61–70 of 219 posts
Having spent time working in UK healthcare tech, I never understood why everyone was lining up to throw buckets of money at Palantir. Quite apart from being obviously evil and so on, none of their solutions were actually very good. Unfortunately, it's hard to escape the feeling that friends in high places, some lobbying and some er... reciprocal back scratching might have been instrumental. See also senior staff at N…
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1388245/uk-sick-leave-fi...
Now, I get it. The UK is not exactly providing good jobs for a lot of people, so of course we're seeing this. But, getting a mental health diagnosis, be long-term-sick and avoiding unemployment while both getting paid by an employer and getting unfair advantages out of the public health system ...
In the UK, long term sick leave with a mental health diagnosis is a way to be unemployed (ie. not working) but not have the disadvantages of that. There's the money difference: 530 pounds per month for sick leave, 338 or 425 pounds per month for unemployment. On long-term sick leave you get all advantages job seekers get (ie. "Universal Credit"), PLUS others (support for not being able to work, ESA, and support for extra living expenses due to long-term sickness, PIP). So if you don't want to work, long-term sick leave has many advantages (you can even put that you're working on your CV), plus it's a big cost to employers. You don't have to look for work in long-term sick leave. In fact, nothing is expected at all (other than medical evidence).
2.8 million people are long-term ill, not participating in the workforce, not being economically productive at all, at least half due to being diagnosed with mental illness. The issue with this is that this is happening with full support of government employees, and even the courts cooperate to a lesser extent.
What the government is trying to do, in other words, is trying to kick people off, uh, let's say "mental disability", force them to work. And they need to do this without relying on government workers, because they often side with the people on sick leave.
Hence, Palantir. Being hated is a feature here, not a bug.
Having spent time working in UK healthcare tech, I never understood why everyone was lining up to throw buckets of money at Palantir. Quite apart from being obviously evil and so on, none of their solutions were actually very good. Unfortunately, it's hard to escape the feeling that friends in high places, some lobbying and some er... reciprocal back scratching might have been instrumental. See also senior staff at N…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because "nation states" are not one making decision either. It's done by one specific career bureaucrat or group of them and even best of people who work on such positions usually choose it because of job security and stability. Spending 10x more on IBM or Palantir can't get them fired, but trying to build something in-house their organization don't have competence for can get them fired. And this is even if you don'…
Yes, and: often they're prevented from building it in house!
But its kind a obvious why some system for refugees was outsourced for consultancy.
Having spent time working in UK healthcare tech, I never understood why everyone was lining up to throw buckets of money at Palantir. Quite apart from being obviously evil and so on, none of their solutions were actually very good. Unfortunately, it's hard to escape the feeling that friends in high places, some lobbying and some er... reciprocal back scratching might have been instrumental. See also senior staff at N…
The revolving door as it's known. That's part of it. Another is simply the lack of in-house talent, largely due to poor pay and conditions. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy to a certain extent. I'd love to work for NHS digital and make a difference, but all the interesting work is contracted out, so they can't keep the staff who are capable of building themselves. Also the recruitment process is terrible. Take a look…
That said, I don't think there's that much wrong with that job description - I've been a software dev/eng for 15yrs and every role has had SQL at its centre. And its much easier to get someone new up to speed on some swanky new UI or scripting tool than it is with SQL IME, so prioritising people who are comfortable with the hard bits sounds fine to me.
No, wait, I've read it a bit more closely. It's all about Data warehousing. OK yeah, that's a data job.
Palantir is very expensive. This is because: 1. they aim to deliver product company margins with a consulting-heavy model. 2. your software purchase funds a cadre of "free" FDEs and deployment strategists who customize your install, build a bunch of data pipes/transforms, and talk to people to figure out what all the data means. This could be a good deal if your tech org is not very competent at integrating your data…
I never understood why nation states pay outside companies for this stuff. You need the expertise to actually evaluate what you're getting anyway. Incentives are in no way aligned. At the state level you have the scale to do it in house.
Having spent time working in UK healthcare tech, I never understood why everyone was lining up to throw buckets of money at Palantir. Quite apart from being obviously evil and so on, none of their solutions were actually very good. Unfortunately, it's hard to escape the feeling that friends in high places, some lobbying and some er... reciprocal back scratching might have been instrumental. See also senior staff at N…
The revolving door as it's known. That's part of it. Another is simply the lack of in-house talent, largely due to poor pay and conditions. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy to a certain extent. I'd love to work for NHS digital and make a difference, but all the interesting work is contracted out, so they can't keep the staff who are capable of building themselves. Also the recruitment process is terrible. Take a look…
Palantir is very expensive. This is because: 1. they aim to deliver product company margins with a consulting-heavy model. 2. your software purchase funds a cadre of "free" FDEs and deployment strategists who customize your install, build a bunch of data pipes/transforms, and talk to people to figure out what all the data means. This could be a good deal if your tech org is not very competent at integrating your data…
I never understood why nation states pay outside companies for this stuff. You need the expertise to actually evaluate what you're getting anyway. Incentives are in no way aligned. At the state level you have the scale to do it in house.
The reason for Palantir at the NHS, the problem they're trying to solve is this: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1388245/uk-sick-leave-fi ... Now, I get it. The UK is not exactly providing good jobs for a lot of people, so of course we're seeing this. But, getting a mental health diagnosis, be long-term-sick and avoiding unemployment while both getting paid by an employer and getting unfair advantages out of the…
Why is that an issue? The simplest explanation is that the underlying rate of mental illness is inconveniently high. Which would tally with, as you say:
> In fact, nothing is expected at all (other than medical evidence).
Also I would take a look at the date when the upcurve starts on that chart and ask myself: was there some sort of mass disabling event that happened about then? Might that be contributing?