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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   21616 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025

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All federal workers also received an offer to resign immediately. If they accept, they will get their current salary and benefits until September (an incredibly generous 8 month severance package). All they have to do is reply with the word "resign".

Unfortunately this usually selects for people who can find alternate employment, i.e. the actually competent people who are happy to take an eight month paid vacation and get back to work afterwards. The guys who barely got their current job really can't afford to lose it and are happy to enshittify our institutions until they get their pension.

You know, I thought this about the tech layoffs that tried the same tactic, and those didn't seem to turn out disastrously?
It's strange because the incentives seem terrible, but if you pair it with a credible threat of "quit now or you will be hunted down and fired with all your benefits stripped," it could selectively get rid of the laziest traitors who'd provide cover for the really dedicated subversives you're interested in rooting out.

Unfortunately it probably also selects for the 64 year old guys who were the only ones keeping everything running, and are all going to retire at once

I thought this about the tech layoffs that tried the same tactic, and those didn't seem to turn out disastrously?

Yes, but that was reducing 10,000 down to 1,000 and not 1,000,000 to 100,000. Also, the Twitter layoffs affected in demand and relatively intelligent people closer to the start of their careers, while mass bureaucrat layoffs would affect relatively stupid ones at a much more critical time- too old to meaningfully reskill, but too young to retire.

The underlying problem with the American economy that has been punted on since FDR is that there are too many people for the economy to sustain on its own. That's partially why corporate welfare, which most bureaucrat jobs are, is as sacred of a cow as it is.

there are too many people for the economy to sustain on its own

I’m struggling to understand why or how you think that is the case. Could you elaborate?

In this case it might select for those who believe they are likely to be fired for cause, for example posting political statements on social media or having a J2.

It might also remove people who are extreme partisans who can't imagine working under Donald Trump.

The ultra progressives don’t have a J2. That was always something for relatively ambitious tech guys, not your aggrieved fat blue hair for whom even 10 hours a week of fake work is trying.

A lot of them have a J2 as reddit mods or Wikipedia admins, but you'd have to really work building up a posting history vs their work hours to nail them for that.

There's a guy with a masters in Recreation Sociology who works for the park service (from DC of course), and spends his entire workday in political struggles on Wikipedia. This is exactly the sort you want to get rid of, but none of this policy seems set up to get him.

A lot of them have a J2 as reddit mods or Wikipedia admins, but you'd have to really work building up a posting history vs their work hours to nail them for that.

Surely that's just a hobby? Not that practicing your hobby during work hours isn't potentially a firing offense. But trying to construe that sort of thing as "working a second job" in a manner incompatible with holding a government job seems very square-peg-round-hole.

If they’re making political content during work hours, that’s a hatch act violation.

That's also entirely fair, I just don't think that should be construed as a job.

They do it for free!

A fed bureaucrat and a Jannie? This is pushing the absolute limits of my disdain.

There's a guy with a masters in Recreation Sociology who works for the park service (from DC of course), and spends his entire workday in political struggles on Wikipedia.

Is he on Wiki under his real name?

I'll try and find him. Remember him from the "parade tragedy caused by an SUV" article naming controversy or similar event, but most of those have multiple archived talk pages

The way to do this properly would be to condition it on the signature of an agreement to never work for USG again for the rest of your life, but I'm not sure that would fly.

Then you'd lose only the guys who are sure they can get a private sector gig, who are probably even higher quality employees.

If losing the competent people means also losing the people who are smart enough to maintain the deep state apparatus as the true power center of DC, then this would be a feature, not a bug.

I do not think that the people whose motivation is to use their civil service positions to influence politics are likely the ones who would jump at the opportunity of a generous retirement package.

In general, running a first world government in a tolerable way requires many more specialists than a running a resource extraction (be it oil, fruits or cocaine). Sure, Trump can put people whose primary qualification is being MAGA believers in every political position, but that is not enough to see his policies enacted. The Dems (and the pre-Trump Reps, to some degree) can draw from a large pool of PMCs who are politically aligned with them, DEI and all that.

By contrast, I doubt that Trump could staff the federal bureaucracy with Trumpers without lowering government efficiency. Sure, there are likely enough people in ICE willing to deport migrants, and the military-industrial complex will also not give him trouble while he stays within the constitutional limits with his orders, but plenty of other agencies will try to resist.

I mean, a majority plurality of voters cast their ballots for Trump 11 weeks ago. It seems like he's got a pretty good sized pool of people to draw from.

More likely it would mean losing the guys who can actually process paperwork, resulting in wait times going to infinity.

In the long term, you route around the problem, spin up a group 10% of the size that does the work twice as fast as the old group ever did.

Of course, that might not work in the government the same way it would in a business because of resistance from within.

It might not work in the government the same way it would in a business because public sector entities have wildly different incentives, constraints, and feedback structures than private sector ones.

When a private company cuts staffing by 90% and discovers that doesn't actually double total productivity, they can reverse course (or more likely just go out of business and get replaced by another firm that didn't blow their own dick off). When the civil service gets handed an impossible directive, they can just keep failing forever while politicians bury their heads in the sand and insist that any minute now the plan will start working.

Good luck attracting 10x bureaucrats to government positions.

I imagine for a certain young idealistic person this would be a good sell. Come help save the US government!

Not everyone is a mercenary. Most people are motivated by a combination of factors. Optimizing to attract mercenaries is a great way to get the worst staff possible. Which is why we have government workers who are protesting by not doing their jobs. Ultimately, they think the point of their job is to deliver money to their bank account, not to serve the American people.

Come help save the US government!

It's a fun marketing line but it'll wear off after you review the thousandth TPS report.

Optimizing to attract mercenaries is a great way to get the worst staff possible.

Hedge funds pay employees stupid amounts of money and the firms make stupid amounts of money. I shudder to think what they could do if they weren't apparently getting the worst staff possible.

Which is why we have government workers who are protesting by not doing their jobs.

They are doing this because they have no fear of getting fired, not because it's all about the money.

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