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Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

reuters.com

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Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#401

Post by thesimon »

zigzigzag wrote: post #326
cookiecaper wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Truck driver is the most common profession in most states. You'll find that "software engineer" is becoming the most common profession in many states where truck driver previously was. [0] If truck drivers become software engineers, that's a big quality of life upgrade. You'll also find that prior to the computer revolution, "secretary" was the most common job, because it took a lot of people to coordinate normal bu…

Exactly. There's another possibility that nobody really likes to think about: automated trucking won't even start for decades or more. The railway industry is a good example of this. Trains run on dedicated pathways with hardly any traffic, they're the perfect example of a system that should be entirely computer controllable. Yet the world still has many, many train drivers. Computers could have and arguably should h…

>The London Underground is a good example of these dynamics in action.

DLR on the other hand has been driverless for ages.

Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#402

Post by Trundle »

new299 wrote: post #370
Trundle wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxi drivers risk losing the difference between what they can earn working as a taxi driver and what they can earn on ride sharing apps. It's probably a fair drop but hardly all of their income.

Generally you pay for some kind of permit to be a taxi driver. A quick google suggests in excess of 150KUSD: https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2015/08/05/what-about-taxi... So they potentially have a lot to lose...

Generally you rent a permit/work for a company that owns them as a taxi driver. If there are taxi drivers buying medallions then they're 1) a small minority and 2)effectively business owners that are making a capital investment. Part of why one gets a return on investments is that they're assuming risk.

Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#403

Post by yummyfajitas »

icantdrive55 wrote: post #257
Trundle wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of them don't want to go back to school or get technical training... What do we tell the taxi and truck drivers when Uber shows up with self-drivers, etc.? Uhhh, how about "suck it up and do it anyway"? I know plenty of people on hn are all about the "making the world a better place" shtick and would work anyway/for the sake of it but for the vast majority of people work straight up means doing things you otherw…

I don't fully get your comment. The thesis of your argument is, "Many of them don't want to go back to school or get technical training... What do we tell the taxi and truck drivers when Uber shows up with self-drivers, etc." At the end of you comment, I noticed you brought up a basic income. I think you realized the work force is really shrinking, and becoming very exploitive. When was the last Labor Union formed in…

Let's take a white 40-50 male...competing with immigrants who see nothing unusual about putting four to a bedroom

Juxtaposed without a giant wall of text in between to highlight the fundamental complaint: a white 40-50 American male somehow deserves a dramatically better life than a Mexican.

Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#404

Post by alva »

raquo wrote: post #177
maverick_iceman wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't we heard this same spiel for the last 150 years? The revolution is always one week away and this is a time-invariant statement.

Haven't we had revolutions in the last 150 years? Not in the US, but other countries had a few. But that's not the point. You don't need an armed uprising when you have elections. You need populism. Trump / Brexit / far right parties are not "revolution".

Not in a historical sense, but Trump and Brexit are definitely a revolution in my mind. The magnitude at which they are breaking away from the political arc of the last 25 years is massive.

Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#405

Post by naveen99 »

chrisbennet wrote: post #332
pfisch wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if software developers are made redundant by AI then we have already transitioned to a new type of economy because virtually every other job has been replaced except service industry. If we are in some impossible world where that isn't true then I would say they should maybe go into medicine, engineering or law I guess. Your question is too open ended to answer really. I have like 10 follow up questions to unde…

The question was meant as a thought exercise aimed at my fellow developers. I was hoping they would ask themselves, "What will I do once my field is disrupted?" I was hoping that they could feel a little empathy for others whose livelihood has been turned upside down. (I'm not directly responding to you, just your points which are typical responses.) The general response when faced with uncomfortable questions is to…

Why do you think medicine is ripe for disruption ?

Unemployment rate for doctors is around 1%.

The acceptance rate for medical school in the usa is 40%.

developers and cabbies are welcome to retrain.

To me, cabbies are local government employees. Let the government that licenses them pay them, just like they pay teachers and cops. So I am fine with this subsidy.

Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#407

Post by lgieron »

zigzigzag wrote: post #308
armenarmen wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard the banditry argument. But it makes sense. Assuming that some variety of Asimov's laws will apply to self driving trucks they won't be able to defend their cargo (beyond locking and calling for help) it makes sense that there would be some sort of security detail. I wonder if, in the style of Ned Lud, if the robbers will in part be the same displaced truck drivers?

It doesn't really make sense. Banditry requires someone to threaten. If there's no driver and the machine is locked in transit anyway, then all you need are doors where time to cut them open is greater than time for police to arrive and banditry doesn't make sense. Without people you can also do tricks like electrifying the chassis, so anyone who tries to touch it gets an electric shock.

> Without people you can also do tricks like electrifying the chassis, so anyone who tries to touch it gets an electric shock.

Or a computer vision system connected to a machine gun. (sarcasm)

Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#408

Post by 120101201 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #396
102310201 wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your premise is wrong: There hardly is any innovation. At least in Europe I've never had any kind of trouble just picking up the phone and, you know, getting a competent cab driver very quickly. But The U.S. seems to be some third world country that can manufacture nukes and computers but is unable to get the most basic things right. This apparently applies to banking, the electricity grid, health care and lots of ot…

Doesn't "pick up the phone and get a competent driver very quickly" describe Uber perfectly? So America gets it right and still can't win.

Did you even read the "innovation" part?

Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#410

Post by fsloth »

shaftoe wrote: post #400
TeMPOraL wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uhhh, how about "suck it up and do it anyway"? You have it backwards. Humans have always had to suck it up because this is the default, natural state. But one would think in XXI century we could do better. That we can show some civilization, some compassion, instead of telling the unfortunate among us that they should suck it up. They're not our slaves to be forced into productive jobs, or resources to be used up a…

The world doesn't exist for anyone's personal comfort, nor should it. This is the argument of luddites, nobility, and the lazy. The slave metaphor makes no sense: slaves have a master who cares for his investment. Free people have none and must care for and provide for themselves. To assume they cannot is degrading.

"The world doesn't exist for anyone's personal comfort, nor should it. "

The world does not care if one is comfortable or not. We humans, on the other hand, do. Given our level of economic output the question is ethical and political, not ontological.

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