Comment by vonklaus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vonklaus | Hacker News Reader

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There are 2 answers to this.

Lyft, which made the above qoute and Uber, obviously could continue operating if breifly pausing to fingerprint their drivers. However, the first answer to your question is that they won't. The premise of ridesharing is about scalable technology that allows people to work together on a platform. It would be an expensive precedent for these companies to have to pay for this cost. This is regardless of how you the consumer feel. There is also a very non-trivial impediment to get drivers to do this, especially if they are barred for something like a felony, even non-violent or not related to a vehicle. The difference is who controls the process, which wasn't stated in the article. I suspect a 3rd prty (e.g. Austin) would want drivers to come into a public place (police staton/town hall) and get fingerprinted. I do not believe that could simply thumbprint a phone.

The second answer is privacy & convenience. A driver is unlikely to want to get fingerprinted and it probably makes little difference. Why should some agency get potentially millions of fingerprints (if this become national) when it would serve no purpose. Maybe they can serve warrants, ect. Again, idk if this is good or bad from a public standpoint but in practice Uber/Lyft already have a car, registration, license, picture, social media and very quickly a review system. So to the extent someone wanted to cheat, it would just be another small ipediment.

I actually feel fingerprints are a bad idea but I also feel the city has a right to enact ordinances that the populace believes will help keep them "safer".

One other thought is that why wouldn't Uber/Lyft want these regulations. It seems like the are already the dominant party and fingerprint regulation would create a moat for other competitors to enter.

I think most regulation keeps competitors out vs in.

Because a regulatory moat keeps competitors out because it is a hassle and has increased compliance costs. There seems to be 0 leverage in fingerprinting and I would argue unlikely to provide a stepchange improvement in safety. So Austin would have to establish a way to fingerprint people and verify them which 1) Lyft and Uber have already, 2) WOuld be paid for by Lyft/Uber/Taxpayers 3) WOuld put a huge moat around the onboarding process and add a fuckton of friction.

I agree that cities should be able to enforce laws like this. I disagree with this one, but not their right to. However, to the degree Lyft & Uber provide leverage, they certainly have the right to leave and take their value with them in the hopes Austin reconsiders.

> I also feel the city has a right to enact ordinances that the populace believes will help keep them "safer".

But there's a limit somewhere, right? You don't feel that a city has the right to enact an ordinance keeping black people out even if it made them feel safer (I assume), so there has to be some line around a city's democratic rights?

> You don't feel that a city has the right to enact an ordinance keeping black people out even if it made them feel safer (I assume)

Your example is specifically barred by the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, as decided in Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U.S. 60 (1917), and Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948), as well as Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, codified at 42 U.S.C. 3601-3619, aka "The Fair Housing Act"

Because it used to happen.

The question is why is this limit good, but a different limit is bad?

We are all aware that the law has various (mostly arbitrary) limits. The question being asked is what consistent limit should be applied in general?

Because the "no black people" limit is abusive, in large part intended to be abusive, and has no good-faith public policy purpose, and the other limits can't be described that way.

You can describe them as erroneous or ineffective --- the way you could describe virtually any regulation --- but you can't make that argument about them.

Since this distinction seems pretty obvious, I have to wonder why you'd pretend not to see it.

Many regulations of this sort - particularly within the taxi space - are merely economic protectionism favoring one group over another. Suppose the "no black people" limit were merely designed for economic protectionism with no malicious intent. Would that make it acceptable?

You can add to it various pretexts as erroneous and ineffective justification, e.g. "black people are more likely to be dangerous criminals than non-blacks, we don't want passengers getting robbed", if that makes the question clearer.

I'm also confused by your last line. Why do you believe I'm "pretending" something? I'm simply pointing out what the core philosophical question is.

I know how I justify my moral positions - my opposition to protectionism (either pro-white or pro-medallion owner) is driven by my opposition to violence. But when you give up opposition to violence - which you must do if it's acceptable to protect medallion owners with violence - I don't know how to oppose pro-white protectionism. What makes non-whites deserving of protection from bad laws but non-medallion owners undeserving?

I'm not going to dignify an argument that suggests that because some regulations might be erroneous, have unintended consequences, or even be crafted specifically to favor some particular group, that most regulations are therefore equivalent to institutionalized racism. To me, that's really just a veiled swipe at the idea that institutionalized racism is a uniquely toxic problem.

It's not a "veiled swipe" at all. I'm pretty explicitly stating that I consider racism to be extrinsically bad - I only care when it causes intrinsically bad actions like protectionism, and that protectionist acts which are non-racist are also bad.

I get the impression you have a different moral conclusion, but I have no idea how you reach it in a logically consistent manner. I take it you refuse to state your principles?

I am not required to provide you with a first-principles reasoning for why racism is bad. I get the impression that you'd like that requirement to be the norm here, but it is not.

There's not much of a reason to let this subthread get any deeper, is there?

> What makes non-whites deserving of protection from bad laws but non-medallion owners undeserving?

In the United States, this question is answered by Federal Laws which define Protected Classes [0].

Non-medallion owners are not a protected class (yet) according to US Federal Law.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class

EDIT: provide link

Totally true, and not what is being discussed.

To quote myself a couple of lines up: "We are all aware that the law has various (mostly arbitrary) limits. The question being asked is what consistent limit should be applied in general?"

I.e. the question is "aught", you are merely reiterating what "is" (which no one disagrees with).

The idea that a protected class as defined by US Federal Law can be determined by a "consistent limit [to] be applied in general" is a categorical misunderstanding of the term protected class. Furthermore, the designation of a protected class is hardly the outcome of "(mostly) arbitrary limits".

A quick visit to the link I provided in my earlier comment shows a diverse range of peoples grouped together as protected classes

• Race

• Color

• Religion

• Nationality

• Age

• Sex

• Pregnancy

• Citizenship

• Familial status

• Veteran status

• Genetic information

These groups are not identified by any "consistent limit" but by a wide range of legislation and case law. Protected classes are defined by the judicious and careful application of expert legal opinion among practitioners of jurisprudence and writers of US Federal legislation, practitioners who include but are not limited to Senators, members of Congress, scholars, historians, judges, attorneys, and expert witnesses.

In other words, there is no way to apply a rigid set of parameters ("consistent limit") to find what group of people should constitute a protected class.

Additionally, there are many considerations in establishing a protected class, some of those being whether membership in such a class is voluntary as well as whether members of a proposed protected class have historically, culturally, and socioeconomically been subject to unjust discrimination.

Now, whether non-medallion owning contractors ought to be a protected class I cannot say, but I can say that such a designation will not come from facile calls for consistency in determining members of a protected class.

EDIT: grammar, formatting, augmentation of series

Yes, I'm well aware that case law is hodgepodge of arbitrary restrictions. And again, unless I misinterpreted him, jdminhbg was asking if there is a consistent moral principle rather than a bunch of arbitrary legal rules cooked up by politics at various times.

Now, whether non-medallion owning contractors ought to be a protected class I cannot say, but I can say that such a designation will not come from facile calls for consistency in determining members of a protected class.

You are quite right that moral philosophy and other rational processes are not a way to appeal to the mob. Cheap slogans ("make America great again"), tribalism, flattery, shared sense of danger an shared enemies are far more effective. That's one thing (actually the only thing) I like about Trump - he isn't even pretending that there is any substance to politics. Definitely shines a light on the fallacy of democracy.

Let me see if I'm following you. The one thing you like about Trump is that he isn't even pretending that there's any sense to laws like those forbidding discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, or sex? And, the fact that there are such laws shows that democracy is fallacious?

I remember once enjoying your comments. This recent turn you've taken towards subtly or not-so-subtly relitigating discrimination seems like it must be new. Did something happen? It's an unfortunate change.

I think you aren't following.

I said the only thing I like about Trump is that he's shining a light on the flawed decisionmaking process that is democracy. The specific flaw is not that various anti-discrimination laws exist, but that laws exist due to a sequence of emotional reactions of the mob and historical accident rather than due to reasoning from a core set of principles.

I don't know what you think changed - I've always favored reason over religion and moral philosophy over doing what feels good. Consider various comments of mine on moral philosophy over the years, on a wide variety of topics (free speech, public access to beaches, corporate forms, internet shaming):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7068509 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4230649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8365554 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7068509 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9901225 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9126192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6819575 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6818871

I also truly don't understand why you are so offended by the idea that I consider anti-racism a consequence of my anti-violence position, rather than a core principle. Why is it so offensive that I oppose what you oppose, but I oppose it with different ideas?

Isn't it good that multiple chains of reasoning lead to the same conclusion? To me that suggests robustness in the conclusions. If you were willing to actually advance a logical argument in favor of these conclusions, I'd certainly be happy that something I believe is robust and not just a weird quirk of one set of axioms. Similarly, if a mathematical fact has multiple disparate proofs, I'm far more convinced that it's actually true.

Or is this simply religious hatred of an atheist who happens to live according to the principles of Christ cause they seem like a good idea?

Presumably you're writing this for the crowd, most of which hasn't read every comment you've written on HN. I think you'll be unsurprised to learn that I have read them all.

So I've noticed that this isn't so much a consequence of some philosophical alignment of yours, which demands that any position or belief be defensible on the spot by the kind of first-order logic that an SAT solver could evaluate.

Rather: you seem to relish into coming as close as possible to the line of openly supporting racial and gender discrimination, and then retreating behind a smokescreen of "wrongthink" and "status hierarchy" when challenged.

You're better at this than Moldbug, but you seem to be playing the same game. And, like I said: my sense of it is that you've picked up this game pretty recently. Why?

I don't need the general reader to have read all my comments - my current comments were pretty clear about the fact that I was criticizing bad arguments and clarifying moral questions.

You pretty explicitly refused to challenge me which is why I assumed you were seeking status rather than intellectual discussion. That's still the belief I hold. If you want to challenge my reasoning or axioms, please do! That's far more interesting.

I also have no idea why you think I'm somehow advocating discrimination or even coming close. Let me reiterate: "I know how I justify my moral positions - my opposition to protectionism (either pro-white or ..." "I'm pretty explicitly stating that I consider racism to be extrinsically bad..."

I suppose the fact that I've engaged in similar philosophical nerdery for years was just great planning - I've been secretly white supremacist for years and was just laying a deep internet cover? Of course if I had that kind of foresight and such strong pro-white feelings, don't you think I would have arranged my life slightly differently?

Consider the possibility that Lutherans don't secretly worship Satan, in spite of having slightly different pro-Jesus arguments than Catholics.

My unwillingness to provide you with a first-principles predicate logic argument for why racial discrimination is wrong doesn't constitute an attempt to "seek status".

Thinly veiled accusations of racism while smugly acting as if you are somehow above a conversation you continue to participate in is an attempt to raise your status.

In any case, I also just realized why you've become so much more aggressively anti-intellectual. I doubt that your attempts to signal virtue to the enemies of meritocracy will work, but I do hope you guys survive their inevitable attacks when they figure out that stockfighter is basically a g-test. <- Notice the attempt to raise my own status, rather than engage in intellectual discourse?

I think you find this appeal to "status" more compelling than I do.

Because being black is an inherent trait outside of someone's control. Choosing to be an Uber driver is a person's active choice, and everyone has a fingerprint. So you're not forced to do something you don't want to do, and you're not being discriminated against because of something you cannot control.

This is an interesting principle, and it applies in this case. But it has other interesting conclusions.

For instance, your principle seems to allow discrimination against Jews/Muslims/people who engage in homosexual acts/promiscuous women/etc. And it seems to bar discrimination against, e.g., the short and ugly (at least if being ugly is not caused by being fat).

Do you endorse these conclusions? If not, then this clearly can't be your motivating principle.

The position I stated in my post above I do hold and do endorse as a good philosophy for life. However, the conclusions you have drawn do not follow logically from what I stated. All I said was that one should not discriminate based on innate attributes. I said nothing about other forms of discrimination. You have made the assumption that the inverse of my statement is true: that because I denounce discrimination based on attributes outside of people's control that I must support discrimination based on attributes within their control. This is not a logical conclusion of my statement and is not true.

Generally speaking, I reject discrimination against people based on any attributes, within or without their control, except those attributes which directly pertain to the subject in question. So, for example, in a job situation, ideally, the only attributes we should be using to discriminate between candidates are their experience, knowledge, and ability to fulfill the duties of the position. If the job requires lifting heavy weights, discriminating upon your ability to lift heavy weights is fine. Discriminating based on sex (maybe justified because statistically most women are not strong enough to perform the duties) is not fine, because it is an indirect attribute. If this women meets the requirements it is irrelevant what other women can or cannot do.

In this case with Uber and Lyft the city/state has the right (one could argue duty) to take steps to ensure the trustworthiness/safety of drivers operating commercial transportation services within its jurisdiction. Race does not say anything about the trustworthiness or criminal nature of a specific person. Even if, hypothetically, you assume that statistically one race is more prone to violence than another that does not speak directly about this candidate. It is an indirect measure like the example of sex above. An accurate background check, however, can shed light on facts in a person's past that are directly relevant to that question.

You have made the assumption that the inverse of my statement is true: that because I denounce discrimination based on attributes outside of people's control that I must support discrimination...

I made no such assumption. I merely pointed out that your principle doesn't prohibit such things.

In this case with Uber and Lyft the city/state has the right (one could argue duty) to take steps to ensure the trustworthiness/safety of drivers...Even if, hypothetically, you assume that statistically one race is more prone to violence than another that does not speak directly about this candidate.

Neither does past criminal history. Some criminals are reformed and will not commit crimes. Both past criminal history and race are statistical predictors of future criminal behavior. So are various things under one's control like the neighborhood they live in, their friends, etc.

It's a fact, and one I haven't fully come to grips with philosophically, that base rates matter. I.e., you'll do a better job predicting violence if you take race into account [1]. Actually using it makes me uncomfortable, but not using it is also burying our heads in the sand. From a moral philosophy perspective I'm simply confused.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy

> We are all aware that the law has various (mostly arbitrary) limits.

I disagree that the limits in this domain in existing law are arbitrary; the Constitutional, statute, and case law rules have fairly clear motivation and rationale.

There's actually not. Unless it infringes on a protected class (eg "no black people") or a fundamental liberty interest, the "rational basis" standard prevails. This basically means that if a hypothetical reason could be articulated to support a public interest it's legal, even if it does not actually achieve that goal in practice.

This becomes particularly broad when you're talking about actions in public. So while it would probably be considered an intrusion to send the Dental Police into everyone's home to be sure that they floss daily, it would probably be legal to have the Dental Police perform mandatory tooth-brushings on all taxi drivers. Nobody is forcing you to be a taxi driver and you could reasonably avoid the situation by practicing another profession instead.

That's how you get stuff like requiring hair nets for food safety. But again, it doesn't necessarily have to be sensical. Unless otherwise restricted, states and cities have an enormous amount of leeway to do whatever they think is in their citizens' best interests. It's a list of things you can't do, not a list of things you can.

If Austin wants to fingerprint taxi drivers, that's well within their powers. Not even controversial - that has been common practice for probably a half century now.

If a state or municipality makes a public policy decision that people convicted of certain felonies can't drive taxis or livery vehicles, it seems especially strange that Uber and Lyft would take a stand over their right to bypass that decision.

If it provides a framework for shutting them out of a city, it's going to be an expensive precedent either way.

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