It Ain’t Half Austere
Added 2025-03-25 09:23:01 +0000 UTCIt's the free one!
Riley, Nova, and HK discuss the Labour Party’s planned campaign of social murder against the disabled in the UK - including a deep dive on the ongoing poster-to-policy pipeline around the recent (and not so recent) attacks on the Motability charity - that is described as “not austerity, because it’s half of what Osborne did.” Also, finance a burrito (US edition), the podcast discusses a new morning routine, and Quibi’s Meg Whitman returns from her ambassadorship to Kenya (???) to a board seat at Coreweave.
Comments
Does disability in the UK not include mental health disability?
Craig Davis
2025-04-30 15:58:21 +0000 UTCI was recently on welfare in australia long term. the whole point of the work coach shit is to launder the idea that gruelling, physically damaging, insecure, low paid work is normal and that the problem is with the people who can't handle it. a lot of the people on the jobseeker payment are disabled but don't qualify for disability support payment. I've gone from 20 hour casual work in a cafe (ie. zero-hours, shifting schedule) to 38 hour full time work in data and it's considerably easier for considerably more money. maybe it's the autism, or the pain, but a lot of it was how oppressive it was to work there.
cynthia
2025-04-05 03:24:36 +0000 UTCI feel like the CEO of Klarna increasingly gets interviewed - after things having transpired - with the unstated question of "...so why is your company like this? Are you fucked up in the head or something?" To which he - as is his want - assures the interviewer that financial ethics and customer integrity are key values at Klarna. It's very "you know what's no laughing matter? Gambling addiction and mental health" from a casino pit boss. They're like nordic Wells Fargo.
Jesper Ohlsson
2025-03-28 22:39:08 +0000 UTCI understand that the A.I/LinkedIn-goon emails are essentially automatic and done by more or less Chinese Room logic, but the name of this podcast is Trash Future. Not "Cool Shit Incoming, For Sure". Also, the tagline for this podcast - at least on patreon - is "Creating a tech pessimist podcast". On the free feed, it's a little more sardonic, but still pretty clear "what the whole deal is". ...I guess I'm just wondering at what point automatic low/no-information "hey, can we collaborate on your [PRODUCT OR SERVICE] we seem like a natural fit" starts damaging your reputation? Like, if you clearly don't give a shit to do even the bare minimum of due diligence, maybe some people - who you want for your stupid business - might start to (reasonably) assume that that lackadaisical inclination might show up in other parts of your stupid business? Like, quality-control in general? Or follow-through on what you said you were going to deliver? I'm like an idiot, so what do I know. But I just assumed that "making meaningful connections with prospective and useful clients" has probably never been more important than it is now? When a lot of business ideas are - clearly - stupid, and not otherwise obviously legible as being "not stupid"? And that that in turn makes it even more important to credibly convince people you don't yet know that your whole business isn't stupid and should exist, actually? When you're out looking for a job, the standard tip you're most likely to get is "make it clear that you are very familiar with the business. Try to stand out, by weaving some personal info about yourself, and in what ways you would be a great fit for this job, which you clearly seem very well-informed about". ...but if you already "have a job", I guess you just let Grok do it while you skedaddle for a 4 hour lunch.
Jesper Ohlsson
2025-03-28 11:50:02 +0000 UTC23andme provided an essential service that allowed Swedish guys to find out they were Italian
Insom
2025-03-27 17:56:48 +0000 UTCFair play to the Mormons for trying to last until after the nuclear war. I too look forward to the White Legs’ sack of Salt Lake City taking place
Joseph
2025-03-27 17:17:11 +0000 UTCImmediately finds the contact form after this F
kepler
2025-03-27 02:16:42 +0000 UTCquestion re: if you know someone disability activism related reach out via the usual channels Whats the usual channels? I’m a no gods no mayors / wtyp / llbd regular and new hear but know an awful lot of DJO folk
kepler
2025-03-27 02:15:30 +0000 UTCmy 23andMe was just a circle that said Indian on it
Shanti
2025-03-27 01:44:37 +0000 UTCdeserved!!!
Shivvy
2025-03-27 00:13:23 +0000 UTCloving hearing Riley approach a real-accent, Essex Milo rant
Shivvy
2025-03-27 00:13:10 +0000 UTCThey're gonna force disabled people into indentured servitude within the gig economy to pay for their motability vehicle
lunchpin
2025-03-26 19:27:06 +0000 UTCThey know that is how things work. They know that, under the brutish logic of Capitalism, you can't have an economy if you don't have people healthy enough and happy enough to work. This isn't meant to further the existence of "Britain" as a country, it's meant to strip the wiring out of the walls so, when the country does collapse, all the people at the top can just transport their assets over to China
Ariane Signalis is the Elster Signalis Fan Club and challenges you to play SIGNALIS without pointing at any of the characters an
2025-03-26 16:51:54 +0000 UTCI vote for 3. Seems less harmful
Jermy
2025-03-26 15:42:16 +0000 UTCI keep saying this and people keep trying to come up with reasons it won't work. I keep thinking those sound like problems for someone who doesn't have a fully armed tank.
jamin
2025-03-26 13:53:47 +0000 UTCAnd WHAT IF THERE'S JUST NO JOBS?! That seems to be the problem at the moment. And then the idea some shitty ass job will accommodate you. get real. you can't even get basic simple accommodations that cost or even save the company money here in the US unless you sue, and that's for the last few "good jobs" must less some app based hell.
jamin
2025-03-26 13:52:33 +0000 UTCI hate the whole faux American dream ass thing the government is trying to sell us based on nothing with the "British values" thing. We're not American fucking hell
Josephine
2025-03-26 13:33:11 +0000 UTCread either as sarcastic or as ‘shocking in how blatant and direct’ or ‘shocking in any sane world’ etc
Nina
2025-03-26 13:27:42 +0000 UTCWell I wouldn't say shocking if you think about it
Josephine
2025-03-26 13:26:20 +0000 UTCThe thing that fucks me off about this is like the complete and overwhelming focus on "work eligibility" as the main thing the cuts are for because like, what happens when you force people into work to simply survive and then they flame out of it because there is no compromise made by companies to help them keep that job or do that job in any way. If you want the economy to "grow" what ever that actually means to the government, surely making sure allot of people have more money to do stuff is exactly what you would want.
Josephine
2025-03-26 13:22:34 +0000 UTCI buy a fully functional M1 Abrams tank, a stockpile of munitions for said tank, and one (1) McFlurry on ClearPay. God help them when they come to reposess my McFlurry.
Ivy Joan Turner
2025-03-26 12:45:47 +0000 UTCI have vague memories of the 23&me crowd being mixed up with the eugenics and human biodiversity movements and at least part of their goal being to push a new cultural understanding of race as a product of genetics. I’m genetically English etc. I might be thinking of a different company though…
Jacob King
2025-03-26 11:44:26 +0000 UTCThis was not a huge surprise, but 23andMe matched my sister with a whole new sib who is young enough to be our child. lol If that company was good for one thing, it was blowing the cover of propriety for thousands of parents and grandparents. Also absolutely agree that viral sequela and long-term chronic illness are goals for this regime. We have clear evidence that intro of the high-risk HPV vaccine led to a precipitous drop in epithelial cell cancers in both women and men. It's like they saw that, and all they saw was lost chemotherapy profits
MI
2025-03-26 11:29:20 +0000 UTCBecause of insomnia I started listening to this episode at 3 in the morning while doing meal prep and I thought my brain was melting.
Jacob King
2025-03-26 11:24:41 +0000 UTCMy partner works on genetic sequencing tech and she told me years ago that everyone in the field other than the the investors knows that 23andMe's entire business model is a joke. Their sequencing technology isn't accurate enough for medical use and their family origin stuff is basically entirely made up based on statistics and are about as accurate as 1900s race science. If you want whole genome sequencing in 2025 with enough detail to be useful for medical use and from a company that won't sell your data the minimum you can expect to pay is around £500 and that's for a company which will just give you the fastq files that you have to cross reference yourself. There is a legitimate medical use for genetic sequencing and here in the UK the NHS Genomics Medicine Service are really doing good work and when it is rolled out they will save thousands of lives per year but right now you should not trust anyone who is selling cheap sequencing directly to consumers.
Sadie
2025-03-26 10:00:24 +0000 UTCas som1 w/experience of both nhs trans healthcare & seeking disability benefits, nova's point abt the similar way the two are maliciously misrepresented is spot on. i am in my mid 30s w/ fairly severe bipolar disorder, never been able to work or live independently, was only diagnosed in inpatient care age 30. in hospital they advised me2 apply for benefits -had been too ill prior to even think of this. it then took me over 2 years to submit the applications for UC/LWCRA & PIP despite working on them almost every day . all my benefits money goes on therapy & other treatment costs bc the nhs simply does not provide .. any sufficient care for serious mental illness . as w nhs trans "healthcare", the scale of medical & social neglect is criminal. fuck this govt
rory
2025-03-26 02:30:45 +0000 UTCIn my experience most of the 'work coaching' is now done by scam-adjacent companies flogging skills bootcamps and the like. Britain is a makework scheme for middle-men
Nemo
2025-03-26 01:31:23 +0000 UTCI can think of 3 main industries that want genetic data. 1 health insurance to improve prior condition denial 2 law enforcement agencies 3 the secret chinese breeding camps
Elek Tolman
2025-03-25 23:29:17 +0000 UTCit's in their own heads but leaking out and creating that reality unfortunately. The point about teachers making 90k is going to stick with me awhile. You're right it's outrage from 20 years ago. (literally I think Heritage blog posts from my childhood level stuff) Back then 90k would have been a ticket to the "middle class" and international vacations if both parents worked, a salary you could just about convince a working person to consider scandalous. Now... that's just what you need to survive on as a family even in my edge of nowhere city. I guess I don't know whether they're never told they've won because the puppeteers that control the outrage machine don't find it worthwhile to tell them, or if since they're in part fighting monsters in their own head (or in case of my Fox grandparents their own mortality) it's not really possible for them to ever win.
jamin
2025-03-25 22:52:51 +0000 UTCEllen Clifford is worth inviting if you're still looking for a guest disability activist
Kate Bradley
2025-03-25 22:46:07 +0000 UTCNova is on fire in this one. "Let's send this money from our dipshit division", and the 1-2 punch bit had me crying 🤣
Ivy Joan Turner
2025-03-25 22:18:49 +0000 UTCAnybody else remember the cover opinion piece from The Economist shortly before the Great Recession that went on and on about how the next recession would destroy all the dead weight in the economy and create new efficiencies?
Bill Humphrey
2025-03-25 21:52:40 +0000 UTCMeans we aren't in the worst timeline, I guess?
James Rule
2025-03-25 21:05:51 +0000 UTCThat this isn't the worst thing I've heard today tells you a lot about the world.
James Rule
2025-03-25 21:05:10 +0000 UTCI can recall it happening in the past, but the memory of an old man is what you know it to be.
Andrew Davis
2025-03-25 20:55:17 +0000 UTCit’s times like these that The Devon Report’s sensible, evidence based policy suggestions seem even more persuasive
DylanCH
2025-03-25 20:41:19 +0000 UTCfamine
Laura
2025-03-25 20:36:18 +0000 UTCWhich horseman of the apocalypse was responsible for the layaway kebab?
James Rule
2025-03-25 20:22:38 +0000 UTCyo did you and Jathan Sadowski come up with ‘collateralised burrito obligations’ separately or is there a groupchat
Nina
2025-03-25 19:37:56 +0000 UTCas an actual Austrian citizen, I can confirm that coffee, little cake and newspaper (preferably in a newspaper holder) is The Culture™️ also skiing and politics that is both marked by deep incompetence and shocking links to nazis
Nina
2025-03-25 19:35:49 +0000 UTC🫡🇺🇲
Donovan Burns
2025-03-25 19:26:03 +0000 UTCI can't believe Pete "I'll stop being an alcoholic if you give me this job" Hegseth would be in the news shortly after getting that job, for reasons of obvious unsuitability for said job. It's like, he said it would be fine, and here it is not being fine. What's up with that? Come on, now. Mate. You can't be chopped-and-screwed on the job. People will tittle-tattle. It'd be a right kerfuffle.
Jesper Ohlsson
2025-03-25 19:22:57 +0000 UTCWhen I graduated at the beginning of covid, there (understandably) wasn’t too many jobs going in my town so after 18 months of being unemployed they were pushing me into doing a programme for becoming a work coach. I had 0 previous work experience. Luckily I got an actual job soon after, but yeah, that was very telling about who work coaches are.
Xavier
2025-03-25 19:20:14 +0000 UTCLovely of you to pretend explaining the difference between disability benefit and PIP is only for American listeners. I could theoretically apply for some of that shit and I have no fucking idea. An important part of how the system works is that if you don't absolutely have to engage with it, you won't, because it's fucking terrifying.
Jacob Barlow
2025-03-25 18:44:54 +0000 UTCHaving been through the PIP process with my partner, part way though waiting 8 years from autism specific mental health support from the NHS, I think it’s worth point out that the process is especially hard because it makes disabled people focus on their deficits. Giving someone a list of things you can’t do before they deny your needs is a pretty crushing process. The response included the claim that her food hypersensitivity isn’t relevant because ‘she has full use of her upper limbs’ 🙄
Ben
2025-03-25 18:18:25 +0000 UTCSouth London has way less motorways than North London. One of the big things about South is that the South Circular isn’t a Dual Carriageway
Jude Pirkis
2025-03-25 17:49:15 +0000 UTCYou can buy a gun with klarna
Jermy
2025-03-25 17:10:01 +0000 UTCBuy-now-pay-later may be predatory and hurt a lot of people, but on the other hand it allowed me to order $80 of IHOP when I only had $20, so it’s impossible to say if it’s good or bad
Jermy
2025-03-25 17:05:58 +0000 UTCQuibi is the Istanbul of New York, but an app
Calvin Garbacik
2025-03-25 17:03:55 +0000 UTCKKK guys take off their hoods, extremely strong eyebrows all around. I sigh in relief and curse the Turks, instantly winning them over.
Ben Schwabe
2025-03-25 16:57:46 +0000 UTCI was just about to sorta float that as a post; don't know if it was impolite to bring it up or not. Doesn't intuitively seem like a Nova-situation. Perhaps to help minimize online harassment by low-info drive-by listeners who figure "ah, Hussein. Time to be a cunt"? ...OR, Hussein just rocked up one day - hair slicked back - and confessed that ever since he watched Full House as a kid, he always wanted to be known by an initial-only name. Cuz it's rad as hell.
Jesper Ohlsson
2025-03-25 16:41:25 +0000 UTCso this ep reminded me of a conversation i had with my dad earlier this month, he was ranting about teachers being too highly paid, something hed recently saw on fox news...but he was telling me information hed complained about before about 20 years ago. both about teachers making 90k a year and whatnot. but like, that episode and this kinda make me realize....i dont think conservatives ever find out they win? whether theyre told or not it seems like they just get the same info over and over again even if theyve had nothing but victory for my whole life to the extent the problems are a result of those policies rather than the original complaint. like i think this could be the reason why you see the right kinda pushing no matter how much they win. but also like, the thing i do disagree with here is the idea that they would stop even if the target of their ire are all dead because we saw in the olympics it straight up did not matter if there were any trans people, they were complaining about trans people at the olympics even when there were none. idk where im going with this but its just seems like a battle with things exclusively inside their own heads
Lain of the Wired
2025-03-25 14:37:08 +0000 UTCHave they been calling Hussein “HK” this whole time and I never noticed or did it just start with Milo on the citizenship test episode?
Petrorenminbi
2025-03-25 14:34:15 +0000 UTCOn the one hand, it's a case of "wow, you're saying a private company misshandled my data, I'm so surprised when they said they wouldn't", but - on the other hand - it's like "...dude... can you not? " "This isn't my email. It's quite literally the building-blocks of me as a biological human being. I didn't think I had to say this, but maybe it would behove you to take that a little more seriously than knicking the gmail I use for porn?" "Cuz, if I end up being part of a murder-investigation, I think that falls under one of those better-check-with-the-person-in-question-if-that's-alright-with-you. Before it happens." We were so naive when these services were first launched. Oh wow, that's so cool and awesome. Hey, wait a minute. You can't do that! That's fucked up! Don't you know that? Hello? He hung up on me. What the hell?!
Jesper Ohlsson
2025-03-25 14:11:24 +0000 UTCI've just made myself sad by imagining the alternative universe in which 23 and me made the smart move of forming an advertising partnership with the hawk tuah girl, and achieved record levels of success...
trev
2025-03-25 14:09:31 +0000 UTCAlso it's *really* interesting to contrast the establishment reaction to the Signal-leaked plans for bombing Yemen vs. everything else the Trump admin is doing. Schumer yawns at the open annihilation of anything that is not privatised but then acts SHOCKED and OUTRAGED when the idiot chuds running the country slip up a little while attempting to manage the empire. You can dismantle whatever facade of democracy previously existed, but you absolutely must not even accidentally disrupt the bloodsoaked imperial apparatus.
marilyn
2025-03-25 14:03:50 +0000 UTC"Treatler-issued MEFO Bill" deserved far more of a reaction tbh
marilyn
2025-03-25 13:52:21 +0000 UTCUsed to be a delivery driver, quickly saw there was a pattern to which areas of town ordered delivery and didn't and it was overwhelmingly the richer parts of town that did. Food delivery is a luxury, I like to say that if you can afford to order delivery you can afford not to order delivery.
Rain
2025-03-25 13:49:38 +0000 UTCWould you say that Meg Whitman was the mayor of qubi?
Alex
2025-03-25 13:38:02 +0000 UTCI don't understand why it's so hard for the UK to just be normal. It's like, look: you're all mostly white or whatever, you have way too much land and money than your little stupid island ever should have had, and you have mostly gotten away with it. You're still very rich, and nobody has killed all of you yet. Rightfully or not. You have your e-vapes and quick-e-mart stores, your chips and whatnots. You have electricity, and hot water. Things are fine. You have broadband, even. So, you're basically set. Now, why don't you - as just a matter of self-preservation, for all the crimes you've done, like historically - just be normal and go "oh yeah, obviously we're going to put aside a very reasonable amount of money to help disabled people live their lives." "It's like nothing compared to what we piss away every year on bullshit. It's penny-wise-dollar-foolish. It's like the easiest PR-disaster-avoidance-tactic ever. It's literally more trouble to manage the fallout of not doing it, than just doing it." But no. "These wheels on the gravy train? Yeah, I reckon I can sell a few of those. You only need 3. We learnt that from the Reliable Robin, whose moniker assures us of same."
Jesper Ohlsson
2025-03-25 11:08:40 +0000 UTCI'm a former employment and training expert who is accessing jobcentre "support" at the moment - Hussain's statement about job coaches and the actual lack of vacancies is so on point - the vacancies I've seen at jobcentre are 1) Amazon 2) armed forces & 3) contracted out guards at the local migrant detention centre. It would be funny if it wasn't so bleaky accurate about the uk
Andrew Gladstone-Heighton
2025-03-25 10:37:32 +0000 UTCThe Pisserson Unaliving joke was not cut then lmao
H
2025-03-25 10:22:55 +0000 UTCI read a fair amount of corporate bankruptcy announcements for privately held companies and they are always full of the most inane, irrelevant drivel. Yeah, the shareholders are all anxious for you to start working out more now that you've lost all their money.
Andrew Davis
2025-03-25 09:57:32 +0000 UTCI did the 23 and Me thing as I do in fact have a secret half sister (and even paid for the additional health predisposition stuff out of curiosity, which was spectacularly trusting/shortsighted of me). Guess I can look forward to Peter Thiel genetically pwning me in the near future
Katherine Allen
2025-03-25 09:54:18 +0000 UTCUS and UK speedrunning a diplomatic incident over scarcity of replacement parts. Specifically, to change the gear ratio of the orphan crushing machine for elderly and disabled persons.
Sparky
2025-03-25 09:33:04 +0000 UTC
