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The Forum > General Discussion > Computer Says No

Computer Says No

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Anyone who dares to take the road less travelled in life will know that if you don't conform to the norm, prepare to be constantly inconvenienced by the all powerful Bureaucracy.

I first noticed this when I was younger, as I moved residence twice a year. The first time I applied for credit I found that, while having a high disposable income, this lack of a constant residence somehow designated me as someone not to be trusted.

Recently I had terrible trouble trying to get our new baby onto my partners Medicare card. Apparently I could have saved hours of my and my partners time if I had left it for my partner (The mother) to fill out the form. I rang them to talk about improving their system (naive I know) to allow both partners to provide their Medicare numbers on the form in the first place, but nobody was interested. Customer service is only interested in specific problems, and how to solve them within the boundaries of the system.

It got me thinking about 'The System'. It seems to me we have taken any human element of common sense out of all our data crunching computer driven service systems. For the people running the computers, this leaves them in a job with no room for initiative, which is probably very demoralising. For the users of the system, it coerces them to live their lives closer to the 'Norm'. The systems are being more and more designed to fight Terrorism, with each 'security' measure placing further hoops for the users to jump through.

There seems to be four options...

Whinge about the system; You get to vent, and conform in the end to save your time and sanity.

Fight the system; You waste a lot of time, money and energy in your life, and get a few small victories.

Conform to the system; Have an easier life on the whole, but have that nagging feeling you're at the mercy of the system.

Cheat the system; Replace the joy of the road less travelled, by the excitement of dodging bullets.
Posted by Usual Suspect, Friday, 27 June 2008 2:49:49 PM
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What's your point, since you've got a high disposable income
Posted by drongo, Sunday, 29 June 2008 10:48:09 AM
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You didn't read past the second paragraph huh?

While I plainly had the means to maintain a loan, it was decided I was high risk because I had irregular (in the opinion of the lender) living habits.

The topic is more about the influence of the system and this was an inconsequential example to lead to this point. i.e. The rigidity of the system requiring one to live inside the boundaries of readily tickable boxes, and what the individual might do about it.

Further the use of computers to maintain the data to feed the systems has resulted in taking away human initiative of the driver of the computer, and the inadequacies of a computer to adequately cover all human variance anyway.
Posted by Usual Suspect, Monday, 30 June 2008 11:27:35 AM
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What's your point, since you've got a high disposable income.
Drongo,
the system's already got you by the looks of it & obviously makes you live up to your name.
Posted by individual, Tuesday, 1 July 2008 7:24:44 AM
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