3 ms·

They would still get a proforma birth date.

by zosima 2y ago

seszett 2y ago
Maybe in the US, I don't actually know. What date do they use then? In my country such cases get an unknown date of birth. Having just a year of birth is also possible.
- Balgair 2y ago
  A lot of Native Americans used Jan 1 for their birth date when signing up for WW2 service. Many service members during the drafts would add or subtract a few years with the help of local authorities. My grandfather didn't know his birth year and lied to make himself seem younger when it suited him. I have great-grandparents without any documentation that we suspect were fleeing wars or had been shanghaied I have at least one 3x great-grandparent with only a first name before her marriage. We know nothing else about her. There have been a lot of threads of 'Things Programmers Believe About Time' that are worth looking into. The exceptions to 'computer time' and reality are fun and tough to deal with. Same things apply to names. Suffice to say, Elon's crack team hasn't really thought of the reality of life and the messiness of it. But that's not the point and we all know it.
skissane 2y ago
My father used to work with someone who was originally from some Pacific Island country (forget which, might have been Fiji). And the story was, in that country, at least back then, you didn't get a birth certificate at birth; to register your children with the government, you had travel to a government office that was like a day's walk away (most people didn't have cars). And so a lot of parents didn't bother doing it with their eldest child, they'd wait until they'd had a few, and then go register them in a batch. And the government officials had no proof of when the child was actually born, so they just put down the date you registered them as the date of birth. Which meant this guy had the same date of birth as all his younger siblings, despite being several years older than them. And then he used that to get a passport, and then a visa to immigrate to Australia, and then after a few years Australian citizenship... and now all his legal documents say he's a few years younger than he actually is. And he decided he wasn't even going to try to fix it, the morass of bureaucracy involved wasn't worth it.

They would still get a proforma birth date.

by zosima 2y ago

They would still get a proforma birth date.

Maybe in the US, I don't actually know. What date do they use then? In my country such cases get an unknown date of birth. Having just a year of birth is also possible.

Balgair 2y ago
A lot of Native Americans used Jan 1 for their birth date when signing up for WW2 service. Many service members during the drafts would add or subtract a few years with the help of local authorities. My grandfather didn't know his birth year and lied to make himself seem younger when it suited him. I have great-grandparents without any documentation that we suspect were fleeing wars or had been shanghaied I have at least one 3x great-grandparent with only a first name before her marriage. We know nothing else about her. There have been a lot of threads of 'Things Programmers Believe About Time' that are worth looking into. The exceptions to 'computer time' and reality are fun and tough to deal with. Same things apply to names. Suffice to say, Elon's crack team hasn't really thought of the reality of life and the messiness of it. But that's not the point and we all know it.

skissane 2y ago

My father used to work with someone who was originally from some Pacific Island country (forget which, might have been Fiji). And the story was, in that country, at least back then, you didn't get a birth certificate at birth; to register your children with the government, you had travel to a government office that was like a day's walk away (most people didn't have cars). And so a lot of parents didn't bother doing it with their eldest child, they'd wait until they'd had a few, and then go register them in a batch. And the government officials had no proof of when the child was actually born, so they just put down the date you registered them as the date of birth. Which meant this guy had the same date of birth as all his younger siblings, despite being several years older than them. And then he used that to get a passport, and then a visa to immigrate to Australia, and then after a few years Australian citizenship... and now all his legal documents say he's a few years younger than he actually is. And he decided he wasn't even going to try to fix it, the morass of bureaucracy involved wasn't worth it.