This is a perfect example of sane washing, trying to provide a rational explanation for what is merely a chaotic expression of power. Among other flaws, it does not explain the overwhelming number of obvious falsehoods being used to justify what would otherwise be popular policy. Or the secretive way it is being implemented. Nor does it put it into the context of the extreme loyalty oaths being sought from the national security establishment.
Well, I do think "a chaotic expression of power" describes most of what Trump himself does, as I wrote a few days ago. But Elon and his people are more purposeful than that, and you underestimate them at your peril...
I take him very seriously. The federal government’s programs being targeted are not just doing “good / valuable” work. They are doing critical work keeping us safe and healthy. Targeting NIH overhead doesn’t degrade science. It takes a wrecking ball to it. And so on.
Much more purposeful. So what's his end game? Why does he care about shifting the orientation of federal government employees. Why does he want to foster the far-right in Europe? It's not just for kicks because he is anti-woke. Musk is a visionary who thinks really big. What end game should we be anticipating?
Only extremist progressives could look at Elon Musk's life and see a man who isn't very savvy. You don't become one of the world's most powerful people, and simultaneously also the richest, by lacking savviness.
Lest we forget, musk took over Twitter and then fired 80% of the staff. The reaction from almost every quarter of the progressive sphere was that this was impossible, clearly chaotic, and would break Twitter to the extent it could no longer serve page requests. It was roundly predicted that musk would retreat with his tail between his legs. Clearly that did not happen even in the face of a massive woke advertising cartel boycott. It turned out that 80% of the employees being unnecessary was about right. Elon Musk was correct, everybody else was wrong.
X is profitable according to the WSJ, on less revenue than before but much lower costs. Also, the lower revenue is due to advertiser cartels attempting to impose wokeness through abuse of their employer's as budgets. It's likely this will stop at some point.
I don't disagree: I'm one of those engineers. But in the end, what matters is results, and Elon's results have been incredible (from his perspective): he's rich, he owns half a dozen companies with incredible influence over the American transit and space sectors, he's an integral part of the new Trump administration.
I could believe an argument that Trump is just bumbling his way into things: his media career was not really contingent on his success in his companies, and his pivot to politics was essentially a very successful 'right place, right time, right skillset' moonshot. Since then he hasn't done anything particularly savvy, so it's fair to assert that he himself is not exceptionally skilled in that regard (though his charisma &c are another thing entirely).
Elon though? He's gone from strength to strength, made multiple risky moves that have paid off each time, and has overcome significant opposition both in the business and political spheres. You don't get that through 'just luck'.
Yeah, but which successful tech CEO had a spotless reputation in which 100% of all people loved them? Not Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, etc. You can find people calling them assholes easily. Some people even doubt that Steve Jobs was technical, although you can easily find evidence of him holding highly technical ideas (not always good ones, but good enough to do well in the market).
Elon Musk glazer alert. Apparently if none of your employees talk shit about you it must mean you're spotless.
My guy, this man has been talking thrash for over two years now publicly -- one doesn't have to be some far left wutever the heck, u can just literally watch him speak, behave, move, tweet, wutever
I unfortunately agree. Musk is a drug addicted lunatic who knows nothing about government or its functions. I’m sure he does want to change the ideological character of those he is working with but he also just clearly loves breaking shit and causing chaos. And he does seem to genuinely believe that there are savings to be found; I doubt the basic math about tax cuts and SS/healthcare is something they’re thinking about. But also, how does eliminating CFPB (which you cite) serve in anyway to eliminate wokeness?
It’s amazing how Elon Musk’s intellect is terminally underrated because people don’t like his politics now. The same way people took months to figure out what he was doing at Twitter and all of a sudden he looks pretty smart. This sort of thinking is pure copioum.
Musk’s intellect is hard to judge. He certainly says a lot of stupid things, but he must have some intelligence to get where he has (and some luck, and some other skills).
In any case, his intellect is not that important in the current situation compared to his temperament, which is pretty much out in the open. Musk is very energetic and he takes extreme risks.
Some of that risk taking has clearly paid off massively for him. But he is temperamentally incapable of stopping. He will keep taking huge risks until one of them blows up and destroys him.
That’s why his hands on the US Government is a huge problem.
I agree 100% .. Elon’s strategy has always been laced with boldness, and vision - which is enough to piss people off.. but he also backs these up with execution and excellence - which hurts egos and makes people look dumb time and again .. this is gonna repeat in politics too and he will surprise and delight many Americans in months to come ..
Nope, Noah is right here. Anyone who has dealt with Elmo knows that he is a fraud and a liar. He’s a pretengineer. (Data point: check out his patents). But when Tesla collapses (and it soon will) will you fanbois admit it? Unlikely.
Elon’s strategy was not to buy Twitter. Then he was forced to buy Twitter, because he’s a total incompetent. And then he turned it into a conservative echo chamber, which bought him political power. You could have predicted all of this from the start, doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of 4D Chess going on here
No, no, everything Musk does is okay because in addition to helping the American people, some of these institutions ALSO think racism is bad, an unforgivable sin that Musk is merely purging with too much zeal.
Thank you, RH. I subscribed to read the whole post. Upon completion I am left with a weird feeling and general disagreement with the tone - sane washing is exactly what we have here.
Musk is using 19-25 year olds as his strike force like War Lords in Africa use child soldiers. Not because they are the best, but because their pre-frontal cortex development is not complete and they will happily do horrible things upon command without considering the long term consequences for themselves and others.
It is very much extreme leftism to claim a 25 year old does not have a fully developed brain. Look at the ages of people who achieved great things in history, and be amazed at how young they are. Our time is unique in that the left has largely convinced itself that one cannot be a fully functional adult until one has a Masters or PhD, and this has pushed back the start of adulthood well beyond anywhere it has previously been placed. I did some of my best work in my early twenties, and see no reason why that would not be the case for DOGE.
The left has convinced itself that one cannot be a fully functional adult until one has a Masters or PhD, because that's how long it takes to complete one's indoctrination (and full training in the requisite jargon).
Back in the Middle Ages, that's how long it took to achieve full expertise when discussing the number of angels that could dance on the head of a pin.
I don’t think this is presented as sane. Musk is on a maniacal quest to eliminate whatever he defines as the woke mind virus and sees it in the hearts of boring civi servants everywhere just trying to make things work and sustain the systems we all take for granted. Hjs grip on reality is loosening in proportion to the extent his capacity for destruction is growing
I don't think it can be "sane-washing" if the explanation is that Musk is a monomaniacal anti-woke crusader unconcerned with the damage he is doing to institutions. That's hardly "sane".
This is far too generous to the ignorant and careless slash and burn agenda of Musk and his goons. Oh, and you write: "I do not believe Musk is an ardent libertarian, especially given the amount of money and assistance his own companies have received from the government."
I beg to differ. "Government money for me and my cronies but not for anyone else" perfectly summarises the libertarian agenda, which, if it's anything at all is a program for looting the collective.
Libertarian does not even remotely describe Musk who is an illiberal reactionary. He has no patience or interest in democracy or freedom. He seeks a society of extraction and domination which he will lead.
Trying to push this dangerous man into tired old categories like conservative or progressive is to give him the opportunity to destroy us.
His companies and their missions are generally net positive to the public. Tesla (EVs, autonomous driving, renewable energy) funding OpenAI as it was originally intended, SpaceX (significant cost reduction via reusable rockets), Starlink (providing internet access to underserved areas). He was financially rewarded but it doesn’t seem extractive. Do you disagree?
In 2022 his son turned 18, came out as Trans and became his daughter, who then disowned him. Since that time he has become a zealot blinded by his hate of all things “woke”. That same year he bought Twitter, perhaps primarily as a weapon of revenge against the “woke”. Since then he became ever more radicalized in his own echo chamber. More right wing social revanchist than libertarian. He seems to no longer care what harms he causes to anyone, nor does he seem in any way public spirited any longer.
Walter Isaacson writes in his biography of Musk: “Sometimes great innovators are risk-seeking man-children who resist potty training. They can be reckless, cringeworthy, sometimes even toxic. They can also be crazy. Crazy enough to think they can change the world.”
We, who value democracy, ought never to have allowed so many to become multibillionaires because there are guaranteed to be a few who will use their power to F things up for the rest of us.
Musk's son didn't magically "become" his daughter; Musk's son CLAIMED to be his daughter. Musk is under no obligation to accept that claim -- so who here is guilty of "hate"?
As for the self-concepts of risk-seeking man-children, see the KKK: Kerouac, Kesey, and Kafka. On your side, you have Nurse Ratched, with her panties tied up in a knot -- shrieking (incredibly) about "authoritarianism"
Libertarians do not support cronyism and regularly speak out against government subsidies to any individuals or corporations. And there is a name for people whose main concern is having the government support “the collective“, which is communism.
Perhaps in theory libertarians do not support government subsidies. In practice it’s another matter, as recent history shows. And government being in the service of the collective is the basis of the US constitution, so I guess the country is a commie outpost. Who knew?
We're basically discussing theory here. The problem is that the categories are wrong and therefore misleading, which stymies the search for viable theory.
Musk, like the rest of the “tech bros around him, is a self described libertarian. Agreed, that doesn’t mean he actually is a libertarian, but his actions in eviscerating the government do seem to underline his credentials.
I have also been arguing that "efficiency" is a smokescreen for an ideological play, but the ideology in question is not just anti-woke: it's techno-utopian developmentism. Elon's end goal (one who would be easily recognizable to anyone who cut their teeth on 90s internet culture and scifi) has always been to be the savior of humanity by colonizing Mars and uploading minds. He's taken over the US government specifically in order to turn it into an instrument of this agenda. And he's anti-woke primarily because he perceives wokeism to be counter to it. (Can't argue with that part, really!)
However, I agree with a previous poster that we need to avoid sanewashing. While the above is the seed of what's swirling inside Elon's drug-addled, sleep-deprived, power-mad brain, in practice it is rule by vibes and tweets.
Because the entire reason he is successful is that he does not care what reality tells him. He is not listening. If he had been spaceX wouldn’t have got a rocket off the pad yet.
You, Klein, and Yglesias are all delusional. Sure, the DEI pendulum swung too far, but I take them at their word in project 2025. Don’t over intellectualize the coup.
What's intellectualized about this post? My take from the post is that 1. Elon hates DEI and progressives so is shambolically purging the civil service to get rid of them, and 2. This is likely to cause all sorts of bad things.
The post is insufficiently intellectualized because it lacks historical knowledge and better theoretical knowledge and instead uses misleading categories that do not hold up to scrutiny.
How is this over intellectualized? He’s saying that Musk is an overconfident ideologue slash overgrown child and will probably break shit. What article would you like to read? “BAD ORANGE MAN SMASH WITH BAD MUSK MAN EVIL EVIL FASCIT DICTATOR MAN BAD?”
It’s not a coup when politicians do what they said they would do after they are elected. I don’t agree with most of what Trump is doing (especially the tariffs, like the new ones on steel and aluminum) and I didn’t vote for the fool, but more people did than for Kamala, so this is what we got.
I missed the speech where Trump said he was going to let the richest man in the world take over the government and cause untold suffering. He did sort of tip his hand though as far as making cruelty the point.
Do you want a word that's meaningful to raise massive alarms if Trump orders the military to prevent the next legal transfer of power? If so, don't use "coup" to mean something milder than its actual definition.
(yes, I know that's technically an autogolpe or whatever, but coup is the scary word that the public knows, which should remain maximally scary)
Trump literally campaigned standing next to Elon Musk on stage for months before the election. Musk was talking about the DOGE long before the election happened. If you missed it fine, but nobody can claim that this is a coup because they are doing exactly what they promised to do before the election.
Unpopular opinion (and I'm a Democrat): this looks VERY similar to how these problems are approached in the private sector. If you were doing something like a PE takeover of a company with strong cashflow but poor profits, this would be an entirely routine plan.
For better or worse, what I see is mostly a normal playbook for how you take control of a vast bureaucracy and redirect it for increased efficiency and toward your intended efforts. While I really do see the merit of having relatively independent, mission-driven institutions within the government, this [DOGE effort] is not a bizarre way for a normie to expect executive power to operate. You don't buy a company and then accept "well, the IT dept kind of operates their own way with their own goals..."
Private companies don't have Congressionally passed laws generating the way the way they operate the way that the Federal government does. While a private company may act this way, the Federal government does not. Not because "it's never done that way" but because it is the law. If they don't like the law, they can get it changed.
What congressional law says the only ones that can log into the treasury payments system are the few civil servants who are currently in charge, even preventing the Treasury Secretary from access (as in the Engelmayer ruling says). It would be impossible and illegal to run a public company that way.
except they CAN'T actually get the laws changed, because we can all agree Congress is broken. It's not GREAT to say we have a democracy where elected officials are so constrained by procedure that they are unable to accomplish the will of the people. I know how we got here, but it's not an amazing system.
Here's the difference. Imagine Biden hiring someone at the Treasury who goes in and erases those loans, despite what the courts said. That's the threat here.
Republicans control the House and the Senate. There's nothing stopping them from getting rid of the filibuster and eliminating the CFPB legally tomorrow.
Why are you treating this like it's some sort of moral thing? The point of trying to understand someone, even your enemy, is not to help *them*, it's to help *you* better predict and maneuver around them. An incorrect world-model will lead you to make incorrect predictions and thereafter suboptimal decisions.
From Pew surveys last June: "In assessments of the efficiency of the government, a majority of Americans (56%) find it to be “almost always wasteful and inefficient.” "
"Gallup polling earlier this year showed that 58% of Americans are dissatisfied with the size and power of the federal government. A slight majority of Americans say the government has too much power. Seven in 10 Americans in 2019 agreed that businesses can do things more efficiently than the federal government. "
These are not QUITE saying it should operate like a business, but really there is a lot of dissatisfaction with how government is run! Don't kid yourself about what is popular with the normies!
One of the reasons the public considers government inefficient and business efficient is that government spending and performance is transparent while business is not. No one *ever* reports on systemic government efficiencies; it is a major occupation of news agencies to report on government inefficiencies. (This is normally a good thing as it is part of a culture preventing undue tolerance of inefficiency.) Businesses are not actually celebrated for efficiency, they are celebrated for success, but success is associated (not legitimately) with high efficiency. When a business fails it is not usually a matter of inefficient systemic business practices; generally, it more centrally concerns specific decisions, market conditions, or emerging competitive disadvantages that may come in many forms. So people think government should emulate business.
Every complex human system has inefficiencies. There are diminishing returns to trying to eliminate inefficiencies, and at a certain point trying to achieve higher efficiency is highly inefficient. For example, if a social welfare program results in a certain amount of fraud, it may cost far more to identify, eliminate, and punish the fraud than to tolerate it while using low-cost efforts to discourage its spread (such as detecting and prosecuting a limited number of easily discovered instances to ensure that fraud is understood to carry risk). However, the public is highly intolerant of *any* fraud in government programs, so exposing instances of undetected fraud (or what is perceived as "waste") can discredit as inefficient a program that is actually functioning well to achieve its goals at low cost. This dynamic rarely is applied to business.
Do you think we’ve reached the point of diminishing returns?
Also, businesses, at least public, have a fair amount of transparency and oversight in place. If you consistently underperform and fail to meet your objectives you are devalued, management is replaced, or the company ceases to exist. I don’t see why that same standard couldn’t apply to government programs.
In many cases I do think we've reached diminishing returns, G Raker. I think, for example, that the entitlement programs are pretty lean (at least from the consumer side). In some programs, like areas of Defense procurement, I think there's a pork barrel tradition. We know that rent-seeking lobbying interests distort legislation, that there is a level of outright corruption. We have a corps of inspectors general to maintain surveillance and disincentivize graft, but, of course, they have now largely been dismissed. I also think that there is no particular partisan alignment to corruption or poor performance. And today we have the instructive example of bipartisanship provided by Trump's letting Adams off the hook. Birds of a feather bonding beyond party lines.
You are certainly correct about corporations to the degree that they are exposed to disciplines of the market. But the most successful escape those disciplines as they are permitted semi-monopolistic rents. And the objectives of business can encourage waste in forms very different from government. Government's objective is to provide services at the highest quality possible for mandated objectives. Contemporary corporate objectives, especially for publicly traded corporations, is to maximize returns to shareholders, which is rewarded by increasingly inflated compensation for executives. The actual provision of goods and services is a means rather than an end, and features such as limitation on or degradation of quality, excess revenues gained through rents, and evasion of legal requirements (President Trump's companies have provided textbook examples), would be waste and fraud if the objectives were measured in terms of maximized deliveries to customers.
You can see how distorted this process can be in the Musk criticisms of USAID. The objectives of USAID are chiefly to deliver needed services that are welcomed in other countries in a manner that increases US popularity and global influence. Musk's critique is not about the efficiency of the programs in meeting those objectives, it's about his personal views of the programs and how he can mobilize popular resentment of their content for political ends. Killing USAID in order to achieve an ideological objective has nothing to do with issues of waste, fraud, or efficiency. If the objective is delivering needed services and increasing US soft power, abruptly terminating a wide range of (relatively inexpensive) international health programs in a way that abruptly and visibly will increase mortality among groups such as children in poor regions is, in fact, beyond the wildest form of inefficiency.
Government is anything but transparent. Why are the democrats so opposed to DOGE having read only access to USAID and Treasury payment systems if they aren’t trying to hide where that spending is going? And how does the DOD fail its audits with hundreds of billions of dollars of assets unaccounted for?
Buzen, As I understand it, "read-only" applies only to the data in the system and not to the code. This seems clear from the Treasury Department's assertion to Congress that the DOGE team has only "read-only access to the coded data." The DOGE team apparently has administrative access to the code and can modify it. That is the reason Democrats are so opposed to this breach of security.
Moreover, when I wrote that government is transparent that was not to imply that all data is public. The government collects and stores vast amounts of personal data about citizens subject to restrictions of confidentiality, and a significant amount is entailed in payment system parameters. To provide read-only access to this data without the constraints of the Treasury Department rules binding its employees, and to provide it to a team of apparently nominal and untrained employees on an ad hoc task force whose director has made clear that the President's promise of retribution is part of his mission, is cause enough for concern without administrative access to codes.
Note that none of this addresses the point of my earlier post concerning efficiency. The fact that FOIA requests routinely uncover -- in every administration -- examples of waste and fraud in a manner that allows a story of general avoidable inefficiency to spread, speaks to a type of statutorily required transparency that businesses are not subject to.
This is quite obvious, yeah. But isn't it possible that government operated like a business would be even worse? Like lack of transparency, authoritarian decision making, cutting programs that cost a lot but provide a lot of benefit too - this is not great.
Yep - that's the simple explanation, Musk is actually just being sincere. It only takes believing a few wrong things that are widespread among normies: government should be run like a business, government is drowning in debt, and the President is a king.
Government may not be drowning in debt but the public has learned to be concerned about the solvency of Social Security and Medicare my whole political life.
not a king, but Chief Executive, who is responsible for operating the executive branch.
Until he ignores a court order, which hasn't happened yet.
I understand people can argue whether the legislative branch is being respected right now, but in a way they are. They are not making objections that are being overridden. Those GOP majorities are basically content with what is happening.
Honestly, I really do think Congress should take this up. "Power of the purse" is like the ONE THING most normies remember about Congress from high school civics!
This is an effective strategy in the private sector because companies do (& should) fail. Then you just go somewhere else and start a new company, creating darwinian mechanics. If the government fails it is much worse!
This is trading a sometimes misguided effort with a toxic ideology that doesn’t believe in the rule of law.
What’s being done by DOGE is terrifying and illiberal. This article hedges too much, and conflates discomfort with annoying liberals with the complete usurpation of our institutions. The same ideological sorting has been true in the opposite direction within the government amongst our security agencies, and has not been this kind of issue.
Musk is a racist authoritarian. Everyone saw what he did to Twitter. He is not clever, just destructive. He is trying to enrich himself, exert his will on Western society, and extinguish democracy. It’s painful how obvious his moves are. Tyrants have been doing this for centuries.
I hope we stop him, Trump, Vought and others before they destroy our institutions irreparably. I am quite honestly shocked at how easily Hungary 2.0 is being installed in our country, and how complacent leading thinkers like Noah are because their social circles had obnoxious ideas, when the reality is white men dominate in all spheres of public, private leadership.
Some woke shit was annoying, but our institutions would have been able to handle it. This is something else entirely.
100% agreed. Noah repeatedly demonizes wokeness, conflates it with all progressives & progressive ideas, and fails to establish how the actual harms of wokeness are in any way commensurate with all the hysteria around it.
Which toxic ideology that doesn’t believe in the rule of law? Trump has no ideology, and what is Musks? Pro natal, free speech, electric vehicles, space travel and robotics are the closest things to ideology he has, the only evidence for racism are regrettably stupid shit posting and awkward hand motions.
The ideology that is currently violating the law on an epic scale and defying the orders of courts, after its president mounted a (sure, pretty incompetent) coup attempt the last time he lost an election.
The other side, which lost the most recent election, peacefully left office 3 weeks ago.
Using DEI as a justification for taking a sledgehammer to the Federal Government is like killing somebody because you don't like their shoes.
Musk and Trump are Visigoths. Washington is Rome. We're the good citizens of the Republic wondering what the hell just happened (or, in my case, a northern neighbour of the republic).
Next up: A "golden age" of widespread ignorance and poverty. Last one took 1,000 years to clear up.
Sounds as likely as any other explanation. The republicans have played smart tactically given their minority numbers. Taking control of state legislatures and AGs and voting bureaucracies , gerrymandering, SCOTUS with an assist from Justice Ginsberg. Etc. So this makes sense. Move quickly and wipe out the dna of the prior regime. The woke mind virus 🦠 provoked a counter reaction. Of course competence would be nice. We are living in interesting times
Red state Gerrymandering, FOX News fabulism, the endless lying engaged in by Trump/GOP pols and influencers--it all points to the inherent weakness of American conservatism. A movement that used to be able to stand on its own merits, but no longer can without its culture wars..
Conservatism *used to* be all about encouraging and enabling small-scale entrepreneurialism. Small business boosting. Now it's all about further concentrating every sector of the economy into ever tighter oligopolies, and funneling profits into the hands of a tiny few.
Gerrymandering might explain the house, but not the Senate. (Unless you still hold a grudge about TWO Dakotas.) Similarly the president did win fair and square - popular vote AND electoral college.
So a lot of this about "minority numbers" is delusional cope. THEY WON. I don't like it either! But it happened, and it is not helpful for lefites to pretend there is some conspiracy against them vs just not having the numbers right now.
The Senate is in fact a direct, openly-stated tool of malapportionment designed to boost the Right-wing's influence. You exploited a centuries-old set of rules to turn a Democracy into a dictatorship and pointing that out is "cope". Can you taste anything other than boot?
Listen, your spicy take that we shouldn't have a Senate is interesting, but now who is talking about ignoring the Constitution? Imagine how disturbed we would both be if the Right-wingers were making such statements, and take a moment to compose yourself.
Lol the Constitution was written by human beings in an effort to prevent aristocratic rule. If the authors saw that it had failed, they'd start over, as they did when they scrapped the Articles of Confederation. Mewling worship of men as if they were gods is on-brand for the Right though. Anyway, I try not to fight here, so enjoy being an easy mark, byeeeeee
Gerrymandering specifically by the North Carolina legislature was enough for the whole majority in the House and in fact the Democrats gained a few seats. It was also enough for Manchin to retire who was the only person who could have held that seat as a Democrat for the Senate to flip.
But FOX News--and its lesser imitators like OANN, etc.--is the only reason we have a GOP trifecta right now. It's *why* they have the fucking numbers. Goebbels couldn't hold a candle to the slickness of our creative 'alternative facts' friends at FOX. It the GOP's ace-in-the-hole. Their crown jewel. Their propaganda masterpiece.
Do you think automakers are dominated by Tesla? Which oil company has a monopoly, and is run by which oligarch? How is Kroger or Albertsons an oligarchy when Walmart, Target, Costco, Aldi, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, And many other grocers compete? Is Tim Cook an oligarch because the most sold phone is the iPhone, or do Samsung, Motorola, and Google who together have 40% of the US market also compete? Banking: JPMorgan Chase, BoA, Citi and Wells Fargo are all competing. Pharma: Merck, Lily, GSK, Novo Nordisk, Phizer, J&J.
The only sectors in the US with monopoly power are garbage (WMI) and live entertainment (Live Nation).
Trump may be garbage (and live entertainment) but he isn’t very good at oligarchy.
The Big Four banks have roughly 50% of retail banking customer deposits. Our four biggest airlines have 67% of total market share. The top four meatpacking companies control 85% of beef, and 55% of the poultry processing market.
Again, how much more market concentration is needed before you see it as a problem?
Noah you are way off-base on this one. This is a power grab pure and simple. Musk and Trump ar trying to put people and systems in place that will allow the "elected dictator" to present us all with faits accomplis, then drag their feet in the courts when they get called on it . My experience in the workplace, both government and private, is that people act as professionals and keep their political leanings out of their behavior. What does "wokeness" have to do with predicting the weather or presenting economic statistics? DEI is just the pretext for going in to take over. Can't believe you are falling for it.
Progressivism is rampant amongst both weather prediction and the handling of economic statistics. Go talk to any conservative and they'll tell you that both of these fields have been rendered completely useless by far left ideology, in particular the prediction of weather crises that never actually happen.
Your experience is so far removed from the experience of everybody else in the workplace that it is 100% guaranteed that in fact your workplaces have all been extremely woke, and you are simply unwilling to see it because you like it that way.
And what, pray tell, is the conservative argument against weather prediction and the current handling of economic statistics? You're the one making the claim that both fields are "completely useless" thanks to "far left ideology," so ultimately you are the one who should pony up the evidence to justify this assertion.
bruh this shiii funny ah hell, where's the beef homie. Weather has been rendered useless by "Far left ideology" XD there is nothing far left in the US govt buddy, anything far left doesn't enter into govt. 99% of the time.
I fear Noah is in danger of a similar level of obsession with "wokeness" as is Elon, whose roots in apartheid South Africa are clearly informing his general hostility to the notion of racial justice. The right wing obsession with "wokeness" looks pretty much the same as 1950's McCarthyism's obsession with Communism. McCarthyism fell but somehow the US didn't become Communist; so when this ridiculous "anti-wokeness" crusade also dies, the US won't become, "woke"? What does that even mean? What anti-wokeness means right now is pretty much boring old "racial / sexual /ableist / whatever discrimination is OK again", with various pundits reveling in their new-found ability to use terms like "retard".
The news for the anti-wokers is that a. nobody was ever stopping you from saying "retard" and b. going around acting like it's 1983 using racial / sexist / ableist slurs and behaviors is still going to very much harm your ability to get along with people who aren't also stuck in the past, who are, to be clear, the majority of people. DOGE isn't changing any of that no matter how deeply they illegally sabotage treasury payments. The world has moved on.
I think the point is in some parts of government and private companies, DEI became as bad as McCarthyism. And it produced a strong opposition given how easy it is to create a culture war around the idea of "discrimination" against white people. It is hard to tell a rampaging moose that they should calm down, as it is just meant to help fight intrinsic bias in hiring practices.
In other parts of government and private companies, DEI did what it meant to do: create stronger teams by hiring the best people and helping people overcome intrinsic hiring biases.
I've always opted for #2, so I don't have any insight into what #1 looks like (I also don't know if it even happened or just became a great media sale like school kids using litter boxes). But the fear of #1 is easy to spread on Fox News and social media. I've had half-sane friends believe that litter box stuff, so convincing them DEI is meant to discriminate seems like an easy sell.
I agree with you! that's why I said "wokeness" and not "DEI". "DEI" when given to vast legions of middle managers trying to check off boxes on spreadsheets started to suffer from a particular kind of laziness which just ended up being a negative influence in many environments. My own company, which is quite large, has a what is essentially a DEI policy (as pertains to the work environment) and because we have a really robust HR department with clear messaging and a good work ethic, these policies do not present issues to the work environment. This has to do with DEI done badly/performatively vs. DEI done earnestly, as well as the particular tensions that arise with DEI policies that are focusing on the hiring pool as opposed to all the other things that fall under DEI like anti-harassment and stuff like that. So it will be called something different next year. The general notions of "anti-racism" and "anti-sexism" aren't going away, office behaviors and hiring behaviors have changed and those aren't going to be reversed to what they were in the 80's.
I totally agree; sorry, I should have been more clear that I was agreeing with you... I just wanted to organize my thoughts and add to what you said, as it resonated strongly. My fault for skipping that key mention :)
I work with many professors and PHD students; some of them have lost their minds and are stuck trying to acknowledge every wrong in the history of wrongs. My frustration is that they do this instead of actively building a better future. It is key that we remember, honor, and learn from history, but a small number are using it as a highly ineffective weapon. Especially when they get pulled into "intergenerational trauma," and now everything they are personally struggling with is the responsibility of someone else. It seems like the skill of being resilient in the face the "real-world" challenges is slipping away because it is easier to blame all your problems on "trauma."
the problem is that the core nut of truth to "generational trauma" is real, you absolutely do "inherit" (not genetically, but developmentally) all kinds of attitudes, behaviors, and yes privileges as well as shortcomings of your parents, who inherited it from their parents, etc. I come from very poor working class grandparents on both sides. Most of my parents' generation didn't go to college, and about half of the kids in my generation went to college. Do you think my relatives / parents are going to have the same outlook on life, the same attitudes and perhaps "calmness" with the world as someone whose grandparents were all wealthy lawyers / doctors / professionals, and handed down a general attitude of comfort and education as a first priority to their offspring? My parents in their 80s are now very well off, but when you see my mom with our ten year old, you can see the terror she has of him having some minor accident, or breaking something, whatever. It's because in *her* childhood household, small accidents could mean unpayable medical bills, household damages that could not be paid for, or the inability to work and bring home money for the family (mom came from a family of seven and all of them were expected to get jobs as soon as possible to bring home money for the household). That is definitely a small but clear example intergenerational trauma in action, I can see my mom passing it onto her grandson. If you extrapolate these patterns to a vastly bigger original trauma, 300 years of slavery, you can definitely draw many straight bright lines from that experience today. It's of course tricky because, you also have to take responsibility for *solving* your problems, even if they are inherited.
When young college kids are exposed to these concepts, they lack the wisdom to integrate these very new and dramatic concepts into their thinking without going overboard. I dont know that we shouldnt accept this as normal. Young college kids in their early 20's just can't be expected to have a lot of smarts about things. that's exactly why we shouldn't have such young engineers, their revanchist attitudes notwithstanding, running treasury either.
For sure, the dice are infinite and they roll randomly with a zillion factors.
But it does seem like parents or society are teaching kids that trauma is something that holds them hostage rather than to be explored, disarmed, and overcome. I hope it is something we can shrug off as there is something I don't like about creating safe spaces or putting trigger warnings on everything. It is like we took a problem, but instead of dealing with it, we just train everyone to avoid it. And then the problem keeps building and building and building...
I've heard some crazy stories from friends, but I work for myself, so I don't work in an environment where it ever comes up. The worst stories I've heard are from friends in academics or the tech scene. I am not willing to share the stories I was told; maybe I should poke some friends who work in those places and big companies and see what they say. I have zero idea how widespread it is; that is just my conjecture, given what I've heard from friends who do work in those environments.
I have worked in tech in the Bay Area for 25 years and it’s totally overblown in my experience. I am sure there are isolated examples of DEI extremism, but I am have witnessed up close the behavior of arrogant founders and abusive CEOs over and over. Their narcissism and self-assurance have derailed careers and wrought emotional damage on who knows how many people.
This take fundamentally misunderstands how the American civil service functions. The political appointees in the front office have total control over everything that goes out. Any analysis of the ideology of the civil service has to include the overrepresentation of veterans, both in commitment to public service but also to chain of command and following orders. There is a very strong culture of deference to the political appointees and civil servants who cannot compartmentalize their own policy preferences do not last long.
My own experience is that the federal government was swept up in the same DEI/woke trend as much of the private sector, but this was mostly "woke-washing" with shallow support. Since the government tends to be understaffed, even my more progressive colleagues were pretty annoyed to take time out of their workday for DEI trainings.
If Musk really wanted to root out the so-called woke mind virus, it would be enough to cancel the trainings and stop the political appointees from ordering us to work on "woke" projects or rewrite reports to conform with their political commitments.
This whole premise that people with graduate school degrees were brainwashed by evil Leftie professors into becoming Democrats, is just hogwash. When conservative politicians and elites serially lie to your face--about literally *everything*--hilarity and/or contempt are the only rational responses. It's the *lying* that makes grad students Dems.
Leavitt: "Incompetent DEI hires by FAA were the cause of this crash."
Reporter: "Does that mean it's not safe to fly?"
Leavitt: "No, we have the best air control system in the world."
I largely agree with your thesis that the real purpose of DOGE is to turn the federal workforce and federal programs more conservative, and I 100% agree about the danger of the risk of degrading American state capacity (destroying government programs that are doing valuable, important work) and fear of repression of speech. One possible silver lining? The recognition that government employees are paid by taxpayers. From the perspective of a former administrator two public universities, it is regularly forgotten that taxpayers pay salaries and perhaps some humility and modesty is needed about that.
I like the thesis of how you say the character is changing, and would agree as well that the US may use its technological edge, however this edge may be replaced with a technocratic, tyrannical sword, as Musk, Thiel, and all their buddies are let loose with AI, drones, and a payment system for all (original intention for X).
Once this is accomplished, will it matter which party anyone belongs to?
AI powered drones will be beneficial in rebuilding Asheville, which is a beautiful town with some great artists and brewers, and so is the lovely Biltmore Estate. StarLink is also very useful and SpaceX regularly provides its services for disaster emergencies as a public benefit.
A dystopian future with AI drones forcing people to use X to pay for mandated Teslas doesn’t seem like anything other than a bad episode of Black Mirror.
On one hand, conservative ideological control isn’t necessarily more dangerous than the progressive ideological dominance that developed during previous administrations.
In Danger #4, after having typed what you did in Dangers #1-3, where you rightfully stated the goal of conservative leadership is to turn the presidency into a dictatorship, to dismantle the power of the administrative state and our ability to defend against some extremely serious and smart foreign adversaries, by removing all the educated members of the US federal workforce?
I have always appreciated your measured analysis on the issues. But you directly contradict yourself within 5 paragraphs, on what is perhaps the most dangerous issue the US has faced since the Cuban Missile crisis.
I think also, your measured voice here is extraordinarily inappropriate given what is actually happening. There's a time to use it, and a time to not use it.
He didn't say any of those things. Also you appear to be conflating "educated" with intelligent, clever and so on. A core belief of the conservatives is that people who have been to the university system are in fact in many ways less intelligent than those who haven't. Universities have been selecting against smart curious people for so long, that an advanced degree is now seen as a sign of serious mental deficiency rather than an asset to be trusted.
Truly truly incredible stuff. I wonder how all those super successful American businesses which require a minimum of a college degree to apply, manage to succeed and innovate, while being totally wrong that a college degree is an indicator of intelligence. Does it hurt you, to continually twist logic into pretzels, as conservative thinking requires? Feel free to join the rest of us in reality - I can promise you we'd all be a lot happier with you there, vs wherever the hell you are now!
My first job was at one of the world's richest and most successful tech companies, as a software engineer. They had no degree requirements and plenty of people there with either no degree or a degree in an irrelevant subject. In fact they made me a job offer before even asking if I had a degree.
I think you'll find that most of those super successful American businesses are using "has a degree" just as a way to thin out the crowd of people applying for generic job like marketing, along with selecting for people who are willing to follow orders. If you have a skill they want the degree requirements suddenly vanish.
Some of the speed run is that Elon only has 130 days as an SGE (presumably there's litigation prepared if he overstays, especially given Elon's bragging about working weekends) so that adds to the blitzkrieg-like nature of it. And it's no wonder Vivek wanted no part of this.
I think Noah is somewhat right. But, again, where are all these conservatives to replace peogressives going to come from? The private sector still pays more (especially for management material), the people trained in these fields are still liberal, and it's not like Republicans are going to start increasing pay.
Really seems like kneecapping state capacity really is an end, not just a means. Maybe they'll backfill it with private sector contracting (with awards going to DOGE participants), making it a big exercise in self-dealing? I can only hope this ends with Trump deciding that Elon is trying to steal money or power from him and these deranged narcissists become each other's primary targets.
This is a perfect example of sane washing, trying to provide a rational explanation for what is merely a chaotic expression of power. Among other flaws, it does not explain the overwhelming number of obvious falsehoods being used to justify what would otherwise be popular policy. Or the secretive way it is being implemented. Nor does it put it into the context of the extreme loyalty oaths being sought from the national security establishment.
Well, I do think "a chaotic expression of power" describes most of what Trump himself does, as I wrote a few days ago. But Elon and his people are more purposeful than that, and you underestimate them at your peril...
I take him very seriously. The federal government’s programs being targeted are not just doing “good / valuable” work. They are doing critical work keeping us safe and healthy. Targeting NIH overhead doesn’t degrade science. It takes a wrecking ball to it. And so on.
Much more purposeful. So what's his end game? Why does he care about shifting the orientation of federal government employees. Why does he want to foster the far-right in Europe? It's not just for kicks because he is anti-woke. Musk is a visionary who thinks really big. What end game should we be anticipating?
Only extremist progressives could look at Elon Musk's life and see a man who isn't very savvy. You don't become one of the world's most powerful people, and simultaneously also the richest, by lacking savviness.
Lest we forget, musk took over Twitter and then fired 80% of the staff. The reaction from almost every quarter of the progressive sphere was that this was impossible, clearly chaotic, and would break Twitter to the extent it could no longer serve page requests. It was roundly predicted that musk would retreat with his tail between his legs. Clearly that did not happen even in the face of a massive woke advertising cartel boycott. It turned out that 80% of the employees being unnecessary was about right. Elon Musk was correct, everybody else was wrong.
They were so unnecessary that twitter has been running massive losses since he took over
Clearly a great sustainable success.
X is profitable according to the WSJ, on less revenue than before but much lower costs. Also, the lower revenue is due to advertiser cartels attempting to impose wokeness through abuse of their employer's as budgets. It's likely this will stop at some point.
I don't disagree: I'm one of those engineers. But in the end, what matters is results, and Elon's results have been incredible (from his perspective): he's rich, he owns half a dozen companies with incredible influence over the American transit and space sectors, he's an integral part of the new Trump administration.
I could believe an argument that Trump is just bumbling his way into things: his media career was not really contingent on his success in his companies, and his pivot to politics was essentially a very successful 'right place, right time, right skillset' moonshot. Since then he hasn't done anything particularly savvy, so it's fair to assert that he himself is not exceptionally skilled in that regard (though his charisma &c are another thing entirely).
Elon though? He's gone from strength to strength, made multiple risky moves that have paid off each time, and has overcome significant opposition both in the business and political spheres. You don't get that through 'just luck'.
Yeah, but which successful tech CEO had a spotless reputation in which 100% of all people loved them? Not Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, etc. You can find people calling them assholes easily. Some people even doubt that Steve Jobs was technical, although you can easily find evidence of him holding highly technical ideas (not always good ones, but good enough to do well in the market).
Elon Musk glazer alert. Apparently if none of your employees talk shit about you it must mean you're spotless.
My guy, this man has been talking thrash for over two years now publicly -- one doesn't have to be some far left wutever the heck, u can just literally watch him speak, behave, move, tweet, wutever
Hence the four dangers of DOGE
I unfortunately agree. Musk is a drug addicted lunatic who knows nothing about government or its functions. I’m sure he does want to change the ideological character of those he is working with but he also just clearly loves breaking shit and causing chaos. And he does seem to genuinely believe that there are savings to be found; I doubt the basic math about tax cuts and SS/healthcare is something they’re thinking about. But also, how does eliminating CFPB (which you cite) serve in anyway to eliminate wokeness?
It’s amazing how Elon Musk’s intellect is terminally underrated because people don’t like his politics now. The same way people took months to figure out what he was doing at Twitter and all of a sudden he looks pretty smart. This sort of thinking is pure copioum.
Musk’s intellect is hard to judge. He certainly says a lot of stupid things, but he must have some intelligence to get where he has (and some luck, and some other skills).
In any case, his intellect is not that important in the current situation compared to his temperament, which is pretty much out in the open. Musk is very energetic and he takes extreme risks.
Some of that risk taking has clearly paid off massively for him. But he is temperamentally incapable of stopping. He will keep taking huge risks until one of them blows up and destroys him.
That’s why his hands on the US Government is a huge problem.
I agree 100% .. Elon’s strategy has always been laced with boldness, and vision - which is enough to piss people off.. but he also backs these up with execution and excellence - which hurts egos and makes people look dumb time and again .. this is gonna repeat in politics too and he will surprise and delight many Americans in months to come ..
Nope, Noah is right here. Anyone who has dealt with Elmo knows that he is a fraud and a liar. He’s a pretengineer. (Data point: check out his patents). But when Tesla collapses (and it soon will) will you fanbois admit it? Unlikely.
This just shows the hazards of IQ primacy. Yes he is smart in an IQ sense, I guess. His values, empathy, and ideas are shit and dangerous though.
Elon’s strategy was not to buy Twitter. Then he was forced to buy Twitter, because he’s a total incompetent. And then he turned it into a conservative echo chamber, which bought him political power. You could have predicted all of this from the start, doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of 4D Chess going on here
Didn't many of the Founding Fathers explicitly think of the United States as an attempt to do the Roman Republic better?
They didn't though. For example, the Federalist Papers were published under a pseudonym, and a Roman one at that.
Using real names reeks of authoritarianism when encouraged, and status seeking when done eagerly.
No, no, everything Musk does is okay because in addition to helping the American people, some of these institutions ALSO think racism is bad, an unforgivable sin that Musk is merely purging with too much zeal.
Racism is bad, I guess, unless it’s racism that favors me. I say, racism is bad, so stop doing it
But he also created a car company, a space rocket with a reusable booster and a few other things. Plus creating $320 billion in personal wealth.
But other than that he’s a “drug addicted lunatic”.
Thank you, RH. I subscribed to read the whole post. Upon completion I am left with a weird feeling and general disagreement with the tone - sane washing is exactly what we have here.
Musk is using 19-25 year olds as his strike force like War Lords in Africa use child soldiers. Not because they are the best, but because their pre-frontal cortex development is not complete and they will happily do horrible things upon command without considering the long term consequences for themselves and others.
It is very much extreme leftism to claim a 25 year old does not have a fully developed brain. Look at the ages of people who achieved great things in history, and be amazed at how young they are. Our time is unique in that the left has largely convinced itself that one cannot be a fully functional adult until one has a Masters or PhD, and this has pushed back the start of adulthood well beyond anywhere it has previously been placed. I did some of my best work in my early twenties, and see no reason why that would not be the case for DOGE.
The left has convinced itself that one cannot be a fully functional adult until one has a Masters or PhD, because that's how long it takes to complete one's indoctrination (and full training in the requisite jargon).
Back in the Middle Ages, that's how long it took to achieve full expertise when discussing the number of angels that could dance on the head of a pin.
A more straightforward approach is to think of this is as a caudillo come to the US. Many of the same features.
"If the constitution put formal limits on presidential power and term limits, caudillos could bend or break the rules to maintain power."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caudillo#:~:text=A%20caudillo%20(/k%C9%94%CB%90ˈ,in%20the%20early%20nineteenth%20century.
I don’t think this is presented as sane. Musk is on a maniacal quest to eliminate whatever he defines as the woke mind virus and sees it in the hearts of boring civi servants everywhere just trying to make things work and sustain the systems we all take for granted. Hjs grip on reality is loosening in proportion to the extent his capacity for destruction is growing
I don't think it can be "sane-washing" if the explanation is that Musk is a monomaniacal anti-woke crusader unconcerned with the damage he is doing to institutions. That's hardly "sane".
This is far too generous to the ignorant and careless slash and burn agenda of Musk and his goons. Oh, and you write: "I do not believe Musk is an ardent libertarian, especially given the amount of money and assistance his own companies have received from the government."
I beg to differ. "Government money for me and my cronies but not for anyone else" perfectly summarises the libertarian agenda, which, if it's anything at all is a program for looting the collective.
Libertarian does not even remotely describe Musk who is an illiberal reactionary. He has no patience or interest in democracy or freedom. He seeks a society of extraction and domination which he will lead.
Trying to push this dangerous man into tired old categories like conservative or progressive is to give him the opportunity to destroy us.
His companies and their missions are generally net positive to the public. Tesla (EVs, autonomous driving, renewable energy) funding OpenAI as it was originally intended, SpaceX (significant cost reduction via reusable rockets), Starlink (providing internet access to underserved areas). He was financially rewarded but it doesn’t seem extractive. Do you disagree?
In 2022 his son turned 18, came out as Trans and became his daughter, who then disowned him. Since that time he has become a zealot blinded by his hate of all things “woke”. That same year he bought Twitter, perhaps primarily as a weapon of revenge against the “woke”. Since then he became ever more radicalized in his own echo chamber. More right wing social revanchist than libertarian. He seems to no longer care what harms he causes to anyone, nor does he seem in any way public spirited any longer.
Walter Isaacson writes in his biography of Musk: “Sometimes great innovators are risk-seeking man-children who resist potty training. They can be reckless, cringeworthy, sometimes even toxic. They can also be crazy. Crazy enough to think they can change the world.”
We, who value democracy, ought never to have allowed so many to become multibillionaires because there are guaranteed to be a few who will use their power to F things up for the rest of us.
Musk's son didn't magically "become" his daughter; Musk's son CLAIMED to be his daughter. Musk is under no obligation to accept that claim -- so who here is guilty of "hate"?
As for the self-concepts of risk-seeking man-children, see the KKK: Kerouac, Kesey, and Kafka. On your side, you have Nurse Ratched, with her panties tied up in a knot -- shrieking (incredibly) about "authoritarianism"
lol idk out of respect, acceptance, and love for your own child? Wild ain't it -- but he lacks all that ✌️
Libertarians do not support cronyism and regularly speak out against government subsidies to any individuals or corporations. And there is a name for people whose main concern is having the government support “the collective“, which is communism.
Perhaps in theory libertarians do not support government subsidies. In practice it’s another matter, as recent history shows. And government being in the service of the collective is the basis of the US constitution, so I guess the country is a commie outpost. Who knew?
We're basically discussing theory here. The problem is that the categories are wrong and therefore misleading, which stymies the search for viable theory.
Musk, like the rest of the “tech bros around him, is a self described libertarian. Agreed, that doesn’t mean he actually is a libertarian, but his actions in eviscerating the government do seem to underline his credentials.
I have also been arguing that "efficiency" is a smokescreen for an ideological play, but the ideology in question is not just anti-woke: it's techno-utopian developmentism. Elon's end goal (one who would be easily recognizable to anyone who cut their teeth on 90s internet culture and scifi) has always been to be the savior of humanity by colonizing Mars and uploading minds. He's taken over the US government specifically in order to turn it into an instrument of this agenda. And he's anti-woke primarily because he perceives wokeism to be counter to it. (Can't argue with that part, really!)
However, I agree with a previous poster that we need to avoid sanewashing. While the above is the seed of what's swirling inside Elon's drug-addled, sleep-deprived, power-mad brain, in practice it is rule by vibes and tweets.
How does someone who is intelligent enough to accomplish what Musk has believe that Mars can be colonized in his lifetime?
I mean, he thought he could built a network of tunnels connecting all locations directly to all other locations, and we saw how that worked out.
I do not believe Mars can be colonized in his lifetime, but I also note that many people would've said the exact same thing about SpaceX 20 years ago.
Because the entire reason he is successful is that he does not care what reality tells him. He is not listening. If he had been spaceX wouldn’t have got a rocket off the pad yet.
But democracy and freedom do not survive Musk's illeberal delusions.
You, Klein, and Yglesias are all delusional. Sure, the DEI pendulum swung too far, but I take them at their word in project 2025. Don’t over intellectualize the coup.
What's intellectualized about this post? My take from the post is that 1. Elon hates DEI and progressives so is shambolically purging the civil service to get rid of them, and 2. This is likely to cause all sorts of bad things.
The post is insufficiently intellectualized because it lacks historical knowledge and better theoretical knowledge and instead uses misleading categories that do not hold up to scrutiny.
How is this over intellectualized? He’s saying that Musk is an overconfident ideologue slash overgrown child and will probably break shit. What article would you like to read? “BAD ORANGE MAN SMASH WITH BAD MUSK MAN EVIL EVIL FASCIT DICTATOR MAN BAD?”
It’s not a coup when politicians do what they said they would do after they are elected. I don’t agree with most of what Trump is doing (especially the tariffs, like the new ones on steel and aluminum) and I didn’t vote for the fool, but more people did than for Kamala, so this is what we got.
I missed the speech where Trump said he was going to let the richest man in the world take over the government and cause untold suffering. He did sort of tip his hand though as far as making cruelty the point.
Do you want a word that's meaningful to raise massive alarms if Trump orders the military to prevent the next legal transfer of power? If so, don't use "coup" to mean something milder than its actual definition.
(yes, I know that's technically an autogolpe or whatever, but coup is the scary word that the public knows, which should remain maximally scary)
Trump literally campaigned standing next to Elon Musk on stage for months before the election. Musk was talking about the DOGE long before the election happened. If you missed it fine, but nobody can claim that this is a coup because they are doing exactly what they promised to do before the election.
Unpopular opinion (and I'm a Democrat): this looks VERY similar to how these problems are approached in the private sector. If you were doing something like a PE takeover of a company with strong cashflow but poor profits, this would be an entirely routine plan.
For better or worse, what I see is mostly a normal playbook for how you take control of a vast bureaucracy and redirect it for increased efficiency and toward your intended efforts. While I really do see the merit of having relatively independent, mission-driven institutions within the government, this [DOGE effort] is not a bizarre way for a normie to expect executive power to operate. You don't buy a company and then accept "well, the IT dept kind of operates their own way with their own goals..."
Private companies don't have Congressionally passed laws generating the way the way they operate the way that the Federal government does. While a private company may act this way, the Federal government does not. Not because "it's never done that way" but because it is the law. If they don't like the law, they can get it changed.
What congressional law says the only ones that can log into the treasury payments system are the few civil servants who are currently in charge, even preventing the Treasury Secretary from access (as in the Engelmayer ruling says). It would be impossible and illegal to run a public company that way.
except they CAN'T actually get the laws changed, because we can all agree Congress is broken. It's not GREAT to say we have a democracy where elected officials are so constrained by procedure that they are unable to accomplish the will of the people. I know how we got here, but it's not an amazing system.
We have those laws constraining executive power for very good reasons.
Did you make this argument when Biden was restricting oil leases or illegally forgiving student loans? I was.
DACA under Obama made me uncomfortable, and I really think it was the start of this slippery slope. But I didn't complain out loud.
The student loan write-offs, that one I did complain. Bad optics AND questionable legality.
Here's the difference. Imagine Biden hiring someone at the Treasury who goes in and erases those loans, despite what the courts said. That's the threat here.
Republicans control the House and the Senate. There's nothing stopping them from getting rid of the filibuster and eliminating the CFPB legally tomorrow.
these words are literally true, I agree. And it would be more right to do it this way.
But I *understand* why they are taking this chicken-sh*t path of just not challenging anything the administration does instead.
Why are you treating this like it's some sort of moral thing? The point of trying to understand someone, even your enemy, is not to help *them*, it's to help *you* better predict and maneuver around them. An incorrect world-model will lead you to make incorrect predictions and thereafter suboptimal decisions.
Only dumb conservatives believe that government should operate like a private enterprise
From Pew surveys last June: "In assessments of the efficiency of the government, a majority of Americans (56%) find it to be “almost always wasteful and inefficient.” "
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/governments-scope-efficiency-and-role-in-regulating-business/
"Gallup polling earlier this year showed that 58% of Americans are dissatisfied with the size and power of the federal government. A slight majority of Americans say the government has too much power. Seven in 10 Americans in 2019 agreed that businesses can do things more efficiently than the federal government. "
https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/653657/public-support-making-government-efficient.aspx
These are not QUITE saying it should operate like a business, but really there is a lot of dissatisfaction with how government is run! Don't kid yourself about what is popular with the normies!
One of the reasons the public considers government inefficient and business efficient is that government spending and performance is transparent while business is not. No one *ever* reports on systemic government efficiencies; it is a major occupation of news agencies to report on government inefficiencies. (This is normally a good thing as it is part of a culture preventing undue tolerance of inefficiency.) Businesses are not actually celebrated for efficiency, they are celebrated for success, but success is associated (not legitimately) with high efficiency. When a business fails it is not usually a matter of inefficient systemic business practices; generally, it more centrally concerns specific decisions, market conditions, or emerging competitive disadvantages that may come in many forms. So people think government should emulate business.
Every complex human system has inefficiencies. There are diminishing returns to trying to eliminate inefficiencies, and at a certain point trying to achieve higher efficiency is highly inefficient. For example, if a social welfare program results in a certain amount of fraud, it may cost far more to identify, eliminate, and punish the fraud than to tolerate it while using low-cost efforts to discourage its spread (such as detecting and prosecuting a limited number of easily discovered instances to ensure that fraud is understood to carry risk). However, the public is highly intolerant of *any* fraud in government programs, so exposing instances of undetected fraud (or what is perceived as "waste") can discredit as inefficient a program that is actually functioning well to achieve its goals at low cost. This dynamic rarely is applied to business.
Do you think we’ve reached the point of diminishing returns?
Also, businesses, at least public, have a fair amount of transparency and oversight in place. If you consistently underperform and fail to meet your objectives you are devalued, management is replaced, or the company ceases to exist. I don’t see why that same standard couldn’t apply to government programs.
In many cases I do think we've reached diminishing returns, G Raker. I think, for example, that the entitlement programs are pretty lean (at least from the consumer side). In some programs, like areas of Defense procurement, I think there's a pork barrel tradition. We know that rent-seeking lobbying interests distort legislation, that there is a level of outright corruption. We have a corps of inspectors general to maintain surveillance and disincentivize graft, but, of course, they have now largely been dismissed. I also think that there is no particular partisan alignment to corruption or poor performance. And today we have the instructive example of bipartisanship provided by Trump's letting Adams off the hook. Birds of a feather bonding beyond party lines.
You are certainly correct about corporations to the degree that they are exposed to disciplines of the market. But the most successful escape those disciplines as they are permitted semi-monopolistic rents. And the objectives of business can encourage waste in forms very different from government. Government's objective is to provide services at the highest quality possible for mandated objectives. Contemporary corporate objectives, especially for publicly traded corporations, is to maximize returns to shareholders, which is rewarded by increasingly inflated compensation for executives. The actual provision of goods and services is a means rather than an end, and features such as limitation on or degradation of quality, excess revenues gained through rents, and evasion of legal requirements (President Trump's companies have provided textbook examples), would be waste and fraud if the objectives were measured in terms of maximized deliveries to customers.
You can see how distorted this process can be in the Musk criticisms of USAID. The objectives of USAID are chiefly to deliver needed services that are welcomed in other countries in a manner that increases US popularity and global influence. Musk's critique is not about the efficiency of the programs in meeting those objectives, it's about his personal views of the programs and how he can mobilize popular resentment of their content for political ends. Killing USAID in order to achieve an ideological objective has nothing to do with issues of waste, fraud, or efficiency. If the objective is delivering needed services and increasing US soft power, abruptly terminating a wide range of (relatively inexpensive) international health programs in a way that abruptly and visibly will increase mortality among groups such as children in poor regions is, in fact, beyond the wildest form of inefficiency.
Government is anything but transparent. Why are the democrats so opposed to DOGE having read only access to USAID and Treasury payment systems if they aren’t trying to hide where that spending is going? And how does the DOD fail its audits with hundreds of billions of dollars of assets unaccounted for?
Buzen, As I understand it, "read-only" applies only to the data in the system and not to the code. This seems clear from the Treasury Department's assertion to Congress that the DOGE team has only "read-only access to the coded data." The DOGE team apparently has administrative access to the code and can modify it. That is the reason Democrats are so opposed to this breach of security.
Moreover, when I wrote that government is transparent that was not to imply that all data is public. The government collects and stores vast amounts of personal data about citizens subject to restrictions of confidentiality, and a significant amount is entailed in payment system parameters. To provide read-only access to this data without the constraints of the Treasury Department rules binding its employees, and to provide it to a team of apparently nominal and untrained employees on an ad hoc task force whose director has made clear that the President's promise of retribution is part of his mission, is cause enough for concern without administrative access to codes.
Note that none of this addresses the point of my earlier post concerning efficiency. The fact that FOIA requests routinely uncover -- in every administration -- examples of waste and fraud in a manner that allows a story of general avoidable inefficiency to spread, speaks to a type of statutorily required transparency that businesses are not subject to.
This is quite obvious, yeah. But isn't it possible that government operated like a business would be even worse? Like lack of transparency, authoritarian decision making, cutting programs that cost a lot but provide a lot of benefit too - this is not great.
Yep - that's the simple explanation, Musk is actually just being sincere. It only takes believing a few wrong things that are widespread among normies: government should be run like a business, government is drowning in debt, and the President is a king.
If you don’t believe the government is drowning in debt, you obviously have no idea of what is going on.
Http://usdebtclock.org
What are the US governments assets? You’re not drowning in debt with a $500k mortgage on a $2 million house.
Government may not be drowning in debt but the public has learned to be concerned about the solvency of Social Security and Medicare my whole political life.
not a king, but Chief Executive, who is responsible for operating the executive branch.
Until he ignores a court order, which hasn't happened yet.
I understand people can argue whether the legislative branch is being respected right now, but in a way they are. They are not making objections that are being overridden. Those GOP majorities are basically content with what is happening.
"Until he ignores a court order, which hasn't happened yet."
Has now
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.rid.58912/gov.uscourts.rid.58912.96.0_2.pdf
my goodness the news moves fast these days. Here's a more readable link for anyone following this thread: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/judge-finds-trump-administration-hasnt-fully-order-unfreeze-118659394
Honestly, I really do think Congress should take this up. "Power of the purse" is like the ONE THING most normies remember about Congress from high school civics!
But the government is not a corporation. Our government has the power to kill and imprison.
This is an effective strategy in the private sector because companies do (& should) fail. Then you just go somewhere else and start a new company, creating darwinian mechanics. If the government fails it is much worse!
This is trading a sometimes misguided effort with a toxic ideology that doesn’t believe in the rule of law.
What’s being done by DOGE is terrifying and illiberal. This article hedges too much, and conflates discomfort with annoying liberals with the complete usurpation of our institutions. The same ideological sorting has been true in the opposite direction within the government amongst our security agencies, and has not been this kind of issue.
Musk is a racist authoritarian. Everyone saw what he did to Twitter. He is not clever, just destructive. He is trying to enrich himself, exert his will on Western society, and extinguish democracy. It’s painful how obvious his moves are. Tyrants have been doing this for centuries.
I hope we stop him, Trump, Vought and others before they destroy our institutions irreparably. I am quite honestly shocked at how easily Hungary 2.0 is being installed in our country, and how complacent leading thinkers like Noah are because their social circles had obnoxious ideas, when the reality is white men dominate in all spheres of public, private leadership.
Some woke shit was annoying, but our institutions would have been able to handle it. This is something else entirely.
100% agreed. Noah repeatedly demonizes wokeness, conflates it with all progressives & progressive ideas, and fails to establish how the actual harms of wokeness are in any way commensurate with all the hysteria around it.
Completely agree with you.
Our institutions would be able to handle it??? They are the source of the rot.
Which toxic ideology that doesn’t believe in the rule of law? Trump has no ideology, and what is Musks? Pro natal, free speech, electric vehicles, space travel and robotics are the closest things to ideology he has, the only evidence for racism are regrettably stupid shit posting and awkward hand motions.
The ideology that is currently violating the law on an epic scale and defying the orders of courts, after its president mounted a (sure, pretty incompetent) coup attempt the last time he lost an election.
The other side, which lost the most recent election, peacefully left office 3 weeks ago.
Using DEI as a justification for taking a sledgehammer to the Federal Government is like killing somebody because you don't like their shoes.
Musk and Trump are Visigoths. Washington is Rome. We're the good citizens of the Republic wondering what the hell just happened (or, in my case, a northern neighbour of the republic).
Next up: A "golden age" of widespread ignorance and poverty. Last one took 1,000 years to clear up.
Easy to say when you are one of the people favored by the DEI quota regime
I guess then Biden is Cicero in this scenario. And the fall proof shoes his bubble wrap handlers had Biden wear were pretty ugly.
Biden is no Cicero
Sounds as likely as any other explanation. The republicans have played smart tactically given their minority numbers. Taking control of state legislatures and AGs and voting bureaucracies , gerrymandering, SCOTUS with an assist from Justice Ginsberg. Etc. So this makes sense. Move quickly and wipe out the dna of the prior regime. The woke mind virus 🦠 provoked a counter reaction. Of course competence would be nice. We are living in interesting times
Red state Gerrymandering, FOX News fabulism, the endless lying engaged in by Trump/GOP pols and influencers--it all points to the inherent weakness of American conservatism. A movement that used to be able to stand on its own merits, but no longer can without its culture wars..
Conservatism *used to* be all about encouraging and enabling small-scale entrepreneurialism. Small business boosting. Now it's all about further concentrating every sector of the economy into ever tighter oligopolies, and funneling profits into the hands of a tiny few.
Gerrymandering might explain the house, but not the Senate. (Unless you still hold a grudge about TWO Dakotas.) Similarly the president did win fair and square - popular vote AND electoral college.
So a lot of this about "minority numbers" is delusional cope. THEY WON. I don't like it either! But it happened, and it is not helpful for lefites to pretend there is some conspiracy against them vs just not having the numbers right now.
The Senate is in fact a direct, openly-stated tool of malapportionment designed to boost the Right-wing's influence. You exploited a centuries-old set of rules to turn a Democracy into a dictatorship and pointing that out is "cope". Can you taste anything other than boot?
"exploited"? It's called voting.
Listen, your spicy take that we shouldn't have a Senate is interesting, but now who is talking about ignoring the Constitution? Imagine how disturbed we would both be if the Right-wingers were making such statements, and take a moment to compose yourself.
Lol the Constitution was written by human beings in an effort to prevent aristocratic rule. If the authors saw that it had failed, they'd start over, as they did when they scrapped the Articles of Confederation. Mewling worship of men as if they were gods is on-brand for the Right though. Anyway, I try not to fight here, so enjoy being an easy mark, byeeeeee
Gerrymandering specifically by the North Carolina legislature was enough for the whole majority in the House and in fact the Democrats gained a few seats. It was also enough for Manchin to retire who was the only person who could have held that seat as a Democrat for the Senate to flip.
Gerrymandering Congressional districts WAS hands-off until the Roberts SCOTUS. It is responsible for the slim GOP control of the House: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/how-gerrymandering-tilts-2024-race-house
But FOX News--and its lesser imitators like OANN, etc.--is the only reason we have a GOP trifecta right now. It's *why* they have the fucking numbers. Goebbels couldn't hold a candle to the slickness of our creative 'alternative facts' friends at FOX. It the GOP's ace-in-the-hole. Their crown jewel. Their propaganda masterpiece.
Which sectors are ruled by oligopolies?
Do you think automakers are dominated by Tesla? Which oil company has a monopoly, and is run by which oligarch? How is Kroger or Albertsons an oligarchy when Walmart, Target, Costco, Aldi, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, And many other grocers compete? Is Tim Cook an oligarch because the most sold phone is the iPhone, or do Samsung, Motorola, and Google who together have 40% of the US market also compete? Banking: JPMorgan Chase, BoA, Citi and Wells Fargo are all competing. Pharma: Merck, Lily, GSK, Novo Nordisk, Phizer, J&J.
The only sectors in the US with monopoly power are garbage (WMI) and live entertainment (Live Nation).
Trump may be garbage (and live entertainment) but he isn’t very good at oligarchy.
Banking. Airlines. Meat Packers, Defense Contractors, Aerospace. Social Media.
Other sectors less so; but still trending towards concentration.
Do we have to get to Robber Baron levels of market concentration before you see it as a thing?
I mentioned banks, the top 5 I listed have less than 25% of banking assets in the US.
For airlines, we have 4 big ones, and many smaller ones, where most other countries have only a single flagship airline.
The Big Four banks have roughly 50% of retail banking customer deposits. Our four biggest airlines have 67% of total market share. The top four meatpacking companies control 85% of beef, and 55% of the poultry processing market.
Again, how much more market concentration is needed before you see it as a problem?
What about the Social Media and tech sector in general? Local cable/internet access?
You're a bloody optimist. Govt capacity is already degraded, and Trump's gone waaaay to far to turn back now just because a judge tells him to.
Noah you are way off-base on this one. This is a power grab pure and simple. Musk and Trump ar trying to put people and systems in place that will allow the "elected dictator" to present us all with faits accomplis, then drag their feet in the courts when they get called on it . My experience in the workplace, both government and private, is that people act as professionals and keep their political leanings out of their behavior. What does "wokeness" have to do with predicting the weather or presenting economic statistics? DEI is just the pretext for going in to take over. Can't believe you are falling for it.
What about this article makes you think Noah doesn't think this is a power grab?
Progressivism is rampant amongst both weather prediction and the handling of economic statistics. Go talk to any conservative and they'll tell you that both of these fields have been rendered completely useless by far left ideology, in particular the prediction of weather crises that never actually happen.
Your experience is so far removed from the experience of everybody else in the workplace that it is 100% guaranteed that in fact your workplaces have all been extremely woke, and you are simply unwilling to see it because you like it that way.
And what, pray tell, is the conservative argument against weather prediction and the current handling of economic statistics? You're the one making the claim that both fields are "completely useless" thanks to "far left ideology," so ultimately you are the one who should pony up the evidence to justify this assertion.
bruh this shiii funny ah hell, where's the beef homie. Weather has been rendered useless by "Far left ideology" XD there is nothing far left in the US govt buddy, anything far left doesn't enter into govt. 99% of the time.
I fear Noah is in danger of a similar level of obsession with "wokeness" as is Elon, whose roots in apartheid South Africa are clearly informing his general hostility to the notion of racial justice. The right wing obsession with "wokeness" looks pretty much the same as 1950's McCarthyism's obsession with Communism. McCarthyism fell but somehow the US didn't become Communist; so when this ridiculous "anti-wokeness" crusade also dies, the US won't become, "woke"? What does that even mean? What anti-wokeness means right now is pretty much boring old "racial / sexual /ableist / whatever discrimination is OK again", with various pundits reveling in their new-found ability to use terms like "retard".
The news for the anti-wokers is that a. nobody was ever stopping you from saying "retard" and b. going around acting like it's 1983 using racial / sexist / ableist slurs and behaviors is still going to very much harm your ability to get along with people who aren't also stuck in the past, who are, to be clear, the majority of people. DOGE isn't changing any of that no matter how deeply they illegally sabotage treasury payments. The world has moved on.
I think the point is in some parts of government and private companies, DEI became as bad as McCarthyism. And it produced a strong opposition given how easy it is to create a culture war around the idea of "discrimination" against white people. It is hard to tell a rampaging moose that they should calm down, as it is just meant to help fight intrinsic bias in hiring practices.
In other parts of government and private companies, DEI did what it meant to do: create stronger teams by hiring the best people and helping people overcome intrinsic hiring biases.
I've always opted for #2, so I don't have any insight into what #1 looks like (I also don't know if it even happened or just became a great media sale like school kids using litter boxes). But the fear of #1 is easy to spread on Fox News and social media. I've had half-sane friends believe that litter box stuff, so convincing them DEI is meant to discriminate seems like an easy sell.
I agree with you! that's why I said "wokeness" and not "DEI". "DEI" when given to vast legions of middle managers trying to check off boxes on spreadsheets started to suffer from a particular kind of laziness which just ended up being a negative influence in many environments. My own company, which is quite large, has a what is essentially a DEI policy (as pertains to the work environment) and because we have a really robust HR department with clear messaging and a good work ethic, these policies do not present issues to the work environment. This has to do with DEI done badly/performatively vs. DEI done earnestly, as well as the particular tensions that arise with DEI policies that are focusing on the hiring pool as opposed to all the other things that fall under DEI like anti-harassment and stuff like that. So it will be called something different next year. The general notions of "anti-racism" and "anti-sexism" aren't going away, office behaviors and hiring behaviors have changed and those aren't going to be reversed to what they were in the 80's.
I totally agree; sorry, I should have been more clear that I was agreeing with you... I just wanted to organize my thoughts and add to what you said, as it resonated strongly. My fault for skipping that key mention :)
I work with many professors and PHD students; some of them have lost their minds and are stuck trying to acknowledge every wrong in the history of wrongs. My frustration is that they do this instead of actively building a better future. It is key that we remember, honor, and learn from history, but a small number are using it as a highly ineffective weapon. Especially when they get pulled into "intergenerational trauma," and now everything they are personally struggling with is the responsibility of someone else. It seems like the skill of being resilient in the face the "real-world" challenges is slipping away because it is easier to blame all your problems on "trauma."
the problem is that the core nut of truth to "generational trauma" is real, you absolutely do "inherit" (not genetically, but developmentally) all kinds of attitudes, behaviors, and yes privileges as well as shortcomings of your parents, who inherited it from their parents, etc. I come from very poor working class grandparents on both sides. Most of my parents' generation didn't go to college, and about half of the kids in my generation went to college. Do you think my relatives / parents are going to have the same outlook on life, the same attitudes and perhaps "calmness" with the world as someone whose grandparents were all wealthy lawyers / doctors / professionals, and handed down a general attitude of comfort and education as a first priority to their offspring? My parents in their 80s are now very well off, but when you see my mom with our ten year old, you can see the terror she has of him having some minor accident, or breaking something, whatever. It's because in *her* childhood household, small accidents could mean unpayable medical bills, household damages that could not be paid for, or the inability to work and bring home money for the family (mom came from a family of seven and all of them were expected to get jobs as soon as possible to bring home money for the household). That is definitely a small but clear example intergenerational trauma in action, I can see my mom passing it onto her grandson. If you extrapolate these patterns to a vastly bigger original trauma, 300 years of slavery, you can definitely draw many straight bright lines from that experience today. It's of course tricky because, you also have to take responsibility for *solving* your problems, even if they are inherited.
When young college kids are exposed to these concepts, they lack the wisdom to integrate these very new and dramatic concepts into their thinking without going overboard. I dont know that we shouldnt accept this as normal. Young college kids in their early 20's just can't be expected to have a lot of smarts about things. that's exactly why we shouldn't have such young engineers, their revanchist attitudes notwithstanding, running treasury either.
For sure, the dice are infinite and they roll randomly with a zillion factors.
But it does seem like parents or society are teaching kids that trauma is something that holds them hostage rather than to be explored, disarmed, and overcome. I hope it is something we can shrug off as there is something I don't like about creating safe spaces or putting trigger warnings on everything. It is like we took a problem, but instead of dealing with it, we just train everyone to avoid it. And then the problem keeps building and building and building...
"I think the point is in some parts of government and private companies, DEI became as bad as McCarthyism."
Can you cite a few examples of this? This reads like hyperbole to me.
DEI may have gone off the rails and been poorly executed in myriad HR departments and exploited by selfish DEI consultants... but McCarthyism???
I've heard some crazy stories from friends, but I work for myself, so I don't work in an environment where it ever comes up. The worst stories I've heard are from friends in academics or the tech scene. I am not willing to share the stories I was told; maybe I should poke some friends who work in those places and big companies and see what they say. I have zero idea how widespread it is; that is just my conjecture, given what I've heard from friends who do work in those environments.
Mandatory "diversity essays" when applying for a job.
Where?
I have worked in tech in the Bay Area for 25 years and it’s totally overblown in my experience. I am sure there are isolated examples of DEI extremism, but I am have witnessed up close the behavior of arrogant founders and abusive CEOs over and over. Their narcissism and self-assurance have derailed careers and wrought emotional damage on who knows how many people.
This take fundamentally misunderstands how the American civil service functions. The political appointees in the front office have total control over everything that goes out. Any analysis of the ideology of the civil service has to include the overrepresentation of veterans, both in commitment to public service but also to chain of command and following orders. There is a very strong culture of deference to the political appointees and civil servants who cannot compartmentalize their own policy preferences do not last long.
My own experience is that the federal government was swept up in the same DEI/woke trend as much of the private sector, but this was mostly "woke-washing" with shallow support. Since the government tends to be understaffed, even my more progressive colleagues were pretty annoyed to take time out of their workday for DEI trainings.
If Musk really wanted to root out the so-called woke mind virus, it would be enough to cancel the trainings and stop the political appointees from ordering us to work on "woke" projects or rewrite reports to conform with their political commitments.
This whole premise that people with graduate school degrees were brainwashed by evil Leftie professors into becoming Democrats, is just hogwash. When conservative politicians and elites serially lie to your face--about literally *everything*--hilarity and/or contempt are the only rational responses. It's the *lying* that makes grad students Dems.
Leavitt: "Incompetent DEI hires by FAA were the cause of this crash."
Reporter: "Does that mean it's not safe to fly?"
Leavitt: "No, we have the best air control system in the world."
I largely agree with your thesis that the real purpose of DOGE is to turn the federal workforce and federal programs more conservative, and I 100% agree about the danger of the risk of degrading American state capacity (destroying government programs that are doing valuable, important work) and fear of repression of speech. One possible silver lining? The recognition that government employees are paid by taxpayers. From the perspective of a former administrator two public universities, it is regularly forgotten that taxpayers pay salaries and perhaps some humility and modesty is needed about that.
I like the thesis of how you say the character is changing, and would agree as well that the US may use its technological edge, however this edge may be replaced with a technocratic, tyrannical sword, as Musk, Thiel, and all their buddies are let loose with AI, drones, and a payment system for all (original intention for X).
Once this is accomplished, will it matter which party anyone belongs to?
Asheville NC is a prime example of how technocracies are used "for" but truly against, the people: https://romanshapoval.substack.com/p/asheville
AI powered drones will be beneficial in rebuilding Asheville, which is a beautiful town with some great artists and brewers, and so is the lovely Biltmore Estate. StarLink is also very useful and SpaceX regularly provides its services for disaster emergencies as a public benefit.
A dystopian future with AI drones forcing people to use X to pay for mandated Teslas doesn’t seem like anything other than a bad episode of Black Mirror.
Noah, how can you type this:
On one hand, conservative ideological control isn’t necessarily more dangerous than the progressive ideological dominance that developed during previous administrations.
In Danger #4, after having typed what you did in Dangers #1-3, where you rightfully stated the goal of conservative leadership is to turn the presidency into a dictatorship, to dismantle the power of the administrative state and our ability to defend against some extremely serious and smart foreign adversaries, by removing all the educated members of the US federal workforce?
I have always appreciated your measured analysis on the issues. But you directly contradict yourself within 5 paragraphs, on what is perhaps the most dangerous issue the US has faced since the Cuban Missile crisis.
I think also, your measured voice here is extraordinarily inappropriate given what is actually happening. There's a time to use it, and a time to not use it.
He didn't say any of those things. Also you appear to be conflating "educated" with intelligent, clever and so on. A core belief of the conservatives is that people who have been to the university system are in fact in many ways less intelligent than those who haven't. Universities have been selecting against smart curious people for so long, that an advanced degree is now seen as a sign of serious mental deficiency rather than an asset to be trusted.
Truly truly incredible stuff. I wonder how all those super successful American businesses which require a minimum of a college degree to apply, manage to succeed and innovate, while being totally wrong that a college degree is an indicator of intelligence. Does it hurt you, to continually twist logic into pretzels, as conservative thinking requires? Feel free to join the rest of us in reality - I can promise you we'd all be a lot happier with you there, vs wherever the hell you are now!
My first job was at one of the world's richest and most successful tech companies, as a software engineer. They had no degree requirements and plenty of people there with either no degree or a degree in an irrelevant subject. In fact they made me a job offer before even asking if I had a degree.
I think you'll find that most of those super successful American businesses are using "has a degree" just as a way to thin out the crowd of people applying for generic job like marketing, along with selecting for people who are willing to follow orders. If you have a skill they want the degree requirements suddenly vanish.
I'm sorry, but you appear to be conflating "educated" with intelligent, clever and so on.
What, panic or STFU?
Some of the speed run is that Elon only has 130 days as an SGE (presumably there's litigation prepared if he overstays, especially given Elon's bragging about working weekends) so that adds to the blitzkrieg-like nature of it. And it's no wonder Vivek wanted no part of this.
I think Noah is somewhat right. But, again, where are all these conservatives to replace peogressives going to come from? The private sector still pays more (especially for management material), the people trained in these fields are still liberal, and it's not like Republicans are going to start increasing pay.
Really seems like kneecapping state capacity really is an end, not just a means. Maybe they'll backfill it with private sector contracting (with awards going to DOGE participants), making it a big exercise in self-dealing? I can only hope this ends with Trump deciding that Elon is trying to steal money or power from him and these deranged narcissists become each other's primary targets.