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kbos87 | 3 months ago

I’m ok with age being used as a partial proxy for experience when we’re talking about highly specialized roles with massive implications like the ones that DOGE staffers were dropped into.

discuss

order

qcnguy|3 months ago

It's not a highly specialized role. Look at the contracts they were cutting. A lot of it could be done by an LLM.

> $191k USAGM broadcasting contract for “broadcast operations and maintenance in Ethiopia, Africa”

> $1.3M State Dept. education contract for “Botswana MI curriculum”

etc

ben_w|3 months ago

> $191k USAGM broadcasting contract for “broadcast operations and maintenance in Ethiopia, Africa”

USAGM's mission is to promote the USA's diplomatic interests in parts of the world with little or no press freedom. Whole thing was cut by executive order of Trump to the maximum extent possible.

Because of that order, it's not even a "not specialised" role, it's not a role.

If USAGM should be cut or not, should have been the choice of congress rather than the executive, but that's a different question entirely.

> Botswana MI curriculum

What's "MI"? Mission-Influenced? That sounds like a plausible amount to spend on a curriculum about Botswana for the benefit of the State Department, let alone in Botswana on anything.

And if it is in Botswana, you have to then actually ask "what is this mission, and is this in the interests of the USA taxpayer?", which needs specialists.

kbos87|3 months ago

If you are arguing that DOGE didn’t have massive power and cause irreparable damage you aren’t a serious person.

epistasis|3 months ago

If you look at those titles and assume that they could be cut, without any more information, you are not a serious person and do not deserve to have any budgetary authority anywhere.

At least bother to come up with some reason they should be cut. But you can't even seem to put that into words.