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Which of these scenarios is more likely: * The government is paying claims for people who are 150 years old. * The database is using 150 year olds as a sentin

Which of these scenarios is more likely: * The government is paying claims for people who are 150 years old. * The database is using 150 year olds as a sentinel value for a missing data. Given that the people making the claims for the former are reportedly young people (who thus have less experience with the quality of data in actual databases), who are outsiders and thus have not had training on the actual data entry procedures for the database in question, I find it extremely plausible that they made a search term for old claimants, claimed it as clear fraud, and never realized (or even bothered to ask) that it could just be a sentinel value. Especially given Musk's history of contempt for experts who tell him he's wrong, I don't think Musk's explanation that it's fraud holds up to any scrutiny, even given a lack of knowledge of the particulars of the database in question.

zimpenfish 2y ago
> * The government is paying claims for people who are 150 years old. ...and that no-one has noticed for the ~40 years they'd presumably be unlikely to be alive given that living past 110 is vanishingly rare despite audits, etc., until Elon and his Special Boys turned up.
mike_hearn 2y ago
[flagged]
- jonathanstrange 2y ago
  Maybe you need to look up what "sentinel value" means. It almost looks as if you're replying to a different post.
  - mike_hearn 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - swores 2y ago
      You misunderstood the comment - they mean the team working for Musk making claims about fraud (and yes, plenty has been written in the media, and in HN threads, about them being mostly young men), not that people claiming benefits are young.
      - mike_hearn 2y ago
        I'm not misunderstanding anything, lol, this whole subthread is pretty wild though. Nobody introduced young benefit claimants anywhere into the discussion. Original comment: Which of these scenarios is more likely: The government is paying claims for people who are 150 years old [or sentinel values] Followed by a claim that Musk's young employees have argued for "the former" i.e. that the government is paying claims for people who are 150 years old. Nobody is 150 years old, so we know it's not the first scenario. Moreover nobody - not Musk and not anyone working for him - has claimed that such people exist or they're receiving money. The claim has always been from the start that the data quality is very low and a possible reason for this (or effect of this) is fraud. Also, sentinel values aren't the correct answer, as established by Musk himself in a followup. The argument that these guys don't understand the basics of databases was always extremely unlikely and was indeed proven false within hours.
EdiX 2y ago
> The government is paying claims for people who are 150 years old. This more likely than you think, likely enough, in fact, that it has already been confirmed to have happened in multiple countries [1]. The problem of fraud and data corruption is widespread enough that it is hampering longevity research [2][3] [1] https://www.cremieux.xyz/p/the-blue-zone-distraction [2] https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000148 [3] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/704080v3
- bjourne 2y ago
  But in none of those cases, the claimants are registered as 150 years old. E.g., you might as well argue that since tax evasion is a thing, social security fraud probably is too. The conclusion doesn't follow from the premise.
- jcranmer 2y ago
  No, it's not likely at all. Yes, beneficiary fraud is likely--if you said that hundreds of people were drawing Social Security for people who are deceased, I would believe you. But the reason we know this occurs is because we periodically audit the databases to find cases where deaths were unreported. A claim of 150 years old would be older than the oldest verified age for the past 30 years. Saying that the SSA merely failed to notice the claimant's death is thus tantamount to saying that the SSA has never audited its database for unreported deaths in at least the past 30 years, despite welfare fraud being a salient political issue at multiple times in that timeframe.

zimpenfish 2y ago

> * The government is paying claims for people who are 150 years old. ...and that no-one has noticed for the ~40 years they'd presumably be unlikely to be alive given that living past 110 is vanishingly rare despite audits, etc., until Elon and his Special Boys turned up.

mike_hearn 2y ago

[flagged]

jonathanstrange 2y ago
Maybe you need to look up what "sentinel value" means. It almost looks as if you're replying to a different post.
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - swores 2y ago
    You misunderstood the comment - they mean the team working for Musk making claims about fraud (and yes, plenty has been written in the media, and in HN threads, about them being mostly young men), not that people claiming benefits are young.
    - mike_hearn 2y ago
      I'm not misunderstanding anything, lol, this whole subthread is pretty wild though. Nobody introduced young benefit claimants anywhere into the discussion. Original comment: Which of these scenarios is more likely: The government is paying claims for people who are 150 years old [or sentinel values] Followed by a claim that Musk's young employees have argued for "the former" i.e. that the government is paying claims for people who are 150 years old. Nobody is 150 years old, so we know it's not the first scenario. Moreover nobody - not Musk and not anyone working for him - has claimed that such people exist or they're receiving money. The claim has always been from the start that the data quality is very low and a possible reason for this (or effect of this) is fraud. Also, sentinel values aren't the correct answer, as established by Musk himself in a followup. The argument that these guys don't understand the basics of databases was always extremely unlikely and was indeed proven false within hours.

EdiX 2y ago

> The government is paying claims for people who are 150 years old. This more likely than you think, likely enough, in fact, that it has already been confirmed to have happened in multiple countries [1]. The problem of fraud and data corruption is widespread enough that it is hampering longevity research [2][3] [1] https://www.cremieux.xyz/p/the-blue-zone-distraction [2] https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000148 [3] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/704080v3

bjourne 2y ago
But in none of those cases, the claimants are registered as 150 years old. E.g., you might as well argue that since tax evasion is a thing, social security fraud probably is too. The conclusion doesn't follow from the premise.
jcranmer 2y ago
No, it's not likely at all. Yes, beneficiary fraud is likely--if you said that hundreds of people were drawing Social Security for people who are deceased, I would believe you. But the reason we know this occurs is because we periodically audit the databases to find cases where deaths were unreported. A claim of 150 years old would be older than the oldest verified age for the past 30 years. Saying that the SSA merely failed to notice the claimant's death is thus tantamount to saying that the SSA has never audited its database for unreported deaths in at least the past 30 years, despite welfare fraud being a salient political issue at multiple times in that timeframe.