This is actually unironically one of the rare use cases where it does make some sense, especially when you keep waiting for your PDF reader to search through thousands pages of reference manual just to find out that you need to come up with yet another synonym as a search phrase.

Well, at least theoretically. Most AI integrations I've seen so far looked like they were put together with sticks and mud, probably written by that AI itself 😂

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Clarion Write-a-Thon | Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist and journalist. He is the author of many books, most recently RADICALIZED and WALKAWAY, science fiction for adults; HOW TO DESTROY SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM, nonfiction about monopoly …

^{clarionwriteathon.com}

hey dude - where's the atlas shrugged content in this thread that the header lead with? 😉 👀

Ngl that hooked me in! I was hoping you'd recently read Galt's speech in 2025 and had some perspective to share. 🫂💙

@arrrg
And how has that worked for you so far?

You picked a (bad for me) example, because there is no way I want to step into that fight. For one, I'm a man. I do not believe I have any right whatsoever to tell a woman what to do with her own body. Instead I respect what the strong women in my life think and go with that.

But it still comes down to: how has that worked for you so far? Because I don't think it has changed a single law and I doubt it has changed many minds.

The claimed reason for PiP (I think that’s the scheme you’re referring to, I ain’t an expert on UK stuff) is to help people who can be independant to not require more involved help which does save money.
As in, someone cannot manage a task normally but can with better conditions, it’s cheaper to equip them than to pay for a fulltime carer to do the task in their place.

In more broad considerations why should the taxpayer pay for welfare? Because that is the point of a state.

@mer while I agree that’s the purpose, a lot of these things are not only overkill, but also waaaay to broad in scope. The welfare bill is also unsustainable.

Why not just give them a used Toyota Aygo or something rather than having taxpayers shell out enough that they can get a brand new BMW?

>why not just give them a used Toyota Aygo or something
because a used car is not a known quantity, its price and state of repair/function varies
a state, just like a corporation with a vehicle fleet, will buy new because it's less trouble and then sell used vehicles regularly to recoup the high initial price
which they can do since they can take the vehicle away if the recipient ceases to qualify for PIP

maybe consider why it matters?
your post was about a misunderstanding of a disability you didn't bother to look up the wikipedia article for and when it's pointed out to you, you start poking at the concept of welfare in general
and now it's another knee jerk reaction without a second thought to the very obvious reasons why

@mer arcana hates poors to begin with, although i suspect governments might also not pay full price for said cars.

such a thing might be a tax writeoff or sold at-cost as a PR move.

though upcycling used vehicles is certainly something that is probably worth doing.

@mer i know businesses also sometimes have overstock, especially in markets where stuff gets overproduced and obsoleted like cell phones, so dumping those models on the state (useful for the intended purpose still, just not useful for gigging hipsters 300% markup) is another way to get shit out of the warehouse while making you look good to the public.

i have no idea if they are doing those things though. i tend to be overly optimistic at times

@mer it looks like motobility is some kind of leasing middleman, at least from what their website suggests.

they might just be proxying management of the leases

@mer
> independent.co.uk/news/uk/home…

it looks like it IS possible to get BMWs, but not actually common in practice, and it is indeed basically a broker that uses the cars up to warranty and turfs them on the market.

though the article also says one of the guys put in charge of running it was somehow drawing a 2 million dollar salary, so there is definitely a problem here but it ain't the poors.

What is Motability and why is there controversy around the disability benefit?

The car lease scheme for disabled people has around 815,000 customers

^{Albert Toth (The Independent)}

@icedquinn @mer 1 in 4 new cars are on the motobility scheme, the vast majority of them have no modifications for disabilities and are just brand new leased cars. Sure, you can say they might need it, but why do they need enough to lease top of the range executive cars? There’s lots of data on this stuff and it’s a broken system. It should not be easier to afford a BMW as somebody on welfare than a senior developer who pays taxes for that. It’s a completely broken system, and full of perverse incentives.

Why bother working when you can just fill a form in and get enough money to have a brand new car?

@mer
> the euros are shitting on one another about welfare

[laughs in american]

@mer well that's a worthless statement we're 50x larger. the per capita could be lower and the total would still be higher.

our welfare is also extremely ineffective.

@anemone @icedquinn @mer Federal plus state welfare bill excluding healthcare in 2022 for the US was a trillion dollars. In Britain it was 341 billion of which 177 billion was NHS.

Per capita, this works out to around $3,100 per US resident, and around $3,000 per British resident.

If we expand welfare to include Medicare and Medicaid, the US blows Britain per capita out of the water.

Of course, wages in the US are on average much, much higher than in Britain, so the impact is felt a lot less.

@anemone @icedquinn @mer well Britain is of course much bigger, but I bet you could find places in cities that look like that here

City and rural affluence are opposites in Britain and the US

@anemone @mer remembering the joys of the small business fund being out of money because they gave it all to small businesses such as uhh

boeing and activision-blizzard

@icedquinn @anemone @ube @mer

Only disabled vets with PTSD orbworae get those $3k checks

@icedquinn @anemone @ube @mer

Those are different things. Retirement is funded from the branch and disability is through the VA