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At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

nytimes.com

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Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#331

Post by mgkimsal »

jordanb wrote: post #245
XTXinverseXTY wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forgive my indelicate question, but why would someone buy a PO franchise?

1) The franchise actually does represent a decent amount of stability and financial security for the franchisee. Well-run locations typically could clear a modest profit for the owner. These were not money losing franchises for the most part (until the prosecutions started of course). 2) The post offices were geographically distributed pretty evenly throughout the UK so there were positions in far-flung locations wel…

My inlaws ran a rural UK post office for a time (70s, maybe early 80s?). I'm not sure how they got in to it, but seemed to enjoy it while they did it. Small village, low volume of foot traffic, etc. I got a sense it almost felt like a civic duty, but I may be reading too much in to the earlier conversations.

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#332

Post by izacus »

jedimastert wrote: post #227
SCdF wrote: post #157

Effectively tortured to death. One of the things that frustrates me with how ethics is taught in computer science is that we use examples like Therac 25, and people listen in horror, then their takeaway is frequently "well thank god I don't work on medical equipment". The fact that it's medical equipment is a distraction. All software can cause harm to others. All of it. You need to care about all of it.

Jesus I desperately wish real ethics classes were required for computer science degrees

Ethic classes are pointless without ethical liability and accountability of people causing suffering. Yes, even the Jira javascript ticket punchers hould be accountable for what they do.

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#333

Post by flir »

dagmx wrote: post #182
akudha wrote: post #140

This was depressing to read. Failures at so many levels. 1. Immediately after Horizon was rolled out, issues were reported. But ignored 2. Prosecutors didn't bother to verify if there is another explanation before accusing thousands of people of stealing? Isn't it common sense to pause for a second and think, "could we please double check the evidence? how can thousands of postal workers suddenly turn into thieves?"…

I really wish someone had the political capital to do something about the tabloids. They’re really a detriment to society.

Think that would be solving the last century's problem. I think you'd get more bang for your buck by reining in social media.

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#335

Post by flir »

akudha wrote: post #289
wat10000 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rationalization is a powerful force. People rarely come to objective beliefs based on evidence. They come to beliefs and then search for evidence. In law enforcement, people tend to decide on a suspect and then look for proof. Hence why you so often see prosecutors and police fighting to punish innocent people, sometimes even after they've been proven to be innocent.

In law enforcement, people tend to decide on a suspect and then look for proof. Yikes, such people shouldn't be in working in law enforcement then

Everyone does it. You and me too. It's just how brains work. First the opinion, then the evidence to back up the opinion.

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#336

Post by foldr »

slacktivism123 wrote: post #168
foldr wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To the NY Times: please don't say they died by suicide. The passive voice “X died by suicide” is a sentence in the active voice. “Die” is an intransitive verb and cannot be passivized in English.

Please don't do this kind of tangential grammar nitpicking here. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less.

I’m not nitpicking the poster’s grammar, I’m nitpicking the claim about the grammatical structure of a particular sentence that’s the factual basis of their criticism of the article.

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#337

Post by flir »

gnfargbl wrote: post #222
mystraline wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments should have access to all the source of code they buy licenses to (and provided at sale), as a precondition of selling to a government. When these sorts of things happen, the source can be subpoena'd with the relevant legal tool, and reviewed appropriately. Why governments don't do this is beyond me. It greatly limits liability of gov procurement, and puts the liability on the companies selling such goods…

Governments don't do get source code for the same reason as every other customer doesn't get source code: software vendors are incentivized to refuse the request. Why are the vendors so incentivized? Well, coming back to Fujitsu and the Post Office, the answer is that refusing to share the source was worth about a billion dollars : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgm8lmz1xk1o

Then they shouldn't get the contract.

I hope lessons are learned, but I doubt it.

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#338

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

arrowsmith wrote: post #294
akudha wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it not make sense? If I was involved in a robbery at age 18, as a dumb kid, should I still be called "robber xyz" for the rest of my life? Especially if I turned my life around?

I agree that we should be forgiving, give people second chances etc, but that doesn't change the meaning of words. "Defamation" is when you damage someone's reputation by saying things about them that aren't true. If you were convicted of a crime long ago and someone draws attention to that fact, they're not defaming you. The truth isn't defamation, by definition.

> The truth isn't defamation, by definition.

Perhaps you mean slander/libel?

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#339

Post by aenis »

cedws wrote: post #19
mike_hearn wrote: post #8

To the NY Times: please don't say they died by suicide. The passive voice makes it sound like some act of God, something regrettable but unavoidable that just somehow happened. It's important not to sugarcoat what happened: the postmasters killed themselves because the British state was imprisoning them for crimes they didn't commit, based on evidence from a buggy financial accounting system. Don't blur the details o…

>if software developers screw up Well, yes, they did screw up, but the fallout was amplified 100x by bad management.

But we hold engineers to much higher ethical standards than management. One does not expect management to blow the whistle - or even understand whats what when dealing with complex issues in distributed systems. If the engineers start lying - its game over.

I cried when I was reading the book. So much suffering. Bought a copy for all the it architects in my company and asked all of them to read it. Should be part of curriculum for aspiring software engineers.

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#340

Post by veeti »

burkaman wrote: post #311
arrowsmith wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that we should be forgiving, give people second chances etc, but that doesn't change the meaning of words. "Defamation" is when you damage someone's reputation by saying things about them that aren't true. If you were convicted of a crime long ago and someone draws attention to that fact, they're not defaming you. The truth isn't defamation, by definition.

Calling someone a robber means they are currently a robber. It can be inaccurate and untrue in the same way that calling someone a bartender would be inaccurate and untrue if they are a lawyer who hasn't tended a bar in 20 years. I don't like the idea of prosecuting people for this, but I don't think it's illogical.

Would you extend the same courtesy to a murderer or child rapist?
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