I’m ok with age being used as a partial proxy for experience when we’re talking about highly specialized roles with massive implications like the ones that DOGE staffers were dropped into.
I’m ok with age being used as a partial proxy for experience when we’re talking about highly specialized roles with massive implications like the ones that DOGE staffers were dropped into.
It's not a highly specialized role. Look at the contracts they were cutting. A lot of it could be done by an LLM.
> $191k USAGM broadcasting contract for “broadcast operations and maintenance in Ethiopia, Africa”
> $1.3M State Dept. education contract for “Botswana MI curriculum”
etc
> $191k USAGM broadcasting contract for “broadcast operations and maintenance in Ethiopia, Africa”
USAGM's mission is to promote the USA's diplomatic interests in parts of the world with little or no press freedom. Whole thing was cut by executive order of Trump to the maximum extent possible.
Because of that order, it's not even a "not specialised" role, it's not a role.
If USAGM should be cut or not, should have been the choice of congress rather than the executive, but that's a different question entirely.
> Botswana MI curriculum
What's "MI"? Mission-Influenced? That sounds like a plausible amount to spend on a curriculum about Botswana for the benefit of the State Department, let alone in Botswana on anything.
And if it is in Botswana, you have to then actually ask "what is this mission, and is this in the interests of the USA taxpayer?", which needs specialists.