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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

#381

Post by specialist »

trentnix wrote: post #122
blactuary wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this exactly. Reflexive "ugh govt" is a result of decades of Reagan-ite propaganda. Govt is just people, and people are flawed and have competing incentives. I've worked in massive companies that have incredibly dumb inefficiencies.

> Reflexive "ugh govt" is a result of decades of Reagan-ite propaganda I (and many others) have worked for, contracted for, interacted with, and/or closely observed government for decades. The only “reflexive” thing here is your argument that people who disagree with the you are the victims of propaganda. You can certainly quibble with the details on how to deliver government efficiency (and I highly encourage people…

You're complaining about bureaucrary, not government. All those "seeing like a state" aspects originated in corporations. (Who stole the ideas from the military.) Because corporations had experience governments needed.

Is bureaucrary inevitable? A side effect of organizational psychology?

I have no clue.

But until someone divines a better way to coordinate humans, we just have to suck it up.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#382

Post by kyawzazaw »

toast0 wrote: post #359
specialp wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is exceedingly rare to make over 200k in govt. Most heads of agencies and other high level roles are GS-15 which tops out around 195k What you USED to get in exchange for less salary was stability as government jobs were viewed as less vulnerable to economic cycles and uncertainty. Now that value prop is gone

Governent jobs top out on salary, and generally offer a lower salary than similar jobs anyway, but... Government jobs often have nicer health care plans than many corporate plans (but some corporate plans are very nice too). Government jobs are still likely to have a defined benefit pension. Those are potentially a large deferred compensation, that can be hard to evaluate fiscally, but can be an amazing resource. If…

most corporate healthcare plans for techworkers at 18F level will be top notch

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#383

Post by mindslight »

plagiarist wrote: post #223
psychlops wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, except with your last sentence. There are many examples of efficient organizations that extract billions from the market from willing participants.

What sort of definition of efficiency are you operating with? A system is not efficient if billions of dollars are "evaporating" out of the system. Yes, the participants of those markets are various degrees of willingness. No, I do not agree that makes them efficient.

Computational complexity theorists hate this one simple trick! NP hard is a lie! You just have to assert that a given problem has been optimally computed. We all know that physics obeys the whims of politics.

It's especially ironic because if markets actually worked the way the "free market" dogma supposes they do, central planning would also work.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#384

Post by dawnerd »

financetechbro wrote: post #364
bamboozled wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a single government service or dept which has been privatised and it’s turned out cheaper in the long run for tax payers? I can’t think of a single example.

Nothing comes to mind. Because even if the original goal of privatization is to bring costs down (which I’m sure happens in many cases) the overall LONGTERM goal of a private business is to return money to shareholders. So in the very short term it is totally plausible for costs to go down (capture low hanging fruit efficiencies), but long term this will never be the case, because the system is designed to extract as…

It’s the same myth that universal healthcare would cost people more than private insurance. Insurance is there to make money. Gov programs don’t need to be profitable - just sustainable.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#385

Post by danans »

trainsarebetter wrote: post #249
Volundr wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue the difference between private companies and government is that in government that spending is public. Spend a few mil on something of marginal utility, politicaly controversial, or funding a study for something that seems obvious? Congratulations! Fox News found it on USASpending.gov (maybe not now that 18F is dead), and is drumming up outrage. Now your fielding phone calls from senators who are looking to…

In theory I guess, but hasn’t all this gov spending essentially been hidden? If doge finding are true? (And in which now I guess it is public)

> In theory I guess, but hasn’t all this gov spending essentially been hidden?

No, it was all publicly debated and passed by Congress, and openly available for anyone to see.

It just never served anyone's political agenda to nitpick and distort and publicize it until the current Administration.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#386

Post by danans »

jay-barronville wrote: post #375
chmorgan_ wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happens to me here all of the time. If it doesn't align with the HN groupthink it gets hammered out of view.

> If it doesn't align with the HN groupthink it gets hammered out of view. Yup. The following is a concrete example… HN commenter [0][0]: > If things keep going the way they are going, [a country with an authoritarian government that makes favored industries subsidized] could describe the US just as well in a few short years. Me [1][1]: > Why do you think so? For asking this reasonable question, I received a bunch of…

> not because I have a crystal ball, but because my church is filled with Hispanics and I learned so much about how they think politically and so much of the nuanced perspectives within their community by listening to them, meanwhile the Democrats think almost entirely in terms of identity politics.

Identity politics (specifically, religiously motivated anti-LGBTQ politics), dislike of poorer, more recently arrived Hispanics from Central America, and the high rate of business ownership among middle-class Hispanic Americans were significant factors in their vote swinging to Trump.

> Before emigrating to the U.S., my parents and my family lived under real authoritarian regimes, under which family members were ... and even killed for their political viewpoints

You have missed a lot of American history if you don't think people have been killed here for their political viewpoints. Many Americans don't want to move in the direction of the countries you describe, but plenty of people who voted for (and some who work in) the current administration actually do.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#387

Post by blactuary »

dcow wrote: post #263
blactuary wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the people let go were unable or unwilling to send an email listing 5 things they accomplished in the last week" This is entirely false. This is so incredibly false that I am actually shocked you were willing to post it. It is hard for me to imagine anything more absurd and untrue someone could have said about this topic. I tremble with fear thinking about what your media diet must look like in order for you to beli…

It’s from TFA.

I don't care where it's from, it is still false. The layoffs were happening long before this email went out, and the vast majority of them had nothing to do with the email. The threat to fire people over the email was toothless and illegal, and as far as we know from public evidence no one has been fired over it. You have no idea what you're talking about

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#388

Post by blactuary »

dcow wrote: post #291
vpribish wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely is not. The article says no such thing and you show yourself as an untrustworthy participant in this discussion.

> Those impacted in the wee hours of Saturday morning also received emails late Friday from DOGE with the subject line, “What did you do last week? Part II.” They were asked first last last week. And then again on Friday. —— > According to Politico, the emails — prompting employees to list their weekly accomplishments by Monday — were widely distributed across multiple agencies, including the State Department, the IR…

The emails went to every federal employee, not any specific agencies. You don't seem to know anything about this whatsoever

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#389

Post by blactuary »

dcow wrote: post #291
vpribish wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely is not. The article says no such thing and you show yourself as an untrustworthy participant in this discussion.

> Those impacted in the wee hours of Saturday morning also received emails late Friday from DOGE with the subject line, “What did you do last week? Part II.” They were asked first last last week. And then again on Friday. —— > According to Politico, the emails — prompting employees to list their weekly accomplishments by Monday — were widely distributed across multiple agencies, including the State Department, the IR…

My wife got the email, did not reply, and is not fired. You have no idea what you're talking about

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#390

Post by scintill76 »

dcow wrote: post #240

I feel like a lot of the discussion is beating around the bush or tangential. The very simple cause of this wave of layoffs is in response to the “what did you do this week?” email. If you’ve been following closely, a week ago DOGE sent an email to many people, including suspected dead government workers, asking them to list in 5 bullets what they accomplished the prior week. Some people didn't respond after having t…

> suspected dead government workers

Suspected by Elon Musk, with no factual basis presented. Here's some real facts:

> ...22 of the 24 agencies covered by the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 (CFO Act) had some data on instances of time and attendance misconduct—including potential fraud—from fiscal years 2015 through 2019... Most (19 of 24) agency Inspectors General (IG) reported that they substantiated five or fewer allegations of time and attendance misconduct or fraud over the 5-year period. In total, these IGs substantiated 100 allegations, ranging from zero substantiated allegations at six agencies to more than 10 at four agencies.

No mention of fake dead workers.

https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-20-640.pdf

Do they think there is somebody out there making millions on fake federal paychecks? They should go find and prosecute them! Hopefully such a criminal is not smart enough to monitor the email accounts and respond, or DOGE's brilliant plan will be foiled.

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