[notus]

I have luckily never been caught in one of these kakfa-esque bureaucratic traps before, but I don't know how people hold it together when they do get caught in it. It seems like there isn't any thought being put into possible edge cases for policy and here seems to be little recourse for people to get out of it. Everything about governments just feels like this wall of indifference, from interactions at the DMV to policy being created. Just thinking about it makes me a little crazy. It is so inhuman.

[pjc50]

It's not specific to governments, any sufficiently large organisation behaves like this. Think of the people who've had Google accounts vanished without explanation. Or the RBS small business scandal: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/feb/12/confidentia...

At least with governments you get a representative.

[simmanian]

With government orgs we get representatives who don't have any stake in improving these things.

I once had an incident where the receptionist at a DMV office messed up and didn't register me. I had patiently waited for 3 hours before noticing that people who lined up after me started getting called. So when I went up and asked if anything is wrong, the office manager looked something up on her screen and, upon seeing that I'm not registered, smiled and cracked a joke about it with another employee. She then told me I have to go back and take a seat and wait for my number to get called. At this point, I realized something went terribly wrong, and started literally begging to get expedited since I had already waited for more than three hours by then. The office manager's response was to scream at me, telling me that I'm causing disruption, and threatening to remove me with force.

I wonder if there's a way to actually improve the quality of these services?

[pjc50]

I always hear horror stories about the DMV from Americans, and I too am baffled as to why a service used by almost everyone is bad. The UK equivalent (DVLA) has no branches and does everything by post. So you don't have to queue for anything.

In the UK the extremely user hostile government services are those for the marginalized; benefits and immigration. But the universal ones have pressure to work effectively.

[pkaye]

I think the DMV job are high volume customer service and the pay is not particularly great. So it is probably a stressful job dealing with all the people. On the other hand if I go to a low volume office like county records, the people are more pleasant.

[aianus]

> has no branches and does everything by post

I'm really curious how this works.

They don't take a picture of you in person for your driver's license? Even the first one? What about the driving tests? Eyesight tests?

What if you want to buy a used car from a stranger, do you hand over the cash and then wait weeks for the registration to change hands by post? How do they prevent title theft if they can't check ID in person?

[pjc50]

Photo authentication is either from other photo ID, or by a gloriously decentralised system of getting someone sufficiently middle class to sign it: https://www.gov.uk/id-for-driving-licence

Driving tests are done in person with an appointment, so no queueing. There's no eyesight or medical tests, but at the start of the driving test the examiner will ask you to read a numberplate from a specific distance (20 meters?)

The registration transfer system used to be done on the basis of a "log book", which then became a piece of paper with an authentication hologram, but now it is of course online: https://www.gov.uk/checks-when-buying-a-used-car / https://motorway.co.uk/guides/v5c-the-ultimate-guide-to-the-...

> How do they prevent title theft if they can't check ID in person?

I'm not really sure what this means or how to translate it to the UK system? You might be at risk if someone managed to forge a V5 for a car they had stolen?

[fredsted]

Where I live, you bring your own photo – there's some basic requirements to the photo, though – to the police station. Then you'll get a temporary license while the real one is in the mail.

You go to your doctor and get a proof of health. Costs around $100.

Typically the tests are arranged with your driving instructor as part of the course. Each attempt is also around $100.

When selling a used car, you just give the person the registration certificate when you've received payment. Then you reregister the car on the tax authority Web site.

[princetman]

If I recall correctly you either have to mail in your passport with application form and photos or you can go to post office where they can verify ID for your fist provisional license.

One of the step to get full license is to take theory test in person at test centre. They check your address and verify ID again at this stage.

We have small driving test centres in most areas. You prebook the slot and turn up. They’re fairly punctual.

[blotter_paper]

> At least with governments you get a representative

...if you live in a republic. Bonus points if it's a democratic republic; then your representative will actually listen to you... if you can outbid the competition and get said representative elected via advertising money.

At least with a corporation, they can't impose arbitrary fines on you and lock you in a concrete box if you don't pay said fines... unless the government says they can.

[anoncake]

>> At least with governments you get a representative

> ...if you live in a republic.

The Parliament of the United Kingdom doesn't actually exist? That explains a lot about Brexit.

[yellowapple]

The House of Lords kinda throws a wrench in calling the UK a republic, IMO. I know they're technically representatives (of... someone), but the Life Peers within the Lords Temporal are Crown-appointed ("on the advice of" the PM, which sounds like Her Majesty can tell the PM to bugger off and ignore that advice, but maybe there are specific restrictions there that I ain't aware of on account of not being British), which to me sounds like monarchy with extra steps.

[anoncake]

The UK has a monarch. That means it's a monarchy without any extra steps and thus not a republic. I didn't call the UK republic, I pointed out that having representatives does not require a republic.

The House of Lords can only delay laws AFAIK and the monarch just can't decide anything. Even if they did, the House of Commons would still exist.

[matthewheath]

> The House of Lords can only delay laws AFAIK

Yes, the Lords may only delay bills for up to a year and the Commons has the right to reintroduce the bill in the next session and pass it without the consent of the Lords under the Parliament Acts (1911 and 1949 respectively).

[Gaelan]

In theory the Queen has the right to tell her advisors to bugger off, but in practice she hasn't done so in a long time, and I think it's widely believed that if she tried to exercise any power the monarchy would be abolished very shortly.

[twic]

I'm not sure that in theory she does. The law has this idea of "the Crown", which is a sort of mechanical legal function, which happens to be exercised by Queen Elizabeth II at the moment, but which is tied up in a lot of law governing what it does in various situations.

Consider the recent Miller II case [1]. The prime minster advised the Crown to prorogue parliament, which it did. The supreme court decided that the advice was dodgy, and so the prorogation was void.

This is not how it works for normal decisions taken under advice! If you advise me to buy an avocado ice-cream, and i do, but it turns out that you've never tried avocado ice-cream, and it's actually horrible, i don't get to go back to the shop and tell them that the purchase was void. I made my decision, and i have to stand by it. I might get to sue you for giving me duff advice, but there's no suggestion that my decision itself is altered.

So it really seems here that the Queen isn't deciding to do things, even in theory.

If she refused to do something she's required to - issue the prorogation, assent to laws, etc - then she would be in trouble, not because she's upsetting the balance of power, but because she's simply not doing her job, which is to exercise the powers of the Crown as required by law.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_(Miller)_v_The_Prime_Ministe...

[magduf]

With the way things have gone lately in the UK, it seems like they'd be a lot better off if she stepped up and took over for a while. She sure seems a lot more intelligent and sensible than the current PM and other figures in power.

[blotter_paper]

The quote said governments, not "this one specific government."

[hirundo]

> At least with governments you get a representative.

At least with corporations you get a choice, short of emigrating. Google is one of the most dominant corporations in the world, yet there are multiple alternatives to most of their services.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

There is often only choice in the market because government regulators prevent absolute monopolies from happening.

[sol_remmy2]

Disagree, the most monopolistic sectors in the economy (education, telecommunications, health care) are also the most highly regulated.

Some states don't even have charter schools, can you believe that?? They only have one choice for schooling from grade K-12

[magduf]

>Some states don't even have charter schools, can you believe that?? They only have one choice for schooling from grade K-12

This is complete BS. Private schools have always existed, and still do. On top of that, homeschooling is legal.

[nichohel]

And how many people can pay for schooling their children twice, once for the the public school they aren't using, and then again for a private school? Or, afford to not work and homeschool their children?

[et2o]

This is completely and factually wrong, you should delete.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

The highly regulated ones are natural monopolies that shouldn't be private at all.

[ClumsyPilot]

Complete non-sequitor. A corporation can make a choice that causes misery. By the time the consequences of this corporate decision precipitate, it becomes too late to make a choice.

Case in point: 300 people killed by Boeing and 100 people dead in the fire in Grenfell tower in UK.

On the contrary, a representative might amend/revere the situation, for example by changing the law.

[ryanwaggoner]

It’s ironic to talk about how corporations cause destruction in people’s lives in a way governments don’t, and then bring up hundreds of deaths as an example. Those deaths are tragic to be sure, but how many tens of millions of people have died at the hands of their governments in the last century?

[ClumsyPilot]

I dont think counting deaths caused by dictators addresses my point.

How do we make it an apples to apples comparison? For example,today, 2 million people a year die from air pollution, who is to blame for those deaths?

What about drug cartels, do we count the deaths that occurred in fighting them 'against' government? But if the government did not exist, those deaths would be higher, so do we count 'prevented deaths'? What about tabacco, etc. I dont think a realistic tally can be made.

[pjc50]

Equating Stalin and the DMV is the kind of category error that prevents Americans from having good service at the DMV.

[ryanwaggoner]

You’re the only one making such a comparison

[dmreedy]

Indeed so; and not just government, any bureaucracy of sufficient size. To take a bit of a pop-sci angle, then as soon as you pass Dunbar's Number.

A video essayist I follow on youtube had a bit of a discussion about this, about being on the receiving end, after his car had been stolen, joy-ridden, and then set on fire. He was required to pay impound fees for the wreck, using proof of ownership that had been in the glove box. When he told this to the clerk at the impound lot, the response came, "Well, that's going to be a bit of a problem, isn't it?". And followed the red haze and the realization that these lots don't have bullet-proof glass in front of the counter to protect from robbery.

But I'd argue that it's borderline impossible to genuinely account for even the second tier of possible edge cases, even in the best of faith; law is too complex, and world changes at different rates in different places in too many ways to make that kind of considered extrapolation anything but speculative in the best case, and hopeful, well-intentioned gambling in the worst. Incidentally, this is a typical argument against regulation, though I'm not sure I agree with that, either...

[notus]

I agree that it is probably impossible to account for a lot of edge cases, but then that means there should be more generalized methods for recourse when people feel that the law hasn't accounted for their situation. It sounds like the courts in this situation were just deferring to existing law rather than realizing there is an issue with it and addressing it.

[Bartweiss]

Frank Herbert wrote a couple of novels about the Bureau of Sabotage.

The setting had a government so powerful that it could cause horrible problems with offhand decisions, and so large that it couldn't be reasoned with or set unified policy. (It rather reminds me computerized stock trading today, with problems like the "flash crash" where decisions outrun the actual intent of any human involved.) It couldn't shrink or slow down and still handle genuinely pressing decisions, so the solution was an agency meant to delay and interrupt whatever actions it thought would cause problems.

I certainly don't think modern governments are so efficient they need to be intentionally delayed, but the nature of the department is interesting: powerful and almost unrestricted in oversight, but strictly reactive and unable to make policy. It's not a perfect fix, but regulatory capture and incompetence are less worrying when the people deciding on government procedures aren't the same ones enforcing them.

In the real world, that might look like a Department of Exceptions. It would be unable to make or even change policy, but would have broad power to reverse specific government decisions. The point isn't to fix bad governance, that's too hard a problem, but to fix issues like this where the edge cases of a rule produce absurd results. For safety from overreach, it would probably need to be one-sided; able to undo government actions on private entities, but not apply new ones or step into private disputes. (I.e. it can grant you a car registration without the normal papers, but it can't peanlize a non-crime or reverse a civil lawsuit.) And for safety from capture, it can't be unaccountable, but holding it to strict policies would be self-defeating - perhaps the best fix would simply be to record common-sense rationales for each decision, and set a low bar to fire or vote out employees for bad decisions.

It's a wild idea, and I can see a host of possible issues. But your point about courts is interesting: we already have a system which can't make law, but has enormous power to review government decisions. This would be much the same idea, aimed at irrational actions instead of illegal ones.

[logfromblammo]

And by "a couple", it is just that. There are exactly two novels set in the ConSentiency Universe: Whipping Star and The Dosadi Experiment. There are also two short stories, available in the collection Eye. The Dune Universe proved more popular, but I think ConSentiency would have been more movie-and-television friendly. There's plenty of space in there for rubber-mask aliens.

[im3w1l]

I think it could be better solved by a jury of random people with some leeway to bend the letter of the law. Similar to, but not exactly the same as jury nullification.

[pas]

Isn't the institution of the ombudsman has this purpose?

[dmreedy]

Just for the record, I didn't mean to sound like I was happy about that point :). A more generalized system of recourse is an interesting idea, but I'm having a hard time imagining (and likely the fault of my own imagination) something more general than a court system. Either way, I feel like it'll be an immensely difficult uphill battle no matter what, because it's always easier to take the conservative route and defer to precedence, even if there's an acknowledged issue.

How does one rattle an institution out of its comfort zone? It's a pretty old question.

[ta0987]

IIUC Common law courts were supposed to be exactly that - that's where the concept of judicial precedent comes from. When a court hears a case and decides it's different enough from previous cases it makes a new ruling for that scenario which is now a precedent for other cases in that scenario. The collection of rulings built up over time is the law.

[matthewheath]

Indeed, although the system of precedent has its own challenges — bad law can be created by a court unilaterally and exist for years or decades before being overturned by a superior court.

[loquor]

Your point regarding regulation is quite pertinent. How do you refute the idea that strict regulation will create a non-navigable mess?

[dmreedy]

I don't, except by the weak negative; I feel that lack of strict regulation creates a predatory, cruel, socially violent mess, which feels less desirable to me. Not to imply that the banal evil of a bureaucratic mess is not a bad thing.

[downerending]

This reminds me a lot of my most recent divorce negotiations, and indeed, I don't understand how so many people deal so well with these catastrophes.

Take it from me: Don't get overly attached to money, things, or really even people. Think of it all more as a ride that you get to enjoy for a while, and then you get off.

If you're killing yourself at your job with the thought that you'll someday retire happily or otherwise get to start a happier phase of life (or even just be thanked for your hard work), disabuse yourself of that notion. The money you're piling up can be taken from you in a flash, or become worthless to you due to more overwhelming developments.

I saw a homeless man the other day with two dogs. The dogs were obviously happy, and had no concern that they were poor and might have had a much richer life. They had their health, weren't starving, and there were interesting things to do that day. I strive to live like those dogs.

[taberiand]

The Greek and Roman philosophers had these concerns solved ages ago with the Stoics and others. Happiness comes from within, whatever situation we might find ourselves in.

[Karto]

And more spot on the cynics, whose name just says it : get inspired from those dogs. (although admittedly their name comes from the "swift dog's gymnasium", their gathering place, they themselves started embracing the pun as it was very fitting with their reasoning)

[taberiand]

True, the Cynics were what first came to mind from the parent comment, but to be honest I just prefer Stoicism.

[downerending]

Yes, and don't forget the Epicureans. And Quohelet.

And maybe a dash of Walt Whitman: https://www.all-creatures.org/poetry/ar-I-think-I.html

"I think I could turn and live with [the] animals..."

[voxl]

Ah stoicism, toxic masculinity lite

[taberiand]

That doesn't gel with my understanding and experience of Stoicism. What makes you think of it that way?

[glouwbug]

Hollywood popularized Han Solo, Clint Eastwood, and the likes as the Stoic Male archetype which recently became the poster boy for toxic masculinity.

Shame though, because Stoic derives from Latin for porch. The Stoics sat and shared their ways of a happy life on porches.

Stoicism does not subscribe itself to the male gender - it is a pursuit, much like Taoism or Buddism, to reach peace within the Logos, or rather the grand chaos that is the universe itself.

Anyone of any descent or gender may become one with the Logos.

[tomatotomato37]

Sometimes they don't

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Heemeyer

[Carpetsmoker]

A lot of these problems seem to stem from people unwilling (not unable, unwilling) to exercise judgement, and apply the rules in an ever-so-slightly flexible fashion.

With the right attitude, a lot is possible, but as you said there is often this "wall of indifference". I think a big reason for this is that it can feel good to exercise power over other people by saying "no". This is doubly the case if you live in a society where everyone is always doing this to everyone else: you feel "small" and pushed around, so when you actually get the chance to push others around you'll instinctively grab it.

[tluyben2]

What I find the most amazing, is that you do not get more desperate vengeance cases. I mean ; you worked your whole life, you tried to do the right thing, you basically have nothing to lose and yet you do not go out and hurt the people that screwed up your life out of nowhere. That always gives me new confidence in humanity as it feels like that could so easily happen, every time when someone (or a loved one) is screwed over by something they or you cannot, legally, get justice for.

Not only governments; big companies that just 'do things' because, like you say, no-one seems to have given any consideration to the edge cases. When you put that to them (Google, MS etc), the answer is always (possibly with some rancid dress-up) 'we cannot account for every case; that would not be commercial'. Governments probably have the same reasons but they cannot say that out loud (usually) because re-election (of their political party).

A friend changed her last name two months ago; she got a letter that it succeeded and it would take 3-6 months to take effect. So today, while she was traveling, she got a letter from the gov that it was finished and that all her papers are per direct expired. Passport, ID, driver's license etc. This was an edge case in that: 0) it rarely happens (first name happens more often, last name is rare here) 1) it usually takes much longer 2) they usually send a letter with enough room to request new papers 3) most people don't travel much.

But the end result was; those docs expired and 'we are sorry not warning you on time, but sorry we cannot do anything, you have to come to NL to request new ones'. No valid documents to travel, so how does that work? Anyway; not quite the same thing as the article, but it happens weekly at least. No-one thinks things through, ever.

[dsfyu404ed]

>It seems like there isn't any thought being put into possible edge cases for policy and here seems to be little recourse for people to get out of it

There's often someone who wants to fix the bug when it comes up but unless it's mission critical over time it drops in priority and fades into the nothingness of the backlog and in the rare instances when the bug comes up it still keeps getting dealt with manually.

This isn't unique to government but the fact that government has a monopoly on many of the services it provides and the onus is often on the citizen to take action to avoid some sort of default action against them certainly does not help them find motivation to fix the edge cases quickly.

[loquor]

Kafkaesque is indeed the right term. I wonder if Governments can be 'optimized' by combing out complexity the way an organization can.

To other HN readers, what recourse do the people in the article have?

[tonyedgecombe]

Not much, he ran the business as a sole trader rather than limited company so its debts are his debts.

[ajross]

> Everything about governments

This is a private pension plan which ran out of money. The only "government" involved is that the law about who holds the bag is unfair.

[buckminster]

The fund has plenty of money. That's part of the absurdity.

[ajross]

Per the article, he's being "pursued for a shortfall" under Section 75. Obviously I don't know any more details of the case than that, and it's certainly possible that this is all shenanigans driven by a corrupt pension administration.

But I don't see that that changes the point much: this is entirely private people arguing in court over 100% private money. There's literally no bureaucracy to be offended by. In theory this kind of dispute could happen with any 401k plan in the US too.

[twic]

Your assumptions are basically all wrong.

The pension administrator is not corrupt. Their current assets are 101% of what they need to be to cover their liabilities, assuming they can use returns on the assets to pay for the liabilities, given some standard set of assumptions about investment returns [1].

The "shortfall" is about a "wind-up basis", or "buy-out basis", which means assuming that the scheme sells its assets and uses the proceeds to buy annuities. Buying annuities is a really expensive way to provide a pension, so their current assets aren't enough to cover their liabilities this way. But they're not going to do this! Neither the administrator nor the members want to do this! The private people are not arguing over the private money, they're all perfectly happy with each other. But the law requires that a pension fund has enough assets to do this!

Why does the law require this? I have no idea. I'd have to dig out Hansard or white papers from the mid-'90s to find out, and that is a bridge too far. But it seems clear that the problem here is entirely derived from government regulations which don't align with what the private people involved want.

[1] https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2018-01-11a.578.5

[ajross]

OK, so there's a regulation that limits risk in pensions, this pension is incompliant (which is the same thing as "out of money" I'd argue), and you think it's too conservative a metric. And the pension fund members are, unsurprisingly, on the hook for the difference.

And I'd probably agree as a numeric argument. But I still don't see that as an argument against "government". And I surely don't see that as an argument against the idea of regulating risk in pensions, given the propensity of these things to go belly up over history.

[twic]

In this case, the problem really is caused by some bad regulations. But that doesn't mean that all regulations are bad, or even that these regulations are all bad - they probably work fine for big companies like the ones Maxwell raided.

Perhaps other people were arguing that in this thread; they're wrong. But it's also wrong to say that this problem is nothing to do with regulations!