Slash
The White House is working on an executive order to fire thousands of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services workers, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.
White House on Thursday denied it is drafting an executive order to cut workers across federal health agencies.
According to the Wall Street Journal, under the order, which could come as soon as next week, the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health agencies would have to cut a certain percentage of employees.
How do Musk and his troops know that there is a “certain percentage of employees” who are useless to public health?
Or is that beside the point? Has he simply decided that bad health and early death are worthy goals?
It’s straight out of the McKinsey playbook. Any organisation of X size should have [staff numbers and profile list]. You have more than that so sack…
I recommend reading on The Garden of Forking Paths (website, where essays by Brian Klaas appear) this:
‘The Myth of the Secret Genius
From Elon Musk to Elizabeth Holmes and Donald Trump, many very rich people are effective at convincing us of a myth: they’re secretly a genius, and you’re just too dumb to understand. Are they right?’
It includes links to two fascinating academic papers, one of which, ‘TALENT VERSUS LUCK: THE ROLE OF RANDOMNESS IN SUCCESS AND FAILURE’, “involving,” writes Klaas, “a collaboration between physicists who model complex systems and an economist… has revealed why billionaires are so often mediocre people masquerading as geniuses.”: the other provides, writes Klaas, “reasons why, due to a concept known as evolutionary mismatch, we reward overconfidence. (If you’re interested, this paper published in Nature about a decade ago is the best piece of research I’ve seen written about it). This pervades our society, even in the most seemingly meritocratic realms.”
Tim @2 The problem with that article is that it’s not really a secret. Musk insinuates he’s a savant, while Trump flat out says how much of a genius he is. It all relies on false correlation. The more other people believe it, the more it confirms their own belief. It’s a house of cards surrounded, and jealously guarded by ignorance. Also, wealth at a certain level is self perpetuating, no matter how badly managed — any idiot can get richer. Additionally, it doesn’t take a genius to see through this charade, only a willingness to examine closely and judge accordingly. Despite it’s abstractness, intelligence is in no way metaphysical, no matter how much wishful thinking is applied to it. Besides, what does it matter? These people are where they are no matter how stupid they are, or what we think about them. Trump was still elected despite much more serious flaws than simply being a moron.
You seem, twiliter, simply to be rehearsing a very few of the points that Kaas made – and, yes, it really is not a secret; I was not pretending it was. Why do you feel the need to say this? Sensible people are of course aware that it is no “secret”, which doesn’t alter the fact that vast numbers of people do believe that Musk, Thiel et al are geniuses. I am well aware that intelligence is ‘in no way’ metaphysical, so there is no need to tell me this. Unfortunately, you will find great numbers of people on the right, including a departed and unlamented commenter, who genuinely believe that intelligence and IQ scores are a more or less metaphysical index of worth, and result in ’success’ & ‘wealth’, which, they suppose, demonstrates, in a circular way, that people like Musk & Thiel are geniuses . The fact that there is such a large number of such people who believe such nonsense is an important reason why ’these people are where they are’, as you put it. That is why it matters.
I don’t feel the need to say anything about this other than it’s no secret. Seems we’re in agreement otherwise. Would you rather me just shut up? I mean you know all this, so why hear from the peanut gallery? Why do you feel the need to say things?
Y’know Tim, I’m probably still someone that equates IQ scores with worth but given what I’ve seen going on with this crowd I’m not sure that “worth” is worth that much when it seems tied into levels of antisocial behavior I’d never imagine a smart person would engage in. That and it all seems tied up in racist metaphorical phrenology.
The question I’ve often asked myself is: “Could I tolerate being around a bunch of high functioning autists like myself?”
I really, really don’t think so given the evidence.
Here’s another false correlation. Good-bad is not equivalent to smart-stupid.
It’s not personal folks, false correlations happen. Just pointing it out.
BK didn’t say it was.
Arguing that a smart person would be unlikely to engage in high levels of antisocial behavior is not arguing that smart people are good. Just for one thing, there are plenty of self-interested reasons for not engaging in antisocial behavior.
Agreed. These assessments defy generalizations.
BKSA#6
The trouble is that throughout history there have been plenty of moderately & highly intelligent people who have supported ideas and political movements that were dubious, and often evil. I think of that nasty old Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt (who is actually worth reading, since, in his twisted way, he raises some important issues); or Heidegger; or Lenin; or Gyorgy Lukacs…. one could go on indefinitely. I think we tend to assume, whether we are on the supposed ‘left’ or ‘right’, or somewhere in the supposed middle, that ‘smart’ people must or should think as we do. But they don’t.