It’s extremely onerous to guard a system from somebody—the evil housekeeper from DOGE—who has made their method inside and needs to wreck it. This administration is on the report as eager to outright delete complete departments. Accelerationists will not be solely setting coverage however implementing it by working throughout the administration. If you happen to can’t delete a division, then why not simply break it till it doesn’t work?
That’s why what DOGE is doing is an enormous, terrifying downside, and one I talked by way of earlier in a thread on Bluesky.
Authorities is constructed to be steady. Collectively, we put techniques and guidelines in place to make sure that stability. However whether or not they truly ship and protect stability in the true world isn’t truly concerning the know-how used; it’s concerning the folks utilizing it. When it comes all the way down to it, know-how is a instrument for use by people for human ends. The software program used to run our democratically elected authorities is deployed to perform objectives tied to insurance policies: amassing cash from folks, or giving cash to states to allow them to give cash to individuals who qualify for meals stamps, or making covid assessments accessible to folks.
Often, our expertise of presidency know-how is that it’s outdated or sluggish or unreliable. Definitely not as shiny as what we see within the non-public sector. And that know-how modifications very, very slowly, if it occurs in any respect.
It’s not as if folks don’t understand these techniques may do with modernization. In my expertise troubleshooting and modernizing authorities techniques in California and the federal authorities, I labored with Head Begin, Medicaid, youngster welfare, and logistics on the Division of Protection. A few of these techniques had been already present process modernization makes an attempt, lots of which had been and proceed to be late, over finances, or simply plain damaged. However the modifications which can be wanted to make different techniques extra trendy had been continuously seen as too dangerous or too costly. In different phrases, not vital sufficient.
In fact, some modifications are deemed vital sufficient. The covid-19 pandemic and our unemployment insurance coverage techniques supply good examples. When covid hit, sure important authorities applied sciences out of the blue grew to become seen. These techniques, like unemployment insurance coverage portals, additionally grew to become politically vital, similar to the launch of the Inexpensive Care Act web site (which is why it acquired a lot consideration when it was botched).
Political consideration can change every part. In the course of the pandemic, out of the blue it wasn’t simply potential to modernize and improve authorities techniques, or to make them less complicated, clearer, and sooner to make use of. It truly occurred. Groups had been parachuted in. Overly restrictive guidelines and procedures had been reassessed and relaxed. Instantly, authorities employees had been allowed to work remotely and to make use of Slack.
