• rational_lib@lemmy.world
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    6 days 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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      6 days 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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        6 days 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.

        • RandomVideos@programming.dev
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          6 days ago

          Wouldnt it be possible that he just likes the doge meme, promoting a cryptocurrency that is named after it?

          • TheSlad@sh.itjust.works
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            6 days 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 ia 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.

            • nomous@lemmy.world
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              6 days ago

              100% spot on, pump and dumps are especially rampant in crypto because a couple of people can generate a ton of coins and own the entire market for that coin. If they can get that price to rise even just a fractional amount through whatever completely unregulated means they can dump it to the suckers buying and cash out. It’s like printing money but the printing presses are stupid people.

              • Mike D.@lemm.ee
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                6 days ago

                This has been going on for years.

                People used to find an almost dead crypto-coin, buy up as many coins as possible, and then pretend they were developing back from the dead. Then they would cash out.

      • antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 days ago

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

        It used to be so, but in recent several years Doge has lived and pretty much been defined in public consciousness by the cryptocurrency, which Musk has openly endorsed/memed.

      • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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        6 days 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

      • sleeperdouge@lemmy.ml
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        6 days ago

        It was for me until a few years ago. I used doge as a base for most of my internet alias since I like the meme (as you can see from my username). One time inside a game, I was asked if I was a crypto bro because of my ign. At the time, i don’t like crypto but have no hard feelings against it. Ever since then I loath those crypto bros and their worship of crypto currencies for destroying the image of doge and with their stupid crypto currency nonsense.

  • GreatTitEnthusiast@mander.xyz
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    6 days 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

    • BossDj@lemm.ee
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      6 days ago

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

        • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
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          6 days 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

        • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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          6 days 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.

        • MirthfulAlembic@lemmy.world
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          6 days 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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            6 days 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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              6 days 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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                6 days 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.

  • 9point6@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    And so the US lost decade becomes the medieval dark ages

    It’d be fascinating as an outsider if the choices made by the US didn’t basically impact everything, everywhere.

  • skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de
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    6 days 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
  • mac@lemm.ee
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    6 days ago

    The appointment of Elon Musk to lead the proposed department of government efficiency raises concerns, given his track record of business management.

    His handling of Twitter/X after its $44 billion acquisition has resulted in a significant decline in its value, with some sources putting the valuation around $9bn.

    Doesn’t seem very efficient to me.

    • psud@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

      This idea has been around for a while. Make government more efficient by putting a private enterprise person in charge

      It never worked because the private enterprise person got efficiency by having a cool project or forceful personality in the private enterprise which let them pay their employees poorly. Or maybe they paid their employees well and had excellent success. But then they have government employees who are hard to fire, have highly specialist knowledge, aren’t in it for profit and so the private enterprise maverick is usually [worse than] useless

      I don’t expect it to work this time either, especially as Musk is more interested in Tesla, SpaceX, and his other companies

    • Dasus@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      Not just significant, I’m pretty sure the loss in value is some sort of a record, for real.

  • pH3ra@lemmy.ml
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    6 days ago

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

    • psud@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

      China has a problem. It isn’t good at finding the best people and putting them into science (or whatever else). Instead it gets the loyal people and gives them the best jobs, they then select people below them however they will

      People then strive for recognition and advancement so scientific fraud is rife

    • djsoren19@yiffit.net
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      6 days ago

      Won’t happen, or at least won’t be useful if it does. Lotta Chinese authors are faking data for the sake of the CCP and their studies don’t replicate. If that takes over, it’ll be like a global Dark Age.

    • TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com
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      6 days ago

      Going to continue devouring the scientific world with lots of smart Westerners leaving the new SlaveTastictm USA

      • Zement@feddit.nl
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        6 days ago

        Republicans deserve no progress. Let them fall back into the ages they desire. No Smartphones. That’s which science.

  • Sylvartas@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

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

      • Sylvartas@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        True, but I don’t think many of them would say that to your face (including musk who I assume would pretend to be neolib, who do kind of have a hate boner for basic research, at least in my country)

        • ReCursing@lemmings.world
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          4 days ago

          Fascists lie, including about being fascists. Trump is a fascist, his party are fascists, those who work for him, even if they don’t go all in on fascists values, are absolutely tarrable with the same brush. The biggest difference between them and the Nazis is that the Nazis had better dress sense

    • fsxylo@sh.itjust.works
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      6 days ago

      Which is stupid, because even video games make you research sticks before you can make nuclear reactors. Guess even entertainment can’t teach dumb shits anything. Just retaining nothing.

  • Randelung@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

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

    • pufferfisherpowder@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

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

    • django@discuss.tchncs.de
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      6 days 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.

      • psud@aussie.zone
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        6 days ago

        Living in Australia, with China just to the north as our largest trade partner, I’m not looking forward to what is going to happen with America’s allies in relation to China

    • Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works
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      6 days ago

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

  • masterofn001@lemmy.ca
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    6 days ago

    It’s also helped develop advances in flight, metamaterials, physics.

    But Barbie makes a good point with a meme about how she treats her cuck husband.

  • mayhair@discuss.tchncs.de
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    6 days ago

    Yeah, we’ve been studying the sex lives of various different animals (including ourselves!) for centuries now, yet nobody bat an eye until now. 🙄

  • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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    6 days 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!”

    • skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de
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      6 days ago

      reproductive habits of some insects are of critical importance in pest control in agriculture

      natural product chemists (it’s a subfield of organic chemistry) find and identify new weird shit in obscure organisms (esp marine organisms) all the time. because amounts are tiny, then their work is on synthesis of the same thing. some of these turn out to be useful