Those that may cancel were never really open to new ideas. Jumping at conclusions, while always present, is much more explosive in today’s online social world. It seems no one takes the time anymore to think and reason things out for themselves (obviously a generalization since it doesn’t include you). Keep on going.
I’m a fierce advocate of DOGE *in general* and I ate this piece up like intellectual candy. Thank you for this analysis. I get the impression that what Musk et al are doing is akin to chemotherapy for the cancer cells of the deep state: effective at killing it to save the organism (the constitutional republic called the USA), with some pretty bad side effects. You’re absolutely right that someone involved with DOGE needs to retract that statement, or at least add to it to provide clarity and factual revision. Until that happens, I’ll continue to advocate for the chemotherapy that they’re providing, but with a more skeptical eye.
Anyone who cancels their subscription to your wonderful Substack over this is someone who ultimately just wants to smell their own farts, rather than feed their intellect.
Liking the chemotherapy reference as it saved both my wife (Stage IV Breast Cancer) to the point our blood markers are almost nonexistent. I hope future predictions of insolvency can be avoided if all the waste is stopped and funds clawed back from the banking accounts of dirty corporations, legacy media, NGOs, and politicians,
I too am in favor of DOGE’s aims in principle, but am getting steadily more concerned about how this is playing out in practice. Starting to wonder if this is less about “efficiency” and saving money, and more about kicking over anthills just for the lols. And wondering whether Musk and his minions have ever heard of Chesterton’s Fence.
I would also feel better about the whole exercise if they could convey a clearer vision of the endgame. It’s much easier to tear down than to build up. There are a lot of things the US does (did?) better than anyone else on the world — fundamental research, national parks — that we are suddenly in jeopardy of losing and not being able to get back.
No, they haven’t. Musks’s entire philosophy is quite literally the opposite of Chesterton’s Fence — to move as fast as possible, fail spectacularly, learn from what you find, and then go back and rebuild later if necessary. Which apparently works well if you’re the CEO of your company. We are finding out in real time how well it works if you are running the largest economy of the most sophisticated military-industrial complex in the history of the universe.
The chemotherapy analogy is interesting. Regarding the points that Holly brought up, if DOGE can't admit error and self correct, then the cure may be worse than the disease.
I fear that they may already have gotten into the political mindset where admitting error is viewed as weakness.
I had hoped it would be otherwise and that they would perform a comprehensive external audit of all government programs and that the results would withstand scrutiny.
Andrew Sullivan made a similar point recently (to your last sentence). At this point I’m not optimistic. They seem to be into full-blown, tech-bro “move fast and break things” mode, as Holly already commented.
"Imagine what they might have done. Trump could have announced that Musk and his minions were going in to audit the federal government. Within a few months, they’d bring a report, outlining every insane piece of waste or DEI excess or fraud they could find. Trump would then urge Congress to vote on these reforms. Win, win, win. It’s a great idea to shake up the joint with an outsider! But nah. They are busy ensuring that any cuts they make are brutal, dumb, and destined to expire."
He's correct that producing a report of the audit, then submitting it to Congress to vote on would be the better, and constitutional way to do it. However, the obvious retort to this would be that would guarantee that nothing changed. Therefore it wouldn't be a "Win, win, win" except in the world of performative politics that the pre-Trump Republican party had become so good at and that the Republican base eventually revolted against.
I don't have a good answer myself. The choices now seem to be either managed decline or chaos.
Still here. I appreciate your expertise in explaining all of this. And I understand the psychology behind desperately wanting to take down the people who so smugly put us “deplorables” into one basket. But of course, data matters. Truth matters most and we can’t use the tactics “they” used to say, justify their covid strategy, to exact revenge. I always want to err on the side of critical thinking so thank you for the nudge.
This is a very valuable post; helpful for understanding not just the Social Security anomaly, but some useful background for other complex systems. Please let us know if you do get a substantial number of cancellations from paid subscribers. I don't think you will, but your sensible subscribers will want to know.
I can't become a paid subscriber of Josh Slocum just yet, but given your recommendatikn, he moves higher on my list. Thanks!
If you can only afford to pay for one, it should be Josh. Josh is not a data scientist and needs the financial support more than I do. I just gave you free lifetime access to mine. Thank you for your support and your kind email, which made me smile!
Thank you! I have to spread my paid subscriptions out over the course of the year for budgetary/cash flow reasons. I have used my allottment for February (the system is not as sophisticated as Dave Ramsey's envelopes, but it is on that order) so it will be March (or maybe April) till the next round of paid subscription(s) for me. The update to your post was good to read. Peace and better days to you.
One thing that occurred to me, as I was considering Elon’s gullibility, is that this can be an autistic trait.
I am not always gullible. But I surprise myself from time to time when I realize that I have been gullible yet again, even after 63 years of experience with encountering information which is not what it appears to be.
This is kind of what I'm wondering too. He was irresponsible in the way he tweeted vaguely and then let the firestorm swirl without clarification, but it does kind of make sense.
Perhaps the reason people on the right are willing to suspend the practice of trust but verify is because they've completely lost trust in everything they thought was true. They either adopt default cynicism regarding everything they read or hear, or become a member of the tribe that matches closest with their core beliefs. Many have deliriously hoisted Trump and Musk on twin pedestals, hailing them as conquering heroes. Which is unfortunate, since they are only human, doomed to fall from grace.
I truly hope that Musk will own up to his foolish mistake, otherwise everything DOGE has accomplished or will accomplish will be questioned or doubted.
I never trust first. At 71, the experiences of being exploited as a soldier, as a civilian employee, lied to, and stock swindled have reinforced verify, verify, verify,
Thanks Holly, a very interesting take on Musk. As I am in NZ I don’t have any skin in the game regarding your government waste so I won’t be ditching my subscription any time soon. In NZ I subscribe to the NZ Taxpayers Union which does a very good job at ferreting out waste and holding government accountable. It’s one of the “small is beautiful” benefits that it’s easier to keep track in a country of only 5 million. It’s still absolutely necessary though. You cannot trust a politician or a bureaucrat further than you can spit.
I suspect that many of the people who would have quit over this post left previously after you decided to stop posting about the election.
If you don't mind, it would be interesting if you post a follow up in a week or two about what percentage of your readers actually left over this post.
Speaking for myself, I'm still here. I didn't think Musk's numbers added up, but I also felt that I couldn't trust the mainstream media's reporting on it because I do believe that they would deliberately misrepresent Musk and Trump.
I believe you will tell the truth regardless of whom it benefits.
Even though I know SS is manic about canceling (personal experience with a parent's death), I still kinda wanted it to be true, not going to lie, if only because maybe just maybe it meant the system wasn't edging as quickly to insolvency.
(And some of the memes were funny). Oh well. Bad data strikes again.
I share with you the very unpleasant task of having to walk into social security office and stop a deceased person's payment. It was my mum after she took her own life almost 14ya. When I handed the death cert to the person I was immediately informed they already knew and mum's disability pension had already been stopped...
But that isn't the reason I wrote - or to comment on the specific issues you're covering. Its quite sad to hear of your state and I want to let you know that your writing made a significant addition to someone's life really far away on the other side of the world. Thank you and I wish you all the best to hang in there and come out the other end.
My Esteemed Essayist Holly, the First Amendment is still around so express yourself freely and we both have no choice to see what actually unfolds in the future. I am an incurable optimist on what happens next. Besides, anyone leaving you is a loser who is only hurting themselves for not keeping an open mine and learning from others, love loves from Casey in Arizona
Thanks Holly for checking this out. I heard the claim of 100k over 150 years old and believed it must have been a typo. I hadn't read about the even more preposterous numbers. I hadn't thought about COBOL being a big part of the problem (as it was with Y2K--yes doubters that really was a thing that we spent lots of money to prevent the disaster you never saw. I did however realize that the issue was not how many false birth dates are in the database but how much money goes to those that are false. Even that can be tricky, since a spouse can collect SS based on their spouse's SS benefits. Clearly Musk has let his enthusiasm get ahead of his brain, and his silicon valley style over-hyping is not going to help any more than the Democrats' hyperventilating about starving everyone on the planet by gutting USAID. Musk's numbers have gotten increasingly unhinged, claiming that he can save $2 trillion overnight. Likewise, the FBI claiming, in response to Trump's request, that over 6,000 agents were involved in January 6 investigation and prosecution sounds overhyped by those who might want to excuse themselves by saying, "Everybody was doing it."
In any case, I appreciate your expertise and common sense. When Musk called for volunteers to work DOGE, IIRC he asked for folks to commit to 100 hour weeks for 18 months with no pay. Clearly absurd. Most of us have to sleep..., and eat..., and pay the mortgage or rent. I think it may be time for Trump to tell him to go to his corner and take a timeout, but good luck with that.
Trump overhypes things like making Canada the 51st state or bulldozing Gaza to scare those on the other side of the table (I remember Reagan saying about the Pueblo incident that we should paint stripes on North Korea and turn it into a parking lot.). Musk is just trying to take a premature victory dance. There's no need for that, and he's going to lose his credibility, just as the silly news anchor who claimed that free speech led to the rise of Nazi Germany. And of course it tarnishes those of us who are against the Feds paying out for their pet political causes. Now, I've been aware for a long time that NGOs fund professional agitators for every demonstration, but I wasn't aware they were doing it with money laundered from our government. I just thought they had enough rich nut jobs to do it themselves. After the USAID spigot to NGOs was turned off, I look at the demonstrations and realize what happens when nobody pays for the demonstrators anymore. All the anti-Musk, anti-DOGE demonstrations have been pathetically small in numbers.
I used to work in IT, in the way back when, on monstrous, legacy systems that used COBOL/CICS, VSAM file structures among other ancient tech atrocities. Lol. My husband did, also. We picked the entire presumption apart concerning the chart Musk posted. Our IT backgrounds of old, and working with end users of such systems, gave us a heads-up on what that stupid chart likely meant and didn't mean.
It's a shame that people don't have enough personal wherewithal to take a breath and apply some critical thinking and logic. The pitchforks and torches need to be put down and brains need to be engaged. Jeez.
And I just can't quite decide if Musk is deliberately doing things like this for the joy of chaos, distraction/cover for Trump(the look! squirrel! tactic), or evil. I will say, the word that comes to mind when I take in the total of all I've been exposed to with regards to Musk, the interviews, press briefings, rally speeches, X postings, etc is - Imp. Take that how you will.
I'm sure there is nothing you could write that will toss me off. I might not agree with what you share, but I value your insights and perspective. It's always good to have someone challenge you and make you uncomfortable on occasion.
Those that may cancel were never really open to new ideas. Jumping at conclusions, while always present, is much more explosive in today’s online social world. It seems no one takes the time anymore to think and reason things out for themselves (obviously a generalization since it doesn’t include you). Keep on going.
I’m a fierce advocate of DOGE *in general* and I ate this piece up like intellectual candy. Thank you for this analysis. I get the impression that what Musk et al are doing is akin to chemotherapy for the cancer cells of the deep state: effective at killing it to save the organism (the constitutional republic called the USA), with some pretty bad side effects. You’re absolutely right that someone involved with DOGE needs to retract that statement, or at least add to it to provide clarity and factual revision. Until that happens, I’ll continue to advocate for the chemotherapy that they’re providing, but with a more skeptical eye.
Anyone who cancels their subscription to your wonderful Substack over this is someone who ultimately just wants to smell their own farts, rather than feed their intellect.
Liking the chemotherapy reference as it saved both my wife (Stage IV Breast Cancer) to the point our blood markers are almost nonexistent. I hope future predictions of insolvency can be avoided if all the waste is stopped and funds clawed back from the banking accounts of dirty corporations, legacy media, NGOs, and politicians,
I too am in favor of DOGE’s aims in principle, but am getting steadily more concerned about how this is playing out in practice. Starting to wonder if this is less about “efficiency” and saving money, and more about kicking over anthills just for the lols. And wondering whether Musk and his minions have ever heard of Chesterton’s Fence.
I would also feel better about the whole exercise if they could convey a clearer vision of the endgame. It’s much easier to tear down than to build up. There are a lot of things the US does (did?) better than anyone else on the world — fundamental research, national parks — that we are suddenly in jeopardy of losing and not being able to get back.
No, they haven’t. Musks’s entire philosophy is quite literally the opposite of Chesterton’s Fence — to move as fast as possible, fail spectacularly, learn from what you find, and then go back and rebuild later if necessary. Which apparently works well if you’re the CEO of your company. We are finding out in real time how well it works if you are running the largest economy of the most sophisticated military-industrial complex in the history of the universe.
The chemotherapy analogy is interesting. Regarding the points that Holly brought up, if DOGE can't admit error and self correct, then the cure may be worse than the disease.
I fear that they may already have gotten into the political mindset where admitting error is viewed as weakness.
I had hoped it would be otherwise and that they would perform a comprehensive external audit of all government programs and that the results would withstand scrutiny.
Andrew Sullivan made a similar point recently (to your last sentence). At this point I’m not optimistic. They seem to be into full-blown, tech-bro “move fast and break things” mode, as Holly already commented.
Yes, I saw Sullivan's quote.
"Imagine what they might have done. Trump could have announced that Musk and his minions were going in to audit the federal government. Within a few months, they’d bring a report, outlining every insane piece of waste or DEI excess or fraud they could find. Trump would then urge Congress to vote on these reforms. Win, win, win. It’s a great idea to shake up the joint with an outsider! But nah. They are busy ensuring that any cuts they make are brutal, dumb, and destined to expire."
https://substack.com/@sullydish/note/c-93531074
He's correct that producing a report of the audit, then submitting it to Congress to vote on would be the better, and constitutional way to do it. However, the obvious retort to this would be that would guarantee that nothing changed. Therefore it wouldn't be a "Win, win, win" except in the world of performative politics that the pre-Trump Republican party had become so good at and that the Republican base eventually revolted against.
I don't have a good answer myself. The choices now seem to be either managed decline or chaos.
Still here. I appreciate your expertise in explaining all of this. And I understand the psychology behind desperately wanting to take down the people who so smugly put us “deplorables” into one basket. But of course, data matters. Truth matters most and we can’t use the tactics “they” used to say, justify their covid strategy, to exact revenge. I always want to err on the side of critical thinking so thank you for the nudge.
This is a very valuable post; helpful for understanding not just the Social Security anomaly, but some useful background for other complex systems. Please let us know if you do get a substantial number of cancellations from paid subscribers. I don't think you will, but your sensible subscribers will want to know.
I can't become a paid subscriber of Josh Slocum just yet, but given your recommendatikn, he moves higher on my list. Thanks!
If you can only afford to pay for one, it should be Josh. Josh is not a data scientist and needs the financial support more than I do. I just gave you free lifetime access to mine. Thank you for your support and your kind email, which made me smile!
Thank you! I have to spread my paid subscriptions out over the course of the year for budgetary/cash flow reasons. I have used my allottment for February (the system is not as sophisticated as Dave Ramsey's envelopes, but it is on that order) so it will be March (or maybe April) till the next round of paid subscription(s) for me. The update to your post was good to read. Peace and better days to you.
One thing that occurred to me, as I was considering Elon’s gullibility, is that this can be an autistic trait.
I am not always gullible. But I surprise myself from time to time when I realize that I have been gullible yet again, even after 63 years of experience with encountering information which is not what it appears to be.
This is kind of what I'm wondering too. He was irresponsible in the way he tweeted vaguely and then let the firestorm swirl without clarification, but it does kind of make sense.
Perhaps the reason people on the right are willing to suspend the practice of trust but verify is because they've completely lost trust in everything they thought was true. They either adopt default cynicism regarding everything they read or hear, or become a member of the tribe that matches closest with their core beliefs. Many have deliriously hoisted Trump and Musk on twin pedestals, hailing them as conquering heroes. Which is unfortunate, since they are only human, doomed to fall from grace.
I truly hope that Musk will own up to his foolish mistake, otherwise everything DOGE has accomplished or will accomplish will be questioned or doubted.
I never trust first. At 71, the experiences of being exploited as a soldier, as a civilian employee, lied to, and stock swindled have reinforced verify, verify, verify,
Thanks Holly, a very interesting take on Musk. As I am in NZ I don’t have any skin in the game regarding your government waste so I won’t be ditching my subscription any time soon. In NZ I subscribe to the NZ Taxpayers Union which does a very good job at ferreting out waste and holding government accountable. It’s one of the “small is beautiful” benefits that it’s easier to keep track in a country of only 5 million. It’s still absolutely necessary though. You cannot trust a politician or a bureaucrat further than you can spit.
I suspect that many of the people who would have quit over this post left previously after you decided to stop posting about the election.
If you don't mind, it would be interesting if you post a follow up in a week or two about what percentage of your readers actually left over this post.
Speaking for myself, I'm still here. I didn't think Musk's numbers added up, but I also felt that I couldn't trust the mainstream media's reporting on it because I do believe that they would deliberately misrepresent Musk and Trump.
I believe you will tell the truth regardless of whom it benefits.
Amen for Holly's truthfulness, even in times of tough love.
Even though I know SS is manic about canceling (personal experience with a parent's death), I still kinda wanted it to be true, not going to lie, if only because maybe just maybe it meant the system wasn't edging as quickly to insolvency.
(And some of the memes were funny). Oh well. Bad data strikes again.
I share with you the very unpleasant task of having to walk into social security office and stop a deceased person's payment. It was my mum after she took her own life almost 14ya. When I handed the death cert to the person I was immediately informed they already knew and mum's disability pension had already been stopped...
But that isn't the reason I wrote - or to comment on the specific issues you're covering. Its quite sad to hear of your state and I want to let you know that your writing made a significant addition to someone's life really far away on the other side of the world. Thank you and I wish you all the best to hang in there and come out the other end.
My Esteemed Essayist Holly, the First Amendment is still around so express yourself freely and we both have no choice to see what actually unfolds in the future. I am an incurable optimist on what happens next. Besides, anyone leaving you is a loser who is only hurting themselves for not keeping an open mine and learning from others, love loves from Casey in Arizona
Thanks Holly for checking this out. I heard the claim of 100k over 150 years old and believed it must have been a typo. I hadn't read about the even more preposterous numbers. I hadn't thought about COBOL being a big part of the problem (as it was with Y2K--yes doubters that really was a thing that we spent lots of money to prevent the disaster you never saw. I did however realize that the issue was not how many false birth dates are in the database but how much money goes to those that are false. Even that can be tricky, since a spouse can collect SS based on their spouse's SS benefits. Clearly Musk has let his enthusiasm get ahead of his brain, and his silicon valley style over-hyping is not going to help any more than the Democrats' hyperventilating about starving everyone on the planet by gutting USAID. Musk's numbers have gotten increasingly unhinged, claiming that he can save $2 trillion overnight. Likewise, the FBI claiming, in response to Trump's request, that over 6,000 agents were involved in January 6 investigation and prosecution sounds overhyped by those who might want to excuse themselves by saying, "Everybody was doing it."
In any case, I appreciate your expertise and common sense. When Musk called for volunteers to work DOGE, IIRC he asked for folks to commit to 100 hour weeks for 18 months with no pay. Clearly absurd. Most of us have to sleep..., and eat..., and pay the mortgage or rent. I think it may be time for Trump to tell him to go to his corner and take a timeout, but good luck with that.
Trump overhypes things like making Canada the 51st state or bulldozing Gaza to scare those on the other side of the table (I remember Reagan saying about the Pueblo incident that we should paint stripes on North Korea and turn it into a parking lot.). Musk is just trying to take a premature victory dance. There's no need for that, and he's going to lose his credibility, just as the silly news anchor who claimed that free speech led to the rise of Nazi Germany. And of course it tarnishes those of us who are against the Feds paying out for their pet political causes. Now, I've been aware for a long time that NGOs fund professional agitators for every demonstration, but I wasn't aware they were doing it with money laundered from our government. I just thought they had enough rich nut jobs to do it themselves. After the USAID spigot to NGOs was turned off, I look at the demonstrations and realize what happens when nobody pays for the demonstrators anymore. All the anti-Musk, anti-DOGE demonstrations have been pathetically small in numbers.
This is great, thank you! I wish we had more people like you willing to check your own biases and examine data critically, not fewer.
Thank you!!
I used to work in IT, in the way back when, on monstrous, legacy systems that used COBOL/CICS, VSAM file structures among other ancient tech atrocities. Lol. My husband did, also. We picked the entire presumption apart concerning the chart Musk posted. Our IT backgrounds of old, and working with end users of such systems, gave us a heads-up on what that stupid chart likely meant and didn't mean.
It's a shame that people don't have enough personal wherewithal to take a breath and apply some critical thinking and logic. The pitchforks and torches need to be put down and brains need to be engaged. Jeez.
And I just can't quite decide if Musk is deliberately doing things like this for the joy of chaos, distraction/cover for Trump(the look! squirrel! tactic), or evil. I will say, the word that comes to mind when I take in the total of all I've been exposed to with regards to Musk, the interviews, press briefings, rally speeches, X postings, etc is - Imp. Take that how you will.
I'm sure there is nothing you could write that will toss me off. I might not agree with what you share, but I value your insights and perspective. It's always good to have someone challenge you and make you uncomfortable on occasion.
Elon is Chaos, and that's something I've been thinking about since 2022. It's very interesting to consider here.
Outstanding. Thank you Holly!
Top. Tier. Post quality.