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by stephc_int13 15 days ago
I admit I was a little bit curious about DOGE and its outcome, as a software guy I've seen huge amount of bureaucratic inefficiencies, sometimes wondering how some companies could survive wasting all that money for nothing.

I've also often be irritated by the slow and sometimes absurd processes of French administration, and I am pretty sure the whole thing is far from running as efficiently as it could.

That said, I gave way too much credence to Musk and his clique, turned out the efficiency theatre was nothing more than a smoke screen to cover a different style of operation.

I am not sure they even tried to cut waste in a meaningful way, or if they had the competence to do so.

3 comments

Chesterton's Fence, even if there is actual inefficiency there might be a reason for that. It might not be a good reason mind you, but even a bad reason is still a reason. You cannot cut inefficiency without understanding the reason first. It would take multiple years of research to understand and uncover all the inefficiency that has built up over the years. Otherwise you just end up throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
I believe the current administration is a ploy to dismantle and destroy the government from within. There was no serious plan to address any of our problems. They are ideologues waving their little MAGA books and threatening anyone perceived as reactionary by weaponizing the Justice Department. Their only answer to any issue is that we simply didn’t believe in the Leader hard enough.
We had a significant reduction in government workforce during the Clinton administration.

The stark difference is that THAT effort was handled with careful planning and through the proper channels. The way any mature, thoughtful, and responsible person would approach something like this.

One thing has been made very clear with Trump's terms - if there is no detailed plan on how they intend to do something, it's going to be a disaster. You can't just wing things and expect everything to work out.

Unless you just want to disrupt, punish, hurt, etc., in which case this is working as planned...which some may claim was the actual plan all along.

Yeah, you want to identify and maintain service levels when reducing force. Or establish new service levels.

This takes research, coordination, and planning. But the administration fired the people who could have helped with that too.