• rational_lib@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    The world just keeps getting more and more efficient at being dumb. Let’s just count all the appallingly stupid things crammed into this small meme with 2 million views:

    1. “Insurrection Barbie”
    2. Celebrating the defunding of useful scientific research by a new government efficiency agency
    3. This new agency is named after a cryptocurrency
    4. The cryptocurrency in question was created as a joke to satirize cryptocurrencies, but became a top prominent cryptocurrency itself.
    5. The “Department of Government Efficiency Agency” has 2 heads, both of whom have other primary jobs and were chosen in return for political support.
    6. There is also already an existing government agency that does the exact same thing, called the “Government Accountability Office”. But most people seem to be unaware of it, likely because it’s not named after a cryptocurrency/dog meme.
    7. This whole scheme was the idea of the richest person in the world.

    Idiocracy didn’t happen because of unnatural selection, it happened because social media unlocked a runaway chain reaction of stupidity.

    • RandomVideos@programming.dev
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      2 hours ago

      Why are people saying that it was named after a cryptocurrency?

      Isnt the dog the first thing people think of when seeing “doge”?

      • zeca@lemmy.eco.br
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        2 hours ago

        Its reasonable to make the connection to the coin, as this particular cryptocurrency was propagandized and manipulated by musk, who will be running the agency.

          • TheSlad@sh.itjust.works
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            2 minutes ago

            No, he likes money. Remember a few years ago when he tweeted about how great dogecoin was? Then a week later he tweeted about how stupid is was and that he was done with? He probably made millions buying and selling dogecoin as he made those tweets. There a huge conflict of interest when it comes to celebrities endorsing crypto coins. If you have the pull, you can just buy a bunch of some shit coin, talk it up and then all the people who look up to you to will go buy it, pumping up the price while you sell and make a huge profit. Then the value crashes back down and everyone who bought is left holding the bag. Whenever some famous person talks about a crypto, 100% of the time it is a grift to skim money from their follower’s pockets.

      • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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        2 hours ago

        True! It was then technically named after a meme…which the coin named itself after, as it was supposed to be a “meme coin”.

        Still stands though.

        “Government agency named after meme. Such dumb. So chaos. Woooooow.” Lol

  • pH3ra@lemmy.ml
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    1 hour ago

    China is going to devour the scientific world of we keep it like this

  • Sylvartas@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    Neolib idiots don’t see the (immense) value of fundamental research because it doesn’t directly generate profits, more at 11

  • superkret@feddit.org
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    1 hour ago

    Goddamn, it really is impossible!
    How the fuck am I gonna filter US politics out of my feed when it creeps in through Science Memes?

  • Randelung@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    Like the dead don’t realize they’re dead, they don’t realize they’re stupid. They’re just everyone else’s problem.

  • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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    2 hours ago

    “Haha, I’m insurrection barbie, get it? Because the libs think when Donald Trump lets a massive mob of his supporters to the Capitol to disrupt the election certification process the libs thought it was an insurrection!”

  • cows_are_underrated@feddit.org
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    5 hours ago

    Say it with me:

    No. Research. Is. Useless.

    If we say that research is useless because it doesn’t bring you mo ey we could stop teaching children math beyond the absolute basics because “it doesn’t brinf them anything”. This is stupid, because those are the fundamentals that tech children to thing logically and become useful member of society. Same with research. It teaches us the things necessary to maybe invent some of the most useful stuff ever seen

    • pufferfisherpowder@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      Elon isn’t even religious. Like always religion is just a fucking disguise for enriching themselves, both with money and power.

    • Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works
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      2 hours ago

      I’m thinking this too… let’s hope Renaissance mk2 only takes a few years to blossom - but my confidence is not high.

    • django@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 hours ago

      Stupidly funny, right? Like watching a movie, where something dumb is about to happen. You are watching and screaming in agony, pleading for the characters on the screen not to do the dumb thing. But you watch in horror, as all your words are without any effect, you can’t reach anyone.

      But now with the added bonus, that the dumb thing might affect your life. Or that of your loved ones, neighbours, friends.

  • 21Cabbage@lemmynsfw.com
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    5 hours ago

    Hell can we mention that the cold war era these fucks idolize was also the golden age of the government throwing money at side projects?

  • skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de
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    6 hours ago

    “preventing next corn plague” with resources used being a box of soil and bunch of underpaid grads seems pretty efficient to me, but i guess that since the common clay of the new west already voted they can be safely disposed of

    at USDA, they’re turning beetles kinky! 😡

    • alex jones fuming aimlessly while being stored in some container
  • Ethalis@jlai.lu
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    8 hours ago

    Sure, that’s great but it’s not even the point. Fundamental research and other type of “useless” scientific endeavors help humanity as a whole to better understand our universe but would never be privately funded because they don’t have any concrete and immediate financial benefits. This is precisely what a government should finance, because no one else would do it and yet it’s small stuff like that that make us collectively move forward as a species

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      help humanity as a whole

      And here you’ve identified why they hate it. They cannot stand the idea that resources might benefit other people, resources that they could hoard instead.

        • moody@lemmings.world
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          4 hours ago

          The Department of goverment efficiency was Musk’s meme idea and Trump is apparently just rolling with it.

          • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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            2 hours ago

            Maybe. Apparently trump is already bored with him, and mocked him on-stage, in front of an entire room full of people, just a couple days ago. I guess trump already got his money, so now it’s time to back-out of any agreements he made to get the money.

  • GreatTitEnthusiast@mander.xyz
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    7 hours ago

    In addition, government research in the sciences is miniscule. You could cut ALL of science funding and be no where close to the 1 trillion that Musk claims he’ll be able to reduce the budget by

    • 21Cabbage@lemmynsfw.com
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      4 hours ago

      The goal’s more about cutting all the science funding than reducing spending. These are people who removed about Ukraine when they don’t even plan on spending that money on something else they’re just guzzling Russian propaganda.

    • BossDj@lemm.ee
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      6 hours ago

      Regardless, he’ll claim he cut 500 bajillion dollars no matter what he ends up doing

        • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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          2 hours ago

          He’ll cut 2 trillion out of the general budget, redirect it into his own holdings, and demand praise for his genius leadership. Oh, and he may or may not actually eliminate some programs along the way.

        • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
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          3 hours ago

          No no, you don’t understand. This is what people have actually been asking for this whole time. Nobody wanted the budget randomly cut, they wanted it distributed

        • MirthfulAlembic@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          I don’t think he even attempted to do math. Someone asked him about it and said what the current budget was, and he just rectally sourced 2 trillion. I assume he said that because it’s big enough to sound huge, but less than half of spending so people don’t panic that everything will be cut.

          It’s meaningless bullshit until he actually says specifically what will be cut. Republicans have been claiming they can cut huge chunks of spending for years, but it never materializes. They only know how cut government income without paying for it.

          • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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            4 hours ago

            Still waiting for that ACA replacement promised on week 1 of trump’s presidency. It was supposed to be so easy. Now we’re 8 years out and they have “concepts of a plan”.

            • MirthfulAlembic@lemmy.world
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              4 hours ago

              I’m sure with control over all government branches again they’ll have the ACA completely replaced in no time. For real this time.

              • chaogomu@lemmy.world
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                2 hours ago

                The plan is to repeal it first, and then figure out what to do from there.

                Probably whatever makes the most money for insurance companies.

        • skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de
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          6 hours ago

          also, entire military is just under 1tn - all of it, including completely nonmovable things like nuclear silos and submarines. ripping enough copper from the walls to get 2tn would involve massive cuts to social security and healthcare, and maybe education. but nooo heavens forbid that progressive tax on income be introduced

          • frezik@midwest.social
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            6 hours ago

            The DoD itself spent $820B in 2023. To get over $1T, you also have to include veterans benefits, like the VA hospital system.

            The full bill for Vietnam started coming 20 years after the fact as all those veterans got older and started heavily using the benefits they were promised. From the start of the War on Terror, we’re about at that same point right now. So unless the plan is to rug pull those benefits from people who really need them, then there’s going to be a huge bill coming that no amount of efficiency trimming can ignore.

            If Democrats did the rug pull, Republicans would cry bloody murder. If Trump did it, they will cheer him on while veterans suffer.

            • Kuori [she/her]@hexbear.net
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              3 hours ago

              oh nooo all the butchers who went overseas to shoot at brown children will suffer for their choices

              what a terrible fate for a bunch of terrible people

              • frezik@midwest.social
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                1 hour ago

                While I understand the sentiment, US veterans are in many ways victims of the capitalist system themselves. At 18 years old, they’re pressured by family or school administration to go into the military. They may have grown up poor and have no viable career path once they leave high school. College is a pipe dream. Combine that with recruiters who will use every high pressure tactic in the book and outright lie to get you to sign (“sure, you can get leave later on to be the best man at your friend’s wedding”). All this is happening before they’re legally allowed to drink, and they certainly haven’t finished developing into their adult self.

                They go off to the military. Most will get through with nothing more traumatic than boot camp (which can be pretty traumatic) and some shitty food, but some will die, and others will be injured or have PTSD.

                Keeping those services and improving them is part of cleaning up our mess. So is dismantling the capitalist system that creates more of those veterans.

            • skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de
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              3 hours ago

              “hey why bother going against a nationalist land grab? i am the real antiimperialist” gee i wonder

              most of the rest can be made in europe, even if it would require some scaling up of production

              e:

              i can see you have came here with your instance-issued portable public opinion influence brigade. will you removed and moan again when you get defederated from another instance?

              • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                3 hours ago

                I leave for an hour and you come back with some snide edit to cosplay as inglorious basterds? Weird thing to do in the middle of -and I cannot stress this enough- supporting actual, seig heiling nazis in a war.

              • TheLepidopterists [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                3 hours ago

                can see you have came here with your instance-issued portable public opinion influence brigade. will you removed and moan again when you get defederated from another instance?

                brigading

                Look, I originally came in here to look at dunks on my-hero and then I saw it back in my feed with like, quadruple the number of comments it had when I originally saw it.

                We’re not brigading just because we’re all in agreement that someone calling for regime change in some of the only countries and organizations who are resisting a modern Holocaust is a bad person undeserving of respect. I just wanted to read some Elon Musk hate and you decided to talk about how the Arabs should have their leaders chosen by the enlightened white Westerners.

              • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                5 hours ago

                nationalist land grab

                Is that what you actually think this is? Russia, famously lacking land.

                If your “defence of democracy” requires replacing a democratically elected government with a nazi puppet regime in a violent coup, supporting that regime as it commits 8 years of terrorism against its minorities, and forcing it to kidnap old men to the front lines to keep the profitable meat grinder going…maybe you’re not actually doing anti imperialism? Just a thought. Like when the swastikas came out and the genocide in Palestine kicked off, you should have realized we’re the baddies, and baddies lie.

                But epistemology aside, why bother from a practical standpoint? The war is over. Anything sent over at this stage is either going to the scrap heap or a military warehouse in the Russian Federation. Also lol, you will not be scaling up domestic weapon production to any meaningful degree, because we, the US, blew up Europe’s pipeline and ate it’s energy sector, and now Volkswagen can’t even keep making it’s cute little nazi cars.

                • skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de
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                  5 hours ago

                  The point is not gain of land for Russia but removing land from another state, as a punitive measure for trying to get away from russian influence. This is also not the first time it is happening. Because of how nationalist Putin’s supporters base has become over time, he chose to use small invasions like 2008 invasion of Georgia as a tool to increase his domestic popularity. This parallels 1999 false flag bombings and response in form of second Chechen war and 2014 invasion of Donbas. In all these cases, as well as for two first weeks of 2022 war, approval rating of Putin’s government soared which was exactly the point the entire time. Because of how much of that comes from nationalists, he can’t back off because he’d come across as weak and lose support, he can’t advance much faster because he’s physically unable to, and his best bet is this kind of slow grind like we see now. Any western military aid will make it harder, so of course russian influence operations are directed against it, and you know that too

                  Also you will not be scaling up domestic weapon production to any meaningful degree

                  Speak for yourself. Orbital ATK buys european explosives, we have scaled up weapons manufacture in France, Germany, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Czechia and few others, there are new Rheinmetall plants in Ukraine too.

                  Ukrainians don’t lack resolve. In 2022, something like 85% (iirc) said that fight should go on if nuclear weapons were used by Russia. Even now 80%-ish don’t think that any territorial concessions should take place in any peace agreement. They have some of their own defense industry, lots of things (other than mostly air defense, and parts of aircraft manufacture) we can do in Europe, even if it requires some scale up, then there’s South Korean deliveries and few other things that still can happen.

                  Like when the swastikas came out and the genocide in Palestine kicked off, you should have realized we’re the baddies, and baddies lie.

                  who the fuck “we” is supposed to mean there? in middle east i wish everyone involved regime change, situation is fucked with any of current people in power staying in power. Put Netanyahu, Assad, Erdogan, Khamenei and their cabinets and top people from Hezbollah in Hague then we can talk. but it’s severely off topic so maybe don’t