So you read this story. It's entirely written in the second person. You get annoyed by that, because the story isn't really about you, it's about someone else. You keep reading anyway. You are appalled by the complexity of the social safety net and all of the needless bureaucracy, and how this makes people including you more vulnerable if something goes wrong.
Where you come from, there's no safety net, they find you a shitty job to not pay you unemployment benefits. That's why you have to keep your own "personal safety cushion".
A personal bugbear for me too. The writer's story is theirs, and I wish they'd stop trying to tell me it's mine too. I typically assume that they're right, that I know what's going to happen, and stop reading.
I don't know which is worse, though: this, or history programmes narrated in the present tense.
In fairness, I've known a number of English people who tell stories exactly like the author did in this case. It feels more authentic - I can imagine the subject of the tale speaking in exactly the same manner.
Nah'mean? You pick up a book, see, and it's all written like the author's telling you how it happened. Gets under your skin, right? Makes it more personal somehow. You read some more, and you get sucked in, lose yourself like.
All very lamentable but you read it and get a sense of someone who is largely passive and to whom life happens. Where's the sense of ownership and shaping your own destiny?
What point are you making? Are you saying it's his own fault for not having shaped his own destiny like an Ayn Rand character? Are you saying it would be nice if he did have more of a sense of ownership? Sure, that would be nice, but lots of things in life would be nice and saying they would be nice makes no difference to anything. What point are you making?
Someone who shapes their own destiny such that they wouldn't be in this situation, wouldn't be in this situation. I might as well say it would be nice if someone hit by a car hadn't been in the road.
'lamentable' is such a passive word to describe someone's life becoming a living hell and ruin. Not everyone is able to organise their life, not everyone is clever or successful, and certainly most people do not shape their own destiny.
The question is what do you think is ok to happen to people like this? Are you ok with this happening to people in your community? For some people the anwser is 'yes'. Those people might be selfish, or uncaring. Maybe they lack empathy. Maybe they don't believe it is happening. Even if they are selfish, they'd also have to believe the chance of this happening to them is going to be very low.
I guess I'm questioning the spin that the BBC article put on this. And no I'm not ok with this happening to people. However, there were opportunities where he could have helped himself - exhibit better judgement on who he chose to drink with, thus avoiding the stabbing; - understand that the change in benefit payment is making it his responsibility to pay the rent. Let's face it he must have noticed the increased payment to him when that first rent cheque landed in his account.
Living in the UK and being subjected to this sort of "journalistic" output from the BBC day-in-day out, I read it as a propaganda piece by the BBC designed to support their agenda.
Not everyone is capable of keeping up with modern life, being responsible for bills, payments, admin, forms etc.. particularly if it is made deliberately convoluted, or if there is a concurrent medical issue.
It's a tragedy that the country of Nye Bevan and Clement Attlee has come to this.
I'm reminded of a quote that I think I first read in "Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class" (NB strongly recommended):
"There’s been class warfare for the last 20 years, and my class has won"
Warren Buffet
Edit: I'm in the middle of reading "Citizen Clem" and what an extraordinarily capable chap Attlee was. Here's a good article on him in (of all places) the Daily Mail:
Edit2: Even Thatcher was a fan of Attlee: "Of Clement Attlee, however, I was an admirer. He was a serious man and a patriot. Quite contrary to the general tendency of politicians in the 1990s, he was all substance and no show."
I've not read "Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class", but from what little I know of it one (probably minor) thing that Jones tries to establish is that the very word "Chav" is a classist acronym for "Council Housed And Violent".
This is a retrofit for narrative purposes, invented by Jones, who seeks to demonise the word and in doing so police its use. The origins of the term are much older (before council houses in fact).
Having read quite a number of his columms for the guardian, he seems to represent a lot that I dislike about the UK left and their tendency to try to redefine popular terms in such a way as to demonise their users. It's straw-man fallacy writ large - you said "chav" therefore you are classist (Tory) scum. Actually I said chav because that group of loud, ridiculously dressed arseholes over there is starting to kick off, I don't give a shit what their socio-economic background might be.
I have left-leaning tendencies, I think the benefits system in the UK is a f*cking shambles, the NHS needs help and is an essential service, that there's a lot more we can do to help our people thrive and succeed. But this vein of pious language-warping really puts me off from identifying with the self-identified left or the Labour party.
I'm no fan of that type of linguistic policing either (e.g. "neds" here in Scotland) - I don't think the argument around the term makes up much of the book though.
the cover is the stereotypical 'chav' clothing, which you internalized so well in your discourse. And one (or more) chapter is dedicated to micro aggression (as defined be Strauss(?) where every argument has an oppressor and a oppressed) and culture wars that defined that chavs and irishs are dumb and irresponsible and that's why society needs the oh so justified ruling class to watch out for those too dumb to watch out for themselves, in all their best interest.
Ugh, the whole concept of 'microaggression' can f*ck off, IMHO.
And no, it's not culture war. The whole narrative that you can't criticise people who dress and behave like dickheads because you might be displaying class privilege is nonsense. Plenty of people from the very poorest and most deprived backgrounds don't do that.
>The origins of the term are much older (before council houses in fact).
This may be true, but FWIW, the first time I heard the term it was introduced to me with a similar backronym. And not as some "isn't this awful classism" disclaimer, but as a gleeful denigration of the people it referred to. That there is an older etymology does not necessarily mean Jones invented the backronym.
>Actually I said chav because that group of loud, ridiculously dressed arseholes over there is starting to kick off
While I too have used the term, and feel like I was doing objection to genuinely unpleasant people, I remain suspicious of this argument, because it sounds a lot like "I don't mind black people, I just don't like black culture". A lot of what gets read as obnoxious is just cultural differences, and this is especially true of judgements like "ridiculously dressed".
>> That there is an older etymology does not necessarily mean Jones invented the backronym.
It seems to originate with him, AFAICT, or at least at more or less the exact same time. And it fits his narrative suspiciously well.
I first heard the word 'chav' used a good decade before the book.
>> "I don't mind black people, I just don't like black culture".
I don't believe dressing and behaving like an arsehole are necessarily part of working class culture. I could be wrong. It's not my background, though it is my mother's and a variety of my friends'
Obviously not all working class people are part of the same culture, but I think the very fact that the stereotype of "Chav" exists beyond merely being obnoxious (since there are obviously obnoxious people who we wouldn't consider "Chavs") suggests there is a cultural component.
And it's when you say including aspects like clothing that the idea starts to sound classist. How exactly does someone "dress like an arsehole"? Is their clothing somehow inherently offensive, or do you just dislike it because it doesn't fit your own aesthetics, and/or because you associate it with a negative type of person?
>> Is their clothing somehow inherently offensive, or do you just dislike it because it doesn't fit your own aesthetics, and/or because you associate it with a negative type of person?
The latter, the association. My aesthetics are questionable in various ways all by themselves. But associations are a different thing.
People pre-judge each other on clothing all the time, and people very often broadcast who they are and their group affiliations through clothing. If a pub is full of people in football shirts I'm probably not going in because it's not my sort of place. I have no desire to be around loud sports appreciation. It's not because I think they're beneath me but I know what to expect.
The question of class and chavs is an interesting one to some extent - I don't judge them because they are poor, working class people. It's the behaviour, the general poor education etc. I don't think it's wrong to judge this as bad, nor to associate particular behaviours and outlooks with clothing when there is an associated look - I'm an old goth, we definitely had our look and our commonalities.
Let's turn this around - a woman goes to the supermarket in her food-covered pyjamas, with a kid in tow, screaming at them to 'shuh uh!'. You're not going to make any judgement on that?
How's about a massive guy with long hair in a metal t-shirt and a denim waistcoat? No preconceptions?
First bit of literature I have read in second person for quite some time. I actually really liked it as a refreshing change to the usual format. I feel like it lends itself to a deeper connection with the subject (in this case Tony).
> Mullings, your legal advisor, tells you it might not feel like it, but you're one of the lucky ones. At least because this was a housing case you had legal representation. If you hadn't, you would have been steamrollered.
Primarily as a result of cuts to the legal aid system[1]. Design a benefits system that's incredibly complex and all too easy to fall foul of, and then deny any kind of legal assistance in the inevitable appeal. I hope Iain Duncan Smith and his colleagues are one day able to reflect on what they've created.
Given the bureaucratic complexity of welfare and social support in most countries there might be a solution to a problem nobody wants to see.
Welfare support has long time ago reached the level where it's difficult if not impossible for a normal, working, and still mentally capable person to understand everything and their caveats — not to mention someone who has first had hard luck, is then subsequently out of energy, and is finally subjected to the experience of being a cog in the very machine that is the bureaucracy.
From programmer's point of view the obvious solution is encapsulation.
Let's keep the private parts to the implementation and only offer a reasonable public interface. That means a dedicated social worker who knows both the rules and knows you.
An outsider can't be expected to chug along with the ever-mutating directives, laws, guidances, and rules that are part of the bureaucracy's own operation and related legislation. Let the bureau have people who take human descriptions of one's life and work out the best plan out of available benefits. The insiders have the knowledge of what works together and how to make the system work.
This would also be more efficient: failed applications, missing actions, mismatched assumptions, eviction orders, court cases, etc do all cost the bureau some time and money already in the current system. If there was an inside person who could rule out the impossible branches right away and check eligibility on the applicant's first or second visit, everyone would save time.
Maybe their purpose isn't too be efficient. If everyone automatically got all the benefits they were entitled to it works surely be a lot more expensive.
Or maybe that's the lie told in order to make the system more complex and harder to navigate, with more gates people won't be able to pass through, and an entire bureaucracy to administrate that — conveniently drawing even more resources from actually fulfilling the system's avowed purpose, ending with a system which keeps costing more and delivering less.
As long as you can provide a steady stream of anecdotes and scapegoats it'll go fine.
This can in turn justify cutting the system because it doesn't pull its weight[0], and the people who hate social support systems can pat themselves on the back over a job well done.
[0] not all at once of course, you by start cutting ancillary services like legal aid[1] in order to feed the ever-increasing gate-keeping machinery you keep adding to
> Or maybe that's the lie told in order to make the system more complex and harder to navigate
Not sure if that's a lie. In my experience, a big chunk of the general population is selfish enough that they'll abuse any system if they can get away with it. In a way, it's tragedy of the commons all over again - those people, confronted, will tell you, "I'm just a single man, just a drop in a bucket". They conveniently forget that there are 20 million other people in the country thinking the same thing.
In this automatic-benefits-allocating world, there would also be no more fraudulent claiming of money not entitled to! It should overall result in a net saving, I believe...
That's at least part of the theory behind basic income concepts: there's no fraud since everybody gets it, and you can get rid of the organisations in charge of validating & allocating.
Benefit fraud in the UK is estimated at around 1-2% of the total - a small enough amount that it shouldn't be the focus of policy instead of the 98-99% of genuine cases.
There are volunteers that perform this function. However, the hostility of the bureaucracy today is not an accident. It's a matter of policy. The intent is to make people go away without paying them money. The people responsible blind themselves to the fact that some of these people "go away" because they have died.
Imagine you're signed off work because of heart problems. You're invited to a medical assessment, and you have a heart attack during the assessment. The medical assessor calls an ambo, and the paramedics take you to hospital to treat your ongoing heart attack.
We might think this is clear evidence the person actually is ill and wasn't faking.
The DWP sees this - failure to complete the assessment - as a sanctionable failing.
> Again, I support the principle of a sanctions regime. If somebody consistently fails to turn up for work experience or a Work programme scheme, sanctions should be applied. However, I believe that sanctions are being applied indiscriminately. For example, one of my constituents was a beneficiary of employment and support allowance after they had retired on grounds of ill health as a result of a heart problem. He was required to attend a work capability assessment with Atos. During
> 19 Mar 2013 : Column 840
> the assessment, he was told that he was having a heart attack and the nurse said that she had to stop the assessment. He got a letter a couple of weeks later saying that he had withdrawn from the assessment and, as such, was being sanctioned. That beggars belief. I have other examples, as I am sure do colleagues.
I've been told by someone who knows the process that it's the same reason why applications for Permanent Residence in UK are held up for the maximum allowed time and then rejected for applicants from certain countries - they are accepted on appeal, but the sheer annoyance of the process turns people away which is what they are aiming for.
It's not just Permanent Residence applications. Something similar happened to my wife with a Tourist Visa application.
I'm a UK citizen, my wife is not, nor is she an EU citizen. At the time, she was studying for a Masters level degree in an EU country, with a Student Visa for that country. Not ideal for married life, but she wanted the degree and we made it work (spent loads on airfares).
During the summer holiday, we decided she should visit me in the UK. We applied for a Tourist Visa, which seemed to make sense as she was only coming for a few weeks. There was no need to apply for a Spousal Visa.
Despite the fact she had multiple UK Tourist Visas and a UK Student Visa approved in the past, this one was rejected. No specific reason.
There was a written appeals process. We appealed. The Home Office had months to submit their case. Nothing happened.
Next, there is a court appeals process. We applied for a date, one was set several months in the future. Obviously only I could attend. Eleven months after the original Tourist Visa application we had our day in court. The Home Office didn't even bother to show up. The judge heard my side of the story, reviewed the supporting documentation and the Visa was granted.
We were never given any official reason for the rejected initial application or the Home Office's refusal to engage in the appeals process. As you said, I think they were just going for sheer annoyance, hoping we'd give up.
Lost a lot of faith in the UK after that. We now live together in Europe and of course Brexit is doing its best to screw that up too.
> some of these people "go away" because they have died
For anyone thinking this is hyperbole, one recent case[1] was of an anorexic woman found dead in her freezing cold flat because she couldn't afford to run the heating. She had been sanctioned for missing a jobseekers meeting due to being in ICU.
When you combine stories like this along with the massively convoluted legal system and incredibly dense surveillance penetrating everything all the time, it makes me terrified to even visit the place. When traveling to Europe I route around instead of doing stopovers in UK.
> Let's keep the private parts to the implementation and only offer a reasonable public interface. That means a dedicated social worker who knows both the rules and knows you.
> An outsider can't be expected to chug along with the ever-mutating directives, laws, guidances, and rules that are part of the bureaucracy's own operation and related legislation. Let the bureau have people who take human descriptions of one's life and work out the best plan out of available benefits. The insiders have the knowledge of what works together and how to make the system work.
In England a "Decision Maker" looks at the details of your case, and applies all the relevant acts, statutes, statutory instruments, and case law you your case.
This person is an expert, employed by the Department for Work and Pensions and all they do is this.
If you think they've got something wrong you can ask for a mandatory reconsideration: they'll have another look. If you still think they're wrong you can go to lower tribunal. A panel looks at the decision. And if they're wrong you can go to upper tribunal.
I almost assumed there must be such people employed but then concluded there cannot be because of the problems mentioned in the article. I'm happy to hear this is how it has been planned and very unhappy to hear that the theory is apparently not working in practice, maybe because of sheer incompetence from (at least) DWP's part.
> That means a dedicated social worker who knows both the rules and knows you.
Or, we can stop assuming government's efficiency and create an UBI. Because there will never be a dedicated social worker caring about your side - even if it was viable, voters would never allow that.
A happy useful system that gives money out is an easy target for politicians who want to show they are vanguards of small government or better saving/spending.
Good welfare programs are targets.
Therefore they will only be mediocre programs, even if you could have a good program.
Any good program will survive only as long as its not a target.
And the other side of the coin: a happy useful system that gives money out is an easy target for both dishonest individuals and parasitic "entrepreneurs". That's the primary reason welfare programs get so complicated very quickly - because the first to get to unconstrained free money are not those who that money was intended for; the first ones are the greedy bastards.
Combined with what you wrote, that's why I stopped believing there can be an efficient welfare program in our current system of things; we can at best try to minimize the total waste of bureaucracy and people cheating the system.
It's true that some will cheat the system, and that has a cost. But there is also a cost associated with people going hungry, or being made homeless, or even dying due to their circumstances.
While the cost to those people may be infinite, the cost to everyone else may be less than the cost of doing something effective to help them. If you reduce things to economics you may not like the answers you get. Like smoking tends to _reduce_ public health expense via premature death.
Certainly the direct costs are huge, probably in the tens of billions of dollars or pounds per year. But it's quite possible that the shortened lifespan saves even more money by lowering spending on the chronic diseases of late life, etc.
<blockquote>However, smokers die some 10 years earlier than nonsmokers, according to the CDC, and those premature deaths provide a savings to Medicare, Social Security, private pensions and other programs.
Vanderbilt University economist Kip Viscusi studied the net costs of smoking-related spending and savings and found that for every pack of cigarettes smoked, the country reaps a net cost savings of 32 cents.</blockquote>
Maybe you should change your earlier statement to "smoking reduces public costs" or something else a little more inclusive. While there is good evidence smoking reduces costs when savings on retirement programs are considered it's less clear that it reduces health expenditures specifically.
Most people will get cancer or some terminal illness that requires expensive treatment eventually. And if they don't then they will live long enough to require assistive living which is also very expensive. Lung cancer is particularly aggressive and trends to kill people right before retirement age so the argument has been made that smoking reduces overall costs because you don't have to spend money on as many retired people who otherwise would need assistance.
Actually that’s assumed in my depiction of such a system.
There is always going to be slacking/welfare advantage - that’s a given for me.
It’s sort of a system weakness. The side point is how much of this dead weight loss is there vs how much actual good is done.
In general there’s a lot of good that’s done in comparison to the good.
The point I’m making is hat politicians will always point to the dead weight loss because it has massive PR/optical appeal.
“Observe there the knave!”
It’s a matter of a systemic loss to one system, being an outsize gain to another program.
The trick is to avoid letting politicians get to a stage where such imagery has optical value.
This means a society which usually has enough for most people, no manipulation of relations to paint one group or the other as villains and a generally efficient enough govt that people don’t stop to say “this needs to end”.
Social workers do this very thing, at least in the U.S. Unfortunately it's a poorly paid role that requires a lot of educational investment and is excruciatingly difficult and depressing. So to continue your encapsulation metaphor, imagine designing that but only being allowed the crappiest, most underpowered server to run that service on, and it is rebooted at random intervals for good measure. Source: I know someone getting their Masters in Social Work.
I've met people that were very open about scamming the system.
I once knew a person, that went to London 17 years ago from another Country. He managed to get a not fit for work benefit and housing. His later then 'wife', they never got married but have a child together and live together, got some illness. Never met her, he was saying that was a genuine illness and not like his and she can't work.
So that person that I mentioned above, owned a car and a motorbike. Not sure if those items were under his name or not. He also worked at a car mechanic shop for money under the table.
In the 4 years I knew him, he was never caught, nor anyone went to his supposed house to check if he is there or what he is doing.
That guy was literally skimming the system for money without any control. At some point he and his 'wife' found out about another scam that they could run, if she gets evicted by her landlord (both of them were getting housing benefits, but they were presenting that they were staying at 2 different properties while he was staying at her house) she could somehow get a free house. So they decided to bring a dog home so that the landlord sends them out. They got send out.
She was put into a b&b with her daughter for a few months, while he was staying at the other house the benefits was paying for and then I've no idea if the scam worked or not.
To be very and completely honest, I did look into how I can report that guy, just because I didn't find it fair, that I am paying taxes and there are people like this person on the article that really need the money, and you get those people that just scam the system.
All I got from googling how to report someone, was that the reporting system sucks so much that the HMRC won't really do much about it.
That sort story is just there to show you whats wrong with the system in general.
Absolutely, I've lost friends over this very point - cheating the benefits systems makes me just as angry as people who don't pay their taxes. But which one is actually the biggest problem for the country?
"Benefits fraud costs the government £1.3bn a year, according to official statistics, while the gap between tax owed and tax paid is put at £34bn a year by officials."
I think people are social animals who often find it easier to understand a concrete thing like a "no-goodnik thief" as opposed to a MNC with complex possibly legal? or not? tax loophole abusing ability
I've come to thinking: there's no method which makes the system fairly accessible to all those who need support, which also doesn't allow for some level of exploitation by bad actors. As the level of fraud is reduced to zero by tests and policies, more deserved beneficiaries of the system are shut out.
I actually still get a bit more upset over benefit fraud than tax fraud, as (disclaimer) my family are beneficiaries due to my brothers autism - the hours and stress required to successfully navigate the system cannot be underestimated. Most recipients of disability payments etc will tell you it is a full-time job. The moral failure of benefit fraud is paid for twice - once materially by the taxpayer, again spiritually by the recipient. For me, another argument for the qualitative moral and social components of education - which seems to have been stripped away of late... A rant for another time!
> I've come to thinking: there's no method which makes the system fairly accessible to all those who need support, which also doesn't allow for some level of exploitation by bad actors.
Basic income for everyone would be one way, but that brings its own set of issues and challenges with it
Yes, I have also known one person to be avoid taxes, which IMHO is just as bad as claiming. The thing about tax avoidance is it's possible to be 'respectable' and still get away with it - 'my accountant deals with all that stuff...'. Actually claiming benefits generally provokes a social stigma, and the amount of money involved is far less.
I agree we need to concentrate more on tax avoidance. Particularly since any welfare state is going to be abused by a minority of some people - that is not a good reason to create a totally ineffective welfare state - that is part of the price we pay for it unfortunately.
Or as in the case of the current elected president of the United States, not paying taxes is "smart". The hypocrisy of worrying about someone "stealing" maybe £30k a year in benefits in order to support a very average (lower middle class) lifestyle vs those who avoid millions in tax when already wealthier than the vast majority of the country is insane.
Conversely I know a number of people who are not realistically able to work in the normal economy due to disabilities who have had their benefits cut to life-threatening levels. It's not unusual for these decisions to be reversed on appeal but then you have to find a way to stay alive for months while representing yourself legally.
It seems to me that the crackdowns make the system worse. As it becomes more bureaucratic the people who know exactly how to lie can still scam it but the genuinely needy don't know the magic words and get shut out.
There's been plenty of effort spent into estimates of benefits fraud, and by all account it is a tiny problem. Yes, it should be dealt with. But currently, the problems universal credit and other defects of the benefits reforms are causing are outright killing people.
Benefit fraud is currently far down the priority list of things that needs to be fixed, and that even goes for cost: The government has pushed things so far that you can look forward to a lot of tax money going to cover legal costs as a result of the huge and growing number of lawsuits the government is losing.
The government is complicit in far worse breaches of legislation related to the benefits system than fraudulent claimants are.
(this of course goes on the list of reasons why the government wants to get out of ECHR at any cost, since it's the only constitutional brake in the system)
The official method for estimating fraud rates is take a very small sample of claims, review the paper work and conduct an interview. of course this is never going to catch the majority of fraud!
I think the suggestion is that they'd be unable to detect it in many cases. And that's a fair point - of course some portion of fraudulent claimants will succeed in hiding it. I just don't think it's likely to be a sufficient portion to make much difference.
Of course they'll never be perfect, but the official estimate would need to be off by at least an order of magnitude for it to matter vs. the harm done by government.
If it's that far off, there's at least half a dozen editors of major UK papers that'd be rubbing their hands in glee at the opportunity to further demonize benefits claimants by exposing more benefits cheats and/or by exposing flaws in the reporting. That this isn't happening despite both commercial and ideological gain to be had in doing it if they could, is to me a strong indication that the numbers aren't that far off.
The sad reality is that clamping down of the sort they've done (eg sanctions for missing a single jobseeker's meeting) seem far more likely to punish those unfamiliar with the system than those who have made a habit of abusing it. When you're a professional benefits abuser, you have time to learn the intricacies of the system you're gaming.
My own personal anecdata: I recently relocated to the UK with my wife. An acquaintance of hers - who is also a fairly blatant benefits abuser - essentially told her that when she got to the UK she would explain all about how to game the system and that my wife would never need to work again.
She obviously didn't realise that as a non-UK citizen here on settlement visa I am not entitled to benefits, and my wife can't claim benefits if I hope to renew my visa. Further, it didn't even occur to her that we wouldn't want to claim benefits unnecessarily even if we could.
Many parts of that personal anecdote sound fishy and biased to me. He "managed to" sounds like some kind of fraud, but no evidence is given. His wife is put into scare quotes, but it seems they were living in a personal union - where I live, this is equivalent of being married, but maybe in the UK it's different. Is it illegal in the UK to own a car or a motorbike when you're not fit for work and get benefits because of it? You sound as if it is, but that seems implausible to me.
The list goes on and on. Maybe this particular guy is skimming the system, but even then he's probably skimming it way less than the many people who evade taxes with offshore accounts, etc. The priorities are quite dubious, because statistics show unambiguously that more and more money and resources flow to less and less people - it's fairly drastic, if you look at the data.
What's wrong with most systems is that they are patronizing recipients of benefits and try to force them into extreme low wage labor (often to falsify unemployment statistics), while the gap between rich and poor is continually increasing at a higher and higher rate. Instead, society should give the lowest income classes some better perspectives, improve their working conditions and overall social power. For example, with a basic income system, but there may be less drastic improvements. Then they can also buy more useless stuff that breaks after two years, which is what everybody wants, right?
The implied suggestion in your post is that we should accept people going through the situation that the man in the article went through in order to make it harder for criminals to commit benefits fraud. That is, quite frankly, an utterly inhumane reaction to the problem. Innocent people in dire situations are far more important than protecting a (relatively small) amount of money being paid out to criminals.
We do need to try and catch criminals where possible, but if the cost of catching them is innocent people suffering then we should do less to catch them and just accept the cost instead.
Or you know, you could just get mugged by someone homeless with nothing to lose who is also getting recruited by gangs who use these people as fodder.
In all seriousness, if you have not the slightest ounce of human sympathy to those who don't skim and are decent folk, rational self management has a strong enough argument and evidence to support such behavior.
The reason advanced societies pay this price is because the alternative is right there in front of you in the developing world.
The disenfranchised don't go away. They are human beings, who happen to be pretty efficient at coming up with average solutions to the problems they face.
Even if that solution is directly through you and to your wallet.
Ignoring the obvious welfare complaint, which I incidentally agree with, it paints a pretty good picture of all the health and social problems leading up to this situation for a lot of people. It also shows how the health of the previous generation can cause havoc on the current generation, a problem which I'm dealing with now.
If we improve physical and mental health over the next couple of generations I think there will be a massive shift away from this failure mode. The problem is that those services are being cut as is the education that supports them. So we're screwed.
Also a 4 year cycle on government before someone comes and erases progress or long term goals instantly and just burns a mountain of cash doesn't work either.
Government everywhere has a massive usability problem. Ignore the policies themselves, ignore the values they represent, the relationship between citizen and government should be easy and coherent. The solution here is, actually, better software.
It's the difference between the law and the way it is enforced. If surveillance capitalism has taught us anything, it's that people will put up with almost any policy as long as it's easy. We should use this knowledge to build interfaces to government programs. Indeed, I foresee a time when one's smartphone keeps all your data, and a "government program" is literally a program that runs on your phone and lets you know, proactively, if you are eligible, and enrollment is one click away. We can and should incrementally approach this goal in all our work.
Well, in the US you'd have already lost everything and been homeless just for the medical bills of your mother, let alone your father later, and you after that.
That's an inflammatory mischarachterization of the situation in the US. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it is not common enough to qualify as a "would".
Not common enough? It's the most oft-heard story, and the most common complaint about the health coverage system there. A single accident/illness can deplete your savings account and/or send you homeless. Heck, I personally know people were that happened, and I don't even know that many people there.
Here's how common it is:
(...) Nerdwallet estimated that 57.1 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies are due to medical bills, making it the leading cause of the financial calamity that often precedes homelessness.
Although the tipping point is often the loss of a job, sickness or injury often precede it. Sickness and injuries make holding a job difficult, which leads to income declining and homelessness for those without a safety net. Due to the mostly employer-based health insurance coverage system in the U.S., no job means no health insurance. The combination of unemployment and poor health can then lead to financial ruin.
I just returned from the annual conference of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, where the link between medical bankruptcy and homelessness was made more clear than ever. (...)
Illness and medical bills were linked to at least 62.1% of all personal bankruptcies in 2007. Based on the current bankruptcy filing rate, medical bankruptcies will total 866,000 and involve 2.346 million Americans this year – about one person every 15 seconds.
Most medically bankrupt families were middle class before they suffered financial setbacks. 60.3% of them had attended college and 66.4% had owned a home; 20% of families included a military veteran or active-duty soldier.
78% of the individuals whose illness led to bankruptcy had health insurance at the onset of the bankrupting illness; 60% had private insurance.
69% of debtor families had coverage at the time of their bankruptcy filing; 60% of families had continuous coverage.
I know most people here are fairly well-paid, intelligent and many are well-adjusted and stable. But it'd be mistake to assume this happens to other people. Sometimes a series of unfortunate events (lost job, lost child, lost marriage) trigger a series of events, helped by alcohol and poor-decision making and resulting in homelessness and poverty.
When I lived in Oxford I came across a book put together of mini-interviews of the homeless there - their stories. It really surprised me how many of the biographies started off with a well-paid professional job with a happy family and spiralled out of control.
Not saying we shouldn't be concerned unless this can happen to us, but a brief google turned up these[1][2]. I didn't find many stories that started out as professionals, apart from someone who did law at university then couldn't find a job. But the stories are interesting. Might have to dig out my book which is somewhere at home.
A bout of depression or a series of unfortunate events can certainly put you into a tail-spin that's difficult to get out of. I've been there; it's like you know what you need to do but something is weighing on you with such a force that it can be very difficult to fight against.
Ending up on the streets with nothing is a natural conclusion and what happens then is partly a test of character and partly luck. For many it's the end of the road.
> Ending up on the streets with nothing is a natural conclusion and what happens then is partly a test of character and partly luck. For many it's the end of the road.
I would argue that it is a test of society. We should judge ourselves on how we treat the weakest amongst us.
I think this is actually one particularly good reason why society should be set up in such a way that this kind of help is so 'normal' that it wouldn't even be considered asking for help.
I know quite a few people who lived on unemployment for a year or so, whether between college and their first job, between various jobs, or because of mental health issues. While even here (NL) there's still a stigma attached to 'doing that', I'm convinced that none of these people would've taken this path if it wasn't so relatively normal.
* Relationship with girlfriend breaks up and you move in with parents.
* Parents medical bills eat up everything they have and more when they pass away their creditors swoop in to take anything that's left.
* You are kindly told you will be moved to the street so you get a job. Your part time job pays enough for you to crash on a couch or at best maybe rent a room somewhere if your lucky.
* When you get attacked you have no insurance so you now owe $5000 which you have no way to pay and a prescription for opoids.
* You apply for disability but get denied. No help is forthcoming. You quickly lose your place to live about 3 days after the rent is due. Nobody cares why you can't pay. Your address is now the street corner where you stick your pile of dirty blankets.
* Due to your financial situation and eviction you will never be able to rent anything without substantial money up front and nobody wants to hire you.
* After the initial perscription(s) of opoids wear off you now have pain AND an addiction unlikely to be satisfied legally. You turn to panhandling and use the money to buy heroin.
* You get a dose that happened to be cut with something far too strong and nobody realizes your dead until someone complains about the smell.
It probably costs something near to that in the U.S. in emergency medical costs, incarceration, and other civil services to deal with the problem, except we won't try to get them rehab help or preventative care because...bootstraps or something.
I'm going to tell a story about two people and two outcomes and hope people will read it.
One man in Europe suffered a serious illness and was unable to continue in his previous career and had no new marketable skills. He had access to a robust social system that covered his living costs, medical care, and re-education. After several years of treatment and learning, he now has a wife and kids, amazing job that works with his disabilities, and a future. That guy is a former acquaintance of mine.
The second guy in the USA also lost his life due to medical issues, in his case a misdiagnosis and poorly done surgery. He had to then live off of savings and a tiny pension (which he was fortunate to even have but covered a fraction of his costs) with no insurance or access to good medical care since he lost his job provided insurance. He fought in court for years for disability and was denied repeatedly. He bounced around trying to find a place to live and access to services, even cheaper countries, but could never get legitimized or stabilized anywhere as he had no real support. He tried to self educate but the lack of stability and increasing medical issues without proper care always disrupted any attempts. His loved ones abandoned him as is all so common in long term illness and suffering. Depression and suicidal thoughts then take even more of that precious energy and he knows down deep at his age, and with his needs, all is lost. That guy is me.
So the takeaway is next time you are faced with the issue of social systems and if they are "worth it" or if people "deserve" your contribution to the whole, please remember this story. If you can't care about the human element and need a practical reason, think about whether it's truly better for society to bring people back into the fold and make them a productive part again, or if casting them off as broken and useless is really "better". More importantly think about if it was YOU or a loved one in need...who could have a future and contribute if just given the opportunities. It's too late for me but maybe not for you and the next person in my shoes.
In this country (the US), your pure worth is what you're able to generate right now.
If it is low or close to 0, you are worthless - refuse to be left for dead, or hope some "church" has pity on you. The state sees you as a negative balance. The federal cares not. They realllly dont want to see money flowing from the state/federal down to the little guy.
My mother in law, until she retired, had to tell elderly on assistance programs , "I'm sorry, but there isn't enough food or money for food this week." BTW, this is in Bloomington, IN. Not exactly a "shithole country".
In reality, not much will or can be done until a massive social upheaval happens. At that junction, then yes we can fix these glaring wrongs. But the entrenched, gerrymandered, low-influence masses are stuck until that comes around. If.
Sadly I agree with this 100%. It sounds cynical and negative and I don't WANT to believe it...but my experience for nearly 15 years and the countless experiences of others I have met like me proves it out.
I have read and will remember this. I've seen this sort of thing happen to too many people. Were it not for half a dozen dumb lucky breaks, I could be in this situation myself. It could happen to anyone.
A robust benefits system doesn't always fix this. The UK had and in many ways still has one; it's definitely better than nothing, but it still destroys countless lives through malevolent bureaucracy and structural poverty traps.
It's possible to fix this, however. Almost everywhere in the world, support for Universal Basic Income is growing, across various political divides. The urgency of this support will only increase as the population ages and automation causes more structural unemployment and underemployment. It will happen eventually.
I don't know how long this will take. It may be a long time. Or it may happen surprisingly quickly. I put as much effort as I can into fighting for the latter.
So I really do think that a better world is coming -- one that has a place for you in it. If there's any way you can hang in there, please do.
In the meantime, know that even if you don't feel like you're making a contribution to the world, you are. What you've written here, for example, will resonate in people's minds. It will play a part in helping to change things. There's no way know how much that could matter. My own interest in this, for example, was sparked by a completely random girl's blog rant about her interactions with the UK unemployment benefit. Her pithy, frustrated rant has led to me investing many hundreds of hours into activism about this, which in turn has spurred still more people into action. Maybe your words can have a similar effect on someone. So thank you, and know that I appreciate what you're doing.
I appreciate the response and my heart bleeds for the countless people like me and even worse out there. While yes, even in places with systems there is not a guarantee, at least there is a chance, and the UK's system isn't amazing compared to many continental systems.
It's realistically too late for me to wait for any such paradigm shift. I am on too short of a clock both physically and mentally. I do hope it will make this sort of less much less common for the future though.
That this can happen and there is no public safety net is infuriating to me. This cannot happen in a civilized society.
Can we, the HN community, do something for you? Maybe setup a collection towards an "honor loan" to give this guy some buffer to get up again?
I appreciate the thought but there are some issues that make such kindnesses difficult:
1. People like me need more than a one time donation or loan, we need long term support so we can even have the stability to TRY to rebuild. That's the purpose of those social systems people in my regions loathe so much.
2. There is an underlying suspicion/anger towards people who need money as it hits that "what if they are a scammer/they don't deserve it/they are being lazy" button in the subconscious. Even the nicest people aren't immune to this in practice.
3. My chances are slim even WITH help so there is a big chance I'd never be able to make good on it and I couldn't with good conscience accept any help without that being clearly understood.
4. My previous experiences with "offers" have taken a big toll on me as they have invariably been people trolling or looking for a quick feel good and never following through.
What I think is the only truly possible and practical solution is for someone to "teach me how to fish" and hire me within my limits. That's still a charity and special opportunity in the end but it would allow me to at least have a path forward. Something a few hours a day at most, remote, that would be flexible enough to work with/around my pain and limits. My broken body dictates my schedule, and being in my 40s it's only getting worse naturally as well.
I saw a guy post on reddit not long ago who sat at a computer tracking oil tankers and analyzing when they slowed or deviated in order to manipulate markets. Something like that would be great for me but it's not something that I can just "go out and do". The normal ideas people have for someone at home like content writing etc are A. Not as sustainable as people think and B. Soul killing.
I always had jobs that contributed to the greater good so slaving away doing something I despise to enrich someone else, even if I could realistically do it, is just too much more mental weight to bear when everything else about my life sucks. It may sound choosy but you have to have SOME good parts to stay mentally intact. I need a positive purpose in addition to that ugly paper that buys life.
I understand your points and your frustration, but regarding point 1. you can't reasonably wait for the system to change in your region (especially with the current administration) (btw I don't know how feasible - but have you considered moving to a more friendly place?), for 2. probably many here on hn can be better discerning, for 3. if someone decides to help, he does it to increase your chances of success and without expecting any guarantee, that would be silly.
Regarding the "teaching how to fish", maybe you could tell something more on what your inclinations and abilities are (if any, but almost everybody has some abilities in a form or another). This way maybe someone here finds a good match for some remote work suitable to you.
I am not sure I could even sell what I realistically have very well. My previous career and education are so long ago nothing is relevant now and my CV is dead.
As far as tech skills I am above average compared to my general age group/cohort, but likely nothing compared to HN types. I use Linux but not well. Very minor command line knowledge I don't know any programming languages and attempts to learn them have not gone well. I have LineageOS on my phone so can at least follow directions to install ROMs. Not a complete idiot, but not at all an expert.
I am interested in privacy and use encryption when possible. I gravitate toward underdogs and people in need and if I won the Powerball (unlikely as I don't play) I would spend my life as a philanthropist helping those in need. I like SciFi and Space stuff, read a lot, love maps. Something beneficial like the tanker monitoring online I mentioned above would suit me. I have often joked being a professional Wikipedia or Memory Alpha reader would be perfect for me. I like clean, organized and minimal environments in general irl and online. There are a number of THINGS I could imagine myself being able to do and also enjoying...but I don't see any realistic path to doing so for a paycheck within my limits.
I don't know if there is anything out there I am just not aware of that could work as well. Maybe I COULD learn to code with time and help but at first glance it's not something I find passion for. I would never make it in a normal high paced startup etc. I need stability but flexibility in anything I would do. I don't have the strength or energy to be in a "dynamic environment". I have hand issues along with many other broken bits so am not a very fast typist. Sorry for the scatter. Trying to think of relevant things to remote or tech work. I really don't know at this point...and this post itself is on the 3rd or 4th page by now so not likely many would even see my comment if there WAS someone out there with a good plan.
If I may ask, what your previous career/education was about? Maybe they are not very relevant, but they are definitely better than nothing and could be a common interest with a potential employer.
The fact that you are a bit technically minded is a good starting point, especially together with the willingness to learn. You love maps, so you could for example learn a bit of python (it's easy and quick to jumpstart, I promise) and use it to play with cartography. Give a look to [Kartograph](http://kartograph.org), [TileMill](https://tilemill-project.github.io/tilemill/), [Leaflet](http://leafletjs.com), [OpenLayers](http://openlayers.org). There is also this interesting list of [Essential Python Geospatial Libraries](http://spatialdemography.org/essential-python-geospatial-lib...).
This will not guarantee a job, but it would be an interesting skill set for which probably there is demand.
I'm not in this field, but in case I could give you some pointers for the Python part.
I don't want to give details in public but it isn't something I could or would want to be involved in again for many reasons. The skills were specialized and honestly irrelevant to anything I could do online. I am starting from scratch.
I appreciate and understand your view but the "self learn a marketable skill" has never worked. I cannot compete with young, healthy people who are grinding away. Without some miracle/kindness/bespoke option I am lost. It's not negativity or cynicism even though it sounds so...its just truth proven over time. Even this post which initially gave me a tiny boost of hope thinking someone might do as you said and see it and have a solution is so far off the front few pages nobody but you will continue to see it.
Just learning to fish for a "special kind of fish that may or may not be available and I have to compete with better, stronger fishermen for" won't work. I'd need someone to teach me to fish and give me the opportunity to fish within my limits. That's honestly a pipe dream.
You have to start somewhere. If you start saying it won't work, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. On the other hand, if you start something not too unreasonable saying that you can do it, it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy too, but a positive one.
Being positive and optimist is free, and can go a long way... (of course you need to put in also some work, but not necessarily an extenuating amount).
Thanks and I know your words come from a well meaning place...but this is how it always goes because there isn't a self made path out of this sort of situation but people need to believe there is. You HAVE to have lots of outside help and 100% of the people I have known or see like me who did get a life back had that support. People don't accept the actual limits and hear what I am saying and talk about optimism and prophecies because those things SOUND right to us but it's not real life. It's factual, logistical, and reality I am up against. I'd never turn down a practical and realistic plan ti regain a life...I've never had access to one. If I had what my friend had that would be different. Here my only chance is an individual or company CHOOSING to help me and that doesn't happen in this culture.
It's so much easier for people in general to blame victims and stay safe in the "knowledge" that they would find a way out if it were them...I used to say the same so I know it's not something people will listen to until they live it. I know how I sound but I also the depression and mental stuff is a result of the lack of Maslow's lower levels not being met and you can't cure things "backwards". I need stability and a legit path and the rest would follow...but I am expected by most to somehow fix the effect before dealing with the cause.
I find the more I talk about it the more depressed I get...which is ironic to me...but the alternative to let it pile up doesn't chance things either. I wish I could see a way out...
Too late to edit my reply but as far as moving I most definitely want to and have been trying to find a way. I lived in Europe before and things were much better for me, but at this stage unless I can earn and find a way to legitimize once there it's hopeless as well.
When I read this I cried. I'm also the lucky bastard who got to live in a country with a great social system, but if I had been born in the USA, I could've been that woman. I would have fucked up, and probably somehow managed to fuck up my relationship with my family (last line of support without a functioning social system), I love them and they're here for me, but I fear I might've burned bridges because of all the stress and psychological issues, if it wasn't for the social system in my country. In the US I would have ended up on the streets, probably become an addict, probably be dead.
The number of people in this situation in this country is so huge people just cannot accept it and ignore it for their own bias/sanity. That woman is stronger than me as I would never last out on the street and have always said I would end things when it gets to that point. The savings will run out soon enough and the last room in the last corner of the last resentful family I have is wearing thin, so my resolve will be tested sooner rather than later. I have avoided the addiction route so far as most drugs just make me feel worse, but I can completely see how it so easily happens to so many. There comes a time you just want ANYTHING to take away the pain or make you feel different if even for a moment.
It's enraging to know what you need is very possible and being done elsewhere...but you aren't "allowed" that chance to live and people all around you are adamantly against it. I will never understand this cruelty and selfishness.
(I really hope you still read this, because I didn't see your reply until five days later, sorry)
I'm so sorry to hear about your situation. I wish you all the strength. Hugs.
Good to hear you're avoiding addiction so far, it will sap your resolve like nothing else. Please also remember that alcohol is a terrible addictive hard drug that will drag you down just as easily as the illegal drugs would (in particular as soon as you use it for escape, like you describe). It's basically an unnecessary extra fight you have to fight in addition to all the other shit. I'm actually struggling with that a little myself, but the social help I can get here (as well as a super supportive family/parents), gives me relief and space needed to battle that too.
Even with proper social support, mental health problems are super hard. Other people [including gov help] can't fight the fight in your head for you, just point one in the right direction, provide motivation, and perhaps take other weights off your shoulders.
Sorry, I just read back your post and your problems are physical. The following advice remains the same.
You may be able to find people that want to help. Just random good people are out there. But even if you find people willing/able to do that for you, it's a difficult and humbling search to find out how exactly they can unburden you without it actually costing you just as much energy. If there are people willing to help you, think very hard and make a good and clear plan. Be clear how exactly they can help you, especially the little things, that may be super easy for others and hard for you. You need to tell them explicitly and without shame. One other thing that is important is if you know a generous angel, is to discuss how often you need this help. Maybe your neighbour will help you with groceries or taking out the trash (or whatever), but if you actually depend on that help, while they're just happy to help out their neighbour this one time, you'll be expending as much energy finding someone to help you this week, and the next. I get that it's hard to ask someone offering help to help you even more, but if you understand what I'm saying you will be able to explain. Ask them to be honest and only offer you time they are comfortable with (and without regretting it after a while). Maybe they'll tell you they can realistically help you take out the trash once a month. That's cool, because that's one out of four weeks. But now you know someone you can depend on, you know what you're asking is not too much for them, you can feel better about getting the help, knowing this is what they're comfortable with. I'm not saying you should refuse one-time help, but that it's important to have this discussion (openly) so you know when (or if) you can depend on them again.
The above is a piece of advice I got from a magazine that people in my country (Netherlands) receive when they are on long-term disability benefits (called "UWV Perspectief", for any Dutch still reading along). It's a great magazine (beautiful design and typography too :p), even if I find it hard to read because it's kind of confronting, I'm kind of amazed that this thing exists.
I am so incredibly thankful for this aspect of my country. I'll be forever in its debt. I try to repay as much as I can by doing volunteer work, teaching kids programming and computer stuff, helping them studying for math tests (and just being a kind person to them--the place where I work has a social function for kids with difficult backgrounds too). That way I'm using the things that I learned studying Computational Science, all that knowledge I can't use in a "proper" (paying) job, because I can only do it for 10 hours per week (I need the other time mostly to rest, and keep my apartment in order, administrative stuff, laundry etc, which is equally taxing for me). I...
Thank you for the response. I always appreciate well meaning people but the problem is there has never been any truly actionable advice. People tend to react one of two ways when you tell them "that hasn't worked"...either they retreat into silence or they attack out of defensiveness. This is universal in my experience no matter how I approach it. The only way to avoid one of these is to say "thank you I will try it" to make them feel good then retreat yourself.
I have never met anyone who has survived in this situation who didn't have lots of help...either social support, family support, or both. I have none of that thus my hopelessness. I am clinging to Maslow's bottom rungs and expected to somehow "self actualize" nonetheless.
I hate my life, hate where I live (country and location) and see no future. I have asked for help directly and clearly for over a decade and gotten ignored or blamed. Anytime I do ask for that help the results are ALWAYS the same...most people ignore, some get angry out of guilt or bother or whatever and attack, a handful offer contacts and commiseration and maybe one of those people actually respond but end up disappearing after giving me standard self help advice from books or forums that is always inapplicable or out of context. It's why at this point I just complain when I speak of things as I have learned asking doesn't change anything. I need practical, concrete, consistent help. If I had that I believe I could get some semblance of a life back and contribute...but after this long and things getting so much worse I am giving up as it's shown to be pointless.
This country and culture is so anti everything I need and won't change in my lifetime if ever...and I cannot get myself established anywhere better for me. Knowing it's practically possible but I cannot access it has ruined me and I am just about done.
I keep thinking about your situation. This is something that I really care about. In the long term I hope to shape society to deal better with these scenarios; in the short term, I'm living in a flatshare working on my startup for less than minimum wage, so capacity to do anything tangible is frustratingly limited.
I've got a couple of dear friends in similar situations to yours. So far they're making do, because they've gotten lucky and found sheds in the back yards of sympathetic friends that they could live in long-term (or equivalent scenarios). Absence that kind of informal safety-net, their situations would be significantly more dire.
I'm in the UK with long-term health issues that the NHS has been a godsend for -- but my visa status is uncertain, and being bounced back to America is always a risk. Health would be a major concern should that happen, and income concerns would follow shortly thereafter. My last-ditch backup plan, in that case, is to go mostly off-grid and move back to Arcosanti (www.arcosanti.org), where I (partially) grew up. The cost-of-living there would be wildly reduced, making financial survival possible unless my mobility/pain became 100% untenable. Maybe something like that would be viable for you?
I could never survive in even less robust conditions. I need certain things, certain services, medical care that requires long time to deal with etc. I have reduced my life to the bare minimum survivable for me in the name of preserving money and it's not enough. Any "advice" requires reducing more or suffering more either through subtraction or addition. I can't live like that. I had some plan to write a post here in AskHN to lay it out and maybe some miracle idea or plan would result but I finally realized I have done that sort of thing repeatedly over the years and the predictable results always take rather than give so there is no point.
Anyone I connect with in private and spend energy engaging and explaining things to in depth just repeats the same script of things everyone things you can and should do and I end up more depressed and hopeless and they end up disappearing either outright or after some lecture and victim blaming. I know why they do it, to preserve a sense of security for themselves, but it drains me nonetheless. I can't get what I really need in this place and can't realistically establish anywhere I could. Hope has gasped its last breath.
I get that. Unless you explain the situation to me in detail, I definitely won't have a useful solution for you. And even after you explain the situation to me in detail, I probably won't have a useful solution for you. This would be a lot of emotional labour for an interaction where the median expected value seems very low, and the mode is zero. Totally get why this isn't something you'd want to go through repeatedly.
(Actually, describing it in this way reminds me of pitching a book to a publisher, or a startup to an investor. Each pitch takes a really significant amount of energy, and you have to be prepared to do it many dozens of times with completely null results -- and with no guarantee that there will ever be anything other than a null result. This breaks a lot of peoples' spirits. I know a handful of brilliant writers with unpublished novels sitting on their shelves, because they just couldn't keep going through the pitch-rejection cycle. As writers, they are probably superior to, say, Agatha Christie, who endured five years of nonstop rejection before making her first sale. But they are not as stubborn, and therein lies the rub.)
So, yeah, I understand. The only thing I can counter with is that even if you feel like you've explored the whole possibility-space, you haven't. Nobody has -- ever. There may be solutions for you; there always may be solutions for you; the question is how to maintain the core internal energy to keep searching for them.
I don't have any super-brilliant advice in that regard. Only thing I can offer -- and you've probably already gotten this plenty of times; apologies if so -- is that meditation can be extraordinarily helpful for this kind of thing. Not immediately helpful -- the benefits can take weeks or months to fully kick in -- but simply being in touch with your breathing, and training your mind to be free of the cycles of worry which it otherwise is (necessarily) consumed by, can help you find that core of energy if it exists. In general, if you are breathing: it exists. And even if it is doesn't, meditation can help you look at the situation more dispassionately. What you don't want to do is to make permanent decisions out of exhaustions or frustrations which may not, in a bigger picture that you haven't been able to consider, be permanent.
Final bit of advice: if you don't have the ability to meditate (physical or mental challenges can sometimes make this impossible), psilocybes can provide a viable shortcut for similar results. I definitely recommend not checking out until you've consulted with them first. What have you got to lose? :-)
I do meditate and it, like most things, has SOME beneficial effect, but not near enough and not near as much as the label on the tin says in my experience. No access to psychonaut stuff but I'd try in the right conditions with someone I could count on.
I have drafted the "last ditch Ask HN for ideas" post but not sure when to post it. I know if it goes badly or is ignored outright it will really affect me and bring me down hard.
I am so far beyond mind game stuff being able to help...I need Maslows bottom rungs stabilized before I can do the rest...people always expect you to do it backwards.
> I am so far beyond mind game stuff being able to help...I need Maslows bottom rungs stabilized before I can do the rest...people always expect you to do it backwards.
Oh yeah, I definitely appreciate that self-actualisation can't happen without the lower tiers being stabilised. That's not what I'm saying; all I'm suggesting is that mindset counts for a lot. I'll going to try be delicate about this because I don't want to come off as victim-blaming: I completely understand that the circumstance you're in isn't your fault, and the right mindset won't make opportunities for getting out of your situation magically appear. But the wrong mindset can without a doubt blind you to legitimate opportunities that might exist. This is why I recommend working on it.
As a rather concrete example: -- going to have to redact some details here for confidentiality reasons -- I recently hired someone for part-time work, whose situation resembles yours in a number of respects, including long-term unemployment. I was not able to pay for full-time work or at market rates, but our new employee is still earning a meaningful multiple of what they were getting on benefits, so it's a solid step up. I can see how the role they've taken might, at some companies, be tedious -- but the way we do things, it's an intellectually stimulating, self-directed, remote-work, set-your-own-hours-and-pace sort of job. So far this new employee is loving it. I have high hopes that it'll help them get that bottom tier of the pyramid firmed up.
In fact it's a job that I'm absolutely certain you would have the ability to do, and would even enjoy -- but the superficial job description is one that I've already seen you explicitly rule out as "soul killing". And probably at 90% of companies, you'd be right. At the other 10%, you'd be wrong. But that all-important 10% won't be available to you if you block yourself from seeing it.
In order for any opportunities to be available to you, they must both objectively exist and be subjectively perceived by you. For the former: yes, I have no doubt that such opportunities are few and far between, but given your obvious intellectual abilities, I know that they exist. I have more concerns for the latter, hence my recommendation that you interrogate your assumptions and your perceptions.
Anyhow, I've banged on about this enough, and hope you take my criticism in the constructive spirit it is intended! I would sincerely like to see things work out for you.
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[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 158 ms ] threadYou upvote on hacker news and move on.
I don't know which is worse, though: this, or history programmes narrated in the present tense.
This is called "historical present" [1], and is a style derived from Latin.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_present
You are highlighting your inability to do this, and proving how you only want to consider the impact directly on yourself.
Nah'mean? You pick up a book, see, and it's all written like the author's telling you how it happened. Gets under your skin, right? Makes it more personal somehow. You read some more, and you get sucked in, lose yourself like.
Someone who shapes their own destiny such that they wouldn't be in this situation, wouldn't be in this situation. I might as well say it would be nice if someone hit by a car hadn't been in the road.
The question is what do you think is ok to happen to people like this? Are you ok with this happening to people in your community? For some people the anwser is 'yes'. Those people might be selfish, or uncaring. Maybe they lack empathy. Maybe they don't believe it is happening. Even if they are selfish, they'd also have to believe the chance of this happening to them is going to be very low.
Living in the UK and being subjected to this sort of "journalistic" output from the BBC day-in-day out, I read it as a propaganda piece by the BBC designed to support their agenda.
I'm reminded of a quote that I think I first read in "Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class" (NB strongly recommended):
"There’s been class warfare for the last 20 years, and my class has won"
Warren Buffet
Edit: I'm in the middle of reading "Citizen Clem" and what an extraordinarily capable chap Attlee was. Here's a good article on him in (of all places) the Daily Mail:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3174009/DOMINIC-SA...
Edit2: Even Thatcher was a fan of Attlee: "Of Clement Attlee, however, I was an admirer. He was a serious man and a patriot. Quite contrary to the general tendency of politicians in the 1990s, he was all substance and no show."
We don't hold that against him, though.
This is a retrofit for narrative purposes, invented by Jones, who seeks to demonise the word and in doing so police its use. The origins of the term are much older (before council houses in fact).
Having read quite a number of his columms for the guardian, he seems to represent a lot that I dislike about the UK left and their tendency to try to redefine popular terms in such a way as to demonise their users. It's straw-man fallacy writ large - you said "chav" therefore you are classist (Tory) scum. Actually I said chav because that group of loud, ridiculously dressed arseholes over there is starting to kick off, I don't give a shit what their socio-economic background might be.
I have left-leaning tendencies, I think the benefits system in the UK is a f*cking shambles, the NHS needs help and is an essential service, that there's a lot more we can do to help our people thrive and succeed. But this vein of pious language-warping really puts me off from identifying with the self-identified left or the Labour party.
the cover is the stereotypical 'chav' clothing, which you internalized so well in your discourse. And one (or more) chapter is dedicated to micro aggression (as defined be Strauss(?) where every argument has an oppressor and a oppressed) and culture wars that defined that chavs and irishs are dumb and irresponsible and that's why society needs the oh so justified ruling class to watch out for those too dumb to watch out for themselves, in all their best interest.
And no, it's not culture war. The whole narrative that you can't criticise people who dress and behave like dickheads because you might be displaying class privilege is nonsense. Plenty of people from the very poorest and most deprived backgrounds don't do that.
How exactly does one do this? Asking for a friend...
This may be true, but FWIW, the first time I heard the term it was introduced to me with a similar backronym. And not as some "isn't this awful classism" disclaimer, but as a gleeful denigration of the people it referred to. That there is an older etymology does not necessarily mean Jones invented the backronym.
>Actually I said chav because that group of loud, ridiculously dressed arseholes over there is starting to kick off
While I too have used the term, and feel like I was doing objection to genuinely unpleasant people, I remain suspicious of this argument, because it sounds a lot like "I don't mind black people, I just don't like black culture". A lot of what gets read as obnoxious is just cultural differences, and this is especially true of judgements like "ridiculously dressed".
It seems to originate with him, AFAICT, or at least at more or less the exact same time. And it fits his narrative suspiciously well.
I first heard the word 'chav' used a good decade before the book.
>> "I don't mind black people, I just don't like black culture".
I don't believe dressing and behaving like an arsehole are necessarily part of working class culture. I could be wrong. It's not my background, though it is my mother's and a variety of my friends'
And it's when you say including aspects like clothing that the idea starts to sound classist. How exactly does someone "dress like an arsehole"? Is their clothing somehow inherently offensive, or do you just dislike it because it doesn't fit your own aesthetics, and/or because you associate it with a negative type of person?
The latter, the association. My aesthetics are questionable in various ways all by themselves. But associations are a different thing.
People pre-judge each other on clothing all the time, and people very often broadcast who they are and their group affiliations through clothing. If a pub is full of people in football shirts I'm probably not going in because it's not my sort of place. I have no desire to be around loud sports appreciation. It's not because I think they're beneath me but I know what to expect.
The question of class and chavs is an interesting one to some extent - I don't judge them because they are poor, working class people. It's the behaviour, the general poor education etc. I don't think it's wrong to judge this as bad, nor to associate particular behaviours and outlooks with clothing when there is an associated look - I'm an old goth, we definitely had our look and our commonalities.
Let's turn this around - a woman goes to the supermarket in her food-covered pyjamas, with a kid in tow, screaming at them to 'shuh uh!'. You're not going to make any judgement on that?
How's about a massive guy with long hair in a metal t-shirt and a denim waistcoat? No preconceptions?
Just guessing, as a random sample of the ways some people choose to dress in the UK.
Wearing pyjamas and bathrobe in the supermarkt?
Wearing sports clothing despite looking like they don't ever actually do any sports?
Wearing trousers/jeans that don't go all the way up to the waist?
http://adamcadre.ac/if/photopia.html
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/06/rule-34-...
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/decision-makers-gu...
Have a look around it. Especially, have a look at the page counts.
Primarily as a result of cuts to the legal aid system[1]. Design a benefits system that's incredibly complex and all too easy to fall foul of, and then deny any kind of legal assistance in the inevitable appeal. I hope Iain Duncan Smith and his colleagues are one day able to reflect on what they've created.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/legal-aid-cuts...
Welfare support has long time ago reached the level where it's difficult if not impossible for a normal, working, and still mentally capable person to understand everything and their caveats — not to mention someone who has first had hard luck, is then subsequently out of energy, and is finally subjected to the experience of being a cog in the very machine that is the bureaucracy.
From programmer's point of view the obvious solution is encapsulation.
Let's keep the private parts to the implementation and only offer a reasonable public interface. That means a dedicated social worker who knows both the rules and knows you.
An outsider can't be expected to chug along with the ever-mutating directives, laws, guidances, and rules that are part of the bureaucracy's own operation and related legislation. Let the bureau have people who take human descriptions of one's life and work out the best plan out of available benefits. The insiders have the knowledge of what works together and how to make the system work.
This would also be more efficient: failed applications, missing actions, mismatched assumptions, eviction orders, court cases, etc do all cost the bureau some time and money already in the current system. If there was an inside person who could rule out the impossible branches right away and check eligibility on the applicant's first or second visit, everyone would save time.
As long as you can provide a steady stream of anecdotes and scapegoats it'll go fine.
This can in turn justify cutting the system because it doesn't pull its weight[0], and the people who hate social support systems can pat themselves on the back over a job well done.
[0] not all at once of course, you by start cutting ancillary services like legal aid[1] in order to feed the ever-increasing gate-keeping machinery you keep adding to
[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/legal-aid-cuts...
Not sure if that's a lie. In my experience, a big chunk of the general population is selfish enough that they'll abuse any system if they can get away with it. In a way, it's tragedy of the commons all over again - those people, confronted, will tell you, "I'm just a single man, just a drop in a bucket". They conveniently forget that there are 20 million other people in the country thinking the same thing.
OP talks about independent medical assessments.
Imagine you're signed off work because of heart problems. You're invited to a medical assessment, and you have a heart attack during the assessment. The medical assessor calls an ambo, and the paramedics take you to hospital to treat your ongoing heart attack.
We might think this is clear evidence the person actually is ill and wasn't faking.
The DWP sees this - failure to complete the assessment - as a sanctionable failing.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmhansrd/cm13...
> Debbie Abrahams: [...]
> Again, I support the principle of a sanctions regime. If somebody consistently fails to turn up for work experience or a Work programme scheme, sanctions should be applied. However, I believe that sanctions are being applied indiscriminately. For example, one of my constituents was a beneficiary of employment and support allowance after they had retired on grounds of ill health as a result of a heart problem. He was required to attend a work capability assessment with Atos. During
> 19 Mar 2013 : Column 840
> the assessment, he was told that he was having a heart attack and the nurse said that she had to stop the assessment. He got a letter a couple of weeks later saying that he had withdrawn from the assessment and, as such, was being sanctioned. That beggars belief. I have other examples, as I am sure do colleagues.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/28/hostile-envi...
I'm a UK citizen, my wife is not, nor is she an EU citizen. At the time, she was studying for a Masters level degree in an EU country, with a Student Visa for that country. Not ideal for married life, but she wanted the degree and we made it work (spent loads on airfares).
During the summer holiday, we decided she should visit me in the UK. We applied for a Tourist Visa, which seemed to make sense as she was only coming for a few weeks. There was no need to apply for a Spousal Visa.
Despite the fact she had multiple UK Tourist Visas and a UK Student Visa approved in the past, this one was rejected. No specific reason.
There was a written appeals process. We appealed. The Home Office had months to submit their case. Nothing happened.
Next, there is a court appeals process. We applied for a date, one was set several months in the future. Obviously only I could attend. Eleven months after the original Tourist Visa application we had our day in court. The Home Office didn't even bother to show up. The judge heard my side of the story, reviewed the supporting documentation and the Visa was granted.
We were never given any official reason for the rejected initial application or the Home Office's refusal to engage in the appeals process. As you said, I think they were just going for sheer annoyance, hoping we'd give up.
Lost a lot of faith in the UK after that. We now live together in Europe and of course Brexit is doing its best to screw that up too.
For anyone thinking this is hyperbole, one recent case[1] was of an anorexic woman found dead in her freezing cold flat because she couldn't afford to run the heating. She had been sanctioned for missing a jobseekers meeting due to being in ICU.
1: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/anorexic-woma...
> An outsider can't be expected to chug along with the ever-mutating directives, laws, guidances, and rules that are part of the bureaucracy's own operation and related legislation. Let the bureau have people who take human descriptions of one's life and work out the best plan out of available benefits. The insiders have the knowledge of what works together and how to make the system work.
In England a "Decision Maker" looks at the details of your case, and applies all the relevant acts, statutes, statutory instruments, and case law you your case.
This person is an expert, employed by the Department for Work and Pensions and all they do is this.
If you think they've got something wrong you can ask for a mandatory reconsideration: they'll have another look. If you still think they're wrong you can go to lower tribunal. A panel looks at the decision. And if they're wrong you can go to upper tribunal.
Here's what a tribunal judge has to say aboutj DWP: https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilydugan/most-dwp-benefits-cases-...
Note that they are fobidden by law from awarding costs. Number 10 here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...
The figures for PIP are particularly bad: https://twitter.com/CommonsWorkPen/status/942773136390590465
If you want to look at the book of rules to see how bizarre it is, it's available online. Have a think about how many pages you're expecting, then have a count of the page numbers. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/decision-makers-gu...
Or, we can stop assuming government's efficiency and create an UBI. Because there will never be a dedicated social worker caring about your side - even if it was viable, voters would never allow that.
Good welfare programs are targets.
Therefore they will only be mediocre programs, even if you could have a good program.
Any good program will survive only as long as its not a target.
Combined with what you wrote, that's why I stopped believing there can be an efficient welfare program in our current system of things; we can at best try to minimize the total waste of bureaucracy and people cheating the system.
Does it? I thought it increased the costs due to lung cancer treatments.
<blockquote>However, smokers die some 10 years earlier than nonsmokers, according to the CDC, and those premature deaths provide a savings to Medicare, Social Security, private pensions and other programs.
Vanderbilt University economist Kip Viscusi studied the net costs of smoking-related spending and savings and found that for every pack of cigarettes smoked, the country reaps a net cost savings of 32 cents.</blockquote>
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2009-04-smokers-society-money...
There is always going to be slacking/welfare advantage - that’s a given for me.
It’s sort of a system weakness. The side point is how much of this dead weight loss is there vs how much actual good is done.
In general there’s a lot of good that’s done in comparison to the good.
The point I’m making is hat politicians will always point to the dead weight loss because it has massive PR/optical appeal.
“Observe there the knave!”
It’s a matter of a systemic loss to one system, being an outsize gain to another program.
The trick is to avoid letting politicians get to a stage where such imagery has optical value.
This means a society which usually has enough for most people, no manipulation of relations to paint one group or the other as villains and a generally efficient enough govt that people don’t stop to say “this needs to end”.
I've met people that were very open about scamming the system.
I once knew a person, that went to London 17 years ago from another Country. He managed to get a not fit for work benefit and housing. His later then 'wife', they never got married but have a child together and live together, got some illness. Never met her, he was saying that was a genuine illness and not like his and she can't work.
So that person that I mentioned above, owned a car and a motorbike. Not sure if those items were under his name or not. He also worked at a car mechanic shop for money under the table.
In the 4 years I knew him, he was never caught, nor anyone went to his supposed house to check if he is there or what he is doing.
That guy was literally skimming the system for money without any control. At some point he and his 'wife' found out about another scam that they could run, if she gets evicted by her landlord (both of them were getting housing benefits, but they were presenting that they were staying at 2 different properties while he was staying at her house) she could somehow get a free house. So they decided to bring a dog home so that the landlord sends them out. They got send out. She was put into a b&b with her daughter for a few months, while he was staying at the other house the benefits was paying for and then I've no idea if the scam worked or not.
To be very and completely honest, I did look into how I can report that guy, just because I didn't find it fair, that I am paying taxes and there are people like this person on the article that really need the money, and you get those people that just scam the system. All I got from googling how to report someone, was that the reporting system sucks so much that the HMRC won't really do much about it.
That sort story is just there to show you whats wrong with the system in general.
These anecdotes about complex systems only fuel peoples preconceived perceptions of systems that they fear benefit others more than them.
"Benefits fraud costs the government £1.3bn a year, according to official statistics, while the gap between tax owed and tax paid is put at £34bn a year by officials."
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/13/benefit-or-t...
I actually still get a bit more upset over benefit fraud than tax fraud, as (disclaimer) my family are beneficiaries due to my brothers autism - the hours and stress required to successfully navigate the system cannot be underestimated. Most recipients of disability payments etc will tell you it is a full-time job. The moral failure of benefit fraud is paid for twice - once materially by the taxpayer, again spiritually by the recipient. For me, another argument for the qualitative moral and social components of education - which seems to have been stripped away of late... A rant for another time!
Basic income for everyone would be one way, but that brings its own set of issues and challenges with it
I agree we need to concentrate more on tax avoidance. Particularly since any welfare state is going to be abused by a minority of some people - that is not a good reason to create a totally ineffective welfare state - that is part of the price we pay for it unfortunately.
It seems to me that the crackdowns make the system worse. As it becomes more bureaucratic the people who know exactly how to lie can still scam it but the genuinely needy don't know the magic words and get shut out.
Benefit fraud is currently far down the priority list of things that needs to be fixed, and that even goes for cost: The government has pushed things so far that you can look forward to a lot of tax money going to cover legal costs as a result of the huge and growing number of lawsuits the government is losing.
The government is complicit in far worse breaches of legislation related to the benefits system than fraudulent claimants are.
Good point. The use of retroactive legislation to deny people the money that a court ruled they were entitled to was a stain on the British constitution. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/mar/15/dwp-law-chan...
Here's the judgement. It's worth reading, because it seems the lack of consultation for a major change was one of the reasons to overturn it.
http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/...
(this of course goes on the list of reasons why the government wants to get out of ECHR at any cost, since it's the only constitutional brake in the system)
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...
If it's that far off, there's at least half a dozen editors of major UK papers that'd be rubbing their hands in glee at the opportunity to further demonize benefits claimants by exposing more benefits cheats and/or by exposing flaws in the reporting. That this isn't happening despite both commercial and ideological gain to be had in doing it if they could, is to me a strong indication that the numbers aren't that far off.
My own personal anecdata: I recently relocated to the UK with my wife. An acquaintance of hers - who is also a fairly blatant benefits abuser - essentially told her that when she got to the UK she would explain all about how to game the system and that my wife would never need to work again.
She obviously didn't realise that as a non-UK citizen here on settlement visa I am not entitled to benefits, and my wife can't claim benefits if I hope to renew my visa. Further, it didn't even occur to her that we wouldn't want to claim benefits unnecessarily even if we could.
The list goes on and on. Maybe this particular guy is skimming the system, but even then he's probably skimming it way less than the many people who evade taxes with offshore accounts, etc. The priorities are quite dubious, because statistics show unambiguously that more and more money and resources flow to less and less people - it's fairly drastic, if you look at the data.
What's wrong with most systems is that they are patronizing recipients of benefits and try to force them into extreme low wage labor (often to falsify unemployment statistics), while the gap between rich and poor is continually increasing at a higher and higher rate. Instead, society should give the lowest income classes some better perspectives, improve their working conditions and overall social power. For example, with a basic income system, but there may be less drastic improvements. Then they can also buy more useless stuff that breaks after two years, which is what everybody wants, right?
Well, GP did mention that he worked at a car shop while on a not-fit-for-work benefit plan.
We do need to try and catch criminals where possible, but if the cost of catching them is innocent people suffering then we should do less to catch them and just accept the cost instead.
In all seriousness, if you have not the slightest ounce of human sympathy to those who don't skim and are decent folk, rational self management has a strong enough argument and evidence to support such behavior.
The reason advanced societies pay this price is because the alternative is right there in front of you in the developing world.
The disenfranchised don't go away. They are human beings, who happen to be pretty efficient at coming up with average solutions to the problems they face.
Even if that solution is directly through you and to your wallet.
If we improve physical and mental health over the next couple of generations I think there will be a massive shift away from this failure mode. The problem is that those services are being cut as is the education that supports them. So we're screwed.
Also a 4 year cycle on government before someone comes and erases progress or long term goals instantly and just burns a mountain of cash doesn't work either.
It's the difference between the law and the way it is enforced. If surveillance capitalism has taught us anything, it's that people will put up with almost any policy as long as it's easy. We should use this knowledge to build interfaces to government programs. Indeed, I foresee a time when one's smartphone keeps all your data, and a "government program" is literally a program that runs on your phone and lets you know, proactively, if you are eligible, and enrollment is one click away. We can and should incrementally approach this goal in all our work.
Here's how common it is:
(...) Nerdwallet estimated that 57.1 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies are due to medical bills, making it the leading cause of the financial calamity that often precedes homelessness.
Although the tipping point is often the loss of a job, sickness or injury often precede it. Sickness and injuries make holding a job difficult, which leads to income declining and homelessness for those without a safety net. Due to the mostly employer-based health insurance coverage system in the U.S., no job means no health insurance. The combination of unemployment and poor health can then lead to financial ruin.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/how-hea...
I just returned from the annual conference of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, where the link between medical bankruptcy and homelessness was made more clear than ever. (...)
Illness and medical bills were linked to at least 62.1% of all personal bankruptcies in 2007. Based on the current bankruptcy filing rate, medical bankruptcies will total 866,000 and involve 2.346 million Americans this year – about one person every 15 seconds.
Most medically bankrupt families were middle class before they suffered financial setbacks. 60.3% of them had attended college and 66.4% had owned a home; 20% of families included a military veteran or active-duty soldier.
78% of the individuals whose illness led to bankruptcy had health insurance at the onset of the bankrupting illness; 60% had private insurance.
69% of debtor families had coverage at the time of their bankruptcy filing; 60% of families had continuous coverage.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2009/6/28/747432/-
When I lived in Oxford I came across a book put together of mini-interviews of the homeless there - their stories. It really surprised me how many of the biographies started off with a well-paid professional job with a happy family and spiralled out of control.
http://www.oxhop.org.uk/ourvoices/mystory/
[1]http://www.oxhop.org.uk/ourvoices/mystory/ [2] https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/how-one-woman-went-pro...
Ending up on the streets with nothing is a natural conclusion and what happens then is partly a test of character and partly luck. For many it's the end of the road.
I would argue that it is a test of society. We should judge ourselves on how we treat the weakest amongst us.
Paradoxically, many such problems come-about as a result of being reluctant to ask for help because it is perceived as a sign of weakness.
I know quite a few people who lived on unemployment for a year or so, whether between college and their first job, between various jobs, or because of mental health issues. While even here (NL) there's still a stigma attached to 'doing that', I'm convinced that none of these people would've taken this path if it wasn't so relatively normal.
* Relationship with girlfriend breaks up and you move in with parents.
* Parents medical bills eat up everything they have and more when they pass away their creditors swoop in to take anything that's left.
* You are kindly told you will be moved to the street so you get a job. Your part time job pays enough for you to crash on a couch or at best maybe rent a room somewhere if your lucky.
* When you get attacked you have no insurance so you now owe $5000 which you have no way to pay and a prescription for opoids.
* You apply for disability but get denied. No help is forthcoming. You quickly lose your place to live about 3 days after the rent is due. Nobody cares why you can't pay. Your address is now the street corner where you stick your pile of dirty blankets.
* Due to your financial situation and eviction you will never be able to rent anything without substantial money up front and nobody wants to hire you.
* After the initial perscription(s) of opoids wear off you now have pain AND an addiction unlikely to be satisfied legally. You turn to panhandling and use the money to buy heroin.
* You get a dose that happened to be cut with something far too strong and nobody realizes your dead until someone complains about the smell.
* Your frequent ambulance trips and incarcerations now cost society around $200K/year, far more than social support ever would.
https://bc.ctvnews.ca/one-homeless-person-costs-171-000-a-ye...
http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2017/02/27/vancouver-...
http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2017/02/27/vancouver-...
One man in Europe suffered a serious illness and was unable to continue in his previous career and had no new marketable skills. He had access to a robust social system that covered his living costs, medical care, and re-education. After several years of treatment and learning, he now has a wife and kids, amazing job that works with his disabilities, and a future. That guy is a former acquaintance of mine.
The second guy in the USA also lost his life due to medical issues, in his case a misdiagnosis and poorly done surgery. He had to then live off of savings and a tiny pension (which he was fortunate to even have but covered a fraction of his costs) with no insurance or access to good medical care since he lost his job provided insurance. He fought in court for years for disability and was denied repeatedly. He bounced around trying to find a place to live and access to services, even cheaper countries, but could never get legitimized or stabilized anywhere as he had no real support. He tried to self educate but the lack of stability and increasing medical issues without proper care always disrupted any attempts. His loved ones abandoned him as is all so common in long term illness and suffering. Depression and suicidal thoughts then take even more of that precious energy and he knows down deep at his age, and with his needs, all is lost. That guy is me.
So the takeaway is next time you are faced with the issue of social systems and if they are "worth it" or if people "deserve" your contribution to the whole, please remember this story. If you can't care about the human element and need a practical reason, think about whether it's truly better for society to bring people back into the fold and make them a productive part again, or if casting them off as broken and useless is really "better". More importantly think about if it was YOU or a loved one in need...who could have a future and contribute if just given the opportunities. It's too late for me but maybe not for you and the next person in my shoes.
If it is low or close to 0, you are worthless - refuse to be left for dead, or hope some "church" has pity on you. The state sees you as a negative balance. The federal cares not. They realllly dont want to see money flowing from the state/federal down to the little guy.
My mother in law, until she retired, had to tell elderly on assistance programs , "I'm sorry, but there isn't enough food or money for food this week." BTW, this is in Bloomington, IN. Not exactly a "shithole country".
In reality, not much will or can be done until a massive social upheaval happens. At that junction, then yes we can fix these glaring wrongs. But the entrenched, gerrymandered, low-influence masses are stuck until that comes around. If.
A robust benefits system doesn't always fix this. The UK had and in many ways still has one; it's definitely better than nothing, but it still destroys countless lives through malevolent bureaucracy and structural poverty traps.
It's possible to fix this, however. Almost everywhere in the world, support for Universal Basic Income is growing, across various political divides. The urgency of this support will only increase as the population ages and automation causes more structural unemployment and underemployment. It will happen eventually.
I don't know how long this will take. It may be a long time. Or it may happen surprisingly quickly. I put as much effort as I can into fighting for the latter.
So I really do think that a better world is coming -- one that has a place for you in it. If there's any way you can hang in there, please do.
In the meantime, know that even if you don't feel like you're making a contribution to the world, you are. What you've written here, for example, will resonate in people's minds. It will play a part in helping to change things. There's no way know how much that could matter. My own interest in this, for example, was sparked by a completely random girl's blog rant about her interactions with the UK unemployment benefit. Her pithy, frustrated rant has led to me investing many hundreds of hours into activism about this, which in turn has spurred still more people into action. Maybe your words can have a similar effect on someone. So thank you, and know that I appreciate what you're doing.
It's realistically too late for me to wait for any such paradigm shift. I am on too short of a clock both physically and mentally. I do hope it will make this sort of less much less common for the future though.
1. People like me need more than a one time donation or loan, we need long term support so we can even have the stability to TRY to rebuild. That's the purpose of those social systems people in my regions loathe so much.
2. There is an underlying suspicion/anger towards people who need money as it hits that "what if they are a scammer/they don't deserve it/they are being lazy" button in the subconscious. Even the nicest people aren't immune to this in practice.
3. My chances are slim even WITH help so there is a big chance I'd never be able to make good on it and I couldn't with good conscience accept any help without that being clearly understood.
4. My previous experiences with "offers" have taken a big toll on me as they have invariably been people trolling or looking for a quick feel good and never following through.
What I think is the only truly possible and practical solution is for someone to "teach me how to fish" and hire me within my limits. That's still a charity and special opportunity in the end but it would allow me to at least have a path forward. Something a few hours a day at most, remote, that would be flexible enough to work with/around my pain and limits. My broken body dictates my schedule, and being in my 40s it's only getting worse naturally as well.
I saw a guy post on reddit not long ago who sat at a computer tracking oil tankers and analyzing when they slowed or deviated in order to manipulate markets. Something like that would be great for me but it's not something that I can just "go out and do". The normal ideas people have for someone at home like content writing etc are A. Not as sustainable as people think and B. Soul killing.
I always had jobs that contributed to the greater good so slaving away doing something I despise to enrich someone else, even if I could realistically do it, is just too much more mental weight to bear when everything else about my life sucks. It may sound choosy but you have to have SOME good parts to stay mentally intact. I need a positive purpose in addition to that ugly paper that buys life.
As far as tech skills I am above average compared to my general age group/cohort, but likely nothing compared to HN types. I use Linux but not well. Very minor command line knowledge I don't know any programming languages and attempts to learn them have not gone well. I have LineageOS on my phone so can at least follow directions to install ROMs. Not a complete idiot, but not at all an expert.
I am interested in privacy and use encryption when possible. I gravitate toward underdogs and people in need and if I won the Powerball (unlikely as I don't play) I would spend my life as a philanthropist helping those in need. I like SciFi and Space stuff, read a lot, love maps. Something beneficial like the tanker monitoring online I mentioned above would suit me. I have often joked being a professional Wikipedia or Memory Alpha reader would be perfect for me. I like clean, organized and minimal environments in general irl and online. There are a number of THINGS I could imagine myself being able to do and also enjoying...but I don't see any realistic path to doing so for a paycheck within my limits.
I don't know if there is anything out there I am just not aware of that could work as well. Maybe I COULD learn to code with time and help but at first glance it's not something I find passion for. I would never make it in a normal high paced startup etc. I need stability but flexibility in anything I would do. I don't have the strength or energy to be in a "dynamic environment". I have hand issues along with many other broken bits so am not a very fast typist. Sorry for the scatter. Trying to think of relevant things to remote or tech work. I really don't know at this point...and this post itself is on the 3rd or 4th page by now so not likely many would even see my comment if there WAS someone out there with a good plan.
I appreciate and understand your view but the "self learn a marketable skill" has never worked. I cannot compete with young, healthy people who are grinding away. Without some miracle/kindness/bespoke option I am lost. It's not negativity or cynicism even though it sounds so...its just truth proven over time. Even this post which initially gave me a tiny boost of hope thinking someone might do as you said and see it and have a solution is so far off the front few pages nobody but you will continue to see it.
Just learning to fish for a "special kind of fish that may or may not be available and I have to compete with better, stronger fishermen for" won't work. I'd need someone to teach me to fish and give me the opportunity to fish within my limits. That's honestly a pipe dream.
It's so much easier for people in general to blame victims and stay safe in the "knowledge" that they would find a way out if it were them...I used to say the same so I know it's not something people will listen to until they live it. I know how I sound but I also the depression and mental stuff is a result of the lack of Maslow's lower levels not being met and you can't cure things "backwards". I need stability and a legit path and the rest would follow...but I am expected by most to somehow fix the effect before dealing with the cause.
I find the more I talk about it the more depressed I get...which is ironic to me...but the alternative to let it pile up doesn't chance things either. I wish I could see a way out...
When I read this I cried. I'm also the lucky bastard who got to live in a country with a great social system, but if I had been born in the USA, I could've been that woman. I would have fucked up, and probably somehow managed to fuck up my relationship with my family (last line of support without a functioning social system), I love them and they're here for me, but I fear I might've burned bridges because of all the stress and psychological issues, if it wasn't for the social system in my country. In the US I would have ended up on the streets, probably become an addict, probably be dead.
It's enraging to know what you need is very possible and being done elsewhere...but you aren't "allowed" that chance to live and people all around you are adamantly against it. I will never understand this cruelty and selfishness.
I'm so sorry to hear about your situation. I wish you all the strength. Hugs.
Good to hear you're avoiding addiction so far, it will sap your resolve like nothing else. Please also remember that alcohol is a terrible addictive hard drug that will drag you down just as easily as the illegal drugs would (in particular as soon as you use it for escape, like you describe). It's basically an unnecessary extra fight you have to fight in addition to all the other shit. I'm actually struggling with that a little myself, but the social help I can get here (as well as a super supportive family/parents), gives me relief and space needed to battle that too.
Even with proper social support, mental health problems are super hard. Other people [including gov help] can't fight the fight in your head for you, just point one in the right direction, provide motivation, and perhaps take other weights off your shoulders.
Sorry, I just read back your post and your problems are physical. The following advice remains the same.
You may be able to find people that want to help. Just random good people are out there. But even if you find people willing/able to do that for you, it's a difficult and humbling search to find out how exactly they can unburden you without it actually costing you just as much energy. If there are people willing to help you, think very hard and make a good and clear plan. Be clear how exactly they can help you, especially the little things, that may be super easy for others and hard for you. You need to tell them explicitly and without shame. One other thing that is important is if you know a generous angel, is to discuss how often you need this help. Maybe your neighbour will help you with groceries or taking out the trash (or whatever), but if you actually depend on that help, while they're just happy to help out their neighbour this one time, you'll be expending as much energy finding someone to help you this week, and the next. I get that it's hard to ask someone offering help to help you even more, but if you understand what I'm saying you will be able to explain. Ask them to be honest and only offer you time they are comfortable with (and without regretting it after a while). Maybe they'll tell you they can realistically help you take out the trash once a month. That's cool, because that's one out of four weeks. But now you know someone you can depend on, you know what you're asking is not too much for them, you can feel better about getting the help, knowing this is what they're comfortable with. I'm not saying you should refuse one-time help, but that it's important to have this discussion (openly) so you know when (or if) you can depend on them again.
The above is a piece of advice I got from a magazine that people in my country (Netherlands) receive when they are on long-term disability benefits (called "UWV Perspectief", for any Dutch still reading along). It's a great magazine (beautiful design and typography too :p), even if I find it hard to read because it's kind of confronting, I'm kind of amazed that this thing exists.
I am so incredibly thankful for this aspect of my country. I'll be forever in its debt. I try to repay as much as I can by doing volunteer work, teaching kids programming and computer stuff, helping them studying for math tests (and just being a kind person to them--the place where I work has a social function for kids with difficult backgrounds too). That way I'm using the things that I learned studying Computational Science, all that knowledge I can't use in a "proper" (paying) job, because I can only do it for 10 hours per week (I need the other time mostly to rest, and keep my apartment in order, administrative stuff, laundry etc, which is equally taxing for me). I...
I have never met anyone who has survived in this situation who didn't have lots of help...either social support, family support, or both. I have none of that thus my hopelessness. I am clinging to Maslow's bottom rungs and expected to somehow "self actualize" nonetheless.
I hate my life, hate where I live (country and location) and see no future. I have asked for help directly and clearly for over a decade and gotten ignored or blamed. Anytime I do ask for that help the results are ALWAYS the same...most people ignore, some get angry out of guilt or bother or whatever and attack, a handful offer contacts and commiseration and maybe one of those people actually respond but end up disappearing after giving me standard self help advice from books or forums that is always inapplicable or out of context. It's why at this point I just complain when I speak of things as I have learned asking doesn't change anything. I need practical, concrete, consistent help. If I had that I believe I could get some semblance of a life back and contribute...but after this long and things getting so much worse I am giving up as it's shown to be pointless.
This country and culture is so anti everything I need and won't change in my lifetime if ever...and I cannot get myself established anywhere better for me. Knowing it's practically possible but I cannot access it has ruined me and I am just about done.
I've got a couple of dear friends in similar situations to yours. So far they're making do, because they've gotten lucky and found sheds in the back yards of sympathetic friends that they could live in long-term (or equivalent scenarios). Absence that kind of informal safety-net, their situations would be significantly more dire.
I'm in the UK with long-term health issues that the NHS has been a godsend for -- but my visa status is uncertain, and being bounced back to America is always a risk. Health would be a major concern should that happen, and income concerns would follow shortly thereafter. My last-ditch backup plan, in that case, is to go mostly off-grid and move back to Arcosanti (www.arcosanti.org), where I (partially) grew up. The cost-of-living there would be wildly reduced, making financial survival possible unless my mobility/pain became 100% untenable. Maybe something like that would be viable for you?
Anyone I connect with in private and spend energy engaging and explaining things to in depth just repeats the same script of things everyone things you can and should do and I end up more depressed and hopeless and they end up disappearing either outright or after some lecture and victim blaming. I know why they do it, to preserve a sense of security for themselves, but it drains me nonetheless. I can't get what I really need in this place and can't realistically establish anywhere I could. Hope has gasped its last breath.
(Actually, describing it in this way reminds me of pitching a book to a publisher, or a startup to an investor. Each pitch takes a really significant amount of energy, and you have to be prepared to do it many dozens of times with completely null results -- and with no guarantee that there will ever be anything other than a null result. This breaks a lot of peoples' spirits. I know a handful of brilliant writers with unpublished novels sitting on their shelves, because they just couldn't keep going through the pitch-rejection cycle. As writers, they are probably superior to, say, Agatha Christie, who endured five years of nonstop rejection before making her first sale. But they are not as stubborn, and therein lies the rub.)
So, yeah, I understand. The only thing I can counter with is that even if you feel like you've explored the whole possibility-space, you haven't. Nobody has -- ever. There may be solutions for you; there always may be solutions for you; the question is how to maintain the core internal energy to keep searching for them.
I don't have any super-brilliant advice in that regard. Only thing I can offer -- and you've probably already gotten this plenty of times; apologies if so -- is that meditation can be extraordinarily helpful for this kind of thing. Not immediately helpful -- the benefits can take weeks or months to fully kick in -- but simply being in touch with your breathing, and training your mind to be free of the cycles of worry which it otherwise is (necessarily) consumed by, can help you find that core of energy if it exists. In general, if you are breathing: it exists. And even if it is doesn't, meditation can help you look at the situation more dispassionately. What you don't want to do is to make permanent decisions out of exhaustions or frustrations which may not, in a bigger picture that you haven't been able to consider, be permanent.
Final bit of advice: if you don't have the ability to meditate (physical or mental challenges can sometimes make this impossible), psilocybes can provide a viable shortcut for similar results. I definitely recommend not checking out until you've consulted with them first. What have you got to lose? :-)
I have drafted the "last ditch Ask HN for ideas" post but not sure when to post it. I know if it goes badly or is ignored outright it will really affect me and bring me down hard.
I am so far beyond mind game stuff being able to help...I need Maslows bottom rungs stabilized before I can do the rest...people always expect you to do it backwards.
Oh yeah, I definitely appreciate that self-actualisation can't happen without the lower tiers being stabilised. That's not what I'm saying; all I'm suggesting is that mindset counts for a lot. I'll going to try be delicate about this because I don't want to come off as victim-blaming: I completely understand that the circumstance you're in isn't your fault, and the right mindset won't make opportunities for getting out of your situation magically appear. But the wrong mindset can without a doubt blind you to legitimate opportunities that might exist. This is why I recommend working on it.
As a rather concrete example: -- going to have to redact some details here for confidentiality reasons -- I recently hired someone for part-time work, whose situation resembles yours in a number of respects, including long-term unemployment. I was not able to pay for full-time work or at market rates, but our new employee is still earning a meaningful multiple of what they were getting on benefits, so it's a solid step up. I can see how the role they've taken might, at some companies, be tedious -- but the way we do things, it's an intellectually stimulating, self-directed, remote-work, set-your-own-hours-and-pace sort of job. So far this new employee is loving it. I have high hopes that it'll help them get that bottom tier of the pyramid firmed up.
In fact it's a job that I'm absolutely certain you would have the ability to do, and would even enjoy -- but the superficial job description is one that I've already seen you explicitly rule out as "soul killing". And probably at 90% of companies, you'd be right. At the other 10%, you'd be wrong. But that all-important 10% won't be available to you if you block yourself from seeing it.
In order for any opportunities to be available to you, they must both objectively exist and be subjectively perceived by you. For the former: yes, I have no doubt that such opportunities are few and far between, but given your obvious intellectual abilities, I know that they exist. I have more concerns for the latter, hence my recommendation that you interrogate your assumptions and your perceptions.
Anyhow, I've banged on about this enough, and hope you take my criticism in the constructive spirit it is intended! I would sincerely like to see things work out for you.