The British government is introducing a new system of paying benefits to the out of work. It is called Universal Credit. All claims for the new benefit, and all subsequent contact between recipients and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will take place online (!). Users will have individual accounts that will be “easy” to administer, and every Job Centre will have a “digital champion” to help people unfamiliar with computers and the internet to adapt to the new £500m IT system being built to deliver UNiversal Credits.

This issue may seem a long away away from Epicureanism, but it impinges on the lives of millions. Many cannot afford computers to start with. The stress caused by computers impinges on us all. The words “Computers” and “ataraxia” (peace of mind) cannot rightly be uttered in the same breath. In other words, they are implicitly un-Epicurean.

Despite repeated computer fiascos, politicians still dream about massive computer systems catering to millions. I can’t get one of the wretched things to work properly, so how they think the incompetent “IT consultants”, who charge an arm and a leg never get it right, are going to succeed in this new and massive task is a mystery.

“The Week” reports that, true to form, this massive Government IT project is going the way of other fiascos. According to Computer Weekly, the UC system has gone through four heads in the last six months, with the fifth having just started. Reason? IT problems. As late as 2007, the Department of Work and Pensions had no fewer than 35 overlapping IT systems. They couldn’t get it right then, and they won’t now. The point is that it will cause huge distress to poorer people in the community, on top of poverty and joblessness.

A lot of disease is caused by stress, stress induced by incompetent “experts” and clueless politicians, incapable of thinking things through and indifferent to the welfare and interests of ordinary people. (adapted for Epicureans from an article in The Week)