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.
Not just significant, I’m pretty sure the loss in value is some sort of a record, for real.
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:
- “Insurrection Barbie”
- Celebrating the defunding of useful scientific research by a new government efficiency agency
- This new agency is named after a cryptocurrency
- The cryptocurrency in question was created as a joke to satirize cryptocurrencies, but became a top prominent cryptocurrency itself.
- The “Department of Government Efficiency Agency” has 2 heads, both of whom have other primary jobs and were chosen in return for political support.
- 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.
- 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.
Why are people saying that it was named after a cryptocurrency?
Isnt the dog the first thing people think of when seeing “doge”?
It was for me until a few years ago. I used doge as a base for most of my internet alias since I like the meme (as you can see from my username). One time inside a game, I was asked if I was a crypto bro because of my ign. At the time, i don’t like crypto but have no hard feelings against it. Ever since then I loath those crypto bros and their worship of crypto currencies for destroying the image of doge and with their stupid crypto currency nonsense.
Isnt the dog the first thing people think of when seeing “doge”?
It used to be so, but in recent several years Doge has lived and pretty much been defined in public consciousness by the cryptocurrency, which Musk has openly endorsed/memed.
Its reasonable to make the connection to the coin, as this particular cryptocurrency was propagandized and manipulated by musk, who will be running the agency.
Wouldnt it be possible that he just likes the doge meme, promoting a cryptocurrency that is named after it?
No, he likes money. Remember a few years ago when he tweeted about how great dogecoin was? Then a week later he tweeted about how stupid is was and that he was done with? He probably made millions buying and selling dogecoin as he made those tweets. There ia a huge conflict of interest when it comes to celebrities endorsing crypto coins. If you have the pull, you can just buy a bunch of some shit coin, talk it up and then all the people who look up to you to will go buy it, pumping up the price while you sell and make a huge profit. Then the value crashes back down and everyone who bought is left holding the bag. Whenever some famous person talks about a crypto, 100% of the time it is a grift to skim money from their follower’s pockets.
100% spot on, pump and dumps are especially rampant in crypto because a couple of people can generate a ton of coins and own the entire market for that coin. If they can get that price to rise even just a fractional amount through whatever completely unregulated means they can dump it to the suckers buying and cash out. It’s like printing money but the printing presses are stupid people.
This has been going on for years.
People used to find an almost dead crypto-coin, buy up as many coins as possible, and then pretend they were developing back from the dead. Then they would cash out.
Is it better to be named after a stupid meme instead?
Yes, Kabosu was a gem.
True! It was then technically named after a meme…which the coin named itself after, as it was supposed to be a “meme coin”.
Still stands though.
“Government agency named after meme. Such dumb. So chaos. Woooooow.” Lol
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
Oh, they’ll probably publicly fund it for private profit
Musk fans don’t want humanity to advance. They hate technological progress.
For OTHERS, yes. But many want the cutting edge for themselves, at no cost to themselves.
Where did Musk come from? I don’t see any mention of it here
The Department of goverment efficiency was Musk’s meme idea and Trump is apparently just rolling with it.
Thanks for actually explaining it instead of downvoting me. Heaven forbid I’m not aware of every micro-connotation caused by the current depressing news cycle
Musk will govern the DOGE department, won’t he?
Maybe. Apparently trump is already bored with him, and mocked him on-stage in front of an entire room full of people, just a couple days ago. I guess trump already got his money, so now it’s time to back-out of any agreements he made to get the money.
I think that’s just Trump’s insecurity acting up because Musk gets nearly as much worship from his fans as he does. Hence him trying to mar Musk’s reputation and knock him down a few pegs.
help humanity as a whole
And here you’ve identified why they hate it. They cannot stand the idea that resources might benefit other people, resources that they could hoard instead.
Say it with me:
No. Research. Is. Useless.
If we say that research is useless because it doesn’t bring you mo ey we could stop teaching children math beyond the absolute basics because “it doesn’t brinf them anything”. This is stupid, because those are the fundamentals that tech children to thing logically and become useful member of society. Same with research. It teaches us the things necessary to maybe invent some of the most useful stuff ever seen
Republicans: “No. Research is useless.”
That’s a good one, but sadly true.
Republicans want drones and cannon fodder, not scientists and intellectuals.
You say that but I’ve heard concerningly many people say that there is no point in teaching everyone stuff like basic math because chances are they won’t use it
I also hear that argument often and I absolutely hate it. They always say “tech them things like insert manual labor work. Nobody needs Math.”
It always depends. A lot of people will likely never use a saw outside of school. Especially in a time where a lot of people go to university the skills that complex math teaches you are basically the bare necessitys. Also school usually is teaches you the basic broad knowledge and skills required to get more specific education on a specific topic. This includes studying all different subjects and also getting training as a woodworker. It is literally impossible to focus on everything and that also isn’t really the use of school. Its just the first and universal form of education.
Besides all that manual labor requires math. A ton requires geometry.
You think plumbing, framing, electrical or any trade is done without measuring and quite complicated math?
Especially in America. Sure just cut that board down to 29-13/64 inches…and remember the blade is 1/8" thick.
India just removed pythagorean theorem from their educational curriculum for the very reason you mentioned.
I’ve already seen this exact same claim these days, so now I decided to try and find out what’s happening exactly.
https://www.dw.com/en/indiadropsevolution/a-65804720
Apparently, it happened last year, not just now, as you said, and I’m sure I’ve already seem someone else (maybe on Lemmy, maybe on reddit) also describe it as a very recent event.
However I can’t find absolutely anything else regarding the topic. So I tried googling in Hindi instead, with the help of some machine translation.
This is the only piece of news I’ve managed to find, again not very recent, and not nearly as dramatic as the DW article makes it out to be. Some official has described the Pythagorean theorem as ‘fake news’ because that same theorem had already been developed in India before Pythagoras, i.e. the point is that the name is a misnomer. They say nothing about removing the theorem.
The reduction of teaching of the periodic table and evolution that DW mentions is also explained in the PDF that the article links as mere reorganisation of the topics due to the circumstances (difficulties in teaching during corona). They don’t suggest actual removal of the topics. (The PDF is an official explanation from the Indian “National Council of Educational Research and Training”.)
I’m getting the impression DW is just fearmongering. Ideally there should be some article with exact and complete quotes in Hindi. I know that media freedom in India is not great (esp. considering the situation with Wikipedia), and it’s probably not easy to get to the bottom of it, but this story looks very suspicious.
You know more than me then. I was just irresponsibly repeating a headline I saw on Lemmy yesterday
I believed it completely at first too, perhaps we even saw the same headline…
Probably! I knew there was another subject mentioned, but couldn’t remember what it was, so I didn’t mention it. Now that you said the periodic table, I’m certain that was the second subject mentioned.
Even carpenters and masons need geometry
Do they though? You need like one guy on the job who understands that stuff, and then a bunch a grunts with speed squares.
I agree no research is useless but some just goes straight into the bonkers folder.
Yeah, but just because a scientist calculated what would happen if we replaced the earth with blueberrys doesn’t mean we should defund him.
If a scientist came to me asking for funding to research on bodily odor (which has happened, if memory serves me well) I would be baffled by the request but I wouldn’t outright deny it.
Sweaty arm pits. Stinky feet. Bad breath. Farts.
The lab would have to be declared a bio hazard area by itself. Too good to miss out. Just the chance to see someone trying to keep a straight face while taking in some of these fine bouquet of rancid would be too good to miss.
Imagine watching the footage of a day of work.
China is going to devour the scientific world if we keep it like this
Won’t happen, or at least won’t be useful if it does. Lotta Chinese authors are faking data for the sake of the CCP and their studies don’t replicate. If that takes over, it’ll be like a global Dark Age.
Going to continue devouring the scientific world with lots of smart Westerners leaving the new SlaveTastictm USA
Republicans deserve no progress. Let them fall back into the ages they desire. No Smartphones. That’s which science.
“preventing next corn plague” with resources used being a box of soil and bunch of underpaid grads seems pretty efficient to me, but i guess that since the common clay of the new west already voted they can be safely disposed of
at USDA, they’re turning beetles kinky! 😡
- alex jones fuming aimlessly while being stored in some container
The Onion buying Infowars is the only good news I’ve heard this week.
Fun fact, Gene Wilder ad-libbed “you know, morons”, so Cleavon Little’s reaction to it is genuine. It’s such a delightful scene.
Neolib idiots don’t see the (immense) value of fundamental research because it doesn’t directly generate profits, more at 11
They’re not neolibs, they’re fascists. The Democrats are neolibs
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.
They’ve never seen a game complicated enough to have research tbf.
It directly generates profits, they’re just too stupid to understand how.
Yeah but sometimes it might not because that is not the main goal ! Useless, I tell you !
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
Regardless, he’ll claim he cut 500 bajillion dollars no matter what he ends up doing
My bet is that if he expects to cut 2 trillion, he will end up increasing the budget by 4 trillion.
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
Sadly we already know it will be distributed to the friends of the 1%
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.
He actually claimed 2 trillion.
I knew Elongated Muskrat was a dumbass but I didn’t know he also can’t do math.
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.
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”.
I’m sure with control over all government branches again they’ll have the ACA completely replaced in no time. For real this time.
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.
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.
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.
I thought we were done with the “medieval dark age” myth.
How’s Neo-Feudal Gilded Age strike you?
One giant leap forward, one roundhouse kick back.
More of a global depression after these yahoos purposefully crash the economy.
Like the dead don’t realize they’re dead, they don’t realize they’re stupid. They’re just everyone else’s problem.
We’ve built a society with full guard rails. There’s very little a stupid person can do to remove themselves from the gene pool before they procreate. Being stupid seems to actually increase the odds that they’ll procreate early, and often.
I’m in agreement that we might have a few too many guardrails, but stupid people tend to exist in groups, and cooperation is the best path to survival.
They were when they were alive, too
Welcome to the new Dark Ages, brought to you by religious fascists.
Elon isn’t even religious. Like always religion is just a fucking disguise for enriching themselves, both with money and power.
Neither is trump, or any of these other people.
again
Stupidly funny, right? Like watching a movie, where something dumb is about to happen. You are watching and screaming in agony, pleading for the characters on the screen not to do the dumb thing. But you watch in horror, as all your words are without any effect, you can’t reach anyone.
But now with the added bonus, that the dumb thing might affect your life. Or that of your loved ones, neighbours, friends.
Living in Australia, with China just to the north as our largest trade partner, I’m not looking forward to what is going to happen with America’s allies in relation to China
I’m thinking this too… let’s hope Renaissance mk2 only takes a few years to blossom - but my confidence is not high.
Welcome to a new era of weaponized ignorance
Galileo wept
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?
Goddamn, it really is impossible!
How the fuck am I gonna filter US politics out of my feed when it creeps in through Science Memes?There’s only one way to filter politics out of your time online: don’t go online.
It’s also helped develop advances in flight, metamaterials, physics.
But Barbie makes a good point with a meme about how she treats her cuck husband.
