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this modern style of criticism is so tiring. if you philosophically disagree with something, don't try to abuse the defence of an oppressed group as a rhetorica

this modern style of criticism is so tiring. if you philosophically disagree with something, don't try to abuse the defence of an oppressed group as a rhetorical technique to make it harder for people to argue with you, just say you disagree with it and why even if you genuinely believe this is why it should be decriminalised, if women are being disproportionally affected, then clearly either there's some kind of bias in the process, which should simply be fixed instead of disbanding the whole process, or women are simply less skilled at dealing with situations like this and need more help. either way it's not an issue with the concept of the license fee I actually don't disagree that the license fee in its current format is a problem, ideally it should just be impossible to access it without having paid, but I don't think it's feasible with the way freeview works

jpsouth 1y ago
Anecdotal, but out of my family I’m the only man who doesn’t pay the licence fee, and the only person who hasn’t had a visit. They’ve visited my mother, sister and one auntie that don’t pay - they all live alone and are the sole name on the bill. I’ve heard from friends similar experiences too, single men and households with men on the electoral register don’t get visits, or very rarely if they do. I had the pleasure of answering the door at my mothers to one of these people and believe there’s an issue with the way they choose who to investigate. It’s predatory.
- permo-w 1y ago
  perhaps there needs to be an inquiry into the issue
  - jpsouth 1y ago
    I doubt Capita would have any fallout from an inquiry, it would be another headline for a day or two then get forgotten by the media. I’m all for it though, they should be held accountable, my first statement is purely cynicism from me.
    - permo-w 1y ago
      depends who the government is really. I'd be cautiously optimistic that the current government would do something about it, ideally taking it out of the hands of a private company in the first place. this government is too nervous for that kind of thing, but I do think they could do something about it.
      - jpsouth 1y ago
        That’s got me thinking, who controls that? Do the BBC willingly employ Capita to enforce the licence, or are they mandated to enforce it in some way and Capita just so happen to be the vultures that were cheapest to hire?
        permo-w 1y ago
        I have no idea but my guess is that it's handled privately so that no one at the BBC has to get their hands mucky
- wigster 1y ago
  i'm beginning to think i'm the only one that DOES pay it.
  - bartread 1y ago
    No, I do too, and I’m happy to do so. I’ve always felt it’s a useful brake on over-commercialisation of other channels, although perhaps less effective now than it once was. I do enjoy quite a bit of the BBC’s output as well.
    - permo-w 1y ago
      I feel there's a huge problem in this debate, which is that the people who don't like it are extremely vocal, and the people who do like it and quietly use and enjoy it without necessarily adoring it, perhaps like you, who I suspect are a majority, are just not really represented in the conversation, and the people who love it, like me, do not really have a central reference point from which to draw power from unlike the people who don't like it, who have the entire right-wing media crowing about it at every opportunity
      - notahacker 1y ago
        Not to mention the people who are extremely vocal about how horrible and woke it is for having too many minorities and that Mr Lineker also overlaps heavily with people who have watched it continuously for 50 years, wouldn't dream of switching over to newfangled channels like Channel 4 and don't know what an Amazon is...
        GlacierFox 1y ago
        I think I'm one of those, minus the last bit about channel 4 and Amazon.
      - bartread 1y ago
        You might be underrating my ardour on this as I've said my piece at greater length before. I've always been in favour of (something like) the license fee to fund a non-commercial national public service broadcaster. Public service broadcasting is incredibly important otherwise it's all just commercial interests and you end up with the kind of nonsense you get in the TV landscape in the USA: low quality content, far too many ads, dominance of hyper-partisan "news", etc. And if you look at what the BBC does - the TV channels, iPlayer, the national radio stations, local radio, news, the world service, the ground-breaking content they've created over the decades, and of course licensing/reselling content - it's incredibly impressive and, to me at any rate, represents incredibly good value for money as compared to other providers. The TV license costs about the same as an annual Netflix subscription but the BBC is able to do so much more with that money than Netflix are. Doesn't even compare in my mind.
- notahacker 1y ago
  Suspect more obvious factors are that men are far less likely to be home during the daytime when inspectors visit, and also more likely to admit they've had a TV for years or let the inspector in if he asks nicely... (FWIW I'm had a visit shortly after I'd moved in with five other guys before, and avoided prosecution by simply asking how to pay...)
  - gadders 1y ago
    I suspect it's more likely that the inspectors see women as a soft touch and lower risk and more easily intimidated and less prone to violence. In the same way ticket inspectors on trains ask people in suits for tickets but avoid asking the 6ft tall roadmen.
    - jpsouth 1y ago
      This is my theory. My relatives wouldn’t have a clue whether they were lying about being some official inspector and saying they’re allowed to inspect, and they would probably be scared of either an official looking, or bailiff looking person telling them this.
argotastic 1y ago
[dead]
RHSeeger 1y ago
> if women are being disproportionally affected, then clearly either there's some kind of bias in the process, which should simply be fixed instead of disbanding the whole process, or women are simply less skilled at dealing with situations like this and need more help Or they're more comfortable breaking that particular law (under the same conditions). I'm not saying that _is_ the case, but it is one of the possibilities.
- xienze 1y ago
  It’s right there in the article: >The ministry’s report admits the chief reason why so many women wind up being prosecuted is because they are more likely to open the door to inspectors. Men literally or figuratively tell the inspectors to fuck off, women don’t. It’s not bias, systemic issues, or whatever. It’s entirely on how women handle the situation that explains the difference.
  - naijaboiler 1y ago
    They need to figure it a different way to do enforcement that’s not as discriminatory. The current approach leads to disparate outcomes and is therefore inherently discriminatory
    - RHSeeger 1y ago
      It's not necessarily discriminatory just because it winds up impacting one group more than another. For example, if you have 2 groups of people and one of the groups is doing something wrong twice as much, and you enforce the law on everyone... it's fair, not discriminatory. (Ignoring the fact that what is labelled "wrong" can be done in such a way as to be discriminatory. I'm assuming a neutral view of what is wrong )
  - RHSeeger 1y ago
    Right, but the post I was responding to was listing out reasons that women might be prosecuted more, including being targeted more. So, unless you mean that they are targeted more _because_ they are more likely to open the door to inspectors, my point stands.
redczar 1y ago
Your complaint would have much more merit if there wasn’t hundreds of years of examples of women being systematically discriminated against and having the system unfairly target them.
- permo-w 1y ago
  my complaint would have less merit if GP weren't simply using those hundreds of years as rhetorical technique
  - redczar 1y ago
    this modern style of criticism is so tiring. It’s a modern style of criticism because….anyone…anyone… We should ignore historical reality. It’s makes you uncomfortable.
    - permo-w 1y ago
      >It’s a modern style of criticism because….anyone…anyone… are you going through a tunnel? in all seriousness I don't know what you're trying to say
ta1243 1y ago
> I actually don't disagree that the license fee in its current format is a problem, ideally it should just be impossible to access it without having paid, but I don't think it's feasible with the way freeview works So you think that it should just be privatised like netflix. If you don't think public service broadcasting has a place, just don't try to hide it.
- hajik 1y ago
  I don't get the TV license model myself. I think a government should collect taxes and provide services without adding elaborate schemes to pretend something else is happening.
  - permo-w 1y ago
    the point is that it partially takes it out of the hands of the government of the day. if it were solely funded by taxes, it would be long since dead or privatised by now, and if it weren't it would be entirely beholden to pleasing the government. maybe in a more mature country it could work, but not here I think the license fee, with a couple of tweaks, could be absolutely ingenious. the best of both worlds. the freedom of choice of the free market, and the lack of commercialism of the public sector, and no one has to pay taxes for it. however, it does restrict user choice somewhat by forcing them to pay for it to watch any live tv, even football on streaming platforms. I think there could be a discussion to be had about changing it to where users pay just to watch the BBC and not live tv in general
    - hajik 1y ago
      Seems like an awful lot for TV, and where most of the friction in the custom design is for the public. All the other areas that republic misdesign hits have much larger budgets and much more corruption, but those topics are a bit harder for the public to engage with so a special program does very nicely at preventing any system corrections.
      - permo-w 1y ago
gadders 1y ago
"Modern form of criticism" - pointing out the fact that the license fee is unfair and as a consequence disproportionately affects women. >> women are simply less skilled at dealing with situations like this and need more help Wow. That's a bold take.
- permo-w 1y ago
  I think you know how disingenuous you're being here, so I won't bless this with a genuine response
- gosub100 1y ago
  its ok for women to get prosecuted. they are not special
huhkerrf 1y ago
It's not modern, although I don't disagree that it's more common. But you do have jokes even back to the 80s of "world ending, women and minorities most effected."
- permo-w 1y ago
  interesting. I suppose the women's rights movement has been around for a very long time

jpsouth 1y ago

Anecdotal, but out of my family I’m the only man who doesn’t pay the licence fee, and the only person who hasn’t had a visit. They’ve visited my mother, sister and one auntie that don’t pay - they all live alone and are the sole name on the bill. I’ve heard from friends similar experiences too, single men and households with men on the electoral register don’t get visits, or very rarely if they do. I had the pleasure of answering the door at my mothers to one of these people and believe there’s an issue with the way they choose who to investigate. It’s predatory.

permo-w 1y ago
perhaps there needs to be an inquiry into the issue
- jpsouth 1y ago
  I doubt Capita would have any fallout from an inquiry, it would be another headline for a day or two then get forgotten by the media. I’m all for it though, they should be held accountable, my first statement is purely cynicism from me.
  - permo-w 1y ago
    depends who the government is really. I'd be cautiously optimistic that the current government would do something about it, ideally taking it out of the hands of a private company in the first place. this government is too nervous for that kind of thing, but I do think they could do something about it.
    - jpsouth 1y ago
      That’s got me thinking, who controls that? Do the BBC willingly employ Capita to enforce the licence, or are they mandated to enforce it in some way and Capita just so happen to be the vultures that were cheapest to hire?
      - permo-w 1y ago
        I have no idea but my guess is that it's handled privately so that no one at the BBC has to get their hands mucky
wigster 1y ago
i'm beginning to think i'm the only one that DOES pay it.
- bartread 1y ago
  No, I do too, and I’m happy to do so. I’ve always felt it’s a useful brake on over-commercialisation of other channels, although perhaps less effective now than it once was. I do enjoy quite a bit of the BBC’s output as well.
  - permo-w 1y ago
    I feel there's a huge problem in this debate, which is that the people who don't like it are extremely vocal, and the people who do like it and quietly use and enjoy it without necessarily adoring it, perhaps like you, who I suspect are a majority, are just not really represented in the conversation, and the people who love it, like me, do not really have a central reference point from which to draw power from unlike the people who don't like it, who have the entire right-wing media crowing about it at every opportunity
    - notahacker 1y ago
      Not to mention the people who are extremely vocal about how horrible and woke it is for having too many minorities and that Mr Lineker also overlaps heavily with people who have watched it continuously for 50 years, wouldn't dream of switching over to newfangled channels like Channel 4 and don't know what an Amazon is...
      - GlacierFox 1y ago
        I think I'm one of those, minus the last bit about channel 4 and Amazon.
    - bartread 1y ago
      You might be underrating my ardour on this as I've said my piece at greater length before. I've always been in favour of (something like) the license fee to fund a non-commercial national public service broadcaster. Public service broadcasting is incredibly important otherwise it's all just commercial interests and you end up with the kind of nonsense you get in the TV landscape in the USA: low quality content, far too many ads, dominance of hyper-partisan "news", etc. And if you look at what the BBC does - the TV channels, iPlayer, the national radio stations, local radio, news, the world service, the ground-breaking content they've created over the decades, and of course licensing/reselling content - it's incredibly impressive and, to me at any rate, represents incredibly good value for money as compared to other providers. The TV license costs about the same as an annual Netflix subscription but the BBC is able to do so much more with that money than Netflix are. Doesn't even compare in my mind.
notahacker 1y ago
Suspect more obvious factors are that men are far less likely to be home during the daytime when inspectors visit, and also more likely to admit they've had a TV for years or let the inspector in if he asks nicely... (FWIW I'm had a visit shortly after I'd moved in with five other guys before, and avoided prosecution by simply asking how to pay...)
- gadders 1y ago
  I suspect it's more likely that the inspectors see women as a soft touch and lower risk and more easily intimidated and less prone to violence. In the same way ticket inspectors on trains ask people in suits for tickets but avoid asking the 6ft tall roadmen.
  - jpsouth 1y ago
    This is my theory. My relatives wouldn’t have a clue whether they were lying about being some official inspector and saying they’re allowed to inspect, and they would probably be scared of either an official looking, or bailiff looking person telling them this.

argotastic 1y ago

[dead]

RHSeeger 1y ago

> if women are being disproportionally affected, then clearly either there's some kind of bias in the process, which should simply be fixed instead of disbanding the whole process, or women are simply less skilled at dealing with situations like this and need more help Or they're more comfortable breaking that particular law (under the same conditions). I'm not saying that _is_ the case, but it is one of the possibilities.

xienze 1y ago
It’s right there in the article: >The ministry’s report admits the chief reason why so many women wind up being prosecuted is because they are more likely to open the door to inspectors. Men literally or figuratively tell the inspectors to fuck off, women don’t. It’s not bias, systemic issues, or whatever. It’s entirely on how women handle the situation that explains the difference.
- naijaboiler 1y ago
  They need to figure it a different way to do enforcement that’s not as discriminatory. The current approach leads to disparate outcomes and is therefore inherently discriminatory
  - RHSeeger 1y ago
    It's not necessarily discriminatory just because it winds up impacting one group more than another. For example, if you have 2 groups of people and one of the groups is doing something wrong twice as much, and you enforce the law on everyone... it's fair, not discriminatory. (Ignoring the fact that what is labelled "wrong" can be done in such a way as to be discriminatory. I'm assuming a neutral view of what is wrong )
- RHSeeger 1y ago
  Right, but the post I was responding to was listing out reasons that women might be prosecuted more, including being targeted more. So, unless you mean that they are targeted more _because_ they are more likely to open the door to inspectors, my point stands.

redczar 1y ago

Your complaint would have much more merit if there wasn’t hundreds of years of examples of women being systematically discriminated against and having the system unfairly target them.

permo-w 1y ago
my complaint would have less merit if GP weren't simply using those hundreds of years as rhetorical technique
- redczar 1y ago
  this modern style of criticism is so tiring. It’s a modern style of criticism because….anyone…anyone… We should ignore historical reality. It’s makes you uncomfortable.
  - permo-w 1y ago
    >It’s a modern style of criticism because….anyone…anyone… are you going through a tunnel? in all seriousness I don't know what you're trying to say

ta1243 1y ago

> I actually don't disagree that the license fee in its current format is a problem, ideally it should just be impossible to access it without having paid, but I don't think it's feasible with the way freeview works So you think that it should just be privatised like netflix. If you don't think public service broadcasting has a place, just don't try to hide it.

hajik 1y ago
I don't get the TV license model myself. I think a government should collect taxes and provide services without adding elaborate schemes to pretend something else is happening.
- permo-w 1y ago
  the point is that it partially takes it out of the hands of the government of the day. if it were solely funded by taxes, it would be long since dead or privatised by now, and if it weren't it would be entirely beholden to pleasing the government. maybe in a more mature country it could work, but not here I think the license fee, with a couple of tweaks, could be absolutely ingenious. the best of both worlds. the freedom of choice of the free market, and the lack of commercialism of the public sector, and no one has to pay taxes for it. however, it does restrict user choice somewhat by forcing them to pay for it to watch any live tv, even football on streaming platforms. I think there could be a discussion to be had about changing it to where users pay just to watch the BBC and not live tv in general
  - hajik 1y ago
    Seems like an awful lot for TV, and where most of the friction in the custom design is for the public. All the other areas that republic misdesign hits have much larger budgets and much more corruption, but those topics are a bit harder for the public to engage with so a special program does very nicely at preventing any system corrections.
    - permo-w 1y ago

gadders 1y ago

"Modern form of criticism" - pointing out the fact that the license fee is unfair and as a consequence disproportionately affects women. >> women are simply less skilled at dealing with situations like this and need more help Wow. That's a bold take.

permo-w 1y ago
I think you know how disingenuous you're being here, so I won't bless this with a genuine response
gosub100 1y ago
its ok for women to get prosecuted. they are not special

huhkerrf 1y ago

It's not modern, although I don't disagree that it's more common. But you do have jokes even back to the 80s of "world ending, women and minorities most effected."

permo-w 1y ago
interesting. I suppose the women's rights movement has been around for a very long time