Voicing doubts
Alex Harrowell is ace on the fabulous lie detectors that are going to stop the underclass dragging us all to the poorhouse:
I wonder if Harrow council is aware that exactly the same technology is being marketed as a “Love Detector”?
In case you hadn’t already guessed, this ‘voice risk analysis technology’ being brought in to trap dole scum is the most spectacular bollocks. It’s a bogeyman to intimidate the vulnerable.
Posted on December 10th, 2008 at 9:32am under Crime and punishment, Eye Catching Initiatives, Science and progress
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• 8 Comments |
A bit like those completely fake TV detector vans. But people believed that old bollocks for decades.
Agree that it is not perfect, and the results should be taken with a pinch of salt. But how much does it cost, and how much does the fear of it being used reduce benefit fraud. Surely, if it is a cost-effective piece of propoganda, why not use it, the same as the TV detector vans? The only concern I’d have is if the people working with it started believing that the technology works.
Well, I’d say that actively propogating lies about the utility of technology is a pretty anti-democratic thing to do in a Modern, technology-intensive society.
It’s also stupid, as remarkably enough some claimants may even discover that the machines are not able to do the job they claim.
Shackleford – you might as well pretend a photocopier is some kind of ‘Truth Machine’ to fool more impressionable (or gullible) claimants. Failing that, you could always torture them: some people swear it gets results every time, and you don’t even need any fancy technology either. I’m sure Purnell’s people are working on that for the manifesto – unless the Tories get there first.
The biggest risks of this kind of technology are:
False positives: when perfectly honest, but very nervous, people trigger the machine.
False confessions: when claimants abandon valid claims or admit to fraud they haven’t committed because they are intimidated by the technology and are more frightened of punishment than they are frightened of losing their benefits.
The people most likely to suffer these are the most vulnerable: people with metal health problems etc.
This is a very unfair system and will lead to injustice and poverty for the vulnerable.
Cruelty dressed up as compassion in a Kafkaesque assault course masquerading as a benefits system. Oh yeah, Labour learned the lesson well from the Tories. Here’s the latest bolus of effluent from the mouth of James Purnell:
“Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell said the Government could not afford to waste taxpayers’ money on people who were “playing the system”, telling MPs: “These reforms point the way to a fairer society where children don’t grow up in poverty, where disabled people enjoy real equality, and everyone is given real help to overcome the barriers to achieving their full potential.”
Er, thats their full potential as a minimum wage serf. Taking out his handy Compassion Onion ((c) M Thatcher):
“Mr Purnell said the aim was to help people find work, improve their lives and turn around the “scars” left on communities by unemployment. He said: “Leaving people on benefit is the cruellest thing to do. We cannot afford to waste the talents of people.”
This really is Dickensian – doesn’t this dead-eyed, witless knobend understand that cutting off people’s benefit altogether is the cruellest thing to do, and quite likely to fuel the crime statistics? What a heartless, sh*t-for-brains, phuqwit. And of course, the Biz Community are giggling and falling over in delight:
“Business leaders praised ministers for tackling a “something-for-nothing” culture after a new sanctions regime was signalled which will cut benefits from anyone refusing to take up training or the offer of a job.”
Yeah, something for nothing…er, and what were those billions that were shovelled into the City for, then? God, how I hate smug business leaders, who clearly won’t be happy until benefit claimants are put on a platform in the middle of a pit of rotweilers along with a selection of ordinary household items and told they have to use them to get to freedom. Mind you, I hear they`ll probably be doing that on Im A Celebrity Get Me Outa Here. Should be called I’m A Government Minister, Get Me A Bottle Of Sulphuric Acid To Wash Out My Mouth.
Yeah, I`m cheesed off. Can you tell?
OK Shackleford, I’ll play along, but only if every politician/gov. official is hooked up to one of these devices every time they appear on Newsnight/Today/Question Time.
After all, to paraphrase you, “how much does the fear of it being used reduce lying, evasion and dissembling by our slippery leaders?” And cost effective to boot!