Eh, it also feels like a classic "maybe we somehow have enough perspective on this watershed moment while it's happening to explain it with a simplistic dichotomy". Even this piece interrogates the feeling of "loss" and teases out multiple aspects to it, but settles on a tl;dr of "yep, dichotomy". There's more axes here too, where that feeling can depend on what you're building, who you're building it with, time and position in your career, etc etc.

(I'll admit, though, that this also smells to me a bit too much like introvert/extrovert, or INTP/INTJ/etc so maybe I'm being reflexively rejective)

> No one is really all that special.

They actually often are in the short term (see the "significant loss of productivity from which it took the agencies years to recover" quote in the article about the similar relocation from Trump's first term), and a gutted department of agriculture can remain incompetent longer than you can avoid supply chain disruptions and food poisoning.

What you do is open small distributed offices led by a driven person eager to live in that area, and let the small offices grow over the years as the DC offices shrink. Careers aren't that long on the timescales governments work on, you just have to be patient and be ok with slow, incremental progress in your own career instead of big splashy doge headlines followed by desperately trying to rehire and hire new expertise when you realize what you've actually done.

> So true, dispersing agencies would also help with housing availability and cost of living concerns

and all the current employees that don't want to move are fungible?

> And also milk: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8374

lol yes what we really need right now is unregulated interstate sales of raw milk. Luckily that was introduced in 2024 (last congress) and went nowhere.

> What's the solution for that?

Remember that you're on a message board and you're not actually 'competing' for anything?