Paul Cantrell
By all reports, DOGE’s tools were hot crap, and I have serious doubts about whether any of the engineers in involved were any good. But what Weissmann is saying about this •belief•? Agree completely.
That particular form of engineering arrogance that imagines Smart Boys with Fancy Tech can magically untangle complex human systems needs to die a quick death. It’s not good public policy. It’s not even good engineering.
via @KimPerales: https://toad.social/@KimPerales/114942923052855822
Paul Cantrell
I suppose the fact that DOGE’s people are clowns and its methods are bullshit means that DOGE’s failure does not prove wrong this theory of “a few great engineers could magically fix government.”
The trouble is, when such an effort fails, one can •always• imagine a hypothetical better engineer and say the theory is not proved wrong. It’s like dieting: it’s always •your• fault for not doing it perfectly, never the diet’s fault for being BS.
Royce Williams
Almost as if the actual purpose wasn't to save money.
(Snark aside, I think it's important to not get too bogged down in the fact that they were "wrong" ... because they themselves never believed it.)
Paul Cantrell
@tychotithonus
It’s a good point. Though hints I’ve heard suggest at least some of the rank and file at DOGE really •did• believe it, thought they were part of some effort to modernize everything with new tech. Musk and Trump might not believe it (unclear whether either “believes” anything in the sense that we mean the word), but they were preying on a popular belief that is real in some circles.
Paul Cantrell
Per replies, note that Weissmann is talking about “some tech ppl unwilling to grapple with DOGE’s failure.” He isn’t talking about Musk and Trump and Palantir and all the other creepazoids running the show; he’s talking about a widespread popular misconception that […] could magically make government more efficient, where […] is various male-coded fantasy characters: a Smart Engineer, a CEO Who Understands Business, etc whatever.
Paul Cantrell
Oh for the love of
David Smith
@inthehands my very favorite variant of this is the ones who think farming would be easy for programmers. Ran across that on Twitter back in the day.
Paul Cantrell
@aubilenon
Indeed. Many problems (gov and otherwise) are solvable, or at least improvable. It’s just that the necessary first step is admitting that the problems actually exist and are hard.
Jesse Morris
@inthehands I mean I do think the right people making the right decisions can improve government! But yeah they’re not engineers who don’t understand any of the problems they’re trying to solve, just the same way they’re not MBAs who don’t understand any of the problems they’re trying to solve
Paul Cantrell
@masto
Yeah, totally. And it’s not just Google.
The foolishness of this mindset calls into question what exactly the word “intelligence” even means.
Christopher Masto
@inthehands My standard joke there was that if someone suddenly started spurting blood from their eye, rather than call an ambulance, their co-worker’s response would be “I’ll figure it out, I’m good with computers!”
Christopher Masto
@inthehands The idea that intelligence confers expertise was utterly entrenched at Google. It causes a sort of pigheaded refusal to study the literature or understand the history of a problem before rushing in. Inevitably, people who have no business doing a thing will reinvent solutions that have been repeatedly proven not to work, because they’re too clever to accept that they can’t instantly derive all the answers from first principles.
Paul Cantrell
@cxj
Indeed. And contrary to mythology, many gov depts, from federal to local, actually work quite well. Not all! But more than people think.
Chris Johnson
@inthehands Never mind that 99.98% [sic] of engineers are wholly unqualified to “fix” government—assuming it’s even broken. It’s not the operations that need fixing. It’s the “management”: campaign funding, political parties, lobbying, current office holders, voter education, informed public, etc. Contrary to mythology, most civil servants and agencies do a pretty good job when not twisted by political greed.
Paul Cantrell
@cratermoon
I’ve just seen some posts linking to other posts, that kind of stuff. I don’t have it handy, sorry. I saw one sort of rueful “I though we were going to do great things” writeup somewhere that went a little into tech details….
cratermoon
@inthehands I know DOGE was bad but I haven't seen any reports on the specific tools they were using. Do you happen to have any links or other sources to satisfy my programmer curiosity?
Jenniferplusplus
@inthehands yeah, computer toucher supremacy cannot fail, it can only be failed
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