This whole scandal has been exposed partly due to the dogged work of journalists at Private Eye over many years. Private Eye is also very funny, with some very good cartoons. Please consider taking out a subscription to Private Eye, to support investigative journalism - even if you only read the cartoons.
At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says
481–490 of 585 posts
Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says
#482Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're looking for hard numbers on how many people shouldn't be getting them then you won't find it. Only the government has access to the details of individual claims. However you can infer a lot from a) the insane rise in claims, especially mental health related: https://obr.uk/docs/box-chart-3-f.png Has the mental health of the nation got twice as bad in 2 years? Obviously not. And b) whenever the BBC does touc…
Nothing sounds wrong to me in any of the cases you mentioned? > £400/month help with her bills because she struggles with time management? I'm sympathetic to her problems but that is a shit ton of money! £4800/yr is a shit ton of money? Things must be pretty rough over there! > Child benefit also goes to lots of people (myself included) who totally don't need it. Is that a bad thing?
> £4800/yr is a shit ton of money? Things must be pretty rough over there!
For the average person in the UK, it definitely is.
Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says
#483I went on a deep dive on this scandal about a year or so ago. One thing that struck me is the class element. Basically, the Post Office leadership could not understand why someone would buy a PO franchise. It's a substantial amount of money up front, and people aren't allowed to buy multiple franchises, so every PO was an owner/operator position. Essentially people were "buying a job". The people in leadership couldn…
Someone brought this up in a previous HN comment section as an example of trust in software ruining peoples lives. But your explanation is far more human and recontextualizes it a bit for me - it just happened to be that this was done with software, but the real motivation was contempt for the lower classes and could have easily have happened 100 years ago with an internal investigation task force. Growing up half in…
> Growing up half in England and US I feel British culture is more attuned to the class aspects to this kind of event. Traditionally America likes to pretend this kind of class contempt doesn't exist (think of, people on welfare angry at welfare queens, unaware they will be affected by legislation they support).
As an immigrant to the US from latin america that has spent significant time in britain, this statement is the complete opposite of my experience to the point of ridiculousness.
Britain is the most openly classist western country I have ever been in.
Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says
#484Earlier quoted context omitted.
Someone brought this up in a previous HN comment section as an example of trust in software ruining peoples lives. But your explanation is far more human and recontextualizes it a bit for me - it just happened to be that this was done with software, but the real motivation was contempt for the lower classes and could have easily have happened 100 years ago with an internal investigation task force. Growing up half in…
> Growing up half in England and US I feel British culture is more attuned to the class aspects to this kind of event. Traditionally America likes to pretend this kind of class contempt doesn't exist (think of, people on welfare angry at welfare queens, unaware they will be affected by legislation they support). As an immigrant to the US from latin america that has spent significant time in britain, this statement is…
I think you misunderstood the parent post. It states people in the UK are more aware/recognizant of "class" - not that they are less classist (i.e. prejudiced)
The example of lower class people not recognizing so in the US is meant to be an example of lack of class awareness/recognition; not of less (or more) classism (prejudice based on class)
Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says
#485Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, but citation needed. Means testing might seem “obvious” from first principles, but from a policy point of view, it makes little to no sense. The macroeconomic effects of welfare programs create a society that is better for everyone to live in. Reducing the issue to a matter of personal responsibility is a reframing that allows you to completely lose sight of the big picture, and create programs that are destin…
Citation needed for the right to other people's money. Government running charity interferes with the normal feedback in society. And the need to ask politely, justify one's apparently bad decisions and change failing behavior. People become "entitled" to regular cash so a lot of the fear that ordinarily motivates the rest of us goes away. Any system that asks nothing of people is a bad system. I grew up on welfare.…
> Any system that asks nothing of people is a bad system.
Ok bro, while you're out there building morally pure systems the rest of us will do research and learn what actually works in the real world.
Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says
#486Earlier quoted context omitted.
Someone brought this up in a previous HN comment section as an example of trust in software ruining peoples lives. But your explanation is far more human and recontextualizes it a bit for me - it just happened to be that this was done with software, but the real motivation was contempt for the lower classes and could have easily have happened 100 years ago with an internal investigation task force. Growing up half in…
> Traditionally America likes to pretend this kind of class contempt doesn't exist It just manifests as racism.
there's still regular ol classism, too, racism is just part of the calculus. Poor white folks don't have it good, they just have it less bad than poor not-white folks
Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says
#487Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, but citation needed. Means testing might seem “obvious” from first principles, but from a policy point of view, it makes little to no sense. The macroeconomic effects of welfare programs create a society that is better for everyone to live in. Reducing the issue to a matter of personal responsibility is a reframing that allows you to completely lose sight of the big picture, and create programs that are destin…
Citation needed for the right to other people's money. Government running charity interferes with the normal feedback in society. And the need to ask politely, justify one's apparently bad decisions and change failing behavior. People become "entitled" to regular cash so a lot of the fear that ordinarily motivates the rest of us goes away. Any system that asks nothing of people is a bad system. I grew up on welfare.…
> a lot of the fear that ordinarily motivates the rest of us
No, that seems like mostly you. Most people are not motivated by fear.
Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says
#488Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
The suicide victims weren't programmers, they were postmasters, who had been falsely accused of fraud by the software.
Damn! That's dark. I should've read the article first, but I did not. Sorry.
I kinda understand the false guilt these postmasters must have felt when they were wrongfully accused. These people should not be dead like that, those who puts them into that living hell should.
Oddly though, the justice of this world usually don't work like that. Usually, it's the people at the lowest level who suffer the worst fate/abuse, simply because they are the most defenseless, while the people "on the top" pets themselves for "resolving" the problem they created.
It's a odd place to mention, but from one of Donald Trump's story (The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge one where he noticed the unnoticed engineer) I've learned it is important that one must actively take what they deserved (recognition in his story, justice in this case), and at least don't be silent when other people is stealing it away. This is "a nasty world", and if you want to make things right, you must "Fight! Fight! Fight!" and never give up.
Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says
#489Earlier quoted context omitted.
Someone brought this up in a previous HN comment section as an example of trust in software ruining peoples lives. But your explanation is far more human and recontextualizes it a bit for me - it just happened to be that this was done with software, but the real motivation was contempt for the lower classes and could have easily have happened 100 years ago with an internal investigation task force. Growing up half in…
> Traditionally America likes to pretend this kind of class contempt doesn't exist It just manifests as racism.
Porque no los dos?
Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says
#490Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well said. I really wish we had a better word for someone who is bullied into suicide. It’s tantamount to manslaughter imho. Recently, a snark/bullying community on Reddit resulted in the suicide of their target (a woman responsible for rescuing foxes). That kind of targeting and bullying is horrific for any individual to process, let alone people who don’t have the press teams and training that celebrities do.
This sets a bad precedent. There is a wide gamut of emotional resilience in people. What is a funny insult to one person, can be rope-fuel to another. Would you want to be called that if you make a light jab at a middle aged bald guy?
A single comment is not really bullying. Continued harassment is.
And much like assessing how physical violence might contribute to the end result, so could this be actually assessed. I don’t know why people reach for binary classifications strawmans like this.