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.
Wait, I think this is how we get work camps for people who are “too smart”.
Then it is easy to dispatch them. Like Pol Pot did with anyone who seemed to be able to read and write
No high-iq individual will work 2 weeks per week with no pay in a society that requires money to live.
That’s a common tactic in scams. You want to weed out the actual intelligent people as early as possible lest they disrupt your scam. That’s why scam emails tend to have misspellings and grammatical errors. Smarter people instantly ignore that. Dumb people click on through.
So you’re saying we all should apply?
So that we can disrupt this shit
Actually not a bad idea. Flood the department with bullshit resumes.
I like this idea
im saying get in and get that cut, and also disrupt their agenda, i mean someone is gonna take that bribe, might as well take it and fuck their plan.
deleted by creator
No they won’t… but rich people who can afford to support themselves while indulging in their love of making poor people suffer will be lined up around the block.
Making a position unpaid is a classic tactic to keep out the poors.
It’s disappointing so many aren’t getting this…
It’s the same as “unpaid internships” being advantage to rich kids who can afford to work without pay.
Like, there is an inordinate amount of rich assholes that would love to spend 80 hours a week finding way to cut taxes, regulations, and the social safety net.
If you’re rich enough to begin with, this could pay a hell of a lot better than anything else you would spend your time on. Couple hundred million in the bank or stock market, and it would be more profitable than any actual job.
And let’s be honest, Musk and Trump aren’t judging IQ by the freaking Wechsler exam, when rich idiots talk about IQ, they mean zeros in a bank account.
People with that kind of money don’t work, they own. They’ll hire somebody to do those 80 hours while they rape underage trafficked girls.
So, if you own a coal plant and the government is spending time and money on regulating your livelihood, then that would be an obvious thing to cut from the budget.
As a hypothetical sure…
But we broke fossil fuel production records under trump, we broke them under Biden, and there’s no reason to think trump won’t break them again.
For fucks sake, they had both of the only two options be pro-fracking this time…
Billion dollar fossil fuel corporations don’t have to worry, they already bought both parties. And have been lobbying trump to leave Biden’s “signature climate change legislation” intact, because it makes them a bunch of money and comes with zero negatives.
So as a hypothetical you’re example would fit.
Except no one is doing this but currently:
the government is spending time and money on regulating (fossil fuels)
Right, but stick with me here… what if they could make MORE money? All they need to do is stop requiring them to clean out the lead in the toxic waste that they dump on their worker’s towns and the owners can put that money into another vacation house.
And why does the government need to have so many people inspecting industrial facilities? Can’t a single person handle the entire country? On second thought, that takes money, and the goal was to cut spending. Just have the companies send reports every 20 years and we’re all good. I’m sure they’ll do a great job with notifying the government if something violates regulations.
Can you think of any other types of people who might be financially able to volunteer their time here…?
Maybe those who have a vested interest in any number of outcomes that may result from their work there…?
Or those willing to be paid in order to influence recommendations to the highest bidder
Rich assholes who want to influence government will.
Rich assholes who believe they are smart as a side effect of being rich assholes.
They’ll get paid by conservative think-tanks under the table so the Dept of Efficiency looks good and can pretend that it’s efficient.
This is what I was thinking also. It will be filled with people getting paid by corps and special interests.
Or corporations who want to have a say. BP Oil will happily drop off a shipping container of cash at a “volunteer’s” house if it means that they eliminate inspections of oil platforms in the gulf.
This isn’t aimed at the idiots who would line up around the block and work for free to be called high IQ by Musk. Doesn’t really matter though, it’s all performative
They already know exactly what they want to cut, and billionaires don’t need a salary to realize profits from deregulation.
The job being “no salary” isn’t indicative of how cost effictive a volunteer public servant could be - it is a dinner bell for the wealthy
My goodness we’re gonna be MAGA’d so hard*, can’t wait
*some people (with the best words) are saying this
I want to believe this, too. But considering how there are smart people clubs with upwards of 50,000 members in the US that treat “passing” an IQ test as their sole entry criterion, I am sure there are some. Not all who have intelligence also have the wisdom to use it well.
Evil ones will.
This dipshit thinks he can save the country 2 trillion dollars by firing government workers.
Even if he fired every single government position in the entire country, he couldn’t make up 2 fucking trillion dollars out of that. The budget for payroll is, what? Like 15% of the total spending?
He doesn’t genuinely think that’s true. It’s all a grift.
D epartment
O f
G rifting
E veryone
D epartment
O f
G overnment
E xploitation
D epartment
O f
G etting
E ven
D epartment
O f
G ooning
E dgelords
I mean, it’s good but “E for Everyone” is also available.
Edited with your suggestion :)
You gotta
cross it outso we know how good @ArgentRaven@lemmy.world helped ya 😉
I had to look up what an “endomorph” is; sounds like it’s the “built like a tank” body type. So I mean, c’mon man. I know the kinda people you’re aiming for, but you hit a bunch of other people in the process. Not judging you too hard, I’ve done the same thing (and will probably continue to make the same or similar mistakes), but… Yeah.
Edit: to explain my discomfort, based on what I’ve read, “endomorph” is a body type that could be described as stocky. Not fat, not obese or stupid or a meathead, but just stocky. I’ve known people like that, and none of them were the kinda people who’d get fooled by Trump. They weren’t stupid, they were in very, very good shape, and they were kind people. The implication in the post, however, is that people who have that body type are easily grifted by Trump & Co.
(Also, fat shaming isn’t a very nice thing to do. You might think obese people are ugly or gross, but they’re still people and they still have feelings. Don’t be a dick.)
Gravy seals. Yall’qaeda
See, those would be better terms to use. It wouldn’t fit the acronym, but they’d be more precise and not imply that chunky people are easily grifted.
Thanks for the constructive criticism, it has been edited for a better meaning
It was not meant to imply “that chunky people are easily grifted”, my intent was that Elon & Trump were the endomorphs, but it was obviously easily misconstrued.
Either way, your point was valid and it has been edited :)
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Eliminate military budget
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Eliminate all social services, payroll, including ACA, social security, etc.
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Suck Putin’s dick
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Profit.
- Eliminate military budget
Hah! Good one.
Here’s another bad joke:
Elect Russian puppet, trump.
You know what the punchline is?
-
The funny thing is this sweep will likely be very indiscriminate so among those fired many will have voted for Trump hoping groceries will be cheaper. They will learn first hand what happens when you entrust government to psychopaths and techbros.
This dipshit thinks he can save the country 2 trillion dollars by firing government workers.
This dude has no intention of saving anyone but himself.
feels like im playing plague inc. and these are all joke news
Please, someone uninstall this version of the game!
Drinking asbestos paste lets you escape the simulation
And it’s delicious
The government doesn’t want you to know this
They want it all for themselves
So… if I apply for a super high IQ job that’s unpaid, does that prove I’m under qualified?
Yeah the real intelligence test is whether or not you apply, and if you do, you’ve already failed.
Spoiler
Lot’s of people are gonna apply, cause the payment is the chance for grifting
So you need to be rich enough to not need the salary, morally flexible enough to work for Elmo, and stupid enough to brag about your IQ.
People who boast about their I.Q. are losers. —Stephen Hawking
…… while not understanding the percentiles they gave you on the online IQ test.
They will be paid, just not by the government.
You thought lobbying was bad? Lol
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.
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.
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.
My first thought was spies… because they are already on someone else’s payroll.
Also, bootlickers and extremely desperate people that would take on any job.People “desperate for any job” are actually desperate for money and willing to work for it. They won’t take an unpaid position, what are you thinking?
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.
Undocumented immigrants paid $96 billion in 2023, they don’t benefit from them but imagine if all of them get to pay taxes.
deleted by creator
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.
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.
Reprocessing of old pits.
It’s more a matter of precision, purity, infrastructure, and staffing.
And you can have them effective/guaranteed to work, safe/without personnel or environmental contamination, or cheap. Pick two.
my bingo card is almost full, just missing universal basic income - people with money, spend money, supporting businesses and thus “the economy”.
I want YOU to be POTUS. Right now.
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.
Why would Russia have to disarm their nukes? That doesn’t make any sense. Getting them to surrender the occupied territory would be enough.
That would be nice, but they won’t suddenly surrender.
Russia already lost 500000-700000 men. This war only ends when Moscow is in ruins or when the nation is bankrupted.
Smart people don’t work for the bad guys for free Jack.
Can this department kick it off by eliminating itself, since it’s a wish.com version of https://www.gao.gov/
It’s really great that his government efficiency department is in fact duplicative. An excellent microcosm
Now all that’s left is for the GAO to audit DOGE and discover fraud.
Like when the FBI investigated Trump and found corruption and therefore he was removed from ever running in our elections?
Win a grift by pretending you are an idiot
Your opponent is Elon Musk
I think it’d be simultaneously easier, more productive, and more fulfilling to just take the L.
Fuck. I can’t out-stupid this guy. I won’t win.
Just to make sure I understand. Musk is going to run an orgination who will advise the federal government to cut regulations that are in the way of him making more money. And this is in no way a conflict of interest.
That’s specifically why it won’t be a government agency. So they won’t be bound by any ethics rules. Make no mistake, this is not a silly one-off. This is the first step of privatizing the government.
This message was brought to you by Brando. Water’s stupid.
Man that leopards are gonna get so fat on conservative faces.
They will have to sub contract out some of their face eating.
What an idiot. Just ask daddy for a small 1 million dollar loan. Its just that easy.
do “high-IQ” individuals even exist on the republican isle? why would a lefty want to get involved in this shit, especially unpaid? what idiot would accept unpaid labour under a multi-billionaire?
High IQ individuals definitely exist on the republican side. The only thing is that they are the most selfish kind (hence why they are republican) and hence they won’t work for free.
IQ tests intentionally omit any questions related to empathy, emotional intelligence and creativity, so it can favour people from the top of the pile and act as accurate perdictor of success in ruthless capitalist society. It implicitly promotes lack of those traits in individuals and explicitly promotes the definition of intelligence that’s unrelated to them. While you don’t get lower scores if you’re highly creative or empathetic person, so it’s not directly a detrimental for society and can be a useful metric for some cases like specific jobs, it’s image as sole measure of intelect is manufactured to promote “specific kind of people”, to which group many republican businessmen would belong.
I’m not disagreeing with what you said, just thought I’d expand on that.
I would imagine there’s a few high IQ people willing to be exploited because they get to work with their heroes: Shit Bag #1 and Shit Bag #2.
if those are their heroes they aren’t “high-IQ”
Or, as another commenter pointed out, because their corporate bosses are paying gobs of money to them to ‘volunteer’ for these positions.
Or they just use the gig to grift. Seems like there would be a lot of opportunities to take bribes in a position like that.
(They mean folk indoctrinated into their ethonationalist world view, usually white.)
I’m considering it. I would cut the military budget in half.
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.
Perfection.
You need super high IQ people to create memes like that
Clearly. I’m also prepared to pay the handsome sum of $0. Where is my cabinet position?
That was my reaction almost exactly. It’s like Dunning-Kruger the job description.
