It's easy to imagine engineers working on small parts of the system, and never really connecting the dots that the whole point is to evade law enforcement.
I would volunteer to work on that project because its whole point is to evade law enforcement. A lot of us (hackers/technologists) take a pretty dim view of arbitrary State regulations and "laws" and are quite happy to work to evade them. Most people who fit the techno-libertarian or cypherpunk mentality would probably feel the same way.
And here I thought that's just teenagers "who fit the techno-libertarian or cypherpunk mentality", and only until they finally grow up.
The mindset you're describing is pretty self-centered and ignorant of how societies work. The law is there to reconcile conflicting interest so that people don't start using violence to pursue their goals. Techno-libertarian teenagers should imagine what would happen if some people they disagree with contracted that libertarian spirit.
ETA:
Announcing two new startups - Uber Biotech and Uber Medicare. Because what could possibly go wrong from arbitrarily avoiding regulations for the sake of profits.
Uber is... Anarchy? Like in the movie Thunderdome? Sure.
Their opposition wasn't arbitrary; they knew they could provide a better service outside the monopolistic constraints that were already in place. So they fought those battles and because of those battles, everyone gets to experience a much better ride service than the antiquated taxi system.
Come on. They didn't fought for your better taxi experience. They fought for your money!
While your point could stand in theory, could work with a different company, it's Uber we're talking about! Those guys who keep showing, since day one, that they don't give a flying fuck about people beyond the money they get for them! The company painted itself a pretty consistent image over the years, and it's the image of a smart asshole with too much money to spend.
Not uber in particular; the anarchism is in the mentality that "you want me to circumvent the law and avoid law enforcement? in principle, I'm in!" Which seemed to be the position mindcrime was taking.
Everyone gets to experience fancy VC subsidized rides, in any case. I don't see any clear argument that uber is actually more economically efficient than a standard cab...
My time is worth something; standing on a corner at 3pm, checking the time, calling the main office - "oh yeah, he's five minutes away", 45 minutes still waiting, call again..
With Uber/Lyft, I can see when they'll arrive. I can plan to do something with that time if the wait is long enough. I can quickly redirect them to where I am if there's a misunderstanding.
There are plenty taxi of companies worldwide that utilize mobile applications without also showing a disregard for law. The two things don't have to go together. From outside-US perspective, Uber is much less innovative than you'd think. They look simply like assholes with lot of VC money to burn on lawyers.
While you're congratulating the world, I'm in Lincoln, NE still waiting on a cab at 4pm.
I'm an adult; if I want to enter into an agreement to pay someone else to give me a ride and I'm not harming anyone else, then I will. Fuck their stupid arbitrary laws.
While subjective, there is a difference between breaking laws / fighting authority for moral reasons, and breaking laws for financial gain. Yeah, maybe you as an engineer would feel morally righteous for "fighting the man", but Uber doesn't care about that -- it just wants $$$.
Uber is fighting the man, in effort to capture $$$/market. That's their market. A business makes money?
As much as you wouldn't like to admit, they've broken through a market that was once monopolized and the cities had zero interest in doing anything about it.
You now have superior car ride services in part for the work they've done in the market. They have raised the bar.
Exactly the point: the law has ceased to serve the people and has become irrelevant. It's on the government to change it in order for society to progress, not hold us back.
Remember, people are using Uber. Citizens. Voters. They are voting with their dollar for the superior product. The government's role has become obsolete in the transaction.
Yeah, Rosa Parks civil disobedience was a for profit operation! Please stop insulting her. Uber is the embodiment of corporate evil, these people think they are above the law.
It's strange how I need to copy and paste my arguments on this thread, like you know Uber was itself astro-turfing HN right now.
Are you also going to take the same generous view towards people evading State regulations and laws that you don't like? Because if you are only okay with people evading laws that you don't like, but they should obey the ones you do like, then you are setting yourself above the law. That way lies authoritarianism.
Not sure how civil disobedience leads to authoritarianism rather than the opposite. Also, by your reasoning, civil disobedience is never justified. And does Trump being President change your reasoning at all?
Civil disobedience is breaking the law one perceives as unjust (or refusing to follow it) to make a point about the legal system. It includes accepting the consequences of one's actions. What Uber does is garden variety illegal business practice. No societal benefit in mind, just money to be made.
Disobedience would be refusing to take part in such scummy schemes, and making a huge stink over it.
> Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws
PROFESSED. To twist that on this on its head, and use another sociopath to excuse it is hilarious. But since you ask: no, that's even MORE reason to not accept this bullshit.
So then is the country clerk that refused to sign marriage certificates for gays a hero too? She was just practicing civil disobedience.
Or perhaps she should just move very slowly when it comes to same sex couples, just never can get the work done. She isn't refusing it just never gets done.
Again, civil disobedience accepts the legal consequences of its actions and is part of a vocal, public effort to change the laws the person or group deems unjust. The entire premise is to create better laws for everyone to abide by.
Uber uses deception to shield itself from the consequences of its criminal actions and consolidate wealth for itself. I'm assuming you're not trolling, so think long and hard about your own understanding of society the next time you want to compare MLK to an anarcho-capitalist megacorp.
Consider further; how did the narrative of Uber needing to break the law to disrupt (read: try to overthrow) the existing taxi industry morph into excusing their practices as affecting positive social change? Remember, the context of the boycotts during the American civil rights movement was never to "disrupt" southern businesses.
Again, there are plenty of cities where Uber have been successful where they didn't break any laws. Likewise there are many cities that have banned Uber where they don't operate. The number of cities where they operate in a grey area of regulation are often few and often for short periods of time.
Uber are more interested in operating in a regulated environment, hence all their lobbying and hence why their first hires in new cities are usually government liaison people.
Uber is equally successful in cities where it was initially thought illegal, in cities where it was always legal and in cities where it became legal.
Many other companies have ridden the coattails of the regulatory work that Uber has done.
If they were an "anarcho-capitalistic" business then they simply wouldn't care for the laws anywhere. They'd be operating in Nevada, Austin and in all of these other cities that have since banned them. They would be signing up drivers with no license or background checks. They wouldn't need any government liaison people. They'd do no lobbying, etc. and as bad as they are - they aren't that company (although many want them to be)
"Ridden the coattails of the regulatory work that Uber has done"? I think the problem is that you have a very poor grasp of how the branches of US government (legislative in particular) interact with businesses, and thus don't really know how to distinguish among any agent that effects legislative change.
First learn about, and then read some commentaries on the functions and history of the three branches of US government. Then learn about how lobbying works, then read about the various rights movements that've occurred in the US.
I don't see how they aren't "creating better laws for everyone to abide by".
They're not a monopoly on ridesharing and because of their efforts converting the hearts and minds of consumers and politicians others can do it too like Juno, Tesla, Lyft, etc.
Assertion: medallion regulations are currently onerous and against the financial interests of cities and citizens.
Uber's public and explicit proposal to change the medallion system: " "
Your statement applies to literally every company that has lobbyists. You need way more than that to present evidence for your claim.
Again, civil disobedience's core mechanism for gaining the support needed to enact the change it publicly and explicitly advocates for is to accept the consequences of breaking the unjust laws.
How far does your scofflaw streak go? Is this different from adding law enforcement blocking controls to any illegal tech product? Should everyone get to decide what laws to follow?
I think you are describing anarcho-capitalism, not libertarianism.
But here's the thing: What we have now is anarchy. It's just that the powerful make the laws, and con the masses. Some places it looks like capitalism, other places more like kleptocracy. But just about everywhere, the game is rigged.
The civil rights movement was in no way about the abolition of the rule of law. Hitler's promise of greatness actually did seduce a ton of the economically and socially devastated German population. Hitler was a known outlaw. Even if you can't yet think your premise through to the end, at least consider the consistency and truth of your own words.
But wouldn't it bother those same people to think they're working for a Megacorp instead? Maybe I have a dim view of law enforcement, but wouldn't I also not want to work for Ares Macrotechnology?
Some of them, yes. Depends on the Megacorp, I think. I mean, I work for a Megacorp now, while working on bootstrapping a startup on the side. But I don't think I'd work for Uber (not because of this though).
But you know that upfront. You can take appropriate precautions up front. If this is actually illegal, the poor engineers could be looking at conspiracy charges at least.
You know the danger and you're doing it with your eyes open. They probably didn't know, and i'd bet Uber sacrifices a few engineers just like VW did.
Assuming you're against -arbitrary- people and entities operating above the law, how do you square that with the opinion in your comment?
A broader point is that its 2017; we have a decent grasp of chaos theory. We know that self regulation in chaotic systems takes the form of hard to predict cycles of extreme variation. We know that stabilizing these systems requires external adjustments to parameters; some dampening here, a little increase there, etc. Personally, I've grown to quite enjoy being a part of an economy that has some measure of stability introduced to it.
The problem is once your professional ethics makes this ok, you start to slip further into the rabbit hole.
That's how it becomes OK for a company to facilitate engineering managers to exert pressure where women either agree to have sex with them or suffer career consequences, using corporate institutions to do so.
Hopefully most people around you don't feel that way -- your immaturity will ultimate catch up to you.
Grow up. You're defending destroying society so you can get what YOU think is right (based on how much it increases your net worth?). Did you similarly fight for the end of copyright? Did you join the pirate party? What about racial equality or gender equality ? Did you fight for those with the same fervor you propose to fight tor Ubers profits? For a company to replace a million others? that's all that's happening btw - one million small businesses are being replaced by one huge one, with a price advantage only because it erodes or destroyers worker protections.
Get a grip. Under any reasonable government Uber would be destroyed tomorrow under the same argument as pirate bay or a torrent tracker - it's conductive to illegality.
I would volunteer to work on that project because its whole point is to evade law enforcement. A lot of us (hackers/technologists) take a pretty dim view of arbitrary State regulations and "laws" and are quite happy to work to evade them. Most people who fit the techno-libertarian or cypherpunk mentality would probably feel the same way.