That’s seriously begging the question of whether a website started to rate the attractiveness of Zuckerberg’s classmates has the same consequences for society if it fails as the government. When you work on something which actually matters, there are virtues other than speed. What the Republicans are doing is like clearing your lawn by setting it on fire, saying they didn’t have time to do anything slower.
It’s estimated that just the USAID cuts alone are on the order of hundreds of children being born HIV positive every day, not to mention the impact of food aid disappearing during a famine, or shutting down the last option for afghan women to get educated:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/opinion/hiv-usaid-freeze-...
The science funding has a lower death toll, of course, but it profoundly disrupts careers and pushes people out of the country. Someone educated in the United States who returns to their home country ends up competing with us and probably won’t come back. The grad student getting cut now will probably end up leaving science entirely (people need to make rent and student loan payments) so we’ll be missing out on their lifetime achievements and also the later-career guidance they would have given the next generation.
The federal government as a whole becomes less efficient because fewer top people will be willing to work for lower pay without job security and every contractor will be pricing in future disruption.
Shutting off the government means that things can be irreparably damaged. Losing a generation of scientists because of random cullings at the NSF will have effects for decades.
In the worst case, "moving fast and breaking things" with the government will kill people. For example, many patients were kicked off clinical trials during the NIH funding freeze. Abroad, the end of PEPFAR could kill untold numbers of people.
It's a very strong claim to say no lives depend on any federal funding.
It’s gone. People are dying because it’s gone.
By the by, USAID was investigating Starlink in Ukraine. [0]
CFPB and Twitter “money” [1]
FAA and spacex.
Etc etc etc.
[0] https://oig.usaid.gov/node/6814 [1] https://www.npr.org/2025/02/12/nx-s1-5293382/x-elon-musk-dog...
These people also can't afford AIDS medications.
This is just one of many examples.
Your standard given here already isn't being held to in the most basic, obvious ways.
Except with the federal government “things” in many instances refers to people’s lives. What’s the acceptable body count to you, as we approach haphazardly and unconstitutionally reducing the deficit?
These government programs aren't stray servers in a closet.
Even if you believe that these programs should be stopped, it's entirely wasteful to abruptly end them and let their work in progress just crash out and burn.
But it's still a very bad idea to operate this way. There is no rapid feedback loop. The negative effects can be subtle and take years to ripple through the economy and science world.
This is like taking over Apple and tearing apart its culture and management. Only bad will come out of it.
Trump isn't changing that. Don't kid yourself.