6 ms·

Elon has been operating in bad faith since the Twitter Files (so, the very start). Announce X, publish receipts that show ~X, but nobody reads receipts so check

Elon has been operating in bad faith since the Twitter Files (so, the very start). Announce X, publish receipts that show ~X, but nobody reads receipts so checkmate. The "140 year old people in social security DB" post is just the latest example of bad-faith. Either there is actually >>$100B of social security fraud and that's the story or he wants to pretend like that's the case when he knows full well that presence in the DB does not indicate eligibility or payouts.

lowercased 2y ago
Agreed. Show the check numbers, mailing dates, bank transfers, etc. If there's actually really tens of billions flowing out to dead people monthly... demonstrate that. Should NOT be hard at all.
- smallmancontrov 2y ago
  Should not be hard... if it exists. Which is why I'm 99% sure it doesn't. But the lie will go twice around the world before the truth gets its pants on, as always.
  - freedomben 2y ago
    For sake of testing your position, let's assume the fraud is true and he does what you want and publishes the details like that. What about the corner-case person who actually is legitimate and now has incredibly private information out there to make stealing their identity trivial? As a statistical anomaly who is often that corner case, I'm glad you're not the one making the policy. I wish Elon wasn't as well, and I'm sure there's going to be a giant mess at the end, but using government power (which Elon has, whether rightly or wrongly) to publish personal information about people (which they get by force giving their monopoly on government power) especially without trial or due diligence is very wrong IMHO.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - smallmancontrov 2y ago
      This is what courts and process and testimony are for. Doing this reliably in the face of bad actors with minimal stepping-on-fingers is a solved problem. Unless you don't actually care about the truth and want to send a convenient lie twice around the world before the truth gets its pants on. Then you should act like Elon is acting.
  - cheema33 2y ago
    > What about the corner-case person who actually is legitimate and now has incredibly private information out there to make stealing their identity trivial? Elon usually has doesn't have any compunction about throwing innocent people under the bus if he thinks he gains something even if indirectly. But that aside, you can show evidence of massive fraud, without revealing private information to general public. Can certainly reveal it to relevant authorities.
    - kristianbrigman 2y ago
      To relevant authorities who are properly vetted? Feels like ouroboros…
      - mbrumlow 2y ago
        You would have to quantify what properly vetted is a unelected bureaucrat is. I guarantee vetting for three positions are probably little more than validating you don’t have outstanding warrants.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
BuyMyBitcoins 2y ago
I understand that these 140/150 year old recipients are actually the results of incomplete birthdate data. To steelman the argument though, it seems reasonable to audit these recipients so that we can get their true birthdate entered. The number of recipients who lack a valid birthdate because they found a way to fraudulently claim benefits is likely non-zero, but probably low. But in any event, cleaning up the data can’t be a bad thing.
- smallmancontrov 2y ago
  Why spend money chasing people who aren't collecting checks? That sounds like waste to me.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    Also those identities can't collect checks, because if they tried it would set off alarm bells and reviews because they're over a standard "assume they're already dead" limit. Imagine the brouhaha these same folks would be raising about "wasting your tax dollars hiring historians" if that other direction was in their self-interest.
    - jacurtis 2y ago
      This is also the same argument made against IRS audits on lower tax brackets. Basically, its not generally worth audits of low income citizens. Because the manpower required to perform the audit exceeds the revenues recovered. Yet audits of individuals making < $25k per year is over 5.5 times higher than those in all other income brackets (1.27% vs 0.25%). So we chase down citizens when likely they probably don't even had a tax burden anyway. Maybe they misfiled some taxes and should be taxed a few hundred or even a thousand dollars more. But the manpower to chase down these little checks is a net negative on the department. Sure, it is possible you find fraud in some of these low income cases. Someone claims to only make $25k but really they run a cash business and make $80k. But these are likely so limited thanks to other validations the IRS has access to, that the number of cases that reveal this is extremely tiny. So back to another argument on here, there an expectations that fraud is non-zero, and we accept that because getting fraud to zero is not worth the cost.
bak3y 2y ago
Presence in the DB allows for downstream fraud, even by accident. If that DB is the source of truth for SS payouts elsewhere, clean up the data. There's no reason for it to be there.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  > Presence in the DB allows for downstream fraud, even by accident. That's like saying null columns in a particular database table must be filled in (or have the row entirely erased) because someone, somewhere, somehow, might infer the wrong thing about them, if they completely ignore all the other tables and business rules. ___ "Hello, I am Oldy McOldperson. Give me money." "...Sorry sir, but that person would be almost 150 years old now, and that's well past our Impossibly Old threshold of 115 years. Furthermore, one our other databases says that person was reported as missing 90 years ago." "But Oldy's--I mean, my precise confirmed date of death is still blank, therefore I'm alive, so give me money!" "Sir, only a complete moron would believe that's how it works."
- Brybry 2y ago
  The reason given that the SSA does not clean up the data is it would cost too much for little to no administrative benefit. They also don't want to add new inaccurate data to the system. The no administrative benefit bit checks out with napkin math. Of the 18.9 million entries for people age 100 or older they are paying out benefits to 44,000. The total number of people in the US age 100 or older is around 90k to 100k, depending on time period for comparison. There's an Inspector General audit report in a nearby comment for source.
- snowwrestler 2y ago
  Social Security receives payments as well as makes them. SSNs are keys for both. The “super old person” SSN numbers are in the DB mostly because non-citizens are using them to pay into the system. If you delete those numbers, the next payroll run will inject them right back in. And you would remove important accounting metadata for each payment. Metadata that is consumed by the systems that prevent fraudulent payments from going out. The only way to stop the fake/bad SSNs is to go into the field and address each instance with employers. This is time-consuming and expensive, which is why no one has done it much.
mjevans 2y ago
Show us the (public) Court Filings. The formal start of education to evaluate if there is truth, if there is a guilty party, and to legally render a verdict. The check numbers and other PII can be evaluated by the courts. We the People can know the numbers; the scale per case and in sum, of the 'fraud' identified.
UltraSane 2y ago
Elon has been operating in bad faith since he called that hero diver a pedo
- SrslyJosh 2y ago
  Elon has been operating in bad faith since he came to the US on a student visa and then illegally worked for a startup.
  - chipsrafferty 2y ago
    And then faked his degrees

lowercased 2y ago

Agreed. Show the check numbers, mailing dates, bank transfers, etc. If there's actually really tens of billions flowing out to dead people monthly... demonstrate that. Should NOT be hard at all.

smallmancontrov 2y ago
Should not be hard... if it exists. Which is why I'm 99% sure it doesn't. But the lie will go twice around the world before the truth gets its pants on, as always.
- freedomben 2y ago
  For sake of testing your position, let's assume the fraud is true and he does what you want and publishes the details like that. What about the corner-case person who actually is legitimate and now has incredibly private information out there to make stealing their identity trivial? As a statistical anomaly who is often that corner case, I'm glad you're not the one making the policy. I wish Elon wasn't as well, and I'm sure there's going to be a giant mess at the end, but using government power (which Elon has, whether rightly or wrongly) to publish personal information about people (which they get by force giving their monopoly on government power) especially without trial or due diligence is very wrong IMHO.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - smallmancontrov 2y ago
    This is what courts and process and testimony are for. Doing this reliably in the face of bad actors with minimal stepping-on-fingers is a solved problem. Unless you don't actually care about the truth and want to send a convenient lie twice around the world before the truth gets its pants on. Then you should act like Elon is acting.
- cheema33 2y ago
  > What about the corner-case person who actually is legitimate and now has incredibly private information out there to make stealing their identity trivial? Elon usually has doesn't have any compunction about throwing innocent people under the bus if he thinks he gains something even if indirectly. But that aside, you can show evidence of massive fraud, without revealing private information to general public. Can certainly reveal it to relevant authorities.
  - kristianbrigman 2y ago
    To relevant authorities who are properly vetted? Feels like ouroboros…
    - mbrumlow 2y ago
      You would have to quantify what properly vetted is a unelected bureaucrat is. I guarantee vetting for three positions are probably little more than validating you don’t have outstanding warrants.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

BuyMyBitcoins 2y ago

I understand that these 140/150 year old recipients are actually the results of incomplete birthdate data. To steelman the argument though, it seems reasonable to audit these recipients so that we can get their true birthdate entered. The number of recipients who lack a valid birthdate because they found a way to fraudulently claim benefits is likely non-zero, but probably low. But in any event, cleaning up the data can’t be a bad thing.

smallmancontrov 2y ago
Why spend money chasing people who aren't collecting checks? That sounds like waste to me.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  Also those identities can't collect checks, because if they tried it would set off alarm bells and reviews because they're over a standard "assume they're already dead" limit. Imagine the brouhaha these same folks would be raising about "wasting your tax dollars hiring historians" if that other direction was in their self-interest.
  - jacurtis 2y ago
    This is also the same argument made against IRS audits on lower tax brackets. Basically, its not generally worth audits of low income citizens. Because the manpower required to perform the audit exceeds the revenues recovered. Yet audits of individuals making < $25k per year is over 5.5 times higher than those in all other income brackets (1.27% vs 0.25%). So we chase down citizens when likely they probably don't even had a tax burden anyway. Maybe they misfiled some taxes and should be taxed a few hundred or even a thousand dollars more. But the manpower to chase down these little checks is a net negative on the department. Sure, it is possible you find fraud in some of these low income cases. Someone claims to only make $25k but really they run a cash business and make $80k. But these are likely so limited thanks to other validations the IRS has access to, that the number of cases that reveal this is extremely tiny. So back to another argument on here, there an expectations that fraud is non-zero, and we accept that because getting fraud to zero is not worth the cost.

bak3y 2y ago

Presence in the DB allows for downstream fraud, even by accident. If that DB is the source of truth for SS payouts elsewhere, clean up the data. There's no reason for it to be there.

Terr_ 2y ago
> Presence in the DB allows for downstream fraud, even by accident. That's like saying null columns in a particular database table must be filled in (or have the row entirely erased) because someone, somewhere, somehow, might infer the wrong thing about them, if they completely ignore all the other tables and business rules. ___ "Hello, I am Oldy McOldperson. Give me money." "...Sorry sir, but that person would be almost 150 years old now, and that's well past our Impossibly Old threshold of 115 years. Furthermore, one our other databases says that person was reported as missing 90 years ago." "But Oldy's--I mean, my precise confirmed date of death is still blank, therefore I'm alive, so give me money!" "Sir, only a complete moron would believe that's how it works."
Brybry 2y ago
The reason given that the SSA does not clean up the data is it would cost too much for little to no administrative benefit. They also don't want to add new inaccurate data to the system. The no administrative benefit bit checks out with napkin math. Of the 18.9 million entries for people age 100 or older they are paying out benefits to 44,000. The total number of people in the US age 100 or older is around 90k to 100k, depending on time period for comparison. There's an Inspector General audit report in a nearby comment for source.
snowwrestler 2y ago
Social Security receives payments as well as makes them. SSNs are keys for both. The “super old person” SSN numbers are in the DB mostly because non-citizens are using them to pay into the system. If you delete those numbers, the next payroll run will inject them right back in. And you would remove important accounting metadata for each payment. Metadata that is consumed by the systems that prevent fraudulent payments from going out. The only way to stop the fake/bad SSNs is to go into the field and address each instance with employers. This is time-consuming and expensive, which is why no one has done it much.

mjevans 2y ago

Show us the (public) Court Filings. The formal start of education to evaluate if there is truth, if there is a guilty party, and to legally render a verdict. The check numbers and other PII can be evaluated by the courts. We the People can know the numbers; the scale per case and in sum, of the 'fraud' identified.

UltraSane 2y ago

Elon has been operating in bad faith since he called that hero diver a pedo

SrslyJosh 2y ago
Elon has been operating in bad faith since he came to the US on a student visa and then illegally worked for a startup.
- chipsrafferty 2y ago
  And then faked his degrees