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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

#131

Post by colechristensen »

sdfhbdf wrote: post #83

It does sound great when it works. It’s awesome that Estonia succeeded. I do believe this is a really hard problem - digitising public services - to solve at scale. Whenever you have bigger countries you almost always have several levels of local governance - state, county or Land. These local governments often work with full autonomy and do not share date with the central government. In this case even solving such s…

Locally they completely redid the computer systems of the DMV a few years back… And botched it. Everything started taking twice as long and you wouldn’t get a new license for weeks or months after you went in.

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

#132

Post by notch656a »

whimsicalism wrote: post #78
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's usually an equity issue, or championed as such by equity groups. America is so car dependent that for folks at the margins failing a driving test is the equivalent of losing your job. That's why DL renewals almost rarely require any re-testing and never require demonstrating driving skills.

Hitting pedestrians also poses issues for folks at the margins, yet we don't seek to educate those people on how to avoid this potentially life destroying situation.

I think you would be hard pressed to find someone currently living with a license that got it at a time where it was OK to will-nilly hit pedestrians.

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

#133

Post by pifm_guy »

AyyWS wrote: post #123
calvinmorrison wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I worked for a private company contracted to provide a portion of a public service and later got employed by the the government agency. - The contractor had no budget. Our servers were out of date and we were running out of date OSes and software. We were all paid below standard and overworked. - We had a tiny budget at the agency to buy things at the very end of the year. We ran up to date software and OSes, except…

But if the lowest bidder has some kind of penalty to pay if average queueing time goes over 15 minutes or random members of the public rate the service provided below 3/5 stars, then they'll do a much better job.

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

#134

Post by 0xffff2 »

Avamander wrote: post #112
0xffff2 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes, because I spend 10 minutes a year.

So what? I waste far more time every year browsing Hacker News than I ever have dealing with government bureaucracy. The difference between 0.02% and 0% is indistinguishable in reality.

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

#136

Post by Tade0 »

Avamander wrote: post #101
Tade0 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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) )

That's even better, thanks!

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

#137

Post by whafro »

colechristensen wrote: post #119
calvinmorrison wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

AAA does run some DMVs and the service is considerably better in my experience.

They do this here in Massachusetts, but they aren't full-service. I just bought out my lease, and have to go to a real DMV to process the title.

When you only have to handle the simple stuff, it's much easier to make it a great experience. AAA is basically the EZPass lane for the DMV.

That's not to say that a full-service DMVs shouldn't be significantly better in most cases, though.

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

#138

Post by [deleted] »

colechristensen wrote: post #119
calvinmorrison wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

AAA does run some DMVs and the service is considerably better in my experience.

[deleted]

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

#139

Post by Karrot_Kream »

whimsicalism wrote: post #78
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's usually an equity issue, or championed as such by equity groups. America is so car dependent that for folks at the margins failing a driving test is the equivalent of losing your job. That's why DL renewals almost rarely require any re-testing and never require demonstrating driving skills.

Hitting pedestrians also poses issues for folks at the margins, yet we don't seek to educate those people on how to avoid this potentially life destroying situation.

I agree but a lot of equity groups are not willing to advocate for pedestrian lives. The perception a lot of Americans have is that folks are either walking because they have literally no option and are thus probably not really working-class folks or they're out for recreation.

There's a growing number of organizations advocating for pedestrian and cyclist safety but they have a lot less funding and fewer connections that equity groups which protect drivers. If you have the opportunity in your area, donate to such a group or help make one yourself.

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

#140

Post by Karrot_Kream »

Invictus0 wrote: post #86
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's usually an equity issue, or championed as such by equity groups. America is so car dependent that for folks at the margins failing a driving test is the equivalent of losing your job. That's why DL renewals almost rarely require any re-testing and never require demonstrating driving skills.

Nonsense. It's an elderly issue, everyone knows elderly people shouldn't be on the road but no one wants to take their licenses (they vote in droves).

That is one end of this issue, yes. But there's more to it than just the elderly.
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