When I first heard about the DOGE project, I was ready to throw my laptop out the window. The [initial proposal](https://archive.is/nFNp4) read like a Silicon Valley libertarian fever dream - taking Musk's chaotic "move fast and break democracy" Twitter approach and unleashing it on federal agencies. Great, I thought, just what we need: more tech bros thinking they can "optimize" public institutions into oblivion.
But here's the weird thing - when you actually dig into [what DOGE has morphed into](https://www.nextgov.com/people/2025/01/us-digital-service-employees-are-being-re-interviewed-under-doge-transition/402423/), it's basically just USDS with a meme-worthy rebrand. For those not deep in the civic tech weeds, USDS was Obama's attempt to drag government technology out of the 1990s, inspired by the UK's actually-functional GDS program. And let's be real - government tech procurement is an absolute dumpster fire right now. We're talking billions wasted on projects that would make a CS101 student cringe, while the average American has to navigate websites that look like they were designed on GeoCities.
The deeply ironic thing is that Musk - for all his cosplaying as a technocratic messiah following in his grandfather's footsteps of dreaming up an antidemocratic technocratic state - actually has some relevant experience here. SpaceX did figure out how to work with government contracts without producing $500 million paperweights, and Tesla somehow gamed clean vehicle incentives into birthing the first new major car company since we invented radio.
Look, I'm the first to roll my eyes at Musk's wannabe-fascist posting sprees and his perpetual "I'm the main character of capitalism" energy. But speaking as someone who's banged their head against the wall of government technology modernization for years - if he actually focuses on the tech and keeps his brainrot political takes to himself, maybe DOGE could do some good?
Even Jen Pahlka, who basically wrote the book on government digital services, [is cautiously optimistic](https://fedscoop.com/trump-wants-a-doge-an-obama-era-tech-official-has-some-tips/). The services Americans get from their government are objectively terrible, and the procurement system is trapped in an infinite loop of failure. Maybe - and I can't believe I'm typing this - Musk's particular flavor of disruptive tech deployment could help?
Just... please, for the love of all things agile, let's keep him focused on the actual technology and far away from any more attempts to recreate his grandfather's dreams of a technocratic dystopia. We've got enough of those already.
excessively complicated administrative procedures can hamper agility. Interesting how AI might help with this and more time for critical thinking from us maybe.
My all time favorite of theirs, from a very different era.
https://music.apple.com/us/album/easy-to-please/19917218?i=19917214
Bout to drive home. Putting on car radio now. Thanks for recommending Shawn :)
I can’t decide whose state of bliss is greater, hers or mine 🤍🐶
#grownostr #dogstr 
https://video.nostr.build/ca3ce67a7f5c71a0f4435afebd022cac17de246817eed0abf455ef46543e9cff.mp4 https://video.nostr.build/ce01d886bfacd3b1447c49fdd763b30c70bba09847c6d21d16f426e1b076d795.mp4 
Yours
Love that this is so your go-to song.
Remember your neighbours and get rid of licensing 🤭
This is really cool :) coincidentally I’m drawing ✍️ decision trees for homework right now. yours is way more inspiring 
Thoughts about this month. AI initiative called Stargate :) I’m thinking The Replicators episodes 🤔 but hoping it’s just being used for this instead
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remember you mentioned it was a favourite show :)
Really enjoyed listening to this chat guys. Mass adoption is such a good point nostr:npub1sg6plzptd64u62a878hep2kev88swjh3tw00gjsfl8f237lmu63q0uf63m . I think it is really cool that you guys tried to partner with department stores in the past. I used to stay back at work to get my head around the POS system manual, we called the manual the bible. I had a lot of fun dissecting it and it was very empowering for me and my team too. I was at David Jones (the oldest department store in the world) when they partnered with American Express. This then was integrated into POS and then team members would sign customers up through what is normally confusing terms and conditions and a lot of jargon, and instead provide knowledge of how to you use, why and then linking an incentive of usability and convenience , i.e also payment terms incentives - very similar to what you do with afterpay Jack. However, a customer did not need to then lodge a tax return for the credit card due to capital gains, this could be the drawback, and I wholeheartedly agree the key is legitimacy issues and validation for this to be a mass adoption form of payment, which would be very innovative, cool and freeing.
Also, a lot of vendors are getting screwed by payment terms with big companies who are then using those profits through marketable securities and rate of return and the time value of money so they can buy big yachts or whatever. For example, suppliers suffer through ridiculous cash conversion cycles that only benefit those big companies. i.e here is the conversation between a supplier and buyer “here is a part for your product and thank you for doing business with us, and can we do anything else above and beyond to help you” and the company/ customer says something along the lines of “cool, I’ll like pay for that in 30 days or longer right (depending on my yacht rent and other stuff) and I’ll invest that in my marketable security portfolio 💼 too for my shareholders of course”:) so maybe there is something there, as bitcoin has an awesome core competency of instantaneous payment and suppliers would love to hear that and maybe that could help with legitimacy and growth issues. But maybe don’t listen to me. I just failed and blanked on a 15min economics in-class quiz last night, the time pressure freaked me out. It kind of explains why I stayed back at work all the time to truly understand the POS system, as I did not want to impact my team and not be present with them during the day on the shop-floor, so I just stayed back late at night to learn instead…
Becoming the most convenient and most accessible option, makes bitcoin totally doable - so like a credit card intermediary but without the stupid fees. So instead of using a credit card daily, can’t bitcoin become that without the hassle of the confusing admin and lack of knowledge shared on a broader scale. Or is legitimacy found in capital gains which is really linked to scarcity and stock portfolios and not good for the consumer.
by the way if I survive economics and operations which is not looking good at the moment, I’ll choose the FinTech: Blockchain in the New Economy subject as an elective at my uni and hope to share what I learn on nostr and in the workplace.
This is me commenting on the news of Odell and Jack’s chat :) oh yeah, so like Gm then too ☀️
It does feel like someone set it up once upon a time ago and forgot.
Lack of competition is not good for the consumer.
Getting my head around critical thinking in my studies at the moment. It’s such a different way to view things. And when you add maths, it gets scary ➗✖️^(1) ax^2+bx+c=0, but hopefully things start to make sense soon. Studying today and a 3 hour ta session tomorrow at 8:30am for the next 10 weeks. Then you add game theory with perceptions, which I recently discovered can be about purposely creating fog to confuse or not share knowledge, or smoke and mirrors, all to aid a personal agenda and help in creating herd mentality. Just finished reading the book Coopetition by Adam M. Brandenburger and Barry Nalebuff. Interesting read.
