Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil • Hacker News Board

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#41

Post by diego_moita » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 4:36 PM UTC

Disclaimer: I am a former Brazilian. I am what in Brazil is called in pejorative terms "vira-lata" (stray dog), someone that fell out of love for his native country. Because a lot of people in this thread are patriotic Brazilians I anticipate a lot of downvotes.

This project is nothing more than a sharper and better diagnosis of topical symptoms. Unfortunately, the underlying disease remains without treatment. And if you allow me to explain such disease bluntly, here it is: the Brazilian voter is astonishingly stupid. Brazilians vote very, very badly. Politicians with a long and explicit history of corruption are routinely re-elected and remain very popular (e.g: Maluf, Sarney, Calheiros, Collor, Lula and almost everyone in the 3 big parties: PMDB, PSDB and PT).

There is even a standard justification for this behaviour, people say "rouba mas faz" (he steals but gets things done).

Like in most of the 3rd world and countries with authoritarian history, the overwhelming majority of the Brazilian voters don't understand how corruption, nepotism, patronage and incompetence affects them. I bet Turkey, Russia, Poland and Hungary are the same. Democracy goes far beyond the formal institutions, you need a civic heart, a belief within every citizen's mind that the public good matters a lot and affects everyone. In most 3rd world countries people just don't "get" this.

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#42

Post by SiempreViernes » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 4:40 PM UTC

lbrito wrote: post #24

Interesting project, but the false positives might turn people off. Stuff like a 50 BRL (~15 USD) pizza receipt ( https://jarbas.serenata.ai/layers/#/documentId/5611260 ) are not that interesting in a country with much more lavish public spenders. Namely, I'd like to see more public scrutiny against the illegal salaries judges receive in Brazil - which sometimes are twice or three times greater than the legal limit.

It's a bit bland compared to what Eduardo Cunha could pull in, but then Cunha didn't get his money by sending a receipt to be reimbursed.

The problem is more that this sort of data isn't likely to find the serious corruption, it'll likely just find pedestrian examples of misuse of public funds.

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#43

Post by TremendousJudge » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 4:46 PM UTC

diego_moita wrote: post #41

Disclaimer: I am a former Brazilian. I am what in Brazil is called in pejorative terms "vira-lata" (stray dog), someone that fell out of love for his native country. Because a lot of people in this thread are patriotic Brazilians I anticipate a lot of downvotes. This project is nothing more than a sharper and better diagnosis of topical symptoms. Unfortunately, the underlying disease remains without treatment. And if…

We're talking about a country that gave 1.35 million votes to a literal clown [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiririca

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#44

Post by onetimemanytime » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 4:50 PM UTC

diego_moita wrote: post #41

Disclaimer: I am a former Brazilian. I am what in Brazil is called in pejorative terms "vira-lata" (stray dog), someone that fell out of love for his native country. Because a lot of people in this thread are patriotic Brazilians I anticipate a lot of downvotes. This project is nothing more than a sharper and better diagnosis of topical symptoms. Unfortunately, the underlying disease remains without treatment. And if…

>>Like in most of the 3rd world ...voters don't understand how corruption, nepotism, patronage and incompetence affects them. All the above in US is called "lobbying" and it's legal, so you really can't jail anyone for it.

USA voters don't do much better, don't worry. We just have a printing machine that churns out new dollars at record pace so we face no debt deadlines.

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#45

Post by notahacker » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 4:53 PM UTC

lbrito wrote: post #24

Interesting project, but the false positives might turn people off. Stuff like a 50 BRL (~15 USD) pizza receipt ( https://jarbas.serenata.ai/layers/#/documentId/5611260 ) are not that interesting in a country with much more lavish public spenders. Namely, I'd like to see more public scrutiny against the illegal salaries judges receive in Brazil - which sometimes are twice or three times greater than the legal limit.

Yeah, as well intentioned as it is, the real corruption is people taking huge backhanders for stuff, and diverting government funds to their family, not people forgetting to name the members of staff they had lunch with on paperwork, getting the date wrong on the paperwork or buying stuff in both the origin city and destination city of their flights. And the real corruption generally doesn't involve expense receipts

The UK had a similar issue which started off with looking at very specific instances where politicians made hundreds of thousands of pounds from fraudulent representations for expenses associated with a London "second home" and ended up ranking MPs by office expenses they were very much entitled to claim and highlighting legitimate claims for snacks just because they were funny. Trouble is, the basic conclusion was "all MPs are corrupt" which actually makes it harder to grab public attention over more serious conflicts of interest.

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#46

Post by notahacker » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 5:00 PM UTC

TremendousJudge wrote: post #43

diego_moita wrote: post #41

Disclaimer: I am a former Brazilian. I am what in Brazil is called in pejorative terms "vira-lata" (stray dog), someone that fell out of love for his native country. Because a lot of people in this thread are patriotic Brazilians I anticipate a lot of downvotes. This project is nothing more than a sharper and better diagnosis of topical symptoms. Unfortunately, the underlying disease remains without treatment. And if…

We're talking about a country that gave 1.35 million votes to a literal clown [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiririca

It's not a uniquely Brazilian thing. Say hi to the former Mayor of Hartlepool, a monkey-suited football mascot elected on a manifesto promising free bananas

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1965569.stm

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#47

Post by TremendousJudge » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 5:02 PM UTC

onetimemanytime wrote: post #44

diego_moita wrote: post #41

Disclaimer: I am a former Brazilian. I am what in Brazil is called in pejorative terms "vira-lata" (stray dog), someone that fell out of love for his native country. Because a lot of people in this thread are patriotic Brazilians I anticipate a lot of downvotes. This project is nothing more than a sharper and better diagnosis of topical symptoms. Unfortunately, the underlying disease remains without treatment. And if…

>>Like in most of the 3rd world ...voters don't understand how corruption, nepotism, patronage and incompetence affects them. All the above in US is called "lobbying" and it's legal, so you really can't jail anyone for it. USA voters don't do much better, don't worry. We just have a printing machine that churns out new dollars at record pace so we face no debt deadlines.

Brazil is much, much worse off than the US. There the corruption goes all the way to the lowest levels of government. In the US local politicians don't pay a couple of bucks to a thousand dirt poor voters to vote in the county elections so they can win. In Brazil this happens everywhere.

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#48

Post by neves » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 5:04 PM UTC

bighi wrote: post #29

DavidHm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this project perceived by the government officials? I am sure (or at least hope) that some of them are very much in favour, but are there others calling into question the accuracy / legitimacy of these type of analyses?

Government officials don't give a fuck about it. At all. No one beside themselves has the power to declare any of their spendings as illegal. So they could, for example, declare they spent $190 dollars on burger and fries for one person, and nobody can do anything about it. Operation Serenata may tweet about it. Some people will read that and complain on twitter, and life goes on. Our current unelected president was…

Sorry, who talked about killing was the senator which presidential campaign lost by less than 3% of the votes. The president was recording supporting paying money for the silence of a jailed corrupt that was the Lower House Speaker.

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#49

Post by neves » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 5:13 PM UTC

TremendousJudge wrote: post #43

diego_moita wrote: post #41

Disclaimer: I am a former Brazilian. I am what in Brazil is called in pejorative terms "vira-lata" (stray dog), someone that fell out of love for his native country. Because a lot of people in this thread are patriotic Brazilians I anticipate a lot of downvotes. This project is nothing more than a sharper and better diagnosis of topical symptoms. Unfortunately, the underlying disease remains without treatment. And if…

We're talking about a country that gave 1.35 million votes to a literal clown [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiririca

The literal clown is a decent deputy, even above average. He is as educated as the majority of the the population. He was present all the days that the Congress opened.

Your talk if full of prejudice.

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#50

Post by neves » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 5:16 PM UTC

TremendousJudge wrote: post #47

onetimemanytime wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Like in most of the 3rd world ...voters don't understand how corruption, nepotism, patronage and incompetence affects them. All the above in US is called "lobbying" and it's legal, so you really can't jail anyone for it. USA voters don't do much better, don't worry. We just have a printing machine that churns out new dollars at record pace so we face no debt deadlines.

Brazil is much, much worse off than the US. There the corruption goes all the way to the lowest levels of government. In the US local politicians don't pay a couple of bucks to a thousand dirt poor voters to vote in the county elections so they can win. In Brazil this happens everywhere.

It is very usual to buy votes in USA:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/selling...

"The price of one bona fide, registered American vote varies from place to place. But it is rarely more than a tank of gas."

A good book that descibes it is "Washington, D.C: A Novel (Narratives of Empire)." of Gore Vidal.