Bureaucracy as Code

When you want to "harden" a server, you turn off and uninstall any software programs that are not actively being used. This is called "reducing the attack surface." The less code that is running, the less code that can be hacked.

Bureaucracy is absolutely identical to a computer program. Instead of machines ruthlessly and efficiently running lines of code, bureaucrats "fairly" and efficiently run lines of regulations. In both cases, we want the machines/people to apply the regulations without any emotion or favor to one group over another. In fact, bureaucracies even call the regulations they administer "programs". That is not an accident. "Programs" are meant to be programmatic. Bureaucrats are supposed to be machine-like in their application of program rules, not allowing their personal preferences to interfere with the just implementation of the bureaucratic rule set. 

Bureaucracy is program code that has not been debugged or beta tested. When the system produces what the regulations say, instead of what was intended, the novice bureaucrat/programmers think they can fix it by "adding one more line". But this "code bloat" merely increases the probability of bugs while only marginally adding to the utility of the regulations.

At some point, you have to slash "features" and code in order to reduce the ability of hackers to penetrate and exploit the system.

For the first time in our government's history, that's what DOGE is doing right now. Elon Musk and his team of programmers are "hardening" government against hacking by reducing the attack surface, reducing the number of installed bureaucrats and installed programs. 

Will this reduce the number of "features" that government can offer us? Oh, sure. But those features should never have been part of the code base to begin with. Removing them makes the original code functions much more stable and much more un-hackable. 

That's why 75% of government programs and personnel must be RIF'd. There's too much money in government, too many holes, too many hacker opportunities. Government needs "hardening", and IT tech bros know how to make this work. Their whole lives have been training for this. And, as one might expect, the hackers are outraged.