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Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

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Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#71

Post by dcow »

bayindirh wrote: post #49
enlightenedfool wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The thing you see as waste from outside might be the most efficient system possible given the consequences and tons of time it had for evolving. These systems contain huge icebergs of knowledge gained, refined and organized over time. Rooting them like weeds which grow in three days flat is a huge mistake.

I cannot accept that sending 100B to an NGO where 90-95B ends up in politicians’ pockets and 10-5% ends up as actual aid or whatever is the most efficient system.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#72

Post by asib »

This title is pretty misleading (I appreciate it's basically the same as the article's title). He's not saying he'll fund the govt department, he's saying he'll fund a private venture made up of the people formerly employed in 18f. And he predicts that venture will be able to gouge the public purse when the govt inevitably realises the cuts they made were far too deep.

As others have pointed out, this is a deeply right-wing idea and exactly what the Republican party wants to see happen.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#73

Post by IgorPartola »

modeless wrote: post #68
mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #19

Privatization is what a lot of people believe is the answer, thinking that there is so much waste and useless things the Federal government does. These people must have never worked at a large corporation. I have a relative in the federal government and we would share stories because the dysfunctions are basically the same. Any large organization of humans working uses a pyramid organization since like the middle age…

The difference is private companies that accumulate too much waste and useless things can fail and be replaced. The exception is companies propped up by government regulation. The problem with modern big companies is that the exception has become the rule. Regulation is so pervasive it's become a "what the hell is water" situation. People don't even recognize that the dysfunctional companies are protected from failur…

A company that makes birthday party banners that fails can be replaced. If your electric company runs itself into the ground, there is no replacement without government assistance. So why add the overhead of a for profit company?

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#75

Post by bayindirh »

enlightenedfool wrote: post #64
bayindirh wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing you see as waste from outside might be the most efficient system possible given the consequences and tons of time it had for evolving. These systems contain huge icebergs of knowledge gained, refined and organized over time. Rooting them like weeds which grow in three days flat is a huge mistake.

Well, let’s find that with DOGE. DOGE had already revealed things that are so unnecessary for a government to do. Humans can do much better governance than what we do now.

DOGE is working like a governing board which landed on top of a big corporation, and started reaping things down without understanding "why" part of the equation.

Ignoring Chesterton's Fences in the short term might look good on paper, but we have seen how companies enshittified themselves for profits (let's reduce the OPEX part).

Doing this to a government will have catastrophic results, and we will watch the slow downfall. It'll be dramatic and painful.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#76

Post by dcow »

davepeck wrote: post #59
dcow wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way you combat the creep of bureaucratic miasma is by regularly turning a critical eye inward. At least private organizations perform regular layoffs. At least private organizations are accountable to shareholders. The government is accountable to citizens and citizens voted for this. Yes, it’s disruptive. That’s the point.

> The way you combat the creep of bureaucratic miasma is by regularly turning a critical eye inward It certainly can’t hurt. Alas for the current moment, but it seems the eye we’re turning inward is as far from “critical” as can be.

I keep seeing this argument. Can you help me understand what parts are serving a hidden agenda?

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#77

Post by dcow »

whyenot wrote: post #66
dcow wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way you combat the creep of bureaucratic miasma is by regularly turning a critical eye inward. At least private organizations perform regular layoffs. At least private organizations are accountable to shareholders. The government is accountable to citizens and citizens voted for this. Yes, it’s disruptive. That’s the point.

A plurality (49.8%) of voters voted for Trump. More voted for something else.

I’m not following.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#78

Post by alephnerd »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #19

Privatization is what a lot of people believe is the answer, thinking that there is so much waste and useless things the Federal government does. These people must have never worked at a large corporation. I have a relative in the federal government and we would share stories because the dysfunctions are basically the same. Any large organization of humans working uses a pyramid organization since like the middle age…

Amen, I have a lot of respect for the amount of work federal agencies do despite constantly being stymied by political leadership.

Imo and ime, much of the bloat that exists in the federal service is becuase of legislative and executive pork barrel politics that drastically expands mission scope with no equivalent increase in resources, forcing these agencies to have to resort to semi-privatized solutions.

There can and is a healthy way to manage public-private relations but the DOGE model is obviously wrong.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#79

Post by sgarland »

fire_lake wrote: post #50
hypeatei wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These people must have never worked at a large corporation Efficiency isn't the point, the point is funneling more money to themselves and their friends.

Efficiency is not resilient. Supply chains were efficient before Covid and look what happened. Efficiency is a non-goal for government. I’m surprised that DOGE engineers (who presumably have deployed a load balancer or two) don’t understand this.

> I’m surprised that DOGE engineers (who presumably have deployed a load balancer or two) don’t understand this.

You're surprised that the same geniuses who launched a site with an obvious exploit don't understand something about infrastructure? I'm more surprised that they haven't done something like rewriting a critical system in JS (with AI, obviously).

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#80

Post by bayindirh »

dcow wrote: post #71
bayindirh wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing you see as waste from outside might be the most efficient system possible given the consequences and tons of time it had for evolving. These systems contain huge icebergs of knowledge gained, refined and organized over time. Rooting them like weeds which grow in three days flat is a huge mistake.

I cannot accept that sending 100B to an NGO where 90-95B ends up in politicians’ pockets and 10-5% ends up as actual aid or whatever is the most efficient system.

That's corruption and is universally bad. That's nothing to do with efficiency (remember the E in DOGE). Let's not move the goalposts, shall we?
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