In a world where privacy has been traded away for convenience, it's poetic justice where a startup uses data mining techniques to subvert the government. This is the same government that would have no issues to use the same techniques to spy on its own people for its own motives.
I'm neither on Uber nor the government's side in this case, just simply making an observation. The lack of data privacy seems to be a double-edged sword for users and government/law enforcement alike.
My perspective is the opposite. In a world where large multinationals have the power to evade the law in a deliberate and systematic way like this, it's easy for governments to claim they need the same kind of power. Things like this are exactly what bureaucrats point to when they make their arguments for a surveillance state.
I don't like the US government much, but I like it a lot better than the average multinational. When it comes down to it, we don't have more than our choice of devils.
I don't like the US government much, but I like it a lot better than the average multinational. When it comes down to it, we don't have more than our choice of devils.
If I don't like Uber, I can... stop using Uber. What can I do if I don't like the service a state provides - can I opt out and stop paying? No, my only option is to flee - which the state will often try and prevent you doing anyway.
The state is a huge corporation, that will use force to change you for its services, whether they are good or not, or whether you use them or not. Your only option to avoid this involuntary charge s to flee - and the state reserves the right to employ violence to stop you doing even that.
It seems pretty clear to me which is more immoral.
You can vote, run for office, petition, volunteer, protest,etc to the local, state, and federal government to have policies that reflect your values. The only thing you can do with Uber is use it or not. Maybe you could write Uber a letter.
You have a say in government - that is its stated goal and purpose. Of the people for the people.
The 'say' you have in government is much smaller than the 'say' you have in using Uber. I can choose not to use Uber any time I please. I can not choose not to be pulled over for speeding, or opt out of murder laws temporarily.
The fact that you don't have a say in Uber's corporate decisions is irrelevant, because you can simply stop using it. You don't need a say. The fact that you can't opt out of government is why you're given a say, and what makes it infinitely more dangerous.
You can choose not to use Uber and effectively ignore them but that does not stop them from having an influence on you, your community, and your country.
It is true that being part of a government system is not a choice but without that community you would be dead or at least not an educated human with internet access.
You cannot reap the rewards of government, community, and progress and then turn around and want to abolish the systems that made those things possible just because you cannot speed and murder people.
> You cannot reap the rewards of government, community, and progress and then turn around and want to abolish the systems that made those things possible just because you cannot speed and murder people.
What systems are those, exactly? Protectionist laws for taxi drivers?
Sure, if we stick with Uber and transportation topic. Labor laws, minimum wage, vehicle inspections, registration. systems and rules that were put in place as a response to what citizens felt were "wrongs" that needed to be addressed.
When a organization ignores those laws then they are going against the will of the people.
What is the will of the people? How is it expressed? Through representative elections? What about Arrow's impossibility theorem?
The 'will of the people' on the issue of Uber is abundantly clear. Everyone wants it, except taxi drivers and the companies and structures that benefit from them. This gets blocked sometimes due to the fact that taxi drivers represent a concentrated interest against a diffuse benefit. We all benefit a little from Uber, but taxi drivers benefit a lot from killing Uber. So they raise their voices against it, and nobody speaks up for the rest of us. It is the classic problem of representative democracy. The representatives are beholden to the concentrated interests of the few against the collective interests of the many.
I wonder how many Uber drivers and riders vote? ~160k drivers in USA (according to their twitter posts). How many users?
Where is the pro Uber Lobby? Don't have one? Start one! You are clearly in favor of this type of program. If you truly believe that it is the right thing then be part of the solution that makes it happen.
They raised their voices against it.. You have to speak up for "the rest of us". Be the change that we need in the world.
Like I said, concentrated interests, diffuse benefits. The benefits are too small to me to be worth my time to go out and organize for it. That is why this problem exists. It is the reason why hairdressers require licenses, it is the reason why teachers can't be fired, and it is the reason why we don't have a carbon tax.
If you're arguing that all those things are good and consistent with the will of the people, then sure. I suppose that's a consistent position, even if absurd in its consequences. But I don't think for a second that you believe all three of those things are good simultaneously.
When given a choice, drivers stampeded from yellow cabs to Uber. Riders stampeded from yellow cabs to Uber. It's clear which one most parties prefer. And that suggests that all those government "services" around the provision of taxi service are valued at or below 0 by most people.
You are speaking in broad terms and are making an assessment based on them. "drivers stampeded" "riders stampeded" "most parties" and you round all that off by saying that the value of the services offered were below 0.
I cannot speak to the motivation of those that chose Uber as a customer or employer. Perhaps customers chose them because of the cost and convenient app. Perhaps employees chose them because of the low barrier to entry and flexible hours.
Just because something different came along and grabbed everyone's attention does not mean that the gov services are valued at zero. There was a time when those yellow cabs had little to no rules or oversight. And that changed for a good reason - or at least a reason that people thought were good at a time.
The rules for Uber are going to change too - there will be laws and rules designed to correct wrongs (either real or perceived).
If the rules need to be different then people need to stand up and try to make the rules what they think they should be. My argument is that Uber should not decide on its own not to respect the will of the people.
It's not an argument. Getting people to "stampede" to you is trivial - just drop the prices well below market average, and the herd will quickly follow, regardless of whether or not your service is actually better. Doing that is difficult (that's the point of competition), but becomes much easier if you can blatantly break the law and get away with it.
Come on, there's no way you can say taxis are superior to a frickin button that you press to instantly get a car. Even if the prices were the same, I'm pretty sure most people would still choose Uber.
Actually I stick with taxis. It's more expensive but I don't have to hand over all my contacts and my location at all times from my cell phone for frankly no damn good business purpose except for one's the company won't reveal to me and will vaguely reference in its ToS. Deceivers. Sadly Lyft app permissions don't seem to be much better.
Reduction of congestion, especially in airports. It'd probably be a nightmare if artificial scarcity wasn't enforced at a popular spot for hired rides.
> The 'say' you have in government is much smaller than the 'say' you have in using Uber. I can choose not to use Uber any time I please. I can not choose not to be pulled over for speeding, or opt out of murder laws temporarily.
Sure you can. Just leave their jurisdiction. I've heard Somalia is nice.
Please enlighten me on the quality of life in Somalia while it had a central government, vs before it had one. Statistics are slow and unreliable coming out of there, so feel free to limit you answer to the Barre Administration, as well as those areas that during the Civil war were under control of the Islamic Courts Union and the Transitional Goverments.
I look forward to being amazed by the breadth of your knowledge about the history and conditions of Somalia and how it pertains to libertarianism.
Guess why you have no choice in ISP or power company? Because the government deliberately regulates those markets to reduce competition, often to the monopoly level. But they don't give you any compensation for that, such as a say in how the companies are run.
This is the root cause of many problems in other markets too. High pharmaceutical prices? The government granted monopolies (patents) to those companies. Forced to use Windows? Microsoft has a government-granted monopoly (copyright) on Windows. Strange that limiting or revoking these state-granted monopoly rights is never considered as an option for remedying these problems.
More relevant to this article, the government has historically put drastic limits on the number of taxis that can operate in a city, to the point where the permits required to operate one were once worth over a million dollars apiece. The need to disrupt that system is why Uber developed a culture of law-breaking to begin with.
That's quite different. ISPs are regulated in a special way because they are monopolies. Monopolies occupy a middle ground between government and company. A business monopoly is like a mild/weak form of government.
It is frustrating, I agree. But those days can be had again if we get people to pay attention, focus on facts, and become engaged in the process.
The reason gerrymandering, (I will not include voter fraud), access restrictions, etc etc is still a problem inspite of being identified as a problem is the collective will of the people to demand that these wrongs be correct.
Imagine what the 2016 campaign and election would look like if everyone cared enough to learn and vote. Imagine what your town or state would look like if we could get 80% voting rates... [eyes twinkle as I stare off into the distance thinking of what could be]
Western government is a democracy in name only. The US was designed to be so large that no individual can expect to cause a change in its function, even if they organize large protests, or send torrents of mail. You could run for office, but you wouldn't get in, especially not off a platform of "forget national security, let's protect privacy!". Even if you did get in, you still need to organize hundreds of others who also got in to agree with and work towards your goal. Even if the legislative branch implemented your plan, you then need to wait as the executive branch caught up. Note that the NSA/FBI doesn't always work within the law - they are perfectly willing to break a few laws to make their jobs easier. You would have to infiltrate these organization, and instill a new culture that followed your value system. This would entail firing hosts of the leadership, and probably a large quantity of their subordinates, who would still be used to the old mode. This process would, if you took the time to do it correctly, take many more years than you would have to do it.
The system is not only not designed to allow change easily, it is explicitly designed to make it as difficult as possible. The idea is that change shouldn't happen just because someone somewhere said they wanted something, and not enough people disagreed to stop it. Change should only happen when the vast majority of people have thought about it and agreed with it. This system is designed to prevent genocide or other forms of purposeful mass inequality. It is, however, extremely poor at giving an individual rights and freedoms. The assumption is that the individual should already have rights and freedoms, and all the government need do is not remove them. Barring some injunction with the state, an individual can then do whatever they choose.
Capitalism can, when implemented properly (inb4 no true scotsman), act as a true democracy. It can allow each individual person the choice to do what that person chooses, independent of other peoples disagreement - even if the vast majority thinks the decision idiotic. Under our governments form of "democracy", what should an individual do if the majority of people don't want privacy, if those people are against privacy? There is nothing they can do! Whereas, even if everyone else in the world was a hardline supporter of a company like Uber, any individual could make the choice not to use them.
I think I understand your point. Trying to compare a persons influence in government, a system designed to encourage citizen participation, to that of a corporation, a system designed to make as much money as possible and answer to share holders, is not great.
"In order to form a more perfect union" VS "the pursuit of shareholder wealth."
Even if the system is not working exactly the way we want - it never will - we are still endowed with the rights to participate. The same cannot be said for corporations.
If 49% of people stop using Uber, Uber loses almost half its revenue and will probably be forced to change its practices or go out of business. What happens if 49% of people don't vote for a US presidential candidate?
I would've thought that the difference between "vote" and "vote as a shareholder" would have been obvious enough, but just to make it clear: I don't consider it a good thing if the only people with a say in things are the ones who have money. This is the difference between a democracy and a corporation.
I find it really unsettling how many people on HN seem to need this distinction explained.
I doubt Uber is going to hire you if your goal is to change its business policies. Voting as a shareholder is also not the same as voting as a citizen. Everyone has the right to vote as a citizen, only the right h shareholders in Uber have the right to vote as a shareholder.
Additionally, the problems like gerrymandering still appear in different forms in corporate structures. Often times founders have majority control of the company in the form of different shares. While this is good for the founders, this is bad for anyone else who doesn't like the direction of the company.
Why would you need write Uber a letter? Don't like it, don't use it.
You don't have a say in government like you do with a private company. If I don't like the government, I have to hope that millions of other people agree with me. If I don't like a company, I alone can choose not to associate with it. My relationship with or without Uber is entirely up to me. I'm forced to endure the government whether I like it or not -- I could petition and protest until I'm blue and it won't make a difference to my life unless millions agree. With Uber, etc. I can simply stop buying their product and poof! They're out of my life.
Also, corporations - as a rule - don't have huge armies made up of many people with guns, tanks, jet fighters, nuclear bombs, etc., which they can use to impose their will on you.
It's a lot easier to divest yourself of a bad relationship with a company, than a nation-state.
(And no, "move" isn't a reasonable response to this, so don't waste your digital breath with any Somalia references).
Sorry, services like Uber have externalities and do not only impact their consumers.
Your only option to avoid this involuntary charge s to flee
Bollocks. People organize for and achieve their political goals by modifying government on a regular basis. Governmental institutions suffer from numerous flaws, but your argument is that government is fundamentally totalitarian which is nonsense.
No. Notice the word "voluntary". From libertarian point of view, Socialism is ok if you voluntary opt-in. Voluntary/Consent is central point in libertarianism.
Yes both are problems but libertarianism claims to solve only one of those. For the other one, if you are unable, follow/place-your-trust-on someone else. There is no need to solve one problem by creating bigger problem.
Consent is not the same as informed consent. Libertarian utopia is ripe for getting people tricked and robbed while technically fulfilling contracts to the letter.
Consider what would happen in, say, medicine without the informed part.
And saying you can switch... Typically not due to availability, lack of information and monopolies.
The other question is who enforces these contracts and who prevents these people from abusing their means.
Keep in mind, this is only possible as long as there's an actual alternative to Uber. Once they, or any other multinational for that matter, manage to establish a monopoly you will be flat out of other options. Even worse: Once they are well aware of their monopoly they will abuse it in every imaginable way. Don't be evil.. at least until you are big enough.
>It seems pretty clear to me which is more immoral.
No, it's not. If you dislike "government" so much you are always free to move to a place where there's less or even none of it. Case in point: Somalia has barely any government to speak of, pretty much no regulations and very high rates of firearms ownership, it's basically "libertarian utopia". Strangely enough, barely any libertarians would want to live there?
No, it's not. If you dislike "government" so much you are always free to move to a place where there's less or even none of it. Case in point: Somalia has barely any government to speak of, pretty much no regulations and very high rates of firearms ownership, it's basically "libertarian utopia". Strangely enough, barely any libertarians would want to live there?
Oh, a Somalia expert. I was wondering when one of these people would pop up in this discussion. I'm sure I can learn a lot from you actually - I don't know much about the place at all.
Can I ask you why you think Somalia doesn't have any government to speak of? Somalia has had a central government since 2007 - but I'm sure you already knew that.
I'm also curious about your opinion of the Barre Administration and the (presumably) high standard of living the government provided during that time.
I never claimed to be an "expert" on Somalia, I merely pointed out that it's among those countries that have what supposedly makes a good "libertarian utopia": Barely any regulations, due to the government being ineffective at actually enforcing them, and high rates of firearms ownership.
>Somalia has had a central government since 2007 - but I'm sure you already knew that.
They have some government going that is barely able to project itself across the country.
>I'm also curious about your opinion of the Barre Administration and the (presumably) high standard of living the government provided during that time.
That's a non-sequitur, just because some governments failed/had been ineffective at what they're supposed to do, does not mean that all of them are failing/are ineffective at what they are trying to do.
I'm calling you out for your incredibly cheap tactic of bringing up Somalia. I'd bet money on the fact that you know nothing about it and would struggle to locate it on an un-labelled map of Africa. If you aren't able to tell me anything interesting on the quality of life when the country had a central government vs when it didn't, you should probably keep your mouth shut on the subject.
I might as well ask someone advocating for social democracy to move to North Korea, because "it's among those countries that have what supposedly makes a good 'socialist utopia'". I would rightly be panned for this. Doubly so if I had not the faintest idea of North Koreas history or situation.
Even ignoring the fact that Uber might become a monopoly, this ignores extrenalities caused by corporations.
You don't have to purchase chemicals from a chemical factory to be impacted by them dumping toxic chemicals into the water supply because it is cheaper.
Can you describe the steps that would lead to Uber becoming a monopoly? I can't imagine that happening without government help, can you? And if it requires that kind of help, is the problem with Uber or government?
If they continue to evade law enforcement and ignore the laws that taxi companies follow they will have an unfair advantage over taxi companies. Taxi companies have and will continue to go out of business. If you follow this reasoning to its logical extreme you have an Uber monopoly.
That might be bad for taxi companies, but what happens to Lyft in that scenario? Won't other ride sharing companies start up?
Uber only becomes a monopoly if they can keep all competition out, not just taxi companies. Taxi companies succeeded in doing that for decades by colluding with politicians to limit competition. Uber would have to adopt a similar strategy to get anything close to a monopoly.
If Uber ever reaches a saturation so high that much of congestion is made up of ubers, they will literally be blocking access to potential customers. An uber will always be near, but an "unter" won't make it to pickup in time, because of all the congesting ubers.
Driving as a service always operates on public infrastructure and medallion systems are there to protect those commons from excessive use. If uber does not like the rules of road use, they are free to purchase their own right of ways. It's America, nobody will stop them if they show up with enough cash. Also, no more speeding tickets for uber drivers!
I don't see anybody saying that corporations shouldn't be held liable for doing things which cause specific, identifiable harm. Like, for example, dumping toxic chemicals in the water.
But who holds the State accountable when they do the same thing?
Did you just make the argument that the government enforcing the laws is immoral?
When most of the laws are immoral, then I would say that it is. And an immoral law is - IMO - any time the State is doing anything other than acting, as Bastiat[1] put it, "as the collective extension to our individual right to self defense".
Saudi Arabia is a monarchy and theocratic dictatorship. The law of this country is not made by the people for the people unlike any decent democracy. Picking up the worst example on the planet to try to make your argument look good discredits you.
Ok, so how about slavery. Or eugenics laws in the 1930s. Or Jim Crow. Or anti-sodomy laws in the US. Or women not being allowed to vote. Or like, any, of the literally thousands of horribly immoral laws that have been on the books in literally every country on the planet.
Like other drugs many people experiment with in high school, a little won't hurt you but prolonged exposure to Rand can lead to cognitive deficits and antisocial behavior.
I experimented with socialism in High School. I was actually reading authors much more banal than Ayn Rand could ever hope to be - like Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky. Really glad I grew out of that stage.
Gave up half way through Atlas shrugged I'm afraid. I did enjoy how accurately it depicted socialists and social democrats though - as I was reading it I could help but laugh as I've come across people talking like that so often.
OP was arguing that because they don't like the law it's immoral to enforce. Whether or not OP likes the law really has nothing to do with whether the law is immoral.
Not sure I read it that way, but okay. But that reading requires you to ask "why", and sometimes it feels very much like the government lost the consent of the governed a looooong time ago..
If the government had lost the consent of the governed it wouldn't have been elected / it won't be elected again. That's basically what all this is about. Sure, democracy, elections, all this things may not be the best system, but it is very effective at damage control. You don't govern well? You're out after four or five years. All other system known have far worse damage control.
Alternative view: The government has lost the consent of the governed, but people are so engrossed in other stuff that they don't do anything about it due to how painful the upheaval would be.
In other words, it's tolerated rather than accepted.
Every revolution in history is proof that this doesn't really work. If the government really looses the approval of the governed and not just of a small minority revolution will follow.
But now is the first time in history with simultaneously our standard of living, access to information, and most relevantly access to distraction.
I'd wager (but don't have the chops to prove) that if you could plot displeasure with government on a graph, and and draw a line where overthrow historically results, the height of that line would roughly correlate with the increase in leisure time, access to entertainment, and decrease in GDP per worker.
You can't really stop unlicensed autonomous vehicles from running red lights in your home town though. Just because you don't pay them, doesn't mean they don't affect you.
I'm not going to change your mind on statism, and don't really want to, but a key component of statism is the massive power advantage they have over you. A multinational does not have a state level power advantage, but they're still much more powerful than you. If they choose to act in an immoral way, there's not much you can do about it.
You can, but if that decision is not sufficiently common in your area, and you don't have sufficient resources to relocate before the problem becomes acute, you may find your practical choices constrained in such a way that you are left with no realistic choice for necessary functions but to use Uber.
> What can I do if I don't like the service a state provides - can I opt out and stop paying?
You can (and history has lots of examples of people doing just that), but if that decision is not sufficiently popular in your area... well, the same as for Uber, above. The particular manner in which the lack of options, may, depending on the particular state and the particular service involved, be more dramatic than the case with most corporate goods or services. OTOH, depending on the particular state and service, you may have a lot more direct input into the decision making behind providing the service and how the state reacts to opting out, in the first place.
Uber isn't a monopoly. For all the scummy things that Uber has done, they have avoided the most scummy thing they could do to become a monopoly: driver lock-in, making their drivers commit to only drive for them and not for Lyft.
Susan Fowler's post has me pretty fed up with Uber, but for some reason greyballing doesn't bother me at all.
> they have avoided the most scummy thing they could do to become a monopoly: driver lock-in, making their drivers commit to only drive for them and not for Lyft.
Arguably the only reason why is because it would mean they'd have to classify the drivers as employees rather than contractors.
Look up "uber driver incentives". They are clearly working on it, just without going all "second commandment" to protect their "not an employer" status.
This is a super naive view of how markets work (and I'm very surprised to see this out of someone who calls the state a "corporation").
I don't really mind Uber as a service; they get me where I need to go. I hate Uber as a market participant. They change the economics of taxis, of existing black car services, of public transit, etc., i.e., of every single thing I'm using because I'm not using Uber.
I haven't used Uber in years, but I want it out of the markets that I try to buy transit service in, because it affects those markets.
Because that's the primary way that governments aren't just corporations: if the rulers (the majority, in a democracy) believe that Uber needs to go out, or at least needs to stop participating in the market in certain ways, the government can enforce that via its monopoly on violence.
This has historically worked pretty well for human society; for instance, if someone gets the clever idea to participate in a market by impersonating an existing, trusted market participant, or offering counterfeit goods, or using slave labor to plant cotton, or whatever other bad idea that is short-term profitable, the government can step in and say that this isn't long-term good for society.
Whether Portland is correct to stop Uber is a legitimate matter of debate, but that Portland legitimately has the ability to choose to stop Uber is, I'd hope, uncontroversial.
Not "a majority," "the government". It happens to be the case that the government in the US is (in theory, and usually in practice) majority rule, but in a monarchy, the ruler has the unilateral right to decide who gets to participate in the market or not.
If you don't think this is legitimate, two questions:
1. Is it legitimate for the government to restrict foreign participation in markets, or to place rules like tariffs on their participation?
2. Was it inappropriate for the greater military force in the US in the 1860s to decide that Southern plantation owners could not participate in the cotton market if they continued to use slave labor?
For what it's worth, the US government requires income tax to be paid on foreign earnings, even while living and working overseas. To avoid that, you'd have to also renounce citizenships, which is expensive and at the government's discretion.
To sum up, there was a $450 renunciation fee as well as a $450 fee for relinquishment, but both were jacked up from $450 to $2,350. This does not include exit taxes and the like, but while $4700 might seem trivial to the well-heeled, it's a far cry from free (and unilateral).
You're right, I was wrong. I forgot to check because the fees are set by federal rule but then billed in local currencies at different consular offices around the world, and the fee schedule is (oddly) not centralized at state.gov.
No problem. I was fully prepared for the possibility that something had changed with the administration. I tend to follow politics pretty closely, but not all factually true statements maintain their truthiness over time.
> [the US] requires income tax to be paid on foreign earnings
Which is a common reason to wish to renounce US citizenship. But there is a trap which prevents renunciation because you don't like to be unfairly taxed:
"If the Department of Homeland Security determines that the renunciation is motivated by tax avoidance purposes, the individual will be found inadmissible to the United States under Section 212(a)(10)(E) of the Immigration and Nationality Act"
That doesn't prevent renunciation to avoid taxes, it just prevents you from coming back.and enjoying the benefits Americans taxes pay for after you decide you don't want to be an American because that means paying taxes.
What wear and tear of the road am I contributing to?
Or to the aging of the infrastructure?
When I go on holiday, am I obligated to leave my water turned on? My power? My cable service? Or can I turn it off, and come back?
Fun fact, for many immigration classes, a US citizen is required to sign a security document saying that even though you are paying SS and other taxes, that the government, for ten years, may come after them for every dollar of benefits you may claim.
So an eighteen year old who has yet to pay taxes can claim these benefits, but a thirty year old immigrant has to pay taxes without access to services for ten years (well, with access but with the government reserving a right of recovery for any use).
> If I don't like Uber, I can... stop using Uber. What can I do if I don't like the service a state provides - can I opt out and stop paying? No, my only option is to flee - which the state will often try and prevent you doing anyway.
Flee? So states are a prison? Last time I checked it was pretty easy to leave a state which equals 'stop using Uber'. Fleeing implies you aren't allowed to go, that's wrong. The only problem is no other state (or country or whatever) is forced to accept you as a new customer.
And who would want a customer that doesn't want to pay for the products ..
Actually even if you "flee," the US has FATCA and taxation on world wide income. If you want to renounce, there's a $2300 fee, plus you have to show 5 years of tax compliance. If you have enough money, there's even an exit tax.
> If I don't like Uber, I can... stop using Uber. What can I do if I don't like the service a state provides - can I opt out and stop paying? No, my only option is to flee - which the state will often try and prevent you doing anyway.
You can't evade a service like Uber either which does have an impact on the commons just like a Government does. You can avoid giving Uber your money but that isn't quite the same thing.
The state is an entity designed to benefit all at the cost of the few, but thanks to the corruption of uneven power, the state ends up benefitting those in power at the cost of those not in power.
I would argue that when you give a subset of a population an institutionalized monopoly on the user of force, you're always going to get bad government eventually. That's why the State should never have the power to do anything that an individual could not justly do.
>I would argue that when you give a subset of a population an institutionalized monopoly on the user of force, you're always going to get bad government eventually.
Um. A state is a place that happens to constitute the jurisdiction of its government. A corporation, huge or not, is a legal entity chartered (in the U.S.) by the government of a state (q.v. supra).
I have far, far, far, far, far more avenues to influence the US government than I have to influence a large company which is acting in a harmful manner. If a company is spewing pollution into the air, my not using them isn't going to do jack shit to stop them from polluting the air.
In a world where multinationals have the power to evade the law in a deliberate and systematic way, AND the government uses the same techniques to spy on its own people for its own motives, it's easy for individuals to claim that neither group of entities need this kind of coercive power over others.
I agree with your statements at large, but considering Uber was not aware of any active investigations, they're under no obligation to assist police in enacting a sting.
I'm not suggesting that it is, as there are semantically many problems with it, but an argument could be made that this is more of an extension of one's fifth amendment rights to remain silent than it is evading the law. Starting a company to drive people around is (depending on one's interpretation) either presumptively legal or presumptively illegal. Let's assume that many people view it as the former. Is it silly to assume that Uber might have anticipated the Portland government's assumption that it was the latter?
What if it were considered legal in every municipality worldwide except for Portland? That doesn't make Portland wrong or right, but at the same time, it doesn't make Uber wrong for the assumption that someone might find it to be presumptively unlawful.
I think that there are plenty of valid reasons to hate Uber, but anticipating a law enforcement response to something Uber deemed presumptively lawful seems like a pretty rational set of actions.
The difference between the government and the corporation is the government can confiscate your property, take your liberty, and end your life. A corporation can do none of those things.
A bad government is far, far, far more dangerous than a bad corporation.
The law did grant them powers to run pieces of this scheme that a judge decided they took way too far. And they got to run it for years before a judge stopped it.
And AFAIK no one running Macy's went to jail, so the penalty isn't the same as I'd get if I, say, imprisoned my neighbors and stole their credit cards to get payment for packages I think they stole from the porch.
They exceeded what they could legally do, and were stopped.
Contrast that with, say, civil forfeiture. Cops can stop you for little reason, and if they find cash in your car, they can take it. It's all perfectly legal. This is not theoretical, it happens all the time and enormous amounts of money are installed.
First: if you're involved in an online discussion, and your interest is in arriving at a greater truth rather than promoting some previously established premise, you might care to consider the principle of charity, that is: reading your interlocutor's comments in the most charitable way possible. http://philosophy.lander.edu/oriental/charity.html
In part:
The principle of charity is a methodological principle—ideas can be critiqued after an adequate understanding is achieved. The original presumption of setting aside our own beliefs and assuming the new ideas are true is only a provisional presumption.
Secondly, you're committing whataboutism, or more formerly, tu quoque. The behaviour of governments, of themselves, has little bearing on the behaviour of corporations.
More significantly, power and aggression are not limited to any one form, they exist independently, and are innate in any number of institutions (or no institutions at all).
You may be familiar with the concept, and perhaps hold it against governments, that they claim a monopoly on the use of force. If you'll trace the origins of that comment, it comes from Max Weber, who ascribes to government a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. That is: it is only governments who can claim that legitimacy, and the concept doesn't mean an indiscriminate use of force.
If you don't grant the monopoly on legitimacy to governments, then you are allowing legitimacy to other institutions, possibly any institutions. Force and abuse of power are innate. They don't exist only in government, they exist independent of government.
What government is, is a structure, a mechanism, for channelling and controlling political power, and attempting to use it, accountably to some vault of power itself (the people in a democratic or republican government, other sources in others), for the improvement of society as a whole.
As with all machines, they sometimes malfuntion. As with many machines, they have a tendency to not function properly. The incidental failures are not of themselves an indictment of the concept as a whole.
And, if you remove government, or worse, align it, without accountability to the people as a whole, in the interests of business or pecuniary interests alone, you end up with the worst of abuses. You may or may not be familar with some of these:
The settlement of the Americas, through what might be considered a public-private partnership on the part of several nations (Spain, Portugal, England, France, Holland, Russia, largely), resulted in the genocide of a native population once numbering perhaps 40 - 50 millions. What this lacks in the intensity of nuclear annihilation, it greatly exceeds in magnitude.
The public-private partnership of Belgium in the Congo saw untold atrocities, including the unhanding of hundreds of thousands or millions of Congo natives. See Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness.
Or of England, the East India Company, its private government and army within India, and the Opium Wars against China -- chemical, biolical, and conventional war against two entire cultures.
Labour unionisation, a concept and principle defended by Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and other classical economists, say violent opposition by factory and mine owners particularly in the UK and United States. U.S. Steel, the West Virginia Mountain Wars, the Wobblies, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, and more.
Industrial accidents have killed or destroyed many tens or hundreds of thousands: the Halifax, Galveston, Port Chicago, and West, Texas, explosions -- some entirely private, some public-private partnerships. Mining accidents claimed an average of greater than 2,000 lives/year for much of the first half of the 20th century, statistics tabulated by the US Department of Labour, and available online. That's on the order of 100,000 souls over the century, virtually all of their deaths preventable. The Union Carbide Bhopol disaster. Dam failures, including Johnstown, in the United States (this was the instigation of the Red Cross as a disaster releif organisation, and of significant concepts expanding liability law). For public-private parternships, the Vajont dam disaster, claiming 2500 lives. And showing that poor management, planning, engineering, and response aren't solely the remit of nominally capitalist societies, the Banqiao Dam disaster of 1975, in China, in which some 170,000 souls perished, on par with your nuclear bombing example, though it was but 25 thousands who died immediately from drowning, the others were lost due to starvation and disease in the following weeks -- as I said, exceedingly poor planning and response.
For raw corporate aggression, I'd suggest the Johnson County War:
On April 5, 1892, 52 armed men rode a private, secret train north from Cheyenne. Just outside Casper, Wyo., they switched to horseback and continued north toward Buffalo, Wyo., the Johnson County seat. Their mission was to shoot or hang 70 men named on a list carried by Frank Canton, one of the leaders of this invading force.
There is the insidious poisoning of millions through lead, asbestos, tobacco, mercury, and dioxins, both generally and across specific sites, all whilst paid corporate shills actively and deliberately sowed confusion on the matter, knowing full well that their position was false. Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway have covered much of this history excellently in Merchants of Doubt.
And there's the little matter of carbon dioxide emissions and their effects on global tempeatures and ocean chemistry, known since the 1880s, and recognised as a major threat since the 1950s, but still actively denied by numerous interests more concerned over their trillions of dollars of accumulated wealth and power than over the fate of the planet they live on and the souls they share it with.
What Rothbard's "non-aggression principle" (a very late add to the Libertarian theology) does is to preemptively disarm those who would seek to employ wealth and power without limitation. It is an exceedingly bad principle for the citizenry.
The next step is the tech becomes available to everyone; unfortunately that won't happen anytime soon when it's so lucrative to create tools that can only be used large teams and megacorps/multinationals.
i agree with your point about multinationals but this case is more interesting than that. Uber isn't Coca Cola. They essentially used tactics like this to go from plucky underdog to multinational.
No, they simply went around laws that governed their market in order to outcompete other providers, and they are pretty smug about it. They never discriminated between laws that are obviously obsolete and laws that are still important.
Insurance laws and employee laws, for starters. And even medallion laws in some places, because they offset the costs cabs incur for being a part of city transportation infrastructure - costs like adapting cars to service elderly and disabled.
I totally agree with this. One thing that should be noted is that in this case the government was acting in the corrupt interest of the incumbent taxi industry. Once the system has been corrupted, tactics like Grayball become the only way for any company to disrupt the industry.
My guess is that Grayball was used most in jurisdictions with the most corruption and regulatory capture inflicted by the taxi/livery industry.
Yeah, while I'm outraged that Uber would go to such lengths to deceive the government, and by extension the people, there's certainly a bit of schadenfreude here.
Deceiving the government does not necessarily extend to deceiving the people. It depends on whether the government represents people's interest in the case. In the Portland's case in particularly, it's absolutely certain the the government was not siding with the interest of the majority of the people.
Similarly, if someone is protesting drone strike, it does not mean he is protesting against the US people.
While the majority of people would surely like to have a cheaper, faster, easier taxi service available, that doesn't mean that Uber should be allowed to operate regardless of the municipality's laws.
A city is a democracy, and Uber could certainly lead a campaign to convince citizens to get their political leaders to allow Uber to operate. There are plenty of ways to affect change that aren't just flouting the law.
The article describes deliberate behavior by Uber to circumvent the law of the land. You might not like the law, but if you believe in the principle of rule of law, then, you should not be OK with this. Otherwise, there's no reason for other companies to, say, pollute the water supply, dump smog into the air, deliver dangerously unsafe foodstuffs or products to consumers, i.e., break the law.
This is a dichotomy I reject. Laws should be evaluated on an individual basis, not as a body, otherwise you're logically obligated to be as bothered at people going 51 in a 50 as rape and murder.
On top of that, many laws are bogus, pointless, useless, more are actively harmful. Hell, Uber got a start by flaunting a law that had little actual use in the real world save for protecting monopolists with very flimsy pretenses. You probably flaunt the speed limit on a daily basis commuting to work because the alternative is less safe and less efficient for all concerned.
Let's not pretend that ignoring useless laws is a slight against some broader philosophical concept.
"Uber got a start by flaunting a law"
"You probably flaunt the speed limit"
Probably not what you intended to say.
More substantially, I think the licensing regulations for taxis (that's what you have in mind, no?) are far from obviously of "little actual use". This would vary greatly by region; I understand that London and Tokyo, for example, require taxi drivers to prove familiarity with their city's layout before being allowed to take passengers. Maybe this is to enforce a monopoly, or maybe it's for the benefit of the public. It's at least debatable.
Oh, I agree. But I would consider a business moving into an area and gaining a competitive advantage by violating local laws that constrain their competitors to be some kind of breach of the social contract, and just not cricket. If that's in fact what Uber has done - I'm not really conversant with all the details. I don't think I have an inordinate respect for the law, but I also don't think that "but the law is stupid" is a convincing defense here.
The "social contract" theory is pretty hard to defend. Lots of people have tried, few have succeeded.
I'm just about to finish up _The Problem of Political Authority_ [0] and the author (Prof at Colorado University - Boulder) gives the social contract an _excellent_ rundown.
TL;DR: There is no social contract. It's a politically useful idea not rooted in moral law.
I disagree that this is a great thing. I want to see reasonable behavior. I don't appreciate when businesses are basically out there to cheat me by any means they can conceive (offering me a different price than that guy beside me because they captured the mac address on my phone when I went into a fancy store, say).
This is an absurd false equivalency. The NSA isn't tracking down drivers, this is local law enforcement. They could be investigating a crime related to an Uber driver, but not specifically about the legality of the service.
What if you were just robbed or assaulted by a driver and Uber sends fake data about nearby cars when a cop is trying to use the app to track them down?
>What if you were just robbed or assaulted by a driver and Uber sends fake data about nearby cars when a cop is trying to use the app to track them down?
Then I'd say "wow, why is this cop using an inaccurate and highly-likely-to-be-thrown-out-in-court method when the LEA has a stingray that allows them to track the driver directly and accurately?"
>this is local law enforcement
Yes, the poor, good, moral, ethical local law enforcement with their cheap and useless cellphone MiTM.
The point being made is that a cop is not ever going to need to use Uber, that they shouldn't use Uber, and that (if for some reason they get all the way to court having used Uber as the basis for their evidence) they should have known that they shouldn't use Uber. Further, if they did need Uber, it would be by way of tracking the app's use from the suspect's phone directly.
Enough with the derailment tactics already, this doesn't make for a civil discussion. Bringing in new arguments like referring to stingrays (as itf they were owned or used universally) is BS and just a way to avoid responding to the legitimate question that was presented by the gp.
Any place using such a novel technique as tracking someone on Uber is almost universally likely to have access to a stingray. A stingray is arguably a more accurate and legally enforceable device.
And to add (edit): It's not a derailment, it's the logical conclusion that any area that has enough economic activity to be target by Uber definitely has enough resources to supply LEA with a stingray.
> What if you were just robbed or assaulted by a driver and Uber sends fake data about nearby cars when a cop is trying to use the app to track them down?
You can't use the app to track anyone down. Driver reviews of passengers and passenger reviews of drivers are annoynomous for this reason. If a cop is trying to track an uber driver they would be much better off getting the license plate from the passenger and running that through their system. Trying to randomly hail rides through the app in hopes that the abusive driver would happens to respond sounds like a waste of time when there are better alternatives.
Yeah, but you could also use it to see where cars are in the area and track them down from there? Except if you're a cop they flagged and they send you bullshit noise on purpose. I guess that's fine, right?
Yes, it is fine. Uber is a private company and its data is private. It's an interesting thought experiment but I just can't get behind the idea that a private company has a moral or ethical responsibility to ensure that data they're providing to the public via their own app doesn't mislead law enforcement. If there was a court order for the data and it was inaccurate or false that's one thing but this is completely different.
I'm totally on Uber side here. Both Uber users and drivers use the service voluntarily. It may discriminate, be unsafe, whatever, but I just ride a bus and don't care.
When government tries to interfere with voluntary exchange, it is OK to circumvent it.
See what HN says when government tries to prevent you from using certain websites or services (Signal messenger, just for example). We call it censorship, use VPNs and circumvent government regulations all the ways possible. Service providers hide behind CDNs and use domain fronting to increase collateral damage, move to liberal countries and things like that. It is the same case here.
I personally couldn't imagine ever doing something like this...but on the other hand Uber has clearly demonstrated demand for their service that's been fought at every corner with entrenched interests that have government connections, alluded to in the article.
I'm not endorsing it...but I can understand what would drive them to do it. Uber's playing dirty ball that's all about winning at all costs. The problem is that their opposition, for the most part...is ALSO playing dirty ball.
Of course not. If we got rid of all these laws the corporations would simply enforce terms of service on us, containing whatever they want. And then would argue that we freely entered into those terms of our own free will by being born where we were and when we were!
Except the government's "TOS" are constrained by the Constitution. No such constraint on corporate TOS, particularly in the thought experiment where all laws are gone.
If we got rid of all laws that occasionally inconvenience corporations, they would certainly do have the power.
You think of Microsoft's former ability to push nonstandard browser features, I think of the East India Company's former ability to subjugate entire societies.
In a world where privacy has been traded away for convenience, it's poetic justice where a startup uses data mining techniques to subvert the government. This is the same government that would have no issues to use the same techniques to spy on its own people for its own motives.
I'm neither on Uber nor the government's side in this case, just simply making an observation. The lack of data privacy seems to be a double-edged sword for users and government/law enforcement alike.