I remember how the Uber rollout worked in Berlin. Uber said they don’t need to comply with anything the city asked for and enjoyed their position in the safety of an ocean away so the local authorities instituted eye watering fines for drivers caught providing Uber rides. Uber decided to comply.
[0] https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/quadrf-can-spot-drone...
In much of the world including USA poor people will slang crack for $5 under threat of life in jail and fines higher than they could ever hope to pay. Suffice to say there's an endless line of people willing to uber for roughly crack slinging wages without the risk of life imprisonment even if the fines are as bad -- because their alternatives are worse.
The US has almost entirely lost this culture except for short moments in isolated places. Minneapolis is nearly a proof by exception in this. Very, very few people need to be detained or killed to get the mass of Americans to stay inside and self-censor. Much less is required to get businesses to put their head down and play nice with the government.
You name things and decide that‘s “resistance”. People break the law because there’s no real consequence or because they just have nothing to lose. They’re not “resisting”, they’re surviving. The US society decided that a large class of people will be forced to operate at that level their whole life and are incentivized to do worse by the insane punishment model applied only to them.
The only people doing the “resisting” in the US are those who can afford a good lawyer. Everyone else does what the cracks in the system allow, or what they need to do out of desperation.
No German Uber driver is desperate enough to risk their whole livelihood especially for that meager payoff. Most civilized countries make sure that people have something to lose which will keep people acting straight rather than always act on desperation. Depending on your goal, having people exercise self restraint works better than restraining them with tasers, chokeholds, and bullets to the back.
> because their alternatives are worse.
Ah, ok. So not “a healthy culture of resistance” but more “desperation because the country made sure that’s driving them”.
This is logical fallacy, but you've tried hard to pull a gotcha out of it.
Resisting because you are desperate is perfectly valid and doesn't create a contradiction.
It's not something reserved to "those who can afford a good lawyer." Desperation is one of the hardest drivers of resistance, not something reserved to rich people with lawyers and something to lose. And even if we suppose there's not resistance in USA, I said in USA or someplace with a healthier culture of resistance, which means even if you don't consider USA a place of resistance it still meets the logical test of falling within my statement.
>[now deleted] If you hear this for the first time, hello white male with plenty of money for a lawyer.
Lol you couldn't resist adding that in. Your little racially charged bits about why we're not allowed to call it resistance when a poor black person does such acts. While ignoring your very example of Rosa Parks who was a black woman, child of a teacher and itinerant worker and before activism working largely in domestic work for white families. The contradiction is yours.
My “very example” about which you are now quoting Wikipedia to me was resistance, not desperation. It wasn't a tweaker selling $5 crack because he literally has nothing better to look forward to. It wasn’t a mother driving without a license because she couldn’t afford the court taxes for a few traffic tickets. It was a woman who did it out of principle alone. That’s resistance, and it’s rare. Your speech fell on its face as soon as you had your big boy proud moment because you’re missing something important to back it up [0]. You were never taught enough pst that proud song and dance.
If you thought calling you privileged for your dissonant and ignorant line of argumentation is racist then let me add not educated enough[0] too. Read a book to understand these concepts, don’t expect you can just throw words around and people will bow to your wisdom. You make it impossible for me to take you seriously when you make junior level confusions like “resistance” and “desperation” all for a shitty national pride moment.
Resistance against totalitarianism is a duty.
After living under one of those totalitarian regimes, all Incan say is that everything sounds easy in an HN comment typed from the safety of a democratic society.
Not everything is about “fighting the power”, there are plenty of good reasons to want to validate and approve these systems.
Musk was as usual likes to talk big and brave but same as with his fight in Brazil over X, or the Tesla factory in Germany, if he wants to operate there he needs to follow the rules. And there’s no moral argument (saving freedom) he can pull out of his wig in most parts of the world that can make him money.