My quess would be that Uber use it as a carrot for cities. Let Uber operate and we will give city official data and city planning tools for free.
I mean don't get me wrong, the data is valuable. But this is a company that constantly says "fuck you" to the law and fair work practices. Let's keep that in mind.
Uber is engaged in civil disobedience against unjust laws that exist to protect political insiders. When did this become a bad thing?
This is a strong indication that his argument is invalid, nothing more.
The value of an argument is not a pure function of its syntactic structure but also the specific details of the argument. Context matters. Intent even matters.
The details, context and intent so far suggest that you care more about being right on the Internet than about human beings' welfare.
I understand that I've expressed disagreement on a topic you consider to be a sacred value. But have I done anything beyond that?
And note that you sought out a comment not addressed to you to perform the exact behavior in question: aggressively demanding that somebody educate you. Not because it looks like you're sincerely interested in learning anything, but because it's an argumentative technique.
If you actually want to understand this issue, find somebody whose job it is to teach you. Get a therapist versed in online culture, bring in a set of your discussions here, and pay her by the hour to help you see the pattern that is obvious to many other people.
I doubt you'll do that, though, because I don't think you're seriously trying to learn anything here.
I miss the old days, when we discussed ideas even if they sounded stratnge.
I prefer an open environment where more strange ideas can be discussed, but you also have to make a good faith effort to see where most people are coming from. The remarks you made on the civil rights movement suggest you either don't take it seriously at all, or you don't care about it at all, or you have no understanding of what things like civil disobedience actually mean. The trouble with making a good faith effort to explain all of that to you is that in the end you probably won't change your mind, because it's not like any of this information is hard to find.
My 2 cents: On the surface, disregard for law in order to pursue something considered as better for the greater good of the population/humans seems the same in your comparisons.
I think you're meeting so much resistance because we're not 100% rational beings. As mentioned elsewhere, intent and context absolutely affect how we view actions/statements ( debating that is beyond the scope of this argument imo).
At the human/emotional level, it _feels_ (and I'd argue that it is wrong) wrong to say someone disobeying the laws of the land to fight for the right to be treated as a human being is the same as someone disobeying the laws because they want to make more money (Travis). As a species, we hold actions with the intent to preserve/improve our collective good - the definition of which is perhaps shaped by our moral compass - as a higher, more worthwhile and noble aim than actions made solely in the interest of profit.
Even in the court of law, intent shapes an action (eg: murder vs manslaugher)
First, the folks who "fight for the right to be treated as a human being" also stand to gain monetarily (and otherwise) from that treatment.
Secondly, suppose Kalanick's desire to build Uber is ideological in nature rather than merely profit driven - i.e. suppose he views building Uber as a way to shape the world for the better. (I do believe he views the world this way.) Would that redeem his actions in your view?
Incidentally, I really appreciate the intellectual response. It's far more interesting than the general anger consuming this thread.
Civil disobedience not only requires submission to the law, but is most effective when the threat of punishment is existential (e.g. lengthy incarceration or death). Since Uber’s existence depends on defiance of the current laws, it is manifestly impossible that the company’s actions are in any way a form of civil disobedience.
As MLK wrote, "One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law." [1]
That is manifestly not what Kalanick is doing. He broke laws for his own profit, has energetically avoided the penalties, demonstrates no particular interest in justice, and certainly doesn't care about the conscience of the community.
I also think the "political insiders" thing is just crocodile tears. From his behavior, Kalanick has no problem with industrial interests having outsized power; he just wants to be the one with that power.
[1] https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....
Many in the civil rights movement also broke laws for their own profit or other benefit; they wanted the right to work any job they were qualified for, live in any neighborhood, etc. What's wrong with that?
Does one need to be completely altruistic to oppose injustice? Victims cannot protest, only uninterested third parties?
Do you have an intellectual (rather than emotional) argument why my rephrasing is somehow invalid?
I do have an intellectual argument, but you're pretty clearly trolling, so there's no real point in presenting it. You're not stupid and you know what you're doing, so why prolong the pretense?
I stand by what I said. I think that the distinction between our celebrated historical civil disobedience and the modern kind is not so clear. One happened 50 years ago and is part of our modern mythology, the other is a contemporary conflict and as such it obviously doesn't come with "applause-lights" [1].
[1] "Applause-lights" explained: http://lesswrong.com/lw/jb/applause_lights/
That is so messed up.
I do not believe Uber invests nearly as much in autonomous cars as it invests in challenging the law and making PR about their lobbying being a civic fight.
There may be adequate information now, but only because enough people bought in to Uber's marketing had poor experiences, and have talked about them.
I also don't think "enough readily available information" is a good standard to judge commerce by. There's enough readily available information out there for sufficiently prepared people to not get sucked into, say, a Ponzi scheme. But that does not absolve somebody running a scam, because they are doing their best to find people not yet prepared and then energetically deceive them. My standard is more like, "Does the entity with more power use that power in a way that the entity with less power later comes to find harmful?" By that metric, I don't think Uber scores particularly well.
Uber has always been clear about how it works for the drivers, and not reading/understanding terms and conditions isn't an excuse for not taking responsibility for yourself.
Their early marketing quite literally spelled out that this is something you can do with your own pre-existing car to make a bit of extra cash on the side. In fact this is STILL the prevailing message you get from their website, let me quote a few lines at you;
"Got a car? Turn it into a money machine. The city is buzzing and Uber makes it easy for you to cash in on the action. Plus, you've already got everything you need to get started."
"Need something outside the 9 to 5? As an independent contractor with Uber, you’ve got freedom and flexibility to drive whenever you have time."
Somehow, and I really cannot fathom how, some people have interpreted this as "Go out and buy/lease a car, we'll give you a full time job".
Second, having freelanced for years, Uber is nothing like that. Freelancing operates in a marketplace where you can shop your skills to many purchasers. Uber aspires to be a monopsony.
Third, you indulge in pretty typical "blame the victim" logic. Uber is the more powerful party here. A driver has some information; Uber has vastly more information. If a bunch of drivers just happen to all make the same mistake, one that benefits Uber, then sure, you could blame the drivers. But I think it's more reasonable to blame the entity who sets up the conditions from which they profit.
And your last paragraph would be much more plausible if Uber didn't actively promote car leasing: https://www.uber.com/drive/vehicle-solutions/
Second, Uber is exactly like freelancing in a lot of ways - you get paid per job, you aren't entitled to paid leave, and running costs are your problem. Regardless of what you assume Uber aspires to be, the fact is there a whole range of ride sharing options out there so people can absolutely shop around.
Third - Blaming the victim requires a victim, for a victim to exist there also needs to be an offender. In your mind Uber is the offender because they are somehow the "more powerful party", which only really makes sense in a small number of cases. Uber is reliant on people signing on to drive for them, and unless said drivers are somehow indebted to Uber or contractually obligated to drive for them I fail to see how Uber has much power over them. Happy to change my mind on this if you can show me a situation in which Uber has some sort of excessive control over one or more of their drivers.
Uber "actively promote" car leasing in a small number of locations as an alternative to supplying your own car, and even then it's not the main message of their driver-focused advertising. At no point in signing up to be a driver will you be instructed to lease a car. Once again, people have all the numbers available and it's up to them to work out if it's financially viable for them to lease a car from Uber or from anyone else.
2) That is not "exactly like freelancing". It is more akin to the company town approach to things, where the nominal structure of freedom is used to wash away moral responsibility. And if you talk to ex-Uber drivers, they do not feel there is a "whole range of options". Uber claims 87% market share, making them by far the dominant company. And the notion that Uber aspires to be a monopsony is not my assumption; investment analysts looking at Uber are pretty clear that Uber's market valuation only makes sense if they end up totally dominating things. Really, I freelanced for years, and two of my parents did as well. Trying to tell me that Uber is particularly like freelancing is pissing on my leg and telling me it's raining.
3) Uber is clearly the more powerful party in both the contract law sense [1] and in the market sense. There's no "somehow" here. They are the ones who write the contract. They are the ones who set the terms. They are the one who can unilaterally change the terms. They are the more powerful party. So get out of here with your "somehow".
4) And as to the leasing thing, I begin to be concerned that you're not arguing in good faith here. Uber literally helps people lease cars full time, so I think it's reasonable for people to read that as Uber suggesting that full time is reasonable. You after all brought up leasing.
More broadly, you're making the sort of tendentious, over-narrow arguments that were used to justify all sorts of exploitative behavior before labor laws required people to be either employees (therefore deserving of protection) or true independent contractors (who are professionals and can deal with things on their own because they operate in a functional marketplace with multiple clients). The last couple decades have seen businesses creeping around those barriers because it lets them take advantage of power asymmetries. I think Uber used a weak economy and a technological change to further undermine those barriers.
If you want to make a serious argument here, you can't just sweep Uber's enormous advantages under the rug. There are giant asymmetries in information, legal resources, negotiation skill, market power, financial resources, manipulative skill, and political clout. If you'd like to make a might-makes-right, fuck-the-workers case, just go for it. But if you're going to continue to make an argument about fairness, you have to account for power. Otherwise you're just ignoring a century of labor and employment law history.
[1] See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscionability for how power is relevant to contract law.
Also one would think that subsidizing drivers in their early days was not really the best way to make a honest impression on how rewarding the job would actually become.
http://image.et.xchangeleasing.com/lib/fe9412737265067b77/m/...
https://consumerist.com/2016/05/31/5-things-you-should-know-...
Are pay day loan patrons really making an informed decision because the interest percentage is written on the wall?
If you can't understand what you're signing then you shouldn't be signing it, very simple really. For some people this leasing scheme would be fine, for other's it could lead to financial trouble - Uber doesn't have to work that out for people.
Not sure where pay day loans come into this? Uber has some kind of once off upfront pay advance incentive thing, but there's no interest and the terms are something quite generous like 15 weeks so it's not even remotely like a pay day loan.
How exactly is this predatory? If you're only driving minimally, then it's definitely not a good deal, but it's not meant for those drivers. It's for drivers who drive full-time, ie. 40+ hrs a week.
http://therideshareguy.com/uber-xchange-leasing-a-kinder-and...