ | mapontosevenths 20 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I agree. The government doesn't need a long term plan, or the ability to execute on it for their to be negative outcomes. In this thread though I was responding to an earlier assertion that the people who run the government have such a plan. I think we're both agreed that they don't, and probably can't, plan any more than a few years out in any way that matters. | | |
| ▲ | Spooky23 16 hours ago | parent [-] | | Fair point, but I think in that case, you have to look at the government officials and the political string-pullers distinctly. The money people who have been funding think tanks like the Heritage Foundation absolutely have a long-running strategy and playbook that they've been running for years. The conceit that is really obvious about folks in the MAGA-sphere is they tend to voice what they are doing. The "deep state" is used as a cudgel to torture civil servants and clerks. But the rotating door is the lobbyists and clients. When some of the more dramatic money/influence people say POTUS is a "divine gift", they don't mean that he's some messianic figure (although the President likely hears that), they are saying "here is a blank canvas to get what we want". The government is just another tool. |
| |
| ▲ | EasyMark 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | A lot of people seem to think all government is incompetent. While they may not be as efficient as corporations seeking profits, they do consistently make progress in limiting our freedom over time. You don't have to be a genius to figure things out over time, and government has all the time in the world. Our (USA) current regime is definitely taking efforts to consolidate info on and surveil citizens as never before. That's why DOGE, I believe served two purposes, gutting regulatory government agencies overseeing billionaire bros activities and also providing both government intelligence agencies and the billionaire bros more data to build up profiles for both nefarious activities and because "more information is better than less information" when you are seeking power over others. I don't think it is simply "they're big dummies and assume they weren't up to anything" that others are trying to sell holds water as Project 2025 was planned for well over a decade. | | |
| ▲ | Spooky23 15 hours ago | parent [-] | | They are actually more efficient. Remember in any agency there are the political appointees, who are generally idiots, and the professionals, who are usually very competent but perhaps boring, as government service filters for people who value safety. There are as many people doing fuck-all at Google as at the Department of Labor, they just goof off in different ways. The professionals are hamstrung by weird politically imposed rules, and generally try to make dumb policy decisions actually work. But even in Trumpland, everybody is getting their Social Security checks and unemployment. |
|
| |
| ▲ | throwawaylaptop 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You're ignoring that the people that are effective at getting things done are more likely to do the crazy things required to begin their plans. Just because the average person cant add fractions together or stop eating donuts doesn't mean that Elon cant get some stuff together if he sets his mind to it. | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz 20 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Has anyone in this thread ever met an actual person? All of the ones I know are cartoonishly bad at keeping secrets, and even worse at making long term plans. That's the trick, though. You don't have to keep it secret any more. Project 2025 was openly published! Modern politics has weaponized shamelessness. People used to resign over consensual affairs with adults. | |
| ▲ | fragmede 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Those simpletons seem to have been able to enact their plans, so you can be smug about being smarter than they are, but it seems that they've been able to put their plan into action, so I'm not sure who's more effective. | | |
| ▲ | mapontosevenths 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | > they've been able to put their plan into action They have been able to put multiple, inconsistent, self contradictory plans into action over the last 40 years. Having accomplished many of their goals they now seek to reverse their own efforts. They are either as bad at planning as any individual human I've ever known or they are grifters who don't believe their own shtick. |
| |
| ▲ | idiotsecant 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I think you're wildly underestimating the heritage foundation. It's called project 2025 but they've essentially been dedicated to planning something like it since the 1970s. They are smart, focused, well funded, and successful. They are only one group, there are similar think tanks with similarly long term policy goals. Most people are short sighted but relatively well intentioned creatures. That's not true of all people. | | |
| ▲ | mapontosevenths 20 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I think you're wildly underestimating the heritage foundation. It's possible that I am. Certainly they've had some success over the years, as have other think tanks like them. I mean, they're part of the reason we got embroiled in the middle-east after 9/11. They've certainly been influential. That said, their problem is that they are true believers and the people in charge are not (and never will be). Someone else in this post described it as a flock of psychopaths, and I think that's the perfect way to phrase it. Society is run by a flock of psychopaths just doing whatever comes naturally as they seek to optimize their own short term advantage. Sometimes their interests converge and something like Heritage sees part of their agenda instituted, but equally often these organizations fade into irrelevance as their agendas diverge from whatever works to the pyscho of the moments advantage. To avoid that Heritage can either change their agenda, or accept that they've become defanged. More often than not they choose the former. I suppose we'll know for sure in 20 years, but I'd be willing to bet that Heritages agenda then won't look anything like the agenda they're advancing today. In fact if we look at their Agenda from 20 years ago we can see that it looks nothing like their agenda today. For example, Heritage was very much pro-immigration until about 20 years ago. As early as 1986 they were advocating for increased immigration, and even in 2006 they were publishing reports advocating for the economic benefits of it. Then suddenly it fell out of fashion amongst a certain class of ruler and they reversed their entire stance to maintain their relevance. They also used to sing a very different tune regarding healthcare, advocating for a the individual mandate as opposed to single payer. Again, it became unpopular and they simply "changed their mind" and began to fight against the policy that they were actually among the first to propose. *EDIT* To cite a more recent example consider their stance on free trade. Even as recently as this year they were advocating for free trade and against tariffs warning that tariffs might lead to a recession. They've since reversed course, because while they are largely run by true believers they can't admit that publicly or they risk losing any hope of actually accomplishing any of their agenda. | | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz 20 hours ago | parent [-] | | They aren't changing their mind. They just try and keep proposals palatable to the voting public, and push those proposals further over time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratchet_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window | | |
| ▲ | mapontosevenths 20 hours ago | parent [-] | | It might seem like that's all that's happening, but if you look to the history you can see that they've completely reversed course on a number of important subjects. We're not talking about advancing further along the same path here as the Overton window shifts, we're talking about abandoning the very principals upon which they were founded because they are, in fact, as incompetent as everyone else is. These people aren't super-villains with genuine long term plans, they're dumbasses and grifters doing what grifters gotta do to keep their cushy consulting jobs. To compare the current stances to the 2005 stances: * Social Security privatization (completely failed in 2005) * Spending restraint (federal spending increased dramatically) * Individual mandate (reversed after Obamacare adopted it) * Pro-immigration economics stance (reversed to restrictionism) * Robust free trade advocacy (effectively abandoned under Trump alignment) * Limited government principles (replaced with executive power consolidation) * Etc. In 20 more years it will have all changed again. | | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz 20 hours ago | parent [-] | | We knew in 2005 that "spending restraint" only applied to Democratic priorities. We knew in 2005 that "pro-immigration" policies were more about the businesses with cheap labor needs than a liking of immigrants. We knew in 2005 that "free trade advocacy" was significantly about ruining unions. We knew in 2005 that "limited government principles" weren't genuine. They haven't changed much on their core beliefs. They've just discarded the camouflage. |
|
|
|
|
|
