[grobbyy]

There is widespread fraud in the government. It needs to be addressed. There is widespread inefficiency too.

I think the people in DOGE have the skills and access to address it.

I have no evidence that they are doing so, and some evidence of widespread loyalty tests which, while not identical, remind me of how Stalin came to power.

However, absence if evidence is not evidence of absence, and some evidence is not the same as proof.

I have dozens of explanations which fit the facts, and I don't have any way to determine which, if any, is correct.

[lowercased]

> There is widespread fraud in the government.... There is widespread inefficiency too... I think the people in DOGE have the skills and access to address it.

Given that just getting the names of the people involved in this process incurred Musk's wrath and accusations of criminal behaviour... how can you have any justified belief in people having 'skills' to address 'fraud' and 'inefficiency'?

We'd need some common definition of 'fraud' in the first place. Many of the things that have been labelled 'corruption' seem to just be 'things Musk doesn't like'; I suspect 'fraud' would be similar.

"Inefficiencies" - we have the Chesterton's Fence idea to illustrate that what might be 'inefficient' is intentional with an overall positive purpose. Again, define 'inefficiency'. The rate at which firings have been happening may certainly be 'efficient' from an operational standpoint, but having to scramble to rehire key people who shouldn't have been fired in the first place is 'inefficient' at best.

> I have dozens of explanations which fit the facts, and I don't have any way to determine which, if any, is correct.

I'm not sure we have enough verifiable 'facts' that can support many conclusions at all, and I think that 'fact' itself is evidence of intentionality in keeping the public in the dark about what's going on and why.

[oblio]

> I think the people in DOGE have the skills

Do we know any of them? How many are accountants, auditors, etc, people with decades of experience with government affairs?

[lowercased]

Even trying to determine who the workers were brought down threats of criminal prosecution and investigations.

[knicholes]

With LLMs, it's close to having someone with that experience and knowledge right there with you.

[Capricorn2481]

I'm sure the 5 people investigating Musk's companies for wasteful spending were all fired because they were fraudulent.

[croes]

I bet much of this fraud benefits big donors of both parties.

I doubt they will fix that

[grobbyy]

There's a lot of just plain simple fraud too. I've seen embassies issue visas only with bribes, or employees simply collect salaries without doing their jobs. As in you're hired to review documents by some legally mandated criteria, and they simply toss them into piles without even glancing at them and go home early.

That benefits no one, except for the employee.

[abirch]

Some government jobs were basically UBI. They provided incomes in rural America.