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Comment by cjbgkagh | Hacker News Reader

I assume this was in response to Elons claim of finding a number of people aged 150 years old and the response that this was due to COBOL default date and how this was an example of the people doing the datamining were incompetent.

Someone would have to be really incompetent to find a spike at precisely 150 years old and not investigate it further. Elon tweeted ~ 10 hours ago the age breakdown and there does not appear to be a spike at 150 so if that information is correct then this is no longer evidence of incompetence.

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I fail to see why anybody would believe anything coming from Musk's mouth.

And yet millions still do. People believe what the WANT to believe, and that frequently is something other than facts.

People believe stories. It's ridiculous to suggest otherwise.

As competing narratives become more compelling, people switch the stories they believe.

So if you want people to start believing in the set of facts you hold to be true, tell them a compelling story about those facts, don't just tell at them for not fact checking.

"People believe stories. It's ridiculous to suggest otherwise."

No one suggested otherwise, in fact, that's virtually verbatim what I said.

probably because despite all of his negative aspects, he has transformed the online payments industry, space industry, and auto industry.

All that while playing Diablo and posting 200 racist memes a day....

lol I think the Diablo Rakki was determined to be a hoax but I did find this interesting paste of Things Elon Musk launched or unveiled in less than 10 years:

Boring Co. Crew Dragon Cybercab Cybertruck DOGE Falcon Heavy Falcon 9 FSD Grok 1,2,3 Megapack Model 3 Model X Model Y Neuralink OpenAI Optimus Powerwall Roadster 2.0 Robovan Solar Roof Starlink Starship Tesla Semi

Are you trying to tell me that, eg

> $10M for "Mozambique voluntary medical male circumcision"

is a complete and utter fabrication, designed to make the federal government look stupid, and has little/no basis in reality?

I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked!

https://x.com/doge/status/1890849405932077378?s=46

Wait, I thought they sent 200 million condoms over there.

I can think of two good reasons such a thing may be a good idea in such a place, if you can’t, you’re not qualified to second guess the decision.

He was making fun of someone for suggesting that the federal government uses SQL.

Dude has been burning credibility at an amazing pace.

Additionally, the data is comparable to the census [1] which suggests there is not a lack of data context or translation from DB date format to actual date/age.

Then again, these are just posts of screenshots on a site filled with AI-generated content.

[1] https://x.com/jonatanpallesen/status/1891406665242546383

Do they receive social security though? His tweet doesn’t explicitly say so, might be willfully omitted.

I don’t know, incomplete information all round.

I consider it plausible but also consider Elon to be a rather unreliable source. Part of this seems like JJ Abram's mystery box storytelling where new mysteries are opened before the old mysteries are resolved - and when finally resolved the resolution is deeply unsatisfying.

My experience with government is that where it’s not recklessly incompetent it is flagrantly corrupt, and increasingly so. To an extent I would not have believed had I not seen it myself. I completely understand why others may not share that belief. While I am in general support of taking a chainsaw to government, as opposed to a scalpel, I do wish it was better people doing it. That way when such crazy statements are made I could consider them likely true because the person stating them would not have done so without it being true. Elon has told too many falsehoods for me to give him the same benefit of the doubt.

When you say "government", do you mean the USA civil service, the subject of Musk's ire?

>"where it’s not recklessly incompetent it is flagrantly corrupt" //

Care to give a couple of the examples from your direct experience?

Just run of the mill stuff, pay-to-play to such an extent that everyone in a public service department that I sell software into all have jobs with vendors lined up for after they retire. They are very open about it. Most other vendors have been investigated for bribery by SFO, PNF and or FBI. Only a few stuck, I think they just bribe more people to make the other bribery charges go away. One that did stick was KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton. Most vendors in my space seem to operate on a pyramid scheme where the money they take in from new deals has to pay for the consulting fees of the predecessors. I’m more interested in making good technology than dealing with the stress of all that so I try to compete on technical merits - which is tough.

It’s a pretty pathetic argument that you support wielding the chainsaw, but preferably from a more desirable tyrant. Nobody who would agree to wielding the chainsaw in a democratic society is worthy of the privilege.

People who share your nihilist perspective combined with solutions contrived from ignorance are why we’re here. And where we are going will redefine corruption.

It's absolutely willfully omitted. I guarantee 0 evidence of anything will ever come out, just shock headlines to make it seem like they're doing something.

They might, but that's irrelevant in a way. If they're 150 years old, they're dead, and if you claim the OASDI benefit of someone who is dead, you're committing a crime.

A brief search suggests it's inheritable in limited circumstances. Are you saying that's false?

I'm recalling the posts about the last person claiming civil war pensions dying in 2020 (155 years after the war) and wondering if there is anything similar going on here.

If it's designated by law to be inheritable then it's a moot point.

It's also worth noting that OASDI is not the same as a Civil War pension. One was set up to support men who fought in service of the Federal government, the other was set up to keep the Old Aged, Survivors, and Disabled Insured. They're legally separate programs and thus have different statutes regulating who can draw benefit from them.

War pension claims like that were common and not fraud.

The pension is claimed by the wife of the veteran , it was a practice to marry a very young girl very late in life partly because of the pension.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War_widows_wh...

The person you are referring to was eligible as a disabled child of veteran https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irene_Triplett

There are many age curiosities out there like the fact the grandson of John Tyler the 10th president who was born in 1790 is still alive, I.e his grandfather was born 235 years ago!

they are just that curiosities, not really fraud and even when it is one, it never significant just like voter fraud never turns out to be one .

Even if that is the case, there should be an easy way to query that. even If they update the systems, and discover zero fraud or bad data it’s still a net win

An audit was completed in 2023 (using June 2021 data) where they found that of the 18.9 million aged 100+, approximately 44,000 were receiving payouts. UN data says there were ~90,000 centenarians in the US in 2021.

https://oig.ssa.gov/assets/uploads/a-06-21-51022.pdf

https://www.bumc.bu.edu/centenarian/statistics/

Social Security is incredibly complicated. There’s a canonical answer to every question. Someone like Elon doesn’t know or care about the details.

There’s also a number of programs. SSI, Disabilty, Death Benefits, retirement, etc. Blind people are eligible for a benefit by law.

Is there, somewhere in the United States, a disabled, blind child whose parents are deceased and whose birthdate is unknown? Almost certainly yes.

Is that fraud? Only if you’re a “genius” who targets victims who can’t fight back to demonstrate his intellect.

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