• rational_lib@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    85
    ·
    1 month 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
    70
    ·
    1 month 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
    67
    ·
    1 month 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
      15
      ·
      1 month ago

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

        • MirthfulAlembic@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          10
          ·
          1 month 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
            ·
            1 month 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
              ·
              1 month 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
                ·
                1 month 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.

  • cows_are_underrated@feddit.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    65
    ·
    1 month ago

    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

    • qyron@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 month ago

      I agree no research is useless but some just goes straight into the bonkers folder.

      • cows_are_underrated@feddit.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 month ago

        Yeah, but just because a scientist calculated what would happen if we replaced the earth with blueberrys doesn’t mean we should defund him.

        • qyron@sopuli.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 month ago

          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.

  • skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    49
    ·
    1 month ago

    “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
    • pufferfisherpowder@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 month ago

      Elon isn’t even religious. Like always religion is just a fucking disguise for enriching themselves, both with money and power.

    • django@discuss.tchncs.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 month ago

      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.

      • psud@aussie.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 month ago

        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

  • Sylvartas@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    1 month ago

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

      • Sylvartas@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 month ago

        True, but I don’t think many of them would say that to your face (including musk who I assume would pretend to be neolib, who do kind of have a hate boner for basic research, at least in my country)

        • ReCursing@lemmings.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 month ago

          Fascists lie, including about being fascists. Trump is a fascist, his party are fascists, those who work for him, even if they don’t go all in on fascists values, are absolutely tarrable with the same brush. The biggest difference between them and the Nazis is that the Nazis had better dress sense

  • Randelung@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    1 month ago

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

  • mac@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    1 month 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.

    • psud@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 month 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

    • Dasus@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 month ago

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

  • mayhair@discuss.tchncs.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    1 month ago

    Yeah, we’ve been studying the sex lives of various different animals (including ourselves!) for centuries now, yet nobody bat an eye until now. 🙄

  • superkret@feddit.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    1 month ago

    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?

  • Ethalis@jlai.lu
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 month 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