Crimes against the faceless

When we are reduced to numbers on a spreadsheet it makes it easy for someone in a position of power who is also far removed from human beings affected to decree horrid things.

In Australia, a government decided to hunt down those on welfare through an AI tool gone rogue. Called Robodebt, it was deemed unlawful from before it was launched. But no matter, the government of the day proceeded. The numbers will never be proven but up to 2000 people committed suicide when hounded mercilessly by debt collectors for money they did not owe.

I was brought up on the liberal myth of the lazy — the bludgers we call them in Aussie slang. Until I experienced my own need for welfare support as a young single mother. The shaming, the horrors of simply trying to maintain dignity as you struggled to survive.

I know what it feels like to have a ‘heavy, ’ a large imposing male debt collector show up at my door. To have the threatening phone calls, on and on and on.

There are lazy, corrupt exploiters of the system at every level of society. The ones at the top — those who pay little to no tax and have legal code entanglements that let them get away with almost anything — get away with multiples more than those at the bottom.

The power asymmetries are skewed to continue to break the backs of the poor, the smoke and mirrors of the powerful designed to keep the ‘rabble’ from challenging the system that enables the powerful, the politicians and elite class to accumulate untold wealth.

Crimes against the faceless allow people to do horrid things to other humans. There are no eyes to look into. No humanity to be present to. The arms-length, numbers on a spreadsheet is the antidote to confronting the immorality of so many actions.

Photo taken November 13th 2022

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