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Comment by fthssht | Hacker News Reader

I think it's a tad misleading to suggest user or silicon valley are setting policy. When the government "sets policy" that's really just making things illegal. Silicon valley can offer a service and the government can decide it's so bad that it's worth spending tax dollars to prevent it as a crime or they can not. People are so quick to defend the status quo. Right now consensual sex is unregulated if no money changes hands. We could require std inspection and maternity insurance for accidental pregnancy. Sounds ridiculous but if it existed already people would defend it just because it sounds like a reasonable reason. If people saw policy as what it is in criminalization they might trad more lightly but uber isn't setting policy because they can't.

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The thing is in a democracy that respects the rule of law, if you don't like an existing law, then you work to change it, which has never been Uber's strategy. Instead they just put out PR releases about how they're going to ignore some local law or regulation _again._

Civil disobedience is an avenue for changing laws. You may no like it, many people prefer the institutional ways for changing laws, but the fact that it is a valid tool is undeniable. I'm not vouching for Uber's strategy. Just pointing out that their strategy is not insane, not idiotic and is perfectly valid.

Personally, I place civil disobedience as a last resort method. The most prominent recent case of civil disobedience is, of course, Snowden. He did something illegal in the hope of changing the current legal status quo.

Although in general I agree with you about civil disobedience, I don't think Ubers strategy qualifies. Civil disobedience is usually for something that is perceived as a greater good at the expense of ones personal costs, often freedom. Snowden personally did not win anything at all. Ubers disobedience is mostly aimed at increasing their operating profits: They could comply fairly easily, but they choose not to because of the costs. That's like calling bank robbery "civil disobedience against property laws".

Civil disobedience is a form of political pressure that consists in the disobedience to laws considered unjust. Uber obviously considers taxi laws unjust. It obviously, unlike back robbers, aims at changing the laws. Their actions are civil disobedience.

Whether civil disobedience is unwarranted here is another discussion entirely. I happen to consider they are jumping the gun, but I understand the fear of getting their business entangled in lawmaking, unable to make a profit.

I haven't read or heard a single argument from Uber why they consider the german laws unjust apart from "It costs us too much money" and "We need to disrupt". They're also not lobbying to change the requirements for all taxi drivers, they are lobbying to be exempt. That's lining their own pockets, not political pressure aimed at changing unjust laws.

It's a tough argument to claim your behaviour as civil disobedience when you have a billion and a half in cash and a profit motive.

Ah, the demonization of profit that is all to common in Europe.

Believe it or not, civil disobedience has a definition you and don't get to change it because you don't like how successful someone - or a group of people - is.

Bypassing security for profit is not the definition for civil disobedience.

They're not bypassing security.

How exactly am I demonizing profit?

I'm just saying you can't really paint yourself as speaking truth to power when you are orders of magnitude more powerful than the ordinary citizen, especially when you're working to destroy the protections voted for by said ordinary citizens.

Taking the rhetoric of civil rights, resistance against tyranny, protection of ones neighbors, and using that to defend a corporation's right to increase their margins at any cost is pretty disingenuous.

It's a valid viewpoint to think that corporations have that right, but if you really believe it, why do you need to employ the semiotics of ghandi-style asymmetric struggle?

How are you demonizing profit? to paraphrase: "they aren't practicing civil disobedience because they have a profit motive"

Truth to power is exactly what it is. You brought up the 1.5 B that Uber got. What is the guaranteed revenue of the German government no matter how inept they are?

Again, you don't get to set the numbers.

I knew that someone was going to pull out "civil disobedience" when I was writing my comment and I am a huge fan of civil disobedience... when it involves civil rights.

A billion dollar company funded by Wall Street trying to gobble up and lock down an entire global market through unethical fraud and shirking their tax and legal liability is a repulsive invocation of civil disobedience. I hope you will think about what you've posted and feel suitably shamed.

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