Because they are waiting for and most likely predicting a bloodbath in terms of crashing stocks..and then they will buy what's left at a fraction of what it's worth.
582 karma · joined April 15, 2020
If you force companies to give benefits to these Gig workers, they will not be able to continue in this way (because it will be too expensive) and there will now be a limit on how many drivers they will be able to hire (since they are now essentially employees).
The end result will be less people hired as gig workers and more restrictions on who can actually be a driver, which will leave out a large portion of people driving right now without the ability to make any money at all.
With all of the restrictions that are being put into place on companies like Uber and Lyft, we will eventually go back to what we had with cab companies where the medallion holders have a monopoly on the entire industry and we see no advances that actually improve the consumer experience.
I never understood why Gig workers should get any benefits. When deciding to actually work, it's understood by all parties that you aren't an employee and there really is no guarantee of income.
I've been contracting for a decade and pay for my own benefits. I weigh all costs and benefits before signing a contract/doing any work and everyone should educate themselves and do the same.
I also see death threats on Twitter all the time to: white people, republicans, white people, Jewish people, and police officers. These are allowed to persist to this day.
Ice cube, for instance, had a cartoon ripped straight out of anti-semitic propaganda from the Nazi era and it was taken down after many weeks because of a 'copyright violation'.
Yet, if I even hint that I don't agree with BLM or underage trans surgery, I will get booted off of Twitter for hate speech and if I'm not anonymous, mobs of people will attempt to get me fired from my job and kicked out of society.
The system does need to be changed.
We need to start with the uber-progressive tech companies that take it upon themselves to stifle the speech of people they deem unworthy.
Nobody should be able to have this much control over the population and it's definitely going to start affecting our elections. It's so much more powerful than the handful of fake Russian ads that were purchased in an attempt to sway voters (which wouldn't have caused stadiums of people to come out to see Trump when he was running in 2016).
The reason we have Trump today is a direct result of this meddling. Trump and his team realized that all he needed to do was create the perfect sound byte and they would run with it and it would give him free advertising. He cast a net out and social networks and the media ran right into them every, single, time.
His team was also the most tech savvy. They used data mining companies to find out the best ways to get votes and played the social media game better than anyone.
Obama did almost the exact same thing in 2008. His team exploited a Facebook app that allowed them to get information on you and your friends when you installed it.
I still remember all of the tech magazines lauding his campaign as revolutionary, genius, and the the new way of political campaigns. It clearly violated Facebook's TOS and user privacy. Yet, we saw no investigations.
It's proof once again that it has more to do with politics than anything else. Progressive and liberal candidates and supporters of progressive and liberal causes can get away with murder.
I just wish we had true equality instead of special treatment for select groups of people.
You can't just say this without actual proof. The George Floyd killing was a tragedy, but not proof of systemic racism. On top of this, the officer involved (who actually knew George Floyd prior to killing him) is being brought up on charges, which is the exact opposite of what happens in a system that has systemic racism.
"Inference (ML) predicts the future from the past. If the past is racist"
Predictive policing only gives you an idea of where crime might occur based on previous crimes happening in the area and other factual data.
Innocent people weren't being arrested in mass based on what the models tell them. Officers will send out a few more patrols to areas that historically have more crime based on these models and they will most likely arrest more as a result.
This is a good thing and actually reduces the crime rate. Removing all of these systems on top of making it harder for the average person to defend themselves with a firearm will only result in the loss of innocent life and encourage more crime in mostly minority areas of the country.
"If cops arrest more black people per capita, then send the cops to black neighborhoods and have them follow black parolees. The system works (according to an objective function which maximizes arrests.) Remove racism and send the cops to white neighborhoods. Now the cops don't arrest as many people. The system fails. So I think it's likely that if you remove racist policing from predictive policing, you get the null hypothesis."
There is a bigger police presence in black neighborhoods because more crime happens there and as a result, more African Americans will be arrested.
If we want to stop this, we need to get to the root of the problem instead of blaming everything else.
Calling it 'systemic racism' is just another way of creating a bias against an entire group of people without having any actual proof to back it up. It also allows for the complete absolving of personal responsibility.
I feel like this is the beginning of the war on science because the results are politically incorrect.
It's like a new woke religion and if you question the god of racism, you will have your entire life taken away from you (job, friends, and family).
The only reason this nonsense persists is because the silent majority are too afraid to speak up and have everything taken away from them.
Have they looked into why? Maybe overall, they just aren't getting enough black applicants with the correct skill sets.
We should be striving for equal opportunity not equal outcomes.
However, what will be the solution for people that come into the US illegally, if not temporary detainment?
When I reached my mid 20s, the business folded and I was forced to find work elsewhere.
I worked hard from 25-30.
At 30, I lived in Asia for a year (my dream that I couldn't actually realize in my 20s) and worked remotely (low pay and hard work, but was very good pay for where I lived).
Now that I'm almost 40, I have a house and make more money that any of my previous jobs. My job is actually the easiest it's been in decades, mostly because I overworked in my earlier years and working a regular job is rather boring and slow compared to my usual pace.
I think working hard in your 20s is required if you want to have a good life in your 30s+.
It can be seen with police, automotive employees, and teachers.
As an example, saying you want to murder conservatives, white people, the president, and anyone not progressive should be banned from the platform.
At the moment, you say something that can even be interpreted as hate in an indirect way toward a minority group or person and it's an instant ban.
You can say you want to outright murder white people, cops, or even the president (I've seen all of these myself over the past few weeks) and it's not only allowed, but retweeted/shared and shared millions of times.
Until this changes, it's not healing. It's giving special treatment to a minority group and allowing them to bully, harass, and threaten their perceived enemies in the name of equality.
The mainstream news simultaneously tells us that it's only 'white people' that are the ones agitating, rioting, and looting and then also saying that 'rioting is the language of the unheard'.
I really don't want to live in a dystopian future like this and will do anything in my power to fight it.
Wealthy activists, politicians, and movie stars have private security. They don't care if we have less cops to protect the average person or we make it impossible for the average person to protect themselves.
I have no issue with the protests. My main issues is with radical separatists groups like BLM that are going to make the average citizen unsafe and ruin the city around them to prove some sort of point.
They also want to abolish all prisons.
If this does happen, people like me will just get weapons illegally and take our chances.
Even if the law was for $15/hour, small businesses would go under because they can't afford these rates and companies like Amazon would dominate anyway.
This is one of the reasons they support a government mandated minimum wage increase and also why the stricter laws we have in place for companies, the more likely we will end up with industries dominated by a few big players for decades and little chance that a smaller company/startup can ever grow large enough to actually compete.
This argument just doesn't make sense in 2020. Minorities are not 'persecuted' in this country and in fact are given special treatment in every possible way, especially by progressive/liberal lawmakers and heads of institutions like universities.
Affirmative action is a good example of this. Where I went to college, we had affirmative action. Many African american students were pushed through, even though they didn't actually make the grade.
The dropout rate was 90% because they didn't have enough of the fundamentals like math, science, or literacy.
"Or does the minority population continue to suffer from the economic and political effects of their persecution?"
They may suffer economic effects, but it really has little to do with their 'persecution'.
It starts at home. Having multiple children in an unstable home to a single, young mother, not only makes the mother's life difficult, but the children. This is the norm for many inner city African communities, if you look at the statistics.
This is something that can't be legislated away. I've known many teachers that worked in poor African American communities and they all say the same thing: we can teach anything we want to the child, but as soon as they get home, the parents/families have a much bigger influence and students end up not finishing, dropping out, etc.
Just look at statistics on Asian minorities in the US. High education, high earning, and a very small percentage are on welfare.
The Chinese were brought to this country as slaves to work on our railroads and suffered racism as a result. A look at the history of our China towns can see this.
"Of course it's the latter. A cursory glance at any data on the position black people have in our economy and society would tell you that. Focusing on the definition of word "racism" is missing the forest for the trees."
You can't see the forest through the trees. Institutions instituting segregation will not lead to better race relations and will only continue to divide us.
I'm really done having this conversation with you, because It's not going anywhere.
I'm not confusing anything. Declaring that no other races are allowed in a specific area, is racist. It shouldn't matter if the group doing it is in the majority or minority. We are supposed to be all equal. But it sounds like once again that it has nothing to do with wanting equality, but wanting superiority and having special rules and treatment for a specific group of people. This will only further divide us.
How is it that I'm the one fighting for equality here and you're the one that seems to be against it?
"I'd rather challenge the context: why does it matter what other countries do? The US holds itself to its own standard. If the population consider that standard insufficient then it's time to act."
Reporters are even fired from there jobs every year on MLK day for accidentally saying a word that sounds racist.
That woman walking her dog the other day that was racist? She got her dog taken away and was fired from her job.
The cops that were involved in the current situation? They were fired from their jobs and are now being brought up on charges and investigated.
The US had an African American president. The highest position of power in the country and the world. Sure, some people didn't agree, but he got enough votes to put him into office.
The US really does set the standard.
It might be. I know many African Americans that will not date someone that is not African american.
It's a personal preference. Sure, you can just pick out the people you don't like, but I see this as the same as a dating company only have hetero couples.
This is the problem. It has nothing to do with equal rights any longer. It's about forcing your beliefs onto me and then attempting to call me a racist when I disagree.
The irony is that since since they claim they are all the same, we can blame everyone in the group for the actions of a few.
This really is how we treat children.
You aren't considering the business owners that just had their businesses destroyed.
You are considering the innocent people that were ripped out of their vehicles during the protest and beaten nearly to death.
At this point, the protesters don't even care about the death of a black man. They only are using it as an excuse to burn the country down.
I stopped taking the mainstream media seriously long ago and I'm now even questioning the motives and the intelligence of people that post here on HN.
So if I feel like I've been wronged, I can: break the law, destroy buildings, and even hurt/kill innocent people?
Treating a group of adults like children/like they don't have control will never allow them to actually succeed in life.
They were arrested. The only reason it's national news is because of how infrequently it happens. Ever look at Detroit or Chicago news? horrible murders every day. Not a peep from the national news.
"any organization that allows the type of person capable of the callous murder at hand here to hold the power that this officer did in his community needs to be taken to task as a whole"
There are bad people everywhere, including in the police department. When these things happen you investigate them and remove them from positions of power. Both have happened in this case already.
"is equivalent to volkswagen blaming it all on the rogue engineer during their emissions debacle a few years back"
So you expect me to not blame all minorities for crime in the US and then expect me to blame all cops for a few bad ones? Does this even make any sense to you at all?
" And they have the nerve to act like heroes. I think a lot of us are exhausted by the hypocrisy and grandstanding at this point."
Many are heroes. They risk their lives for shitheads like you that don't appreciate the fact that they are there and then shove dirt in their face from behind a computer screen.
You painting an entire group as bad based on the actions of a few sounds a lot like the reason we have so many social issues in the US today.
Also, you still never mentioned masks? What? Covid just suddenly goes away when the 'right' kind of protests are happening?
The reasons behind the violent protests in Minnesota doesn't even make sense and should be met with the full force of the law.
The cops were immediately fired and are now being investigated. Justice is being served. The protesters want mob justice, which would take our system of laws back to the middle ages.
The funny thing is that the lockdown protestors at the Michigan capitol building had more people in the media condemning their actions and not a single shot was fired nor a single piece of property damaged.
I would also like to point out that most of the protesters are not wearing masks or social distancing. Nobody cares about spreading Covid?
I'm glad my gut instinct was correct and that it really wasn't worth the hype. It reminds me of Ruby on Rails.
This has been seen time and time again in any system involving humans.
A big issue with Reddit is that it has subs dedicated to encouraging mentally ill and anti-social behavior.
These things tend to eventually escalate into the real-world where someone eventually gets hurt or killed.
He's only becoming a liability in the eyes of people like this author because he's moving away from the left.
What's interesting is that when you listen to him being interviewed about the current pandemic, most governors are now essentially agreeing with him and opening up their states.
"cutting out the middleman (SiriusXM) and reaping all of the profits himself"
Most radio personalities don't want to have to deal with all of the technical aspects of running a podcast (if you don't have good studio equipment and people to run it, your show will not be entertaining and the sound quality will be seriously lacking).
You also need to manage things like getting advertisers, and show producers (Stern has many people working behind the scenes). It's much easier to just sign a contract with Sirius for 500 Million/year and call it a day.
When you make this much money, you can pretty much already get anything you want. Why bother with all of the hassle of running everything yourself?
The negative is that once this becomes the norm, you will be competing with people from potentially anywhere in the US (and maybe other countries as well) and wages will most likely decline.
Why would an employer pay you $250K+ in California when they can find an engineer for half the cost in another state? Most wages in Canada for software engineers are absurdly low in major cities like Toronto.