That is sadly life in private sector for a majority of all workers.

Yeah, I mean that's pretty much at the core of Musk's (and Trump's) philosophy.

I thought that a reasonably free, vital, innovative, and prosperous society was compatible with a fundamental respect for human dignity. That's why I moved to Europe. Now it seems I was overoptimistic, but that doesn't mean we should wholly embrace backsliding right into the 19th century version of "progress".

It is the same reason I moved to Europe.

I don't think I was overoptimistic. It was literally the best decision I ever made, in every aspect I can think of.

> I don't think I was overoptimistic. It was literally the best decision I ever made, in every aspect I can think of.

A lot of folks mention the lower salaries in Europe (generally, and especially for tech): has mattered much in your (personal) experience for quality of life and happiness?

What imho matters more is culture. There is less of a salary, but a culture of safety and stability.

However, this is not for everyone: While you can be more sure of keeping your job in rough times, you can also be sure that the lazy idiot 2 desks over will keep his job. And you can be sure that any change will be resisted because change is seen as inherently bad and threatening, and reasons will be found to shoot down your new-fangled fancy ideas. YMMV, to each his own, etc.

For me, the lower salary has not affected my daily life too much. I saved a lot of money in the US, but now making about 100k between myself and my partner in the Netherlands, we are still living a comfortable life. We own a car, bought a house in 2024, and we are saving about 1k per month into various sinking funds with a net savings closer to 500/pm. No kids yet, but hopefully with raises and generous family leave policies, I think we will be okay.

My quality of life is insanely better. I live in a walkable small city in the south. I walk to the grocery store a few times a week. I bike to the library or to the train station. My job turns off at 5pm and I don’t work on the weekends unless I want to. Even then, that weekend work time can be substituted for work during the week.

The biggest downside for us has been the cost of traveling back to the US to see family. It’s very expensive for us to fly home since we also need to rent a car usually. Even saving 1k per month, that’s a significant part of the yearly savings just going to buy plane tickets for one big trip per year. After we have kids, I suspect grandma and grandpa will be coming here to visit more often because we can’t afford to fly with a family of 4 or 5 more than once every other year. Not to mention the tax implications of spending too much time abroad.

If you can afford to try it out, take a 90 day visa and just chill and see if the lifestyle works for you (including remote work). Worst case scenario, you go back to the US after a year if you hate it.

No. But it depends on they type of life you choose to lead.

I just wanted enough to buy a house and raise a family, and I could earn enough for this. A comfortable middle class life in a nice neighborhood.

I also appreciate the safety nets and worker protections here in Europe. I recently went through a serious medical condition that in the US would have me bankrupt. Here I had no issues.

Had I moved to the US I would by now be either dead or broke.

I took the "overoptimisim" to mean that the parent thought Europe could defend and maintain this outlook well into the forseeable future, an assumption that is being tested by Europe's own rightward slide. The way things are right now in Europe, to say that it might have been overoptimistic to think that Europe will continue as it has makes sense to me. At the moment, it is unclear to most people who live there how much of their way of life (if any) is subsidized by the US.

This is exactly what I meant, thank you. I’m not sure why you’re getting downvoted.

Before the election, Vivek or Elon or one of the galaxy-brains floated the idea of firing every other employee in the federal government based on the last digit of their social security number.

The cruelty is the point.

There is a difference between cruelty and arbitrariness. It isn't cruelty.

They're going up against a world-class bureaucracy; a human powered machine that is excellent at dragging out changes beyond the term of any politician. Something like "Yes, Minister" is a comedy show except a lot of it is fairly true - they aren't going to get anything done without doing something drastic like cutting a lot of functions and seeing what happens. Otherwise it'll keep growing.

It’s not arbitrary, though. He’s attacking CFPB because he wants to launch financial features on Twitter without oversight. He’s attacking USAID because they helped end apartheid in his native South Africa. It’s really all just a bunch of petty vendettas and looting.

> It’s really all just a bunch of petty vendettas and looting.

Yeah. The technical term for that is "arbitrary". It isn't ideologically motivated; it is based on some dude's opinions based on who-knows-what internal dialogue. Although this financial features on Twitter sounds like a pretty good idea and I'd like to see it in the wild.

A financial institution created by the very person responsible for dismantling our most effective consumer protections against malicious financial institutions sounds like an extremely bad idea.

I'm very curious how anyone could think this is a good idea (for consumers, obviously it's a good idea for Musk)

You can't recognize DOGE as an extreme ideological endeavor simply because it aligns with your ideology.

No it’s not? “Arbitrary” would be if he were, like, picking names out of a hat, or the first one that he sees on Twitter in the morning. He’s attacking agencies for extremely personal and ideological reasons. Literally the opposite of arbitrary.

> Although this financial features on Twitter sounds like a pretty good idea and I'd like to see it in the wild.

Kind of a jaw-dropping reaction to the fact that he’s dismantling the very agency that would be in charge of regulating those features. Honestly, I really struggle to understand the mindset that’s not merely okay with but excited by this sort of egregious corruption.

> Honestly, I really struggle to understand the mindset that’s not merely okay with but excited by this sort of egregious corruption.

Seems like it should be easy to do. We're looking at this big corrupt blob thing of questionable competence that is the US political class, and then one polyp of the mass does something that probably makes the world a little better. Yay. Well done blob thing.

It'd be better if people committed to a high-integrity political class but it is a monumental task (probably multi-generational) and the people trying to progress it haven't made much progress. Suggestions welcome.

Is the "one polyp of mass that does something that probably makes the world a little better"… supposed to be DOGE? The single most nakedly corrupt government body in probably the past century?

Like, are we not commenting on an article about how we recklessly fired dozens to hundreds of people who were overseeing our nuclear weapons stockpile? And it turned out they're actually really important, but we're having trouble contacting them to hire them back? And the group that's responsible for all this… is somehow not the questionably competent one?

I don't really know what to say, man. It's pretty clear this isn't going to go anywhere productive. Have a nice night.

> The single most nakedly corrupt government body in probably the past century?

The last president was forced to issue multiple preemptive pardons for his own family after being dogged for years by serious corruption allegations. That probably counts as worse and it isn't even particularly outrageous by the standards of the US Congress, it seemed to be pretty routine stuff. I'd expect most members of the US congress to struggle if real scrutiny was bought to bear since their financial circumstances often don't appear to make sense.

Then beyond the personal corruption there is the lobbying network that constantly tries and succeeds in writing law for various unsavoury interest groups. Realistically if Musk is doing something corrupt - TBD in my opinion - his major mistake is being directly associated with the changes, he should have learned from the experts and done it discretely like everyone else does.

> And the group that's responsible for all this… is somehow not the questionably competent one?

You seem to have tapped into the mindset with this one. Say it again seriously and you've made it there.

As you mention "Yes, Minister", as a potential metaphor for truth...

That series was based on conversations between the writers and senior civil servants in UK Government. It was Margaret Thatcher's favourite show (she even wrote a scene to perform with the actors at some event or other), because in 1970s and 1980s Britain, it was incredibly on the money.

However, the more apt political comedy to reflect what modern politics looks like isn't "Yes, Minister" or "Yes, Prime Minister" (the sequel), but "The Thick of It", which shows well-meaning but put-upon civil servants dealing with the tyranny and abuse of special advisors and external consultants bullying and demeaning them at every turn. It, too, is based on conversations with real insiders in UK government.

I'll leave it to you to decide which is most apt for modern Washington, but there was a film of the latter mostly set in Washington, which tries to capture the tensions on that side of the Atlantic quite well, with the main joke being the UK's necessary subservience to a larger World power. It's worth a watch.

For my money, Musk looks a lot more like Malcolm Tucker than he does Jim Hacker.

I think being fair is the point. Instead of using any metric that might infringe on a protected class, let's use math?

(Curious what the last digit of Vivek's SS is.)

In another time it was called decimation, and was used as collective punishment.

Ah, thank you, I didn't know.

Seems like a stretch to compare executions and layoffs, no one else is immune to layoffs

The people deciding to execute layoffs are generally immune to those layoffs.

It was Vivek and his plan was to randomly (lottery) fire half of all federal employees the first year and then randomly fire half of those who remain the second year get to an overall 75% reduction.

Talk is cheap. These idiots.

at least it would be known when it starts and when it stops with this solution. the current 'audit' will take years....

Government employees shouldn't be immune to layoffs. If the government goes bankrupt, everyone is much worse off. The longer these systems stay down the worse things can go, this is the most humane way to do what needs to be done. Which is take away the power (money) that the parasitic relationship between business and DC is built on and make sure we don't go bankrupt.

They will be able to collect unemployment, do we know if they are getting severance?

This comment definitely appear to be written a bit too fast and with disregard to the context.

Firing is not an issue. The issue is fire to rehire.

It is not only indicative of poor leadership, but also does it break down institutions - one of the key values government provides.

to contextualize: Do you think you can get people to go to war for the US if you can not make up your mind on whether or not to keep them on payroll?

But we will see how the US will fare with broken down institutions.

I am aware that it is about the fire and rehire. If no one can say why something should exist, then yes, the quickest solution is turn it all off and see what breaks. You might not agree with it but it is a valid strategy given all the dynamics at play. Your definition of leadership isn't my definition.

I don't think we should go to war at all.

I don't think you understand why Trump was elected or middle America culture. The popular vote was a vote against deterring and corrupt institutions that already exist