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From COBOL to chaos: Elon Musk, DOGE, and the Evil Housekeeper Problem
- Elon Musk and President Trump’s DOGE is a massive, terrifying problem, akin to the Evil Housekeeper Problem, with huge practical consequences that require extensive planning to deal with.
- The addition of accelerationists to government may drive the outright deletion of entire departments. This means that breaking systems until they stop working properly becomes a viable option for some.
- Government is built to be stable, but whether they are depends on the people behind them. Technology is merely a tool that humans use for human ends.
- Government technologies are often slow or unreliable, and change infrequently if at all. Modernisations are often considered too risky or expensive, making the changes that are deemed important all the more important.
- Rules and procedures have been in place to stop the breaking of already fragile government systems for quite some time, making reform and modernisation difficult.
- The technology we have is only good as the people who operate and enforce it. If people break those rules even with impunity, there is very little that can be done to stop them.
- Unprecedented levels of responsibility have been shown by the administration and its leaders; the current lack of fear means that sensitive systems are subjected to an unacceptable degree of vulnerability.
- There is a significant risk to all those relying on functional government technological systems.
- Community and networking are essential in the face of potential disasters relating to failure in the federal government.
- The challenge posed by the DOGE experiment is a huge, terrifying threat that brings with it the potential for devastating consequences, showing that government technology is the safest form of technology to rely upon.
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