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I guess my nitpick is, is the sawmill's only customer a government program that buys it's laboriously milled wood and then immediately burns it? Would the sawmill even exist but for this senseless government program? What if the government then further paid to have those laboriously milled planks further refined into exquisitely crafted chairs... and then burned them in a heap year after year as if they were just minimally processed firewood?
Furthermore, imagine the entire industry, which knew precisely what the deal was, started scamming the government? Instead of S4S lumber, the mill was just churning out rough planks, saving itself the time and expense, but kept charging the government at the S4S rate? And the chair makers, taking this rough lumber that hadn't even been properly kiln dried, just roughly hacked it apart with circular saws instead of any sort of proper cabinet saw, and stuck things that were technically chairs together with brad nails and hot glue. Of course they too also still billed the government for the hours and expense of finely crafted chairs. And then the government, receiving these unfinished, wobbly, barely held together "chairs" that had come half apart in shipping just nodded satisfactorily, paid the exorbitant price, and gave them to the fire.
I've been a chair maker in this scheme my entire life, except my chairs are code. The things I've seen I probably shouldn't publicly disclose. Some are in the past, some are ongoing. I've encountered start ups run by veterans who charge into this space, knowing how awful it is, thinking they will be the company that makes the thing that will at last bring value to the problem the government has been funding solutions to for the last 40 years and then burning on a fire. I've seen them eventually give up, and join the scam realizing there is no point. I've seen companies that were only ever in it for the scam. I've seen people too stupid to realize the difference between the rough planks they make and the S4S planks that they should be making, profoundly proud of having achieved nothing. They look at the size of their paycheck, the leased BMW it affords them, and assume they must be a valuable participant in the economy. They're leasing a BMW after all, how could they not be?
I compare this to the multi generational welfare consuming congenital felon, and I'd truly, truly like to believe I'm different. But sometimes the intrusive thoughts say otherwise. At least the military industrial complex really gets people killed. I'm not sure anything I've done has had any measurable outcome beyond driving up the national debt.
You may be part of a problem... but it's not this particular problem, unless you're one of the people running the scam.
The real question is, what do you want to do about it? You've mentioned that you're flirting with Fuck You money. Have you weighed the merits of reaching out to DOGE, or some other, better choice?
Honestly ICE's signing bonus has been the most attractive offer I've seen, were I going to attempt to make a positive change in my country.
The biggest impediment to taking on more risk to exit the scam laden public/private industry I'm in has been health insurance. I have it, my family needs it, and privately insuring my family is the single biggest factor making me doubt I'm as close to "Fuck You money" as I am on paper with my current assets and burn rate.
That and the friends I have who did take the jump out of the industry to start their own businesses, and came crawling back broke (at best) having wasted a decade of their life's savings.
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But you’re a programmer, not a government fail project maker. You have a very general skill set. You could in principle take a job programming in industry right? Unless you are not a programmer and are in some way specialized only to government work, in which case your argument seems to have a bit more merit. I still don’t really consider any line employee who goes to work and tries their hardest at their job every day a parasite. Maybe some are on a strict economic level, but on the moral level I don’t think they are. The exception to this would be certain industries and specializations that are just inherently parasitic like DEI consultants or patent troll lawyers.
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