4 ms·

Of all the issues in my life, paperwork has never been one of them. Yes, at certain times – couple hours a year (0.02% of a year) – it's a bit of a faff dealing

Of all the issues in my life, paperwork has never been one of them. Yes, at certain times – couple hours a year (0.02% of a year) – it's a bit of a faff dealing with paperwork. House prices, cost of living, lack of healthcare, my family, my health, the economy, transport, the job market etc consume 99.9% of my day-to-day general concerns. Did people prior to the 2000s have mental breakdowns over paperwork?? How many times do you open a bank account a year??

dijit 11mo ago
1) Your argument is: "improving anything that doesn't effect me very much is not worth it." I mean, there are larger things to fix, but this one is probably larger than you think, even if it's not helping you very much, it'll help crack down on illegal workers (hey, we don't like that, right?) and it'll make the social systems have much less friction. 2) Notice that outside of Stockholm, Swedish house prices are not pegged to infinite like the UK is? I'm not saying that it's because of a central ID system, but you seem to imply that it precludes reasonable house prices... which is weird. 3) The economy is better when it's more efficient. Plenty of people argue inefficiency for the sake of jobs (people pushing paperwork have jobs! cushy government jobs! without them having jobs there'll be more unemployed people! -- I see this a lot more with Americans, and I find it to be an uncompelling argument usually). -- That is to say, I'm actually on your side, I don't trust the UK government, I'm merely offering a contra-point because in other EU countries these things are actually great and simplify a lot of things that you only really notice when you live with it - thus a lot of the hypotheticals fall on deaf ears to me. It's like watching people argue that having legs won't improve your life because someone can take away your shoes.
- michaelt 11mo ago
  > it'll help crack down on illegal workers Will it, though? Businesses already have to get a photocopy of your passport when they hire you, and check your right to work in the country. If they're not performing the checks, what's the point of a second document they also won't check? Surely the solution is firmer enforcement of the existing law?
  - dijit 11mo ago
    Thats not true, I didn’t even have a passport (and I still don’t have a drivers license) for many of the jobs I had in the UK. UK society does not demand that you have a passport per-se, but there’s very few functional photo ID documents available outside of a drivers license or passport- and getting by without those is annoying but totally possible. I used to “prove” myself with bills addressed to me, and having a bank account- since, again, neither passport nor drivers license. Now, getting the bank account was difficult, required a guarantor. But jobs themselves had no requirement, and I could give them someone else’s bank account details I guess. Same is true of the national security number, which is probably what you meant that the employer must get; that “string” informs the government when you pay tax and therefore you need to be able to work to have one- except there’s no way of proving you’ve supplied the right one: the NI card even says on it that the card itself is not proof of ID.
    - hexbin010 11mo ago
      I note you declined to answer "Will it, though?" and just explained that a passport isn't a hard requirement for Right to Work checks.
      - dijit 11mo ago
        I thought it was obvious that it does. As mentioned, my experience across multiple societies has proven as such. Unless you live somewhere with a centralised ID system that somehow makes it harder? I doubt it somehow.
- hexbin010 11mo ago
  > 1) Your argument is: "improving anything that doesn't effect me very much is not worth it." That's not my argument, and calling me self-centered isn't a very mature reply. I'm countering the strawman that people are buried in paperwork day-in, day-out (your first reply to 'what makes my life your life better' was 'The amount of paperwork in my life is effectively zero') and the very heavy suggestion that "digital ID" would save us from all that paperwork (edit: though I admit perhaps I'm tilting at windmills a tiny bit in this thread) > but you seem to imply that it precludes reasonable house prices... which is weird Not at all what I meant. I was suggesting that paperwork doesn't even register in the very long list of things I care about Later > it'll help crack down on illegal workers How? What evidence?
  - dijit 11mo ago
    I don’t want to call you out for this because it will make you quite defensive, so take it in the spirit that its intended: you seem irrational on this point. Perhaps theres an emotional element, because you’re frustrating me quite a lot. The UK would be far from the first country in the world to have an ID system; we don’t need to deal in hypotheticals. I am extremely sympathetic to the idea that the UK government might abuse the system, but I need to be very fucking clear right now: just because its difficult to tell you how much easier its made my life does not diminish it. Given you likely wouldnt be able to live in Sweden since Brexit; you’re unfortunately going to have to take my word for it. But it absolutely does help tackle illegal workers. Without a personnummer you cannot get access to social services; people try to get around it but it is very difficult. Here is the UK talking about it, and how it works: https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/146988/pdf/ https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/146988/pdf/ Here is a study into how people attempt (and fail) to bypass a centralised system. https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/handle/2077/28504/gupea_2077_28504_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/handle/2077/28504/gupea_207...
    - hexbin010 11mo ago
      You're just frustrated I called out your main justification for Digital ID as BS. Sorry you didn't make a stronger argument. It's one I've read a 100 times: 'we have it where I'm from, it's all I know, therefore it must be good'. Perhaps the UK should adopt Swedish as the official language too (given everything in northern EU is superior) If you want to make an argument about tackling fraud etc, start with data about the scale of the existing problem, then present some research into exactly how much fraud, quantitively, will be reduced. I'm not actually against things that would actually tackle fraud/visa overstaying etc – I just want solid evidence ethat multi-billion pound schemes that will reduce privacy will address a specific, known problem. By the way, plenty of country have more digital systems and still have fraud and illegal workers. That completely destroys any such weak justification.
AlotOfReading 11mo ago
Did people prior to the 2000s have mental breakdowns over paperwork?? You might have heard of Franz Kafka?
- hexbin010 11mo ago
  Hah that made me chuckle!

dijit 11mo ago

1) Your argument is: "improving anything that doesn't effect me very much is not worth it." I mean, there are larger things to fix, but this one is probably larger than you think, even if it's not helping you very much, it'll help crack down on illegal workers (hey, we don't like that, right?) and it'll make the social systems have much less friction. 2) Notice that outside of Stockholm, Swedish house prices are not pegged to infinite like the UK is? I'm not saying that it's because of a central ID system, but you seem to imply that it precludes reasonable house prices... which is weird. 3) The economy is better when it's more efficient. Plenty of people argue inefficiency for the sake of jobs (people pushing paperwork have jobs! cushy government jobs! without them having jobs there'll be more unemployed people! -- I see this a lot more with Americans, and I find it to be an uncompelling argument usually). -- That is to say, I'm actually on your side, I don't trust the UK government, I'm merely offering a contra-point because in other EU countries these things are actually great and simplify a lot of things that you only really notice when you live with it - thus a lot of the hypotheticals fall on deaf ears to me. It's like watching people argue that having legs won't improve your life because someone can take away your shoes.

michaelt 11mo ago
> it'll help crack down on illegal workers Will it, though? Businesses already have to get a photocopy of your passport when they hire you, and check your right to work in the country. If they're not performing the checks, what's the point of a second document they also won't check? Surely the solution is firmer enforcement of the existing law?
- dijit 11mo ago
  Thats not true, I didn’t even have a passport (and I still don’t have a drivers license) for many of the jobs I had in the UK. UK society does not demand that you have a passport per-se, but there’s very few functional photo ID documents available outside of a drivers license or passport- and getting by without those is annoying but totally possible. I used to “prove” myself with bills addressed to me, and having a bank account- since, again, neither passport nor drivers license. Now, getting the bank account was difficult, required a guarantor. But jobs themselves had no requirement, and I could give them someone else’s bank account details I guess. Same is true of the national security number, which is probably what you meant that the employer must get; that “string” informs the government when you pay tax and therefore you need to be able to work to have one- except there’s no way of proving you’ve supplied the right one: the NI card even says on it that the card itself is not proof of ID.
  - hexbin010 11mo ago
    I note you declined to answer "Will it, though?" and just explained that a passport isn't a hard requirement for Right to Work checks.
    - dijit 11mo ago
      I thought it was obvious that it does. As mentioned, my experience across multiple societies has proven as such. Unless you live somewhere with a centralised ID system that somehow makes it harder? I doubt it somehow.
hexbin010 11mo ago
> 1) Your argument is: "improving anything that doesn't effect me very much is not worth it." That's not my argument, and calling me self-centered isn't a very mature reply. I'm countering the strawman that people are buried in paperwork day-in, day-out (your first reply to 'what makes my life your life better' was 'The amount of paperwork in my life is effectively zero') and the very heavy suggestion that "digital ID" would save us from all that paperwork (edit: though I admit perhaps I'm tilting at windmills a tiny bit in this thread) > but you seem to imply that it precludes reasonable house prices... which is weird Not at all what I meant. I was suggesting that paperwork doesn't even register in the very long list of things I care about Later > it'll help crack down on illegal workers How? What evidence?
- dijit 11mo ago
  I don’t want to call you out for this because it will make you quite defensive, so take it in the spirit that its intended: you seem irrational on this point. Perhaps theres an emotional element, because you’re frustrating me quite a lot. The UK would be far from the first country in the world to have an ID system; we don’t need to deal in hypotheticals. I am extremely sympathetic to the idea that the UK government might abuse the system, but I need to be very fucking clear right now: just because its difficult to tell you how much easier its made my life does not diminish it. Given you likely wouldnt be able to live in Sweden since Brexit; you’re unfortunately going to have to take my word for it. But it absolutely does help tackle illegal workers. Without a personnummer you cannot get access to social services; people try to get around it but it is very difficult. Here is the UK talking about it, and how it works: https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/146988/pdf/ https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/146988/pdf/ Here is a study into how people attempt (and fail) to bypass a centralised system. https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/handle/2077/28504/gupea_2077_28504_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/handle/2077/28504/gupea_207...
  - hexbin010 11mo ago
    You're just frustrated I called out your main justification for Digital ID as BS. Sorry you didn't make a stronger argument. It's one I've read a 100 times: 'we have it where I'm from, it's all I know, therefore it must be good'. Perhaps the UK should adopt Swedish as the official language too (given everything in northern EU is superior) If you want to make an argument about tackling fraud etc, start with data about the scale of the existing problem, then present some research into exactly how much fraud, quantitively, will be reduced. I'm not actually against things that would actually tackle fraud/visa overstaying etc – I just want solid evidence ethat multi-billion pound schemes that will reduce privacy will address a specific, known problem. By the way, plenty of country have more digital systems and still have fraud and illegal workers. That completely destroys any such weak justification.

AlotOfReading 11mo ago

Did people prior to the 2000s have mental breakdowns over paperwork?? You might have heard of Franz Kafka?

hexbin010 11mo ago
Hah that made me chuckle!