Notices by CivicWhitaker (civicwhitaker@mastodon.publicinterest.town)

@kfogel *points at the potential government shutdown if they don’t take away money for kids cancer research*

@kfogel DOGE is clear about its goals - they’re gonna take the cuts out of entitlements - Medicare, VA benefits, and the like. Nothing has been about reform, only about cuts. DOGE isn’t a sledgehammer, it’s two rich guys in a trench coat vibing about cutting staff and spending.

It isn’t serious in the same way putting the head of Project 2025 at the head of OMB. OMB isn’t shiny, but it does write the budget

@kfogel I think there’s a hierarchy of ‘give a fucks’ here (HoGAF, for lack for a better term)

The argument I’m making is a values one, not a policy one. There’s a point past which that even you agree 100% on policy you just don’t give a fuck because of the values conflict. Bullying, for me, is that point.

@kfogel Chicago’s community stopped working with the Rahm admin after LaQuan McDonald. Sure, nothing changed civic tech policy-wise … but covering up a police shooting of an unarmed teen? Nah, we didn’t give a fuck about policy at that point

I feel there’s gonna be a lot of lines coming up

@kfogel I did a small post-storm about this a few weeks ago - but my bottom line on this is that DOGE is not a good faith effort and is currently being used as a platform to harass and bully civil servants.

I don't work with bullies. Full stop.

Longer thread here: https://mastodon.publicinterest.town/@civicwhitaker/113596660267468650

My wife is on this call and there’s upwards of 100k other attendees - which is a Zoom record

From: @indivisibleteam
https://mastodon.social/@indivisibleteam/112847301540259611

Please, on behalf of everyone who handles family tech support on older machines, please don’t

Microsoft Is Testing Ads in the Windows 11 Start Menu
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/12/msft-ads-start-menu

All these tech firms laying off a bunch of staff then posting AI roles has big ‘pivot to video’ vibes

I've been thinking a lot about this piece from @anildash about the resurgent human web & how that's reflected in #civictech

What resonates with me is the resurgence of local tech communities. While national incumbent orgs have backed away from supporting local volunteers, the more established groups never left. For the majority of their lifetimes, local civic tech orgs have been locally funded allowing them to set their own agendas. They've always been a little wild

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-commentary/internet-future-about-to-get-weird-1234938403/