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General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

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Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#91

Post by Dowwie »

redthrowaway wrote: post #80

It's sad to see the tech community, which used to be very libertarian, move towards a hard-left progressive view of social issues. It wasn't that long ago that Friedman's arguments against equal pay laws[1] would have held sway here. The idea that the market punishes bigotry and so can be relied upon to advance freedom and equality used to be a core belief of the tech community. Now, it seems companies are falling ov…

A libertarian response to your comment would be that hosts don't have to use AirBnB. Hosts are free to choose

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#92

Post by tomohawk »

Vintila wrote: post #57
jacquesm wrote: post #47

Airbnb can do whatever they want in property they own/lease. However since they 'share' (funny word that) people's private homes they will have to live with the fact that those people will refuse guests for whatever reasons they feel like, this is the flip side of the coin of not having a relationship where they are in control (employer, employee, owner of the premises). Airbnb wants to have its cake and eat it too,…

Yes, Airbnb can do what they want with their property, namely their website and business. If you don't like it then they even outline what you can do in the linked article. This knife cuts both ways.

This is not the problem. The problem is that Airbnb is making demands on what people do or don't do with their own homes far beyond providing bed and/or breakfast. They're making demands about how people think. My head is not their property. My home is not their property.

It's improper and intolerant of them to make these kinds of demands. In fact, it's a form of totalitarianism to not do business with anyone who doesn't think exactly like us.

As an airbnb guest, I'm respectful of the fact that I'm a guest in someone's home. Their home, their rules. It seems like airbnb is trying to change that dynamic. Now, anyone who wants to be a rude guest can complain about unspecified group think violations. Sad.

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#93

Post by tjic »

redthrowaway wrote: post #80

It's sad to see the tech community, which used to be very libertarian, move towards a hard-left progressive view of social issues. It wasn't that long ago that Friedman's arguments against equal pay laws[1] would have held sway here. The idea that the market punishes bigotry and so can be relied upon to advance freedom and equality used to be a core belief of the tech community. Now, it seems companies are falling ov…

Agreed. The progressive groupthink (quite different from the community twenty years ago) makes me sad.

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#94

Post by 3pt14159 »

redthrowaway wrote: post #80

It's sad to see the tech community, which used to be very libertarian, move towards a hard-left progressive view of social issues. It wasn't that long ago that Friedman's arguments against equal pay laws[1] would have held sway here. The idea that the market punishes bigotry and so can be relied upon to advance freedom and equality used to be a core belief of the tech community. Now, it seems companies are falling ov…

We became leftists because libertarianism is harsh and unrealistic.

Most people are not smart enough for a libertarian world they get swayed by propaganda too easily and are unable to judge risk correctly. It's more efficient to have technocrats guide the public and protect them from short sighted mistakes and evil corporations. Most people don't even understand the difference between a percentage point and a percent and these same people, if left to their own devices, create hellish cities and countries. If we were all intelligent technocrats libertarianism (in the minarchist sense) would still be wrong, but it wouldn't fail so hilariously since we'd all have contracts for nearly everything, but as it stands now it's completely unrealistic to imagine a Gary Johnson United States.

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#95

Post by tjic »

boards2x wrote: post #88
Lucadg wrote: post #42

I used to work in a camping site in Northern Italy many years ago. We were openly told not to accept people from the south of Italy as they statistically were more noisy. I didn't like it but it actually made sense. It just wasn't viable to mix Germans and Napoleteans in a tight space. I guess Germans earned that right with politness. Then one day I let gipsies in and I almost got fired.

What a sad and pathetic excuse for discrimination based on culture and values. You're not only generalizing you seem to be in denial. Pay a visit to any popular vacation holiday in Spain or Portugal and test for yourself who are the loud, abnocious and ugly Europeans. We are doing our best to avoid any concentration of brits, Germans and Dutch on our holidays for the exact reason. We recently bought a house in Spain…

> What a sad and pathetic excuse for discrimination based on culture and values

Discrimination based on skin color seems self evidently bad, but discrimination based on culture and values seems not just not bad, but actively good!

Why should i associate with someone who regards theft as okay? Why would i want to hire someone who thinks that disagreements should be solved with yelling or fistfights?

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#96

Post by foldr »

jacquesm wrote: post #73
raesene9 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure they couldn't reliably prove it, but sample based testing + public consequences for those found to be in breach of ToS (e.g. some form of financial penalty) would likely make people who intended to discriminate less likely to use the AirBnB platform.

Maybe. But the more likely outcome is that people will simply continue to do what they do until they get kicked off and that every wanna-be renter of some Airbnb listed property is going to claim 'discrimination' from now on when they are refused.

>But the more likely outcome is that people will simply continue to do what they do until they get kicked off

So, that would be successful enforcement of the policy.

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#97

Post by hannob »

tomohawk wrote: post #92
Vintila wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Airbnb can do what they want with their property, namely their website and business. If you don't like it then they even outline what you can do in the linked article. This knife cuts both ways.

This is not the problem. The problem is that Airbnb is making demands on what people do or don't do with their own homes far beyond providing bed and/or breakfast. They're making demands about how people think. My head is not their property. My home is not their property. It's improper and intolerant of them to make these kinds of demands. In fact, it's a form of totalitarianism to not do business with anyone who doe…

What's wrong with that? You don't have to use their service. They are not in a situation that they have to provide service to everyone.

I don't see a problem when a company says "if you're a racist you're not allowed to use our service".

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#98

Post by foldr »

tjic wrote: post #95
boards2x wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a sad and pathetic excuse for discrimination based on culture and values. You're not only generalizing you seem to be in denial. Pay a visit to any popular vacation holiday in Spain or Portugal and test for yourself who are the loud, abnocious and ugly Europeans. We are doing our best to avoid any concentration of brits, Germans and Dutch on our holidays for the exact reason. We recently bought a house in Spain…

> What a sad and pathetic excuse for discrimination based on culture and values Discrimination based on skin color seems self evidently bad, but discrimination based on culture and values seems not just not bad, but actively good! Why should i associate with someone who regards theft as okay? Why would i want to hire someone who thinks that disagreements should be solved with yelling or fistfights?

You're essentially saying that the mere existence of a prejudice justifies discrimination. You think that most Napoleteans are thieves, so in your mind, this justifies discriminating against Napoleteans. Similarly, a racist may think that most black people are criminals, and think that this justifies discriminating against black people.

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#99

Post by hannob »

Lucadg wrote: post #42

I used to work in a camping site in Northern Italy many years ago. We were openly told not to accept people from the south of Italy as they statistically were more noisy. I didn't like it but it actually made sense. It just wasn't viable to mix Germans and Napoleteans in a tight space. I guess Germans earned that right with politness. Then one day I let gipsies in and I almost got fired.

What would make sense is to say "we only accept campers that are quiet at night - and we'll throw them out of they don't comply and disturb other people's sleep". What you did is racism.

Now ever if your statistics were true (I doubt you properly measured that) it simply doesn't matter. Even if 90% of people from some region are noisy at night that doesn't justify rejecting the other 10%.

Re: General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment

#100

Post by Overtonwindow »

sonink wrote: post #34

Somehow Airbnb mostly doesnt work for me. You find a nice/cheap place to stay, message the host and wait for 24 hours for a revert. Fairly often, the host declines for seemingly specious reasons. The bigger problem is the wait than the refusal. An Indian startup called OyoRooms has a much better solution to this problem.

I hate this too so I only look for hosts who InstaBook. That way I dont have to wait, it confirms automatically.
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