I'm having trouble reconciling the backgrounds of the people that you're describing with the effects of the work they're doing. When they suddenly closed USAID, vulnerable people around the world instantly lost access to food and medicine with no recourse. There were people enrolled in clinical trials who had devices implanted in their bodies and then suddenly all support was cut off. Even if you believe that America shouldn't fund these things, how can you possibly justify shutting it down in such a way that food for hungry people rots in warehouses and clinicians have to decide if they're going to defy orders to vaccinate a pregnant mother? I can understand how a 23-year-old can get so enamored by all this sudden access to power that he completely loses sight of the effects of what he's doing. I don't understand how someone with decades of experience in positions of responsibility doesn't ask the most basic questions about the consequences of taking drastic action.
The policy people like Stephen Miller who are the brains here question the humanity of others.
The expression of power by inflicting suffering is seen as a flex. USAID and its mission are in opposition to their aims — you are to be cowed by power, not be look kindly upon the kindness and mercy of the US.
My friends aren’t working on USAid they’re in departments doing work that has no political storytelling like cutting a bunch of redundant $2-10M contracts here and there every day. Remember that it’s been like 2-3 weeks — what has your established company done in these 2 weeks?
I worked for a company that had the mentality of "what can we ship today", "how can we get 80% of the output with 20% of the work", "how do we move as quickly as possible" and "how do we keep the team as lean as possible". What they lost sight of in all of that hustle, they were piling on risks that would eventually cause real harm to customers. I'm talking about an expensive hardware product with a very high failure rate and limited warranty, and absolutely terrible security and privacy practices. These led to real harms to people. Moving quickly is fine in certain contexts, particularly when you're at an early stage and your work is effecting few people or only people who are willing to accept risk. But what works for an early stage startup doesn't work in other situations! Sometimes there are real human costs. When you're moving that fast, you completely lose sight of the consequences of your actions.
And if you think USAID is the only place where there are horrible first, second, and third order effects to what DOGE is doing, you're being completely naive. There are huge numbers of people in the federal government who deal with life-or-death matters every day. Air traffic controllers. VA clinicians. What are the consequences of sending these people daily emails telling them they're unproductive and they should quit or get laid off? Telling them that you want them to be "traumatized"?
Google up "hostage puppy". I could give you a link, but I'm not trying to claim that any particular person who said it is an authority.
The idea is that your organization may be doing inefficient or horrible things, but it also has one cute puppy who depends on it. Any time someone wants to shut your organization down, you just point to the cute puppy and say "you wouldn't want this puppy to die, would you?".
Which is the hostage puppy? Half the HIV treatment in the developing world? The people clearing landmines? The malaria treatment? Or is it tuberculosis? Or security and economic aid to our allies, particularly allies that are fighting wars? Or funding the groups that are standing up to our authoritarian adversaries? Feeding people facing famines? Economic assistance to bolster employment in countries to reduce the demand for people to migrate to the US?
Yeah I can’t believe what I’m reading on this site. The intellectual dishonesty is staggering.
This is truly the post truth world. I wouldn’t be surprised if many here who are making counter arguments either hate the US and what it stands for or are outright malicious actors
