politics

I feel like I disagree with this approach to government efficiency:

https://x.com/DOGE/status/1860739165144367441

The examples listed are a tiny fraction of all spending. If a government _optimizes_ for "don't make oopses that look bad on twitter", then it will end up missing a lot of valuable opportunities, and at the same time lots of actually-wasteful large-scale things will remain just because they look respectable.

You _want_ a VC-like approach on small-scale public funding, that is okay with large quantities of oopses, because its goal is to make sure it captures the 1000x opportunities. Concentrate prudence energy on the large-scale stuff.

How the Government Spends your Tax Dollars: 
-$28 million on licensing fees for a green “camouflage” pattern on Afghan National Army uniforms 
-$2.5 million on a Super Bowl Ad for the Census 
-$1.7 million for holograms of dead comedians -$500,000 to build an IHOP in Washington,…