Fairness question for the mods on controversial topics

[0000]

Quote

Our EUC subforums are not the place to raise, defend, or otherwise argue political points. 

We realize multiple users engaged with this inappropriate discussion within the V14 EUC topic; you're not alone, but that doesn't make it okay.

Next time, better options are:

• Ignore posts initiating off-topic discussion.
• Reply to request simply "hey let's get back on topic" etc.
• Block users that are annoying you.
• Make your non-EUC viewpoints known in Facebook or other social media outside the EUC subforums, including quoting or copying whatever content you want to respond to. 
• Report users that repeatedly violate rules. 

Regards
-Moderators

@UniVehje, a couple questions I had to this forum warning in the interest of fairness and transparency:

• Did anyone else who participated in expressing their off-topic political opinions and/or engaged in slander and insults (like one of the moderators inferring I was racist for expressing a preference not to have rampant illegal immigration nor wanting to fund the consequences of mass immigration through taxes) receive a similar warning and point deduction? Or was it just me?
   
• How many internet points does it take to experience consequences like a suspension or ban? I'm just wondering how to gauge my reaction to random off-topic assertions I strongly disagree if for some reason I fail at "better options" in the future. Clearly shunting the offending discussion to Off-Topic and locking debate was not sufficient if I'm getting this kind of response 5 days post lock, especially after having my arguments judged and labeled as primitive, nasty, racist, etc. without offering any counter-argument. Love it.

I can't say I'll ever be a fan of reporting everything or anything for that matter I strongly disagree because at the end of the day it's just words on a screen, but I recognize that probably the majority doesn't want to debate these kinds of issues here, or perhaps even see dissenting view points on political matters.

Edited November 17, 2023 by Vanturion
missed a word

[atdlzpae]

Quote

Can we please stop the sudden unwarranted "political" (aka racist/primitive/nasty/conspiracy theory level) outbursts?! FFS!

@meepmeepmayer I do agree that bringing immigration in a V14 thread was unwarranted. This forum may not be the best place for it. General is definitely not a place for it.

However, I don't believe that the topic itself or Vanturion's argumentation is "racist/primitive/nasty/conspiracy theory level". The forum is biased towards left, so many people may consider it as such. However, moderation should be as objective and neutral as possible.

Discussing politics is not against the forum rules, so "Make your non-EUC viewpoints known in Facebook or other social media outside the EUC subforums" is definitely unwarranted and a slap in the face.

If politics is forbidden, please change the rules. And actually enforce them for both sides. So no "anti covid vaccine", but also no "pro covid vaccine" posts.

Maybe the solution is simply to be faster at splitting topics?

[woke rider]

I tested positive for covid today.

[0000]

10 minutes ago, earthtwin said:

I tested positive for covid today.

Lmao, I don't know if this is intentional trolling, but it's pretty hard to read this as anything other than some clever derailing!

How dare you derail my off-topic thread with your off-topic post! /s

In all seriousness, I think you'll live...

[woke rider]

I'm just kidding, I really do have covid though. Just trying to lighten things up a bit. I knew you woud get the joke @Vanturion It's important to be sensitive to others on this multi cultural forum. Most people don't understand that securing our nations borders is necessary due to crime, the burden on our healthcare, and cartel activities. A number of the people who are trying to come to America are earnest and are seeking refuge and a new life for their families. Some are desperate for healthcare. Mothers want to provide their children with citizenship in America. English is not always a members primary language. Discussing politics on an active international forum can be productive provided that we are sensitive to each other.

Edited November 17, 2023 by earthtwin
one more thing

[0000]

54 minutes ago, earthtwin said:

A number of the people who are trying to come to America are earnest and are seeking refuge and a new life for their families. Some are desperate for healthcare. Mothers want to provide their children with citizenship in America.

To which I would ask, what monetary obligation do I owe immigrants from other countries and what gives them, or my government, the right to tax me, especially by way of inflation (more demand on limited resources, housing, and services = higher prices) to pay for the needs of citizens of completely separate countries? Remember, they all have their own government to petition for help and handouts.

You're clearly a nice guy, but you know it's reals over feels with me, 99.9% of the time. And I don't mean to always be contrarian for controversy's sake, but this is an english-speaking forum after all. No where was I or anyone else for that matter (that I recall) disrespecting any others' language or culture, that wasn't the issue.

Anyway, this is all besides the point. We're looking for a clarification of the rules here, and I'm personally transparently seeking an answer about if it was only me warned/punished when, amongst the other "offenders," the most egregious post in that thread was levied against me in all but name in the form of insults by a moderator.

Edited November 17, 2023 by Vanturion

[woke rider]

@Vanturion, thanks. I would caution you against starting a flame war with the moderators since I respect your viewpoint as a fellow rider. It doesn't matter if you don't think it's fair. Politics is an incredibly vague word. But, hey if the mods say no politics discussion that doesn't mean we can't talk about things philosophically :wink:

 

From an ethical point of view, I think our debt to others for this gift we call life, includes basic love for our neighbors over respect toward a governing authority. Therefor, if a refugee's motives are noble, she should be allowed to pass so that she can get her unborn child a United States birth certificate. If a refugee's motives are found to be false, they should be sent back to their home country.

 

This is a necessary stance as relates to the period between the world wars in fascist Germany. Unfortunately, the United States now guilty of the same sort of crimes against humanity. People have to refuse to follow orders if they find that those orders are unethical. These days are more progressive in the US, so a psychiatrist could see to it that a member of our military gets an honorable discharge because he has reached the "Principle" stage of morality.

Edited November 17, 2023 by earthtwin
one more thing

[atdlzpae]

IMO it comes down to compatibility of cultures. A lot of cultures are compatible, but a lot of them aren't. Two examples:

- Ukrainians & Poles
We have a lot of Ukrainians in Poland. Both as economic migrants and as war refugees. And Ukrainians don't really cause much trouble in our country. Same race, different (but similar) language, similar values, similar culture.
Not much of a problem.

- Islam & EU
Islam is very incompatible with Western culture. With stuff like disregard for women's autonomy. Tendency for violence.
And so, places where there are lot of Islamic migrants in EU aren't good places to live.
Not all Islamic people are like that. Just assume I put "not all" before every sentence above. But the tendency absolutely is there in high enough numbers to cause problems.

Overall, the more monocultural a place/country is, the safer and calmer it tends to be. Poland is a prime example - it's extremely rare to witness violence of any kind here.

That's why I'm against mass migration. It's way better for there to be "two countries 99% monocultural" than "two countries 50%/50% multicultural". The second scenario will lead to way more tensions. Especially if you're talking about diametrically different/incompatible cultures.

Edited November 17, 2023 by atdlzpae

[woke rider]

Removed by author in the interest of forum policy.

Edited November 21, 2023 by iwantmymtv
Redacted

[atdlzpae]

35 minutes ago, earthtwin said:

Is that true from your perspective?

Absolutely not. When it comes to culture it's definitely on a more conservative side. But when it comes to politics, all major parties are very socialist.
When it comes to government, it's pretty corrupt. When it comes to bureaucracy, it's bad and inconsistent.

Good country to live in, but bad country to do business in.

Overall Poland was spared immigration not because it has done something right, but because almost all immigrants chose Norway/Sweden/UK/Germany/France as their destination.

[RagingGrandpa]

14 hours ago, atdlzpae said:

"Make your non-EUC viewpoints known in Facebook or other social media outside the EUC subforums" is definitely unwarranted and a slap in the face

Hey that's not fair!  

This is electricunicycle.org, an EUC-specific discussion forum funded by an anonymous EUC enthusiast (who does not routinely influence moderation here!).
It's our goal to keep the signal-to-noise ratio high. EUC's. The further you get from that topic, the less we support it. 
We're not trying to become Facebook or Reddit. This is not your personal homepage. The organizers are not interested in fostering non-EUC discord here.

Since it's inevitable for non-EUC interaction to happen, we've left a place for it in "Off Topic."
But please understand its small place within the big plan, demonstrated by the frontpage: 

[atdlzpae]

16 hours ago, atdlzpae said:

I do agree that bringing immigration in a V14 thread was unwarranted. This forum may not be the best place for it. General is definitely not a place for it.

@RagingGrandpa That's why I said this ^. It would be nice to have an "offtop" feature that lets us split into new topics.

People are creatures of association, we do like to go on non-related tangents.

Edited November 17, 2023 by atdlzpae

[UniVehje]

17 hours ago, Vanturion said:

@UniVehje, a couple questions I had to this forum warning in the interest of fairness and transparency:

No need to single out the messenger. The moderation decisions are made together, not alone. 

17 hours ago, Vanturion said:

Did anyone else who participated in expressing their off-topic political opinions and/or engaged in slander and insults (like one of the moderators inferring I was racist for expressing a preference not to have rampant illegal immigration nor wanting to fund the consequences of mass immigration through taxes) receive a similar warning and point deduction? Or was it just me?

We try to be fair and you are not alone. 

17 hours ago, Vanturion said:

How many internet points does it take to experience consequences like a suspension or ban?

100 points is a ban. You have not been restricted or punished, only warned. 

17 hours ago, Vanturion said:

but I recognize that probably the majority doesn't want to debate these kinds of issues here, or perhaps even see dissenting view points on political matters.

This is an international forum. Divisive political topics of one country do not belong here. We have a hobby that unites us and we come from many different cultures. This forum is dedicated to EUCs only. There are other platforms to discuss and argue other topics. 

Please also note that this forum is owned and paid for by one benefactor for the love of the hobby. And the moderation team are all volunteers working for free just to service the international EUC community. We contribute from our free time because we love EUCs and like to discuss them. And we want to offer a nice and friendly platform for our fellow riders all around the world. This hobby unites us all. Politics and divisive topics do not. 

I'm thankful that someone is paying for this service and we get to use it without ads or commercial interest. I'm also thankful that there are other people keeping this place running and free from spammers (most of our work is stopping spammers). I try to contribute by doing janitorial work for free and posting helpful content. And I'd like everyone else to do the same. The most annoying thing for moderators is managing arguments between members. We are not here for that but sometimes it has to be done so that others can enjoy discussing EUCs. We don't owe you anything and you are free to ask for full refund if you don't like how we serve the community. If we are not fair in your mind, tough luck. Deal with it. Go for a ride. Use another free service. If you (or anybody else) got a warning, it means somebody had to use their free time to deal with complaints and work out a way to nicely guide you to behaviour that is easier for other members. It's not about you, it's about everybody else. A proper response to a warning is not to bitch about it but to apologise for the inconvenience and to think about how you can contribute in making this place welcoming for fellow riders. We even took the time to write suggestions in the message. And by the way, your EUC related content is helpful here, keep it up and stay out of divisive issues. Same goes for everyone else for that matter. 

16 hours ago, atdlzpae said:

However, moderation should be as objective and neutral as possible.

Discussing politics is not against the forum rules

Moderators are only doing janitorial work here. Anything else is beyond our pay grade. We do not offer a platform for political discussion. Off topic discussion is against the rules and only EUC related discussion is on topic. Off topic section is also not meant to be a political section. We do not offer moderation service in off topic section and there are no guarantees for any topic to stay open if they cause strife or reports. We are here only for EUC discussion. If you don't like it you can issue a formal complaint to owner of the forum. 

[0000]

2 hours ago, UniVehje said:

We try to be fair and you are not alone. 

Great, thanks for answering my questions here. I wouldn't call this thread bitching, more a convenient way to increase transparency toward the discussion rules and violation consequences with regard to current moderators' tolerances while simultaneously giving me the option to publicly respond to an actual nasty characterization that was used to unilaterally end the debate. 2 birds, 1 stone.

2 hours ago, UniVehje said:

We even took the time to write suggestions in the message. And by the way, your EUC related content is helpful here, keep it up and stay out of divisive issues. Same goes for everyone else for that matter. 

I appreciate that - I didn't take the warning as bad advice either. More that it would've been annoying to be the only one singled out, but not like I could do anything about it either way. And hey, I like to think my non-EUC content is helpful too, diversity (of thought) being our strength and all... . But anyway, I hear what you're saying.

[0000]

13 hours ago, earthtwin said:

From an ethical point of view, I think our debt to others for this gift we call life, includes basic love for our neighbors over respect toward a governing authority. Therefor, if a refugee's motives are noble, she should be allowed to pass so that she can get her unborn child a United States birth certificate. If a refugee's motives are found to be false, they should be sent back to their home country.

It's not at all an unethical view for an individual to be empathetic in this way as long as that debt to others is incurred voluntarily.

On the other hand, if you make people monetarily support immigrants and refugees who massively depend and require resources only acquired by additional taxation, that is, by definition, force. Intent of the welfare seeking doesn't even factor into this ethical equation. Forcing those who would vote against this kind of taxation for a multitude of completely logical and valid reasons, taxation by the way which is literally a claim against our collective future labor and must be repaid through either future labor at interest and/or devaluation of our savings, is unethical.

So even with a statist point of view where all ethics are determined by a legal authority such as by way of a voting majority either through direct or (actual) representative democracy, if the matter was clearly posed to the voters as a direct tax corresponding directly to the welfare and support of the massive amount of immigrants flooding across the southern border of America, a majority would very likely vote in their own and childrens' self interest and reject this tax similarly resolving the ethical question of voluntary vs involuntary/forced support that is the status quo presently.

Funny you bring up birthright citizenship, another ethical conundrum where all a pregnant foreign national has to do as either a tourist or immigrant is time their pregnancy with physically being present on American soil in order to grant their progeny immediate citizenship. I don't think many net positive tax-payers would agree or desire this pathway to citizenship to exist, but it's apparently commonplace in North and Central American vs not a thing in European countries.

That said, I found some immigration statistics from 2022 estimating the demographics of the net migration that year and the majority of these economic migrants are single adults (barring statistics from Columbia) so there's that.

Speaking of taxation, the US taxpayers directly supports ($383 million, this figure not all-inclusive of services) and maintains this immigration support in a variety of ways even including direct funding for overseas NGO's through the US state department (I'd have to dig deeper to figure out their budget for this new source of taxation). If that's not enough deficit spending, we even have the UN pitching in "hundred of millions in cash" which, surprise, is primarily funded by the US ($12.5 billion in 2021) so again the ignorant American tax-payer is milked to keep this circus going.

13 hours ago, earthtwin said:

Unfortunately, the United States now guilty of the same sort of crimes against humanity.

I agree that US foreign policy and the people responsible for shaping it as such are guilty of a lot of things including many crimes against humanity in the expansionist interests of the empire. But to your chart, I would say the implementation of that ethical hierarchy, in practice or actual reality for many, is completely dependent upon deficit spending, "printed money out of thin air," and a benefits-now, consequences-later level-of-sophistication where, increasingly, attempts made at fulfilling Maslow's hierarchy of needs collectively by way of the state are unethically funded and supported by a nigh religious adherence to pretending math doesn't matter and future unborn tax-payers can always shoulder any and all financial burdens.

In other words, place "Free Money" at the base of that pyramid making all upward ethical progress a dependent consequence, and you have a far more accurate picture of reality as well as an origin for the majority of people's moral compass. Well, that and deference/conformity to perceived authority and whatever is currently promoted as acceptable thought.

--

Let's not get into issues related to the military, this is long enough.

Edited November 18, 2023 by Vanturion
fixed some awkward wording

[woke rider]

4 hours ago, Vanturion said:

Funny you bring up birthright citizenship, another ethical conundrum where all a pregnant foreign national has to do as either a tourist or immigrant is time their pregnancy with physically being present on American soil in order to grant their progeny immediate citizenship. I don't think many net positive tax-payers would agree or desire this pathway to citizenship to exist, but it's apparently commonplace in North and Central American vs not a thing in European countries.

This is going to sound absolutely horrible, the pragmatist that I am, dare I suggest that babies are becoming commodities in this time of low birth rate. I know it costs ~$250,000 to raise a child in the United States, but consider what good that baby could do with his gift of citizenship, and consider the childs productivity into account, for there are a multitude of privileges that come with a United States birth certificate. Consider that none of us chose to be born, nor did we choose where. Life is a gift we didn't earn. Then it makes financial sense to go ahead and take a chance on the baby, if only for the bottom line.

[0000]

Costs more than that, and will be potentially significantly more by the time they're 18 considering the pace of inflation and accompanying increasing deficit spending to cement that trend.

I mean, generally you hope any and every parent individually views their babies as assets and makes sacrifices accordingly to put the lives of their newborn(s) first. However, again those parental responsibilities shouldn't extend (and overextend) unreasonably and unceasingly to all tax-payers to provide for the basic needs of children (and many adults for that matter) they didn't have any hand in choosing to create, especially I would add, from peoples of radically different cultures.

This perspective doesn't preclude individuals from reaching out to help voluntarily when and where they see fit. That is generally a commendable thing to do. But again, leveraging taxes by force to make people support that which is against their interests is not ethical.

Creating or incentivizing/subsidizing more dependent people many of whom don't easily assimilate or create various social frictions in the way of cultural differences in an economic environment in which good-paying (capable of supporting a family on) jobs are increasingly scarce while the labor force is competitively pitted against countries with much less COL burdens, all while automation, outsourcing, and now AI pressures continue to ratchet up, does not make for an environment in which an ever-growing labor force could be seen as an asset by most logical-oriented thinkers.

That is, unless you yourself are an employer/capitalist looking to take advantage of this labor arbitrage and increased desperation to depress the cost of labor and the wages you have to pay to get talent. Then, the more the merrier. The economic reality of an excess labor force makes it harder for labor to collectively organize or strike as well for better pay, again favoring the ownership class at the detriment of the native labor class, even more so if if culturally dissimilar. I think it would behoove people to question their principles in matters like this as severe economic realities are ignored and re-framed as moral/ethical decisions in which we are "allowed" only one "right" answer to that just so happens to coincide with the goals and gains with the ownership class. Who benefits?

I'll give you one more reason to question why our ruling class might want a bunch of desperate/dependent excess labor with no ties to the existing culture or investment in being American (and hypocritically contradict my last post to boot):

From page 24 of US Army War College publication: A Call To Action: Lesson from Ukraine for the Future Force (July 2023)

Quote

Every infantry and armor soldier we do not recruit today is a strategic mobilization asset we will not have in 2031. The Individual Ready Reserve, which stood at 700,000 in 1973 and 450,000 in 1994, now stands at 76,000.15 These numbers cannot fill the existing gaps in the active force, let alone any casualty replacement or expansion during a large-scale combat operation. The implication is that the 1970s concept of an all-volunteer force has outlived its shelf life and does not align with the current operating environment. The technological revolution described below suggests this force has reached obsolescence. Large-scale combat operations troop requirements may well require a reconceptualization of the 1970s and 1980s volunteer force and a move toward partial conscription.

The Empire needs more slaves to die for them. I prefer hard truths over feelings. The entire report is interesting in that regard, I'd recommend reading it if you are an American male who had to sign up for selective service at age 18.

Edited November 18, 2023 by Vanturion

[woke rider]

Withdrawn by author in keeping with forum policy.

Edited November 18, 2023 by earthtwin
redacted

[Planemo]

On 11/18/2023 at 2:24 AM, Vanturion said:

However, again those parental responsibilities shouldn't extend (and overextend) unreasonably and unceasingly to all tax-payers to provide for the basic needs of children (and many adults for that matter) they didn't have any hand in choosing to create

I work directly opposite a colleague. We speak openly and frankly as our small office is private. He worked in DWP (Dept for Work and Pensions) in the UK as a benefits case manager for 20 years. The stories he can tell would make you weep. There are many. Two of his favourites are:

1. Many, many claimants would moan and shout about how low their benefits were. These people were actually being given more money than my colleague was earning, and that was the vast majority of cases.

2. His highest claimant was getting £2,904 per month. That was about 15 years ago. My colleague was taking home about £1,400 per month at time. And we won't forget that the claimant was getting their rent, council tax and a new car paid for on top of that figure. Yes the mother was disabled and had 3 kids, but really? Even today I don't earn anything like that sort of combined income and I'm buying my own house/car etc etc.

He left because he was fed up being shouted at by entitled people constantly demanding money whilst they made no attempt to actually work or sought to claim huge amounts of money over and above even an excellent wage because they couldn't work . Funnily enough, the people who actually deserved what would be seen as a 'reasonable' benefit never gave him any strife and were very grateful for his help. They were the vast minority though.

I am convinced, given this first hand information from a reliable source, that the benefits system in the UK is utterly broken and it angers me greatly. That said, it doesn't anger me as much as the sorry excuses for humans that created the situation in the first place. We would have far more funds to spread out for claimants that really need it (housing being one of them) if we didn't have pond life leeching up money left right and centre.

And thats before we even start on what it costs to deal with our immigration problems or indeed the money that the government has spaffed up the wall on failed PPE/track and trace etc.

[0000]

I always find the anecdotes/experiences from people’s lived experiences the most interesting to read about online. The bit about people making money doing nothing (or being well-paid for non-value-added “work” for that matter) always gets to me – it’s a kind of misallocation of resources that I find very disrespect to the many people who do work hard and provide actual value for far less money. But it’s so commonplace it's become normal.

This all reminds me of a podcast I listened to several years back detailing the amount of Medicare/Medicaid fraud that occurs in the US. I believe it was at least north of a hundred (edit: not 1, off by a couple magnitudes of order there) billion per year.

I also vaguely remember the incentives or disincentives rather within the system for doctors/providers to question or ferret out fraud, even observably obvious false claims, and the disincentives were pretty perverse in that doctors/providers were somehow essentially punished for questioning claims (I’d have to dig the podcast up again for the specifics). Coincidentally, I believe it was immigrants from many different countries that made up a large majority perpetuating the repetitive fraud too.

People might say I just want to shit on immigrants here, but that’s not true. I don’t even blame them. If some country is ignorant and foolish enough to provide an open-checkbook for living accommodations and completely subvert/undermine their traditional immigration rules in exchange for zero work, then who can really blame foreigners for taking advantage. Whatever negativity I feel for hordes of economic migrants coming here to live a dependent lifestyle for an indeterminate amount of time is absolutely dwarfed by the negativity I feel for our entire disgustingly wealthy political class, their social-engineering-fixated corporate sponsors, and their central banking masters pulling the strings.

Anyway, funny how entitlements make for entitled people. In any case, your colleague’s anecdotes plays right to the truism that the bigger the government the greater the amount of waste, fraud, corruption, and abuse. It seems like we’re learning all over that government is the worst vehicle for any kind of fair redistribution of tax-payer appropriated funds, and it also seems every new generation is bamboozled by this phenomenon until they either a) become wise to this fact from wisdom either taught or lived, or b) find ways to profit by said redistribution. And in the case of the latter, they will not only never bite the hand that feeds, but go out of their way to fight to protect their paycheck/grift in all kinds of ways.

Lacking real marketplace dynamics or positive feedback loops that competition would spur, there’s just no negative feedback loop for the waste, fraud, corruption, and abuse that happens in large bureaucracies to course correct. Well, other than attempting to vote it away, and lived experience says that obviously doesn’t work.

The way I see it, anywhere you have a big pot of pilfered money/taxes, you get unnatural distortions, whether we’re talking something as big and all-encompassing as a globalized economy or small and personalized like individuals with their subsequently warped behavior and priorities. Just how much of economic activity today is partially or completely dependent upon deficit spending → taxation → redistribution?

You said:

15 hours ago, Planemo said:

We would have far more funds to spread out for claimants that really need it (housing being one of them) if we didn't have pond life leeching up money left right and centre.

I get what you’re saying, but what really changes if the underlying mechanisms for redistribution and the incentives within the system remain the same? Seems like you’d just get a different set of people taking advantage. People generally become independent if/when they can find profitable work. Yet so many factors, only a few I spoke about above, detract from this goal that a thinking person is essentially forced to consider the possibility that creating the conditions for independent, solvent, healthy, and happy people is not an actual goal for those in or with power.

To me I feel like this economic debt-based boom-bust system is essentially played out. And at this point, where the banking masters want to take us, I personally don’t particularly want to go, ever. A world in which not only does your vote not matter, but individuals won’t even be able to “vote with their dollar” as the managerial class would have full economic control from macro to the micro level under the proposed CBDC slavery paradigm.

Edited November 20, 2023 by Vanturion
100

[Planemo]

6 hours ago, Vanturion said:

I also vaguely remember the incentives or disincentives rather within the system for doctors/providers to question or ferret out fraud, even observably obvious false claims, and the disincentives were pretty perverse in that doctors/providers were somehow essentially punished for questioning claims

The fraud aspect is indeed rife. I have just been speaking to my colleague again this morning. We also raised the example I gave above re the single mother/3 kids.

He added that he ended up speaking to a police officer one day regarding the family. My colleague had been dealing with the mother for years but had no idea how much trouble the family as a whole had been to police. The mother had been convicted of drink driving twice along with various other offences and one of the kids was very well known and had a string of convictions/history. The police officer was astounded that the juvenile was on benefits. Whilst admitting that he was no doctor, he was very clear in stating that the juvenile was, in his opinion, 'not disabled in the slightest, I've dealt with him so many times I forget. He's as strong as an ox, knows exactly what he is doing and could easily do all sorts of work if he wanted to, but I suspect he earns more being a criminal'. We'll add his criminal 'earnings' to the financial benefit (circa £800 p/m) he is on as a result of 'not being employable' too I guess...

Now this is where I am very careful and want to state clearly that only an idiot would assume all disabilities are obvious. I get and totally understand that. But in this example we do have a police officer who has spent an awful lot of time with someone in various scenarios/interviews etc.

And this is where we turn to using mental health as a cover-all for easy claims and unsurprisingly (according to my colleague) the biggest one is depression (in adults) or ADHD etc in juveniles. Both can be incredibly difficult to disprove (and as you say, the backlash when trying to do so puts most off trying) and so make them ripe for abuse. A close second is back pain. Of course my colleague would ask for Doctors reports to confirm but he said they would hand out 1 year+ sick notes like confetti, with very few questions asked.

Another popular one (again according to my colleague) is co-habiting individuals, each claiming as being single in order to double benefits. The lengths that people go to to maintain this front are staggering but it's made relatively easy to fool the DWP given that they weren't allowed to 'cold call' to check peoples status'. Madness. And even when caught out the claimants could just say 'we only got back together yesterday, I haven't got round to informing DWP yet' and thats the end of it. Another couple of weeks go by and then the DWP get a report of 'we've split up again'. The claim goes back into force. It's a merry go round and the scumbags know exactly how to play the system.

I honestly don't know what the answer is when trying to prove whether someone is capable of working. The DWP rely on doctors but some disabilities are difficult if not impossible to prove and to me that only leaves the option of intrusive surveillance, covert if needed. But not only does that need resources which the DWP simply haven't got, it touches on the whole human rights issue. That said, if I ever claimed anything I would be happy for those that give me money to poke into my life/carry out random checks to periodically ratify my claim status. But many wouldn't be. Cake and eat it springs to mind.

I am hugely into a welfare/benefits system. I just wish that those who are truly incapable of working were looked after better, and if we had less fraud it would be entirely possible. It's just unfortunate that unless you work in or know someone who has first hand experience of the benefits system you have no idea just how widespread the fraud problem really is. I asked my colleague to hazard a guess at what percentage of claims he felt were genuine. His answer.... '....oooh....about 30%?'.

The reality is, theres actually relatively few people these days who really can't work. You can find job roles for just about anyone and theres more pressure than ever for companies to provide equal opportunities. But when a benefits case manager himself says 'if you've got no morals, it really isn't worth working if the wage is less than £25k', theres something desperately wrong.

It's a very emotive subject and one which often ruffles feathers, usually from those that have no idea how much the system is abused, so I will make this my last post on the subject before someone loses their minds over my comments.

[UPONIT]

On 11/17/2023 at 6:56 AM, iwantmymtv said:

It's funny, but I think a male caucasian and a male negro have more in common 

Why? Why do that? You are providing a perfect example of how an otherwise acceptable discussion needlessly goes off the rails and ends up getting locked.

You HAVE to know that the term "negro" is an unacceptable way to refer to Black people in the English-speaking world. What possible reason could you have for using it? 

Being able to engage in conversations about "controversial" subjects with others who share a common interest is a great opportunity, in theory.  It is baffling why anybody would want to ruin that.

Thanks.

[0000]

Wow, @UPONIT talk about projection. OK, this is obvious bait for a mod-lock, but I'll bite anyway.

So you just want to create drama where literally none existed (unearthing deleted content) so you can get the thread locked because there's some free speech happening here that you don't like.

Clever, but I'm pretty familiar with this shyster nonsense so I'll spell things out some more so to highlight how far away from maturity this kind of manipulative rhetoric is.

13 hours ago, UPONIT said:

Why? Why do that? You are providing a perfect example of how an otherwise acceptable discussion needlessly goes off the rails and ends up getting locked.

Pot, meet kettle.

How the hell do you even dig this up 3+ days after it was already retracted/deleted? Presumably the author thought there might be a problem and already resolved the issue days ago.

13 hours ago, UPONIT said:

Being able to engage in conversations about "controversial" subjects with others who share a common interest is a great opportunity, in theory.  It is baffling why anybody would want to ruin that.

So after you go out of your way to create unnecessary drama just so you can play at moral arbiter and signal your superior virtue to the crowd, you also take this manufactured opportunity to poo-poo on free discussion. Yes, it is sooo baffling why anyone would want to ruin it...

In defense of @iwantmymtv, and I will defend him unasked here because he's actually contributed to a respectful discussion, everyone can tell by the context of his sentence that the point he was making was not about insulting black Americans, but rather equating commonality between men of different races presumably in contrast to women. Legitimately interesting discussion material if there wasn't someone getting triggered by use of a word that's become socially unfashionable. Also, isn't it ironic how you basically prove the point of the previous poster's last sentiments here.

PS: you should probably never travel to Latin America if the word negro triggers you.

 

Edited November 21, 2023 by Vanturion
softened a few points

[0000]

Ha, if you didn’t say “back pain” I was going to guess that was the second most likely faked claim too! Not that it’s a laughing matter, more that it’s like a $100 Jeopardy question, easy to guess. If there’s a risk-free way to make a living without working, there will always be people around to take advantage of that opportunity, even more likely for those with less “invested” in the success of the community or country they’re taking from. Just the way it is.

On 11/20/2023 at 3:12 AM, Planemo said:

I honestly don't know what the answer is when trying to prove whether someone is capable of working. The DWP rely on doctors but some disabilities are difficult if not impossible to prove and to me that only leaves the option of intrusive surveillance, covert if needed.

Yeah it’s legitimately ridiculous that with all of this digital surveillance happening whether it’s in the private sector through social media, online purchases, website traffic, smartphone apps, credit rating companies, people and public record websites, or straight-up intelligence sector government mass surveillance on citizens, that welfare administrators by and large haven’t solved how to aggregate some of this dystopian surveillance data to parse welfare/entitlements legitimacy, something that would actually benefit tax-payers.

On 11/20/2023 at 3:12 AM, Planemo said:

But not only does that need resources which the DWP simply haven't got, it touches on the whole human rights issue.

So I don’t think cost or feasibility are the issues preventing welfare screening via “metadata” from being implemented, but privacy certainly, public sentiment likely too depending on how public opinion is manipulated by limited debate.

That being said, if claimants are going to take from the tax-payers, especially being a voluntary request (as claimants can just choose to not sign up if they want to retain their right to privacy or whatever remains of it in this digital age), don’t those tax-payers deserve to know that their money isn’t being wasted on fraudulent claims? I think in this case  metadata surveillance would be justified and the privacy argument would lose and should lose. Put another way, why should the privacy rights of people voluntarily requesting to take the public’s money trump the concerns of people providing it?

I presume that after years and years of provable fraud whether we’re talking the US, the UK, or anywhere else for that matter, the situation doesn’t get fixed because those with political power want the system to remain as it is. Remember, free money eventually gets spent and the profits end up in the hands of the capital owners anyway whether they own shares of car companies, entertainment companies, grocery stores, oil and gas, or any other commodity that is needed or wanted by the proles. It's the working non-shareholders that get fleeced in this wealth transfer by losing purchasing power in competition for resources with those who have entitlements to spend without providing productive value to compensate for their increased demand for goods & services.

Easy to puzzle out why thing don't change, those at the top benefit from this wealth transfer at the expense of the dwindling working middle.

On 11/20/2023 at 3:12 AM, Planemo said:

It's just unfortunate that unless you work in or know someone who has first hand experience of the benefits system you have no idea just how widespread the fraud problem really is. I asked my colleague to hazard a guess at what percentage of claims he felt were genuine. His answer.... '....oooh....about 30%?'

Well don’t forget the small percentage of people who go out of their way to independently investigate how things unrelated to their profession actually work (or fail to). 70% entitlement fraud should be a shocking revelation, but I think everyone’s gotten used to this monetary unreality in which “we” can always just print more money with seemingly little visible consequence. I spoke about it above.

So coincidentally I was listening to a different podcast just the other day that spoke very intelligently about systems, the ordering of society, and how political power has historically always been a fight between 3 entities: the church, the king, and the aristocrats/merchants/guilds/corporations. One anecdote the interviewee gave (around 19-20 minutes) which might be of interest to you as a fan the welfare system, was how much more of the tithes (taxes) would go toward public works like aqueducts, roads, and even pensions for older people in Mexico when they were ruled by the church (Catholicism then not now) vs after the corporations took over. Predictably, once governance was structured under corporate rule, wealth and public money was increasingly siphoned to the shareholders. Sounds a little familiar eh? Well, here’s a link if you’re interested – very thought provoking material.

Edited November 21, 2023 by Vanturion

[UPONIT]

On 11/21/2023 at 12:54 PM, Vanturion said:

Wow, @UPONIT talk about projection. OK, this is obvious bait for a mod-lock, but I'll bite anyway.

So you just want to create drama where literally none existed (unearthing deleted content) so you can get the thread locked because there's some free speech happening here that you don't like.

Clever, but I'm pretty familiar with this shyster nonsense so I'll spell things out some more so to highlight how far away from maturity this kind of manipulative rhetoric is.

Pot, meet kettle.

How the hell do you even dig this up 3+ days after it was already retracted/deleted? Presumably the author thought there might be a problem and already resolved the issue days ago.

So after you go out of your way to create unnecessary drama just so you can play at moral arbiter and signal your superior virtue to the crowd, you also take this manufactured opportunity to poo-poo on free discussion. Yes, it is sooo baffling why anyone would want to ruin it...

In defense of @iwantmymtv, and I will defend him unasked here because he's actually contributed to a respectful discussion, everyone can tell by the context of his sentence that the point he was making was not about insulting black Americans, but rather equating commonality between men of different races presumably in contrast to women. Legitimately interesting discussion material if there wasn't someone getting triggered by use of a word that's become socially unfashionable. Also, isn't it ironic how you basically prove the point of the previous poster's last sentiments here.

PS: you should probably never travel to Latin America if the word negro triggers you.

 

1. I responded to it before it was deleted.

2. I don't think threads should ever be locked, personally. Nobody is forced to read anything here.

3. Spanish vocabulary isn't the subject. English vocabulary is.

4. Your ignorant ad hominem attacks don't bother me. I hope they don't get deleted or locked. Maybe you when you find the source of your misplaced anger, you can look back and laugh?

5. I will continue to say something when someone says things that are derogatory or offensive to anyone. (I don't make assumptions about why someone said something. That's why my reply was mostly in the form of questions. It's possible the offensiveness was a mistake.)

6. I have friends and relatives of various ethnicities who read these forums. Not all of them participate in the discussion. But it affects them when derogatory things are said. If that bothers you, too bad. I want them to know that they are welcome here.

7. I'm not interested in arguing, especially with you. I'm interested in civil discussions.

8. In fact, I believe the only comment I've ever made to you directly was to suggest a local resource for EUC trails to ride when you were in the area where I live.

Edited November 23, 2023 by UPONIT