Packy, this is blissfully ignorant of the social impacts we may be facing and all of the harm that has *actually been proposed and promised* to so many families, women, and children by a insurrectionist, racist felon. Your ignorance of the costs that will be paid by so many is tragically disappointing. I really thought your perspective was more comprehensive and well-balanced than optimism for optimism's sake, but it's clear you've sacrificed the moral high-ground. No government is perfect, and certainly blue cities and states could and *must* drastically streamline regulations to *at the very least* build (so much) more housing, but you know what really fixes the machine fixing the machines? What establishes a baseline that everyone can rely on? Health care. Clean water. Clean air. Eliminating lunch debt. Outcome-based missions, like aggressively reducing fossil fuel subsidies to zero, so 8 million people a year around the world don't have to die because of air pollution. You can do so much better than this. I'm incredibly disappointed.
Yes, and the bubble you describe will be lead by an immoral, valueless person that only seeks to empower himself and his ego. What possibly could go wrong?
I hope you’re right but fear you’re wrong. Take one example: eliminating the Dept of Education. The vast majority of its funding is not stuff like DEI - that’s a rounding error. Only 1% of its funding is payroll. 95% goes to stuff like Pell grants and funding for K12. Those are investments in human capital, not busybody bureaucrats.
There’s an argument to be made that those kinds of funds lead to higher tuition. That may be true. But the process of cutting it out will directly result in fewer students going to college and trade school, fewer teachers (who will be forced to look for jobs elsewhere) and thus lower human capital.
What a brilliantly naïve piece. What you you failed to mention is the screamingly obvious that this is a corrupt move to steal trillions of dollars from the American economy and put it in the pockets of people that would boil the planet for money. Baubles for the deeply stupid to gawk at while the existential threat of being able to even weather the weather overwhelms billions of humans with no recourse or reversibility. Never mind the distractions of outrage and racist xenophobic cruelty to take everyone’s eyes off the full speed ahead criming. Fox News host as secretary of defense? Pure distraction from the extraction of the coin of the realm to pockets that have no loyalty, responsibility or morals.
Mafia state Fascism draped in tech progress (for who?) is still a shell game as much as fake patriotism and religion.
Crypto dreams and AI virtualization of reality will have devastating repercussions for this thing called humanity, but who cares? Tech bros gotta eat and join the elite.
Power, money, staying out of prison. Rapist. Felon. Fraud. Do you really believe he has the country’s best interest? I hope we become more healthy. Are you listening to women who are losing autonomy over their bodies in many states? I am trying very hard to keep an open mind. I did so in 2017. First up, Muslim ban. My daughter is gay. Trying to start a family. Many in my family have suffered miscarriages. Later in pregnancy. They had abortions to save them. I will not be that mom , aunt, running through a hospital screaming at someone to save my loved one. Just a woman giving her 2 cents in this tech world.
In the tech bro world, we're collateral damage. What's a few dead women to the (apparently) exciting prospect of growth bubbles? Women take a step back about 50 years but it's all good if it's balanced out by innovation bubbles.
While I appreciate the optimism about Trump ushering in an era of productivity and change, it’s hard to overlook the track record. We’ve seen a leader who struggles to maintain focus on complex issues and whose personal egotism often undermines even the most capable advisors. During his first term, any initial hope for impactful and effective change was overshadowed by chaos and internal strife. It’s difficult to be optimistic about a repeat term when the evidence points to a cycle of promising starts followed by self-inflicted implosions.
i kept reading, thinking this was a parody that would go into trump's decades long proven record of business failures, and his uncanny ability to only retain the worst of a pile of ingratiating hires.
the only sure thing here is policy will only line up with grift at the largest scale possible.
Ehhhh, there are some interesting ideas here but not sure it tracks so well with what has actually gone down over the last 48 hours. Susie Wiles just put Elon at the DOGE kids table while calling in the war hawks to truly run the government.
I suppose I track pretty closely to Aaron Levie here-- a Kamala voter who (professionally) is selfishly excited about what some facets of The Trump Bubble could unleash, for my bags if not for the country writ large. But early signals are that this vision above isn't exactly going to be the overall governing reality.
War hawks? Two of the biggest hawks under consideration for the cabinet were NOT selected, Mike Pompeo and Nicki Haley. What's your basis for saying that Trump or his associates are hawks? Trump's previous four years were some of the most peaceful. Both Obama and Biden have seen wars develop on their watch. Russia took Crimea while Obama stood by. Russia invaded Ukraine (again) under Biden. For better or worse, Biden did not stand by. Russia didn't invade anything under Trump.
Most of their policies, statements and actions-- Rubio & Waltz are hawks tho ironically, to your point, not the ones China fears most. Hegseth is a bit of a wildcard but China seems semi relieved by his appointment, which surprised me.
Who knows what the Trump's second term will bring but the very early writing on the wall to me looks more like good ol' fashioned hardline Republican politics vs. some grand new age, pro-tech, deregulatory framework that I think people like Packy are hoping for.
Trump's greatest talent has always been that he can make wide swaths of people (often with competing worldviews and interests) believe that he will implement their unique visions/hopes for America as policy and I think he pulled that brilliantly on the tech industry in 2024...let's see.
I'm no expert on Waltz, but with what I know, I like him fine.
You don't win friends in DC by calling it a swamp. But it is a swamp. Trump knows his way thru that swamp better this time than last time. And he has far more popular support.
No one person can fix this mess, but I think Trump will make the best possible headway. He has twice, possibly three times, been elected when nearly the entire political and media establishment opposed him. No, it's not that he is so good; it is that they suck so bad.
I'm amused that neither the word "corruption" nor the phrase "conflict of interest" appeared anywhere in your piece. The self-dealing in this administration is going to be Biblical in scale.
Serious question: How would you distinguish a rush of people excited to “unclog the machine” from a rush of people excited to capture national interests for private profit?
This feels like an American perestroika: faceless state power replaced by a voracious oligarchy that is just as indifferent to suffering but far less accountable.
Nothing like extolling the virtues of a serial sexual predator. For those Trump supporters who have mothers, daughters, granddaughters, no doubt you will explain to them: if they are sexually assaulted/raped, they need to understand that person is a leader and should run for public office. Many people have lost their moral compass, if they had one, to begin with. For years, I’ve been fully invested in leading-edge technology companies: rockets, silicon anode batteries, chip lithography machines, etc. It didn’t require electing a serial sexual predator/rapist to the highest political office in the U.S. Blind ambition for the mighty dollar never ends well. You conveniently left out the Housing Bubble, which precipitated a prolonged eight-year recession that irreparably damaged the financial futures of millions of Americans. You also left out the fact that TSLA was pulled back from the brink of bankruptcy by a sweetheart federal loan. It’s as if nothing good happened until Saint Trump descended from the heavens. Some businessman: how do you go broke in the casino business? Even his ties to the Mafia couldn’t help Trump. If Trump had invested his inheritance from his father in an S&P 500 Index Fund, he would be multiples richer. He’s a business alright, because he played one on TV. Musk is a government contractor now embedded in the government he mocks. If you look at the popular votes counts, Trump’s mandate doesn’t exist. He and “his people” will overreach, which history shows is a mistake.
You technocrats think you’re better than you are. That you can solve all of the world’s problems all the while being completely out of touch with the recommendations you espouse. The hubris is staggering.
> This might break things! SpaceX’s rockets occasionally blow up.
And here I suspect people who've never run a government are miscalibrating - when space x rockets break, you clean up the part. Hopefully, you do it before there is anyone inside the rocket, so that it's not "human part".
For government agencies, I suspect the road from "remove regulation" -> "count bodies because the regulation was slashed" will be higher. Of course it's only intuition, and we'll see how it goes.
I hope the people who understand the various Chesterton's fences will be able to make their case when it matters the most.
But, hey, the people asked, it's their pendulum to swing.
The four largest line items in the Federal budget are Social Security, Defense, Medicare, and Interest on the federal debt. The Department of Education may be a sewer, but it is a relatively inexpensive one.
Tesla really took off when the Government-owned GM and Toyota gave it the $1B Fremont plant for $1. Much of its growth was funded by government subsidies for the purchase of its products. The government undoubtedly wastes money in how it creates the few things that it creates. But most of the waste comes in how it passes out money for others to do things.
Interesting that all the comments seem to share the same sentiment. Can't tell if they just voted Democrat or aren't as optimistic. No one who liked the article spoke up. We all know about Trump's shitty side. But he did win ( I didn't vote for him). I don't see why Packy needs to litigate or caveat (not a verb) all of Trump's wild transgressions. He writes about optimistic outcomes and today was about some of the potential optimism. Sure he seems high on some of those fumes. It's a pretty exciting time to consider having more of a voice to un-fuck the government. My very left echo chamber has been asking for much of this stuff for years. Its not wrong to feel excitement now. You can still feel concern and empathy too.
I can't help but notice that none of your enthusiasm markers/voices are women. Wonder if you recognize this gap or if it's also a bubble.
Instead of just criticizing, how about being constructive and add a link to enthusiastic female Trump supporters? That would narrow the gap.
Interesting that you see this as a criticism. It was an honest question about this specific topic.
Why is gender relevant to the subject of the subject of the article?
Your comment seems like a criticism of the lack of gender diversity in his examples. Was I wrong?
Packy, this is blissfully ignorant of the social impacts we may be facing and all of the harm that has *actually been proposed and promised* to so many families, women, and children by a insurrectionist, racist felon. Your ignorance of the costs that will be paid by so many is tragically disappointing. I really thought your perspective was more comprehensive and well-balanced than optimism for optimism's sake, but it's clear you've sacrificed the moral high-ground. No government is perfect, and certainly blue cities and states could and *must* drastically streamline regulations to *at the very least* build (so much) more housing, but you know what really fixes the machine fixing the machines? What establishes a baseline that everyone can rely on? Health care. Clean water. Clean air. Eliminating lunch debt. Outcome-based missions, like aggressively reducing fossil fuel subsidies to zero, so 8 million people a year around the world don't have to die because of air pollution. You can do so much better than this. I'm incredibly disappointed.
Yes, and the bubble you describe will be lead by an immoral, valueless person that only seeks to empower himself and his ego. What possibly could go wrong?
Ah, yes. The usual tired TDS response.
Get back to us when you have a thought of your own.
I hope you’re right but fear you’re wrong. Take one example: eliminating the Dept of Education. The vast majority of its funding is not stuff like DEI - that’s a rounding error. Only 1% of its funding is payroll. 95% goes to stuff like Pell grants and funding for K12. Those are investments in human capital, not busybody bureaucrats.
There’s an argument to be made that those kinds of funds lead to higher tuition. That may be true. But the process of cutting it out will directly result in fewer students going to college and trade school, fewer teachers (who will be forced to look for jobs elsewhere) and thus lower human capital.
as a product of public education, state schools AND pell grants I am also deeply concerned.
What a brilliantly naïve piece. What you you failed to mention is the screamingly obvious that this is a corrupt move to steal trillions of dollars from the American economy and put it in the pockets of people that would boil the planet for money. Baubles for the deeply stupid to gawk at while the existential threat of being able to even weather the weather overwhelms billions of humans with no recourse or reversibility. Never mind the distractions of outrage and racist xenophobic cruelty to take everyone’s eyes off the full speed ahead criming. Fox News host as secretary of defense? Pure distraction from the extraction of the coin of the realm to pockets that have no loyalty, responsibility or morals.
Mafia state Fascism draped in tech progress (for who?) is still a shell game as much as fake patriotism and religion.
Crypto dreams and AI virtualization of reality will have devastating repercussions for this thing called humanity, but who cares? Tech bros gotta eat and join the elite.
Let them eat cake.
Power, money, staying out of prison. Rapist. Felon. Fraud. Do you really believe he has the country’s best interest? I hope we become more healthy. Are you listening to women who are losing autonomy over their bodies in many states? I am trying very hard to keep an open mind. I did so in 2017. First up, Muslim ban. My daughter is gay. Trying to start a family. Many in my family have suffered miscarriages. Later in pregnancy. They had abortions to save them. I will not be that mom , aunt, running through a hospital screaming at someone to save my loved one. Just a woman giving her 2 cents in this tech world.
In the tech bro world, we're collateral damage. What's a few dead women to the (apparently) exciting prospect of growth bubbles? Women take a step back about 50 years but it's all good if it's balanced out by innovation bubbles.
While I appreciate the optimism about Trump ushering in an era of productivity and change, it’s hard to overlook the track record. We’ve seen a leader who struggles to maintain focus on complex issues and whose personal egotism often undermines even the most capable advisors. During his first term, any initial hope for impactful and effective change was overshadowed by chaos and internal strife. It’s difficult to be optimistic about a repeat term when the evidence points to a cycle of promising starts followed by self-inflicted implosions.
i kept reading, thinking this was a parody that would go into trump's decades long proven record of business failures, and his uncanny ability to only retain the worst of a pile of ingratiating hires.
the only sure thing here is policy will only line up with grift at the largest scale possible.
Ehhhh, there are some interesting ideas here but not sure it tracks so well with what has actually gone down over the last 48 hours. Susie Wiles just put Elon at the DOGE kids table while calling in the war hawks to truly run the government.
I suppose I track pretty closely to Aaron Levie here-- a Kamala voter who (professionally) is selfishly excited about what some facets of The Trump Bubble could unleash, for my bags if not for the country writ large. But early signals are that this vision above isn't exactly going to be the overall governing reality.
War hawks? Two of the biggest hawks under consideration for the cabinet were NOT selected, Mike Pompeo and Nicki Haley. What's your basis for saying that Trump or his associates are hawks? Trump's previous four years were some of the most peaceful. Both Obama and Biden have seen wars develop on their watch. Russia took Crimea while Obama stood by. Russia invaded Ukraine (again) under Biden. For better or worse, Biden did not stand by. Russia didn't invade anything under Trump.
Most of their policies, statements and actions-- Rubio & Waltz are hawks tho ironically, to your point, not the ones China fears most. Hegseth is a bit of a wildcard but China seems semi relieved by his appointment, which surprised me.
This article imo has the best reporting: https://www.wsj.com/world/china/trump-is-recruiting-a-team-of-china-hawks-so-why-is-beijing-relieved-bb1a4001
Who knows what the Trump's second term will bring but the very early writing on the wall to me looks more like good ol' fashioned hardline Republican politics vs. some grand new age, pro-tech, deregulatory framework that I think people like Packy are hoping for.
Trump's greatest talent has always been that he can make wide swaths of people (often with competing worldviews and interests) believe that he will implement their unique visions/hopes for America as policy and I think he pulled that brilliantly on the tech industry in 2024...let's see.
I'm no expert on Waltz, but with what I know, I like him fine.
You don't win friends in DC by calling it a swamp. But it is a swamp. Trump knows his way thru that swamp better this time than last time. And he has far more popular support.
No one person can fix this mess, but I think Trump will make the best possible headway. He has twice, possibly three times, been elected when nearly the entire political and media establishment opposed him. No, it's not that he is so good; it is that they suck so bad.
I'm amused that neither the word "corruption" nor the phrase "conflict of interest" appeared anywhere in your piece. The self-dealing in this administration is going to be Biblical in scale.
Oh well, this is what America voted for.
Serious question: How would you distinguish a rush of people excited to “unclog the machine” from a rush of people excited to capture national interests for private profit?
This feels like an American perestroika: faceless state power replaced by a voracious oligarchy that is just as indifferent to suffering but far less accountable.
Nothing like extolling the virtues of a serial sexual predator. For those Trump supporters who have mothers, daughters, granddaughters, no doubt you will explain to them: if they are sexually assaulted/raped, they need to understand that person is a leader and should run for public office. Many people have lost their moral compass, if they had one, to begin with. For years, I’ve been fully invested in leading-edge technology companies: rockets, silicon anode batteries, chip lithography machines, etc. It didn’t require electing a serial sexual predator/rapist to the highest political office in the U.S. Blind ambition for the mighty dollar never ends well. You conveniently left out the Housing Bubble, which precipitated a prolonged eight-year recession that irreparably damaged the financial futures of millions of Americans. You also left out the fact that TSLA was pulled back from the brink of bankruptcy by a sweetheart federal loan. It’s as if nothing good happened until Saint Trump descended from the heavens. Some businessman: how do you go broke in the casino business? Even his ties to the Mafia couldn’t help Trump. If Trump had invested his inheritance from his father in an S&P 500 Index Fund, he would be multiples richer. He’s a business alright, because he played one on TV. Musk is a government contractor now embedded in the government he mocks. If you look at the popular votes counts, Trump’s mandate doesn’t exist. He and “his people” will overreach, which history shows is a mistake.
You technocrats think you’re better than you are. That you can solve all of the world’s problems all the while being completely out of touch with the recommendations you espouse. The hubris is staggering.
> This might break things! SpaceX’s rockets occasionally blow up.
And here I suspect people who've never run a government are miscalibrating - when space x rockets break, you clean up the part. Hopefully, you do it before there is anyone inside the rocket, so that it's not "human part".
For government agencies, I suspect the road from "remove regulation" -> "count bodies because the regulation was slashed" will be higher. Of course it's only intuition, and we'll see how it goes.
I hope the people who understand the various Chesterton's fences will be able to make their case when it matters the most.
But, hey, the people asked, it's their pendulum to swing.
Hubristic, tech-bro's gotta eat too, I guess. I look forward to revisiting this take in two years.
The four largest line items in the Federal budget are Social Security, Defense, Medicare, and Interest on the federal debt. The Department of Education may be a sewer, but it is a relatively inexpensive one.
Tesla really took off when the Government-owned GM and Toyota gave it the $1B Fremont plant for $1. Much of its growth was funded by government subsidies for the purchase of its products. The government undoubtedly wastes money in how it creates the few things that it creates. But most of the waste comes in how it passes out money for others to do things.
The DOGE project is just a misdirection.
Interesting that all the comments seem to share the same sentiment. Can't tell if they just voted Democrat or aren't as optimistic. No one who liked the article spoke up. We all know about Trump's shitty side. But he did win ( I didn't vote for him). I don't see why Packy needs to litigate or caveat (not a verb) all of Trump's wild transgressions. He writes about optimistic outcomes and today was about some of the potential optimism. Sure he seems high on some of those fumes. It's a pretty exciting time to consider having more of a voice to un-fuck the government. My very left echo chamber has been asking for much of this stuff for years. Its not wrong to feel excitement now. You can still feel concern and empathy too.