Summary

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s new “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) began recruiting “high-IQ small-government revolutionaries” willing to work 80+ hours per week with no pay to help slash federal spending.

Appointed by President-elect Donald Trump, the panel is tasked with recommending spending cuts, regulatory rollbacks, and agency restructuring by July 4, 2026.

Musk and Ramaswamy advocate for drastic measures, including cutting grants to nonprofits and potential mass layoffs.

  • arc@lemm.ee
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    1 hour ago

    So a billionaire wants people to work 80 hour weeks for nothing. People tell him to fuck right off. As in, find a cliff and keep walking.

    • ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org
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      1 hour ago

      I don’t think these positions will remain empty. Corporations will send a few lobbyists to check if the cost/power ratio is beneficial and if so, just flood the department.

      • TehWorld@lemmy.world
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        55 minutes ago

        I hadn’t thought of that, but this is 100% exactly what will happen. BP oil will surely pay someone VERY handsomely to ‘volunteer’ 80 hours a week toward eliminating all oversight of drilling rigs in the gulf.

  • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    Good grief. It’s like he asked ChatGPT “how do I hire people suffering from the Dunning-Kruger Effect?”

    Dear meme-lords: I need something with much more facepalm than the Picard one. A “super facepalm” if you will. Thank you.

  • 1SimpleTailor@startrek.website
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    1 hour ago

    America’s saving grace may in fact be that the fascists are too stupid and lazy to do the work required to dismantle the federal government and cause mass human suffering.

  • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    There are only two types of “Super High-IQ” people who will go for an unpaid job working in politics for the likes of Musk:

    • Very naive young things, hence very inexperienced and who are going to do all mistakes in the book and then some for the next couple of years as they learn the ropes. By the time they know enough about the job they’ll be burned out from working for a guy like Musk not to mention knowing enough to know they’re better of elsewhere.
    • Grifters looking for making maximum money from being in politics. Since they’re not getting paid, that means corruption, lots and lots of corruption.

    Also, even amongst the “very naive young things”, in my own personal experience, the high intelligent types with the personality to be real believers of far right stuff, are at most above average intelligence but below genius level IQ (which is 120) and hence not really “super high”-IQ (which would more 160+) - I once worked with a guy like that who thought himself very intelligent and in his new job ended up working in an office with two genious level colleagues and he was very entertaining because of his “buttons” were so obvious and he was so easy to give the run around.

    Super-high IQ people are often the very opposite of street smart, but one thing they aren’t is stupid and at most fall into the first part of the saying “you can deceive most people some of the time, or some people all of the time, but you can’t deceive most people all of the time” - they can be swindled but they’ll figure it out faster than most.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      4 hours ago

      Also, most actual intelligent people understand that IQ is incredibly flawed at best, and put little stock in it.

      But I guess if your goal is “anti-DEI” or whatever, then of course you’re cool with intelligence tests that make white people seem smarter.

      • elucubra@sopuli.xyz
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        4 hours ago

        I’m a guy with a high “test IQ”, and my sister, who is in the normal range is way more succesful that me in most aspects of life. You don’t want high “test IQ”, you want “smart people” not the same, and far more difficult to measure. High IQ basically means you are good at solving certain types of puzzles

        • Jumpingspiderman@lemmy.world
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          2 hours ago

          And smart people don’t often work for free. Unless it’s at gunpoint or similar. Though that might be in the plans of fascist assholes like Elongated Muskrat.

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          3 hours ago

          Exactly. Yes, I can tell you the chronological order of these images very quickly, but good luck getting me to do it.

  • bstix@feddit.dk
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    6 hours ago

    Ok, get this. You elect politicians to “help slash federal spending”.

    What the hell is Musk even doing and why is he outsourcing this job to unpaid idiots, when politicians already get paid to do this?

    Okay, I’ll do a few suggestions for free:

    • Stop subsidizing companies. All of them.
    • Tax the rich to boost the federal income.
    • Legalize all immigrants so they can be tax paying citizens.
    • Crack down on employers using illegal underpaid illegal immigrants.
    • Provide universal health care. Sick people don’t work.
    • Cut down on police force spending.
    • Cut down on car infrastructure spending.
    • Cut down “defense” spending in artificial oil wars.
    • Help Ukraine to defeat Russia, so Russia will have to surrender and disarm their nukes, so that USA can also cut down on cost for maintenance of nukes.
    • Expand renewable energy. It’s free energy yo, and it creates jobs for tax paying citizens.
    • Stop mining fossil fuels. It will cost more to clean that shit up than is earned.
    • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      Russia will have to surrender and disarm their nukes,

      Interesting. During the Cold War, that was unthinkable, mostly because there’d be nobody to counterbalance a US monopoly on nuclear arms. Things have proliferated considerably since then, so perhaps a nuclear Russia isn’t as important. If anything, they’re proving themselves to be a liability.

    • KinglyWeevil@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 hours ago

      I just wanted to add some context for one of these bullets.

      The US is upping the amount it spends on nuclear weapons maintenance and production because China has reentered the game as a major player. They’d been stable at 300-350 warheads for decades but is expected to ramp up to producing 100+ per year by 2030.

      So one major adversary has just been replaced by another. Everything old is new again, including the cold war arms race.

      • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        How are they making them? Just fuel reprocessing? You can make them pretty cheap as a side effect at scale of you want to. US can’t though.

    • wildcardology@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      Undocumented immigrants paid $96 billion in 2023, they don’t benefit from them but imagine if all of them get to pay taxes.

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    7 hours ago

    I divide my officers into four classes; the clever, the lazy, the industrious, and the stupid. Each officer possesses at least two of these qualities. Those who are clever and industrious are fitted for the highest staff appointments. Use can be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy however is for the very highest command; he has the temperament and nerves to deal with all situations. But whoever is stupid and industrious is a menace and must be removed immediately!

    –Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord

  • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    I don’t know about you all but as soon as Trump was elected I immediately resolved to cut my personal spending by as much as humanly possible. I’ve already canceled many of my subscription services and I have reduced my use of Amazon and other online purchases to absolute zero. I’m going to work on paying down every dime of debt I owe as soon as possible and save every penny. Because shit’s going to get fucked in the next 4 years with these clowns in charge. It’s gonna be a light Christmas in my household this year.

    I highly recommend you all do the same. Don’t be the last one holding the bag when the music stops and reality sets in. For example, look at the people in the UK after Brexit.

  • umbraroze@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    Ah, this will be the Department of Dunning-Kruger. The workers are idiots who think they are supergeniuses. Led by an idiot who thinks he’s a supergenius.

    During Trump’s first term, this was just a metaphor, suggested by random comedians. Now, life will imitate art to its full extent.

  • JPSound@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    “High-IQ” aka boot lickers who agree with everything Musk says or does and are willing to do so for no compensation. And let’s consider those who have the financial means “work” for free. The over privileged fundees who think they earned their wealth by hard work even those its all daddy’s money… Rining any bells? Unpaid positions are exactly what we don’t need to help with combat our economic woes anyways.