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Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online

karlsnotes.com

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Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online

#101

Post by Avamander »

Tade0 wrote: post #90
0x138d5 wrote: post #76

hiiele? On a serious note, while the eID/digital gov system is great and all it does have some jankiness. The address search system everyone uses has been a PITA for a while and the tax system still keels over for a day or so when the possibility of submitting returns opens. Then we had the case of one dude scraping several hundred thousand ID card pictures [0]. Also the broadband part is so-so. Estonian internet is…

> hiiele? I live bits that give rare insights into other cultures. The description of the appropriate reddit page google-translates to "let's meet at the fire". Is that correct?

More like "let's meet at the sacred forest" (to celebrate/rejoice).

"Hiiele" is the allative form of "hiis" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiis_(sacred_site) )

Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online

#102

Post by frenchy »

spurgu wrote: post #81
ryukafalz wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd go the other way; we really should require retesting for driver's license renewals. New Jersey for example just enacted a "safe passing" law earlier this year in an attempt to make bicyclists and pedestrians safer. But existing drivers will never have to demonstrate that they know this because we never retest people after they get their license once.

Couldn't the government (or state) simply run ad campaigns for a couple of weeks informing the public of new changes? Edit: Most changes are not rocket science, you simply need to be aware of them.

There's a difference between knowing the laws of the road, and being a competent enough driver that you can perform them. The rules are rarely, if ever, enforced, so a lot of drivers just figure it's not a big of a deal.

It's easy to believe that road safety isn't that important when you're surrounded by several tons of plastic and metal armor.

Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online

#103

Post by Dylan16807 »

etage3 wrote: post #84
concordDance wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Man" is an ancient word that means both "human" and "male human" depending on context. The former usage actually predates the latter.

I think itake understands this and was making a point (an important one at that). Douglas R. Hofstadter made the same point (perhaps more eloquently) in "A Person Paper on Purity in Language"[0], which might be another avenue if you wish to understand what the parent comment was pointing at. [0] https://www.angelfire.com/rebellion/personpaper/

It is not an important point in a context like "man-years".

Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online

#104

Post by moffkalast »

jacooper wrote: post #67

Another country that is using E-goverment effectively is Saudi Arabia, almost everything is digital. As for privacy, What is privacy? Do you have something to hide?/s

As if any other authoritarian regime throughout history with analog paper bureaucracy ever had any problems finding anything they needed. At least with file encryption there actually isn't any way to bribe/threaten the clerk to show you the file.

Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online

#105

Post by IncRnd »

idiotsecant wrote: post #87
beorno wrote: post #68

Time wasted filling in forms and talking to service staff should really be tracked and associated with the business or government agency, then it's possible to actually assign a "bureaucracy/red-tape tax" based on the hours they waste for people using the service. Without externalizing the cost of all the time wasted, it's just too easy to push time-costs on to the consumers/citizens. It's already a huge problem, and…

A major loss of productivity? I think maybe i've spent an hour at the DMV in the past 10 years. I spend maybe an hour or two each year doing my taxes. I struggle to think of a single other case where my time is consumed with dealing with any kind of bureaucracy. I'm not convinced it's a major problem.

For each hundred million people, your 1-2 hours pear year is 100,000,000 to 200,000,000 hours per year.

Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online

#106

Post by [deleted] »

boplicity wrote: post #14
PartiallyTyped wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's mostly an american problem, not a "government bad" problem.

It's not even necessarily an American problem; when I lived in Washington State, the last time I got a renewal was expedient and surprisingly efficient. I was impressed with how well run the place was.

[deleted]

Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online

#107

Post by vander_elst »

itake wrote: post #17
vander_elst wrote: post #5

Saving 820 years is great, but it would be nice to define it better. From the article I not sure if they mean 820 man years in total or man years per year or something else. It would be useful to know how much energy was spent to achieve this e.g. of they spent 8000 man years to achieve this it would change the perspective. Edit: grammar

Quoted post unavailable.

I didn't mean to gender, sorry if it was perceived that way. My understanding is that this is a standard industry term. Anyway, I'll try to use human years in the future.

Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online

#108

Post by calvinmorrison »

MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #82
beorno wrote: post #68

Time wasted filling in forms and talking to service staff should really be tracked and associated with the business or government agency, then it's possible to actually assign a "bureaucracy/red-tape tax" based on the hours they waste for people using the service. Without externalizing the cost of all the time wasted, it's just too easy to push time-costs on to the consumers/citizens. It's already a huge problem, and…

Even with the same amount of work or service provided, under-staffing absolutely consumes and destroys peoples productivity. What an awful waste it is to take the morning off work to go somewhere like the DMV, wait forever in line and see half the service counters empty. Sure, the government saved on some staff salary but society lost more in productivity.

I bet you USAA's Insurance run DMV would be a lot more efficient and have good customer service, but hey, we don't want any Ayn Rands around here

Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online

#109

Post by Dylan16807 »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #94

BS. It should be "820 years PER YEAR", and with a 1.3M people in Estonia, it equates to 5.4 hours per year. JUST 5.4 hours per year. Not impressive.

That's not impressive to you? Most of a day of dealing with government timewaste, every single year, is a lot to me.

Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online

#110

Post by 0xffff2 »

Avamander wrote: post #92
idiotsecant wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A major loss of productivity? I think maybe i've spent an hour at the DMV in the past 10 years. I spend maybe an hour or two each year doing my taxes. I struggle to think of a single other case where my time is consumed with dealing with any kind of bureaucracy. I'm not convinced it's a major problem.

An hour or two each year? That's a lot of wasted time. Especially if you add it all up across the country.

0.02% (i.e. 0.0002) of your waking hours wasted doing taxes every year? That really seems like a lot?
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