Notices by Steve Randy Waldman (interfluidity@zirk.us), page 2

@realcaseyrollins @Chip_Unicorn as i said, i don’t care whether it’s the current president who done it. it’s the kind of “efficiency” DOGE acolytes are proposing: replace people in expensive roles with less-manned systems. we know what that looks like. we used to have 24 hour human telephone customer service at every large company in the US. now we have limited hours and infuriating automated systems. from the inside, maybe that looks like less bureaucracy. 1/

@realcaseyrollins @Chip_Unicorn for users it’s everything we mean by “bureaucracy” when we use the word as a pejorative. /fin

@realcaseyrollins @Chip_Unicorn what’s your explanation?

@realcaseyrollins @Chip_Unicorn if you have a call line that’s only open from 11-3 when people might want to call any time (ie it’s not some live event naturally restricted to the time window, like a radio talk show), i presume it’s because the provider is trying to limit the expense of operating the line (not the literal telephone expense, but the expense of dealing with calls).

@realcaseyrollins @Chip_Unicorn no idea. whoever does it, it’s what a stupid version of efficiency looks like, replacing human, accessible systems with much cheaper, automated, less accessible systems. it’s efficient only from the perspective of the system provider, because it shifts costs and losses to users.

this is what "efficiency" looks like. https://im-in.space/@Chip_Unicorn/114077708550331811

on the left you have people annoyed they can't make rent and might die while they appeal their chemo denial. on the right you have people annoyed they'd get in trouble if they called someone "retard" and broadcast it to potentially millions of people. both sides have legitimate grievances.

people are mean to Elon Musk, but he has the same care for all of us as he has for his own children.

"When reporters called this out, the DOGE team made a fascinating choice. Instead of fixing their error, they actually removed the correct document from their website and replaced it with the old, incorrect one. They are now deliberately posting false information to support the narrative." @mmasnick https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/19/its-easy-to-save-billions-in-taxpayer-funds-when-everything-is-made-up/

i find it a bit weird how little we hear from Kamala Harris or Joe Biden. Biden is old, i guess. but Harris could be at the rhetorical ramparts.

i think it would help. the quiet of the people we supposed our leaders is devastating.

thank you aoc, pritzker, bernie. more, more, more.

not long 'til blue states start making an official holiday of the ides of march.

moral of the Musk administration gonna be it’s hard to unscramble an egg.

if the US shirks on flu surveillance and annual flu vaccines, for the rest of the world, are there alternative providers?

every centimillionaire is a policy failure.

without comment. https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/russia-elon-musk-list-names-dissidents-usaid-s798gktd7

under this definition, hasn't Congress — the most important branch of the Federal government — been under "competitive authoritarianism" for decades?

see e.g. https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/reelection-rates

from #StevenLevitsky #LucanAhmendWay https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/path-american-authoritarianism-trump

ht @williamcb.bsky.social @casmudde.bsky.social

the part of the Federal government that is most dysfunctional and in need of radical change is Congress. it has been optimized for job security and internal stability at the expense of effective governance.

but the only take on electoral reform from this administration is Trump should have a 3rd term.

"When history is written, the first few months of Trump 2.0 will go down as the most craven and prostrate in the history of the Republican Party. We are living in a country ruled by fantastic conspiracy theories and personal revenge, and not a single Republican is willing to stand against it. Not one." #KevinDrum https://jabberwocking.com/this-is-the-republican-partys-most-spineless-hour/

@Phil @dcc @p the cheapest part of the innovation, which even every pharma person will concede is essential, is grant funded basic research. the government buys at least half of the innovation. the commercializers get rich reducing that state-financed research to practice.

@Phil @dcc @p i've saved money for retirement as well, relying upon the government to regulate brokers and fund sponsors to ensure the bankruptcy remoteness of my assets from dangerous financial institutions. if you invest in the stock market, you've benefited from extraordinary stabilization and acceleration of those assets by policy, from a Fed that drops rates to stimulate the economy to a Trump that drops tariffs at first hint of a fall.