When Code Moves Faster Than Civics: A Caution

The administration views science, health, education, and aid as distractions, leveraging 'superuser’ access to transform government from the inside. This post explores a mindset and its consequences.

Despite what it might post on X, DOGE is not saving billions and is not in the process of building an efficient digital system to improve science research infrastructure, health care, family farms, national parks, higher education, life-saving HIV/AIDS relief, the safety of the food supply, or economic innovation. It has different aims: securing control of the digital systems that underlie government function.

With control comes consequences. DOGE sets the digital rules and changes them on the fly, disconnected from the ripple effects in communities in weeks, months, and years to come. Perhaps it seems impossible for DOGE to halt the flow of billions of dollars to vital health research or to use keyword searches to target research projects taking place across the US? From a technical standpoint, not really.

In an electronic world, code moves faster than civics.

For now, all indications are that DOGE coders have unrestricted access to government digital services. They are digital ‘superusers’. These privileged roles are reserved for a small number of individuals who ensure the safe and secure operations of computer systems. In the wrong hands (e.g., malign foreign actors or insider threats), these superusers can cause havoc: reading or overwriting files, changing programs and data, and threatening millions at a time.

How should 2+ million federal employees respond when their jobs are potentially upended by a Saturday afternoon email? How can DOGE evaluate employee performance at this scale? It can’t. But it can build a rigged game with a large-language AI model that employees have no chance to win as long as the digital answer keys are held by coders with a different view of the point and purpose of government.

This is a government that inverts Abraham Lincoln's famous phrase and, instead, is acting with malice towards all and charity towards none.

It is quite possible that DOGE thinks this is as a game at our expense, accumulating cash ‘savings’ and employees fired. Mr. Musk is an avid video game player, but perhaps not as good as advertised. Members of the gaming community have alleged (credibly) that Musk had been paying others to play for him, “boosting” his scores so his virtual characters could appear to be nearly the best in the world.

The game-playing mentality is relevant in other ways.

Musk has described the media as “NPCs”, short for “non-player characters”. In the world of gaming, the hero is what matters. The rest of the virtual world don’t have agency of their own, these are the NPCs. Here in the real world: that means us.

DOGE has begun by attacking ‘soft targets’, those in the civil service who have dedicated their careers to serving the public in aid, science, health, and education. These are the people the government should be supporting. Instead, DOGE’s agenda is on track to dismantle American leadership that drives safety, security, technological innovation, and economic prosperity.

In the Federalist Papers, No. 57, James Madison wrote: “The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.”

Ideally, digital systems can facilitate effective governance, not act as weapons. We need checks and balances that limits what any particular group of users (superusers or otherwise) can do within DOGE or other government agencies. Precisely because of their unique role, ‘effectual precautions’ are essential. Without restraint, digital superusers can inflict harm now and in the future and transform government systems in ways that cannot necessarily be restored.

Sources

• NY Times - DOGE is not saving billions

• DOGE is impacting

  • Politico - science research infrastructure

  • NPR - health care

  • AP News - family farms

  • NY Times - national parks

  • Washington Post - higher education

  • Vox - life-saving HIV/AIDS relief

  • Fast Company - the safety of the food supply

  • AEI - economic innovation

• NY Times - different aims

• The Atlantic - DOGE sets the digital rules

• Wired - changes them on the fly

• The Transmitter - flow of billions of dollars to vital health research

• Washington Post - keyword searches to target research projects

• Atlantic - ‘superusers’

• Washington Post - 2+ million federal employees threatened on a Saturday

• NBC News - large-language AI model

• Washington Post - “boosting”

• Fox Business - described the media as “NPCs”

• Federalist Papers - … effectual precautions…