• rational_lib@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    89
    ·
    27 days ago

    The world just keeps getting more and more efficient at being dumb. Let’s just count all the appallingly stupid things crammed into this small meme with 2 million views:

    1. “Insurrection Barbie”
    2. Celebrating the defunding of useful scientific research by a new government efficiency agency
    3. This new agency is named after a cryptocurrency
    4. The cryptocurrency in question was created as a joke to satirize cryptocurrencies, but became a top prominent cryptocurrency itself.
    5. The “Department of Government Efficiency Agency” has 2 heads, both of whom have other primary jobs and were chosen in return for political support.
    6. There is also already an existing government agency that does the exact same thing, called the “Government Accountability Office”. But most people seem to be unaware of it, likely because it’s not named after a cryptocurrency/dog meme.
    7. This whole scheme was the idea of the richest person in the world.

    Idiocracy didn’t happen because of unnatural selection, it happened because social media unlocked a runaway chain reaction of stupidity.

  • 9point6@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    74
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    27 days ago

    And so the US lost decade becomes the medieval dark ages

    It’d be fascinating as an outsider if the choices made by the US didn’t basically impact everything, everywhere.

  • GreatTitEnthusiast@mander.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    58
    ·
    27 days ago

    In addition, government research in the sciences is miniscule. You could cut ALL of science funding and be no where close to the 1 trillion that Musk claims he’ll be able to reduce the budget by

    • BossDj@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      19
      ·
      27 days ago

      Regardless, he’ll claim he cut 500 bajillion dollars no matter what he ends up doing

        • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          27 days ago

          No no, you don’t understand. This is what people have actually been asking for this whole time. Nobody wanted the budget randomly cut, they wanted it distributed

        • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          27 days ago

          He’ll cut 2 trillion out of the general budget, redirect it into his own holdings, and demand praise for his genius leadership. Oh, and he may or may not actually eliminate some programs along the way.

        • MirthfulAlembic@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          27 days ago

          I don’t think he even attempted to do math. Someone asked him about it and said what the current budget was, and he just rectally sourced 2 trillion. I assume he said that because it’s big enough to sound huge, but less than half of spending so people don’t panic that everything will be cut.

          It’s meaningless bullshit until he actually says specifically what will be cut. Republicans have been claiming they can cut huge chunks of spending for years, but it never materializes. They only know how cut government income without paying for it.

          • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            27 days ago

            Still waiting for that ACA replacement promised on week 1 of trump’s presidency. It was supposed to be so easy. Now we’re 8 years out and they have “concepts of a plan”.

            • MirthfulAlembic@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              27 days ago

              I’m sure with control over all government branches again they’ll have the ACA completely replaced in no time. For real this time.

              • chaogomu@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                27 days ago

                The plan is to repeal it first, and then figure out what to do from there.

                Probably whatever makes the most money for insurance companies.

    • 21Cabbage@lemmynsfw.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      27 days ago

      The goal’s more about cutting all the science funding than reducing spending. These are people who bitch about Ukraine when they don’t even plan on spending that money on something else they’re just guzzling Russian propaganda.

  • pH3ra@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    26
    ·
    edit-2
    26 days ago

    China is going to devour the scientific world if we keep it like this

    • psud@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      21 days ago

      China has a problem. It isn’t good at finding the best people and putting them into science (or whatever else). Instead it gets the loyal people and gives them the best jobs, they then select people below them however they will

      People then strive for recognition and advancement so scientific fraud is rife

  • Randelung@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    21
    ·
    27 days ago

    Like the dead don’t realize they’re dead, they don’t realize they’re stupid. They’re just everyone else’s problem.

  • Sylvartas@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    23
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    27 days ago

    Neolib idiots don’t see the (immense) value of fundamental research because it doesn’t directly generate profits, more at 11

    • fsxylo@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      26 days ago

      Which is stupid, because even video games make you research sticks before you can make nuclear reactors. Guess even entertainment can’t teach dumb shits anything. Just retaining nothing.

  • 21Cabbage@lemmynsfw.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    27 days ago

    Hell can we mention that the cold war era these fucks idolize was also the golden age of the government throwing money at side projects?

  • mac@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    26 days ago

    The appointment of Elon Musk to lead the proposed department of government efficiency raises concerns, given his track record of business management.

    His handling of Twitter/X after its $44 billion acquisition has resulted in a significant decline in its value, with some sources putting the valuation around $9bn.

    Doesn’t seem very efficient to me.

    • Dasus@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      26 days ago

      Not just significant, I’m pretty sure the loss in value is some sort of a record, for real.

    • psud@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      21 days ago

      This idea has been around for a while. Make government more efficient by putting a private enterprise person in charge

      It never worked because the private enterprise person got efficiency by having a cool project or forceful personality in the private enterprise which let them pay their employees poorly. Or maybe they paid their employees well and had excellent success. But then they have government employees who are hard to fire, have highly specialist knowledge, aren’t in it for profit and so the private enterprise maverick is usually [worse than] useless

      I don’t expect it to work this time either, especially as Musk is more interested in Tesla, SpaceX, and his other companies

  • Ethalis@jlai.lu
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    27 days ago

    Sure, that’s great but it’s not even the point. Fundamental research and other type of “useless” scientific endeavors help humanity as a whole to better understand our universe but would never be privately funded because they don’t have any concrete and immediate financial benefits. This is precisely what a government should finance, because no one else would do it and yet it’s small stuff like that that make us collectively move forward as a species