Double Plus Ungood
It may be 40 years late, but Orwell's warning needs heeding.
Being a pragmatist is exhausting work. Unlike tribalism, where everything ‘our’ side does is good and everything ‘their’ side does is bad, the pragmatist is constantly evaluating for the truth in everything – no matter its origins.
Adopting a scientific perspective, where emerging new facts or insights can result in a change in positions, can easily put us offside with our tribe and be exasperating for our friends and family.
But if you’re afflicted by pragmatism you will know that it’s not something you can just turn off. And when you are comfortable in your pragmatic skin you tend to be inured to the insults.
Elon Musk has presented the perfect conditions for a pragmatist to thrive.
We can simultaneously marvel at his foresight and focus with Tesla and SpaceX, defer judgement on interesting concepts like the Hyperloop, ridicule his insane concept of colonising Mars, and abhor his far right ideologies.
Right now the weight of objective evaluation seems to be on the side of Musk as an emerging global danger as bad as anything foretold by George Orwell in his dystopian book, 1984.
There can be no doubt that Tesla has revolutionised the concept of the motor vehicle, making successful a concept that was trialled and abandoned over a hundred years ago. Looking at SpaceX, Musk saw the inefficiencies of Lockheed and Boeing – in particular the use-once rocket model. Legend has it that he obtained and disassembled a Boeing rocket to price up the parts, then set about creating a vertically integrated manufacturing facility to build many of the component parts for far less than Boeing was paying its suppliers. And the concept of a booster rocket that can be controlled to land so gently that it can be re-used is a masterpiece of engineering well deserving of the accolades it has received.
This sort of creative problem solving could bring great benefits to the planet. Unfortunately that does not appear to be where Musk is directing his energy.
Right now we are witnessing Elon Musk stage a hostile coup for control of the United States of America, abetted by the man he saved from almost inevitable gaol time, Donald Trump.
The last few days has seen Musk, under the dubious authority of ‘DOGE’, gaining access to personnel and treasury systems that underpin much of the operations of government.
Anyone who believes in the rule of law and the civil rights of the populace is rightfully horrified at this turn of events. But how about we step back and take a look from a different angle…
First, let’s pose the question: Is government operating at maximum efficiency? I would wager that very few people would argue that it is. Think of the red tape, the duplicated or inefficient processes, the lack of inter-agency coordination and the increasing technology gap between the government and the private sector.
This is not a new phenomenon, and it has been fuelling the call to replace government processes with the private sector for decades.
What if Musk and his team could dramatically reshape, integrate and modernise the way the government interacts with its citizens? If every agency could tap into a single ‘you’ record, secured by the highest levels of blockchain security? Think of how much inefficiency and waste – not to mention consumer frustration – could be stripped away.
So the objective may well have significant merit, But…
The way Musk is going about it, with Trump’s naive and self-interested endorsement, is vile and dangerous.
It’s vile because it is totally disrespectful of the hundreds of thousands of government workers, many of whom will be simply cast aside after long and conscientious careers. It disrespects the people of America who have not given their consent for their personal information to be handed over to a private citizen and arguably his company. And it disrespects the law, seeking to override everything up to and including the Constitution.
It’s dangerous, because it’s like Musk putting astronauts on the first SpaceX rockets (the ones that nearly always blew up). Experimenting with the fabric of government, with ostensibly no checks and balances whatsoever, is simply insane.
And it’s dangerous for an even more important reason. Trump.
Few people would object to government modernisation if it was done out of an understanding of the vital role that government plays and a genuine desire to make it work better. But this is the complete opposite. Trump, Musk, the feckless GOP and the powerbrokers behind Project 2025 all hate the government and want to dismantle it in favour of private enterprise (yes the same private enterprise that brings you the US Health System). Even worse, Trump is not so much ideologically opposed to government as he is seeking vengeance against it.
This is an incredibly dangerous confluence of events, made infinitely worse by the corrupt Supreme Court handing Trump absolute immunity over anything he does.
To see how imperilled the USA is at the moment we just need to explore how this is all likely to play out.
Already, the National Transport Safety Bureau (NTSB) has stated that it will henceforth only post announcements on X.
This could well be the start of all government agencies moving to X as their official information platform. Independent media will be silenced or neutered by crippling defamation lawsuits. The message will be controlled – by people with zero respect for truth (history is already being re-written). And let’s not forget TikTok now being targeted for purchase by the government. And you thought the Chinese were the threat!
The work currently underway by Musk and his team will see the creation of a unified database of all citizens and will likely outsource services like government payments to a private treasury service using cryptocurrency. Musk has this week boasted that ‘within a year’ people won’t need bank accounts any more because X will become the financial central point. Expect Musk’s payments platform to be selected to be the government’s private sector partner in this.
You will need an X account to receive money from the government. Dissidents will find delays or errors in payments, tax audits and other threats.
The blockchain certified unified database will also be the ultimate form of voter id. Nobody should be concerned about genuine measures to verify the identify of voters, But if voting moves online, and you need an X account in order to vote … well, the danger of this is obvious. And with Starlink forming a critical part of many countries’ defence strategy, Musk has the power to hold entire countries hostage.
So the pragmatist in me weeps for the person Elon Musk could have been and the good he could have done for the world. It’s a tragic waste and has resulted in a situation of almost unimaginable danger.
As the writer who envisaged what we are now facing, George Orwell, would have said: Double Plus Ungood.