Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 221 posts

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#131

Post by edblarney »

kalleboo wrote: post #112
edblarney wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talk to an older Swede. If you're young, and talk mostly to young Swedes, it's a different story. Actually, one of the reasons that this may be 'contentious' is because of 'startup culture'. When I say 'business' - you might be thinking 'startup'. Surely - it's 'cool' among young people to be at a startup, doing some cool thing like 'games' or 'music'. But the attitude towards most business, by that I mean what is re…

You started talking about "anti-business and anti-entrepreneurial", now you moved the goalposts to "big business". Yes Swedes don't worship people like Trump like Americans do. But people going into business (hairdressers, contract work, running a supermarket, startups) is very different.

I didn't say 'big business' - I referred to 'anything that was not a cool startup'.

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#132

Post by fucking_tragedy »

jackmaney wrote: post #115
zzzzzzzzzman wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am an American and I pay for all of my medical care privately, without insurance :)

You must be fortunate not to have any preexisting conditions or to not need any medical procedures that, without insurance, can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars.

But personal responsibility! You are responsible for the things you aren't actually responsible for, like cancer or genetic diseases.

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#134

Post by kalleboo »

zzzzzzzzzman wrote: post #83
j-pb wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody is a neoliberal until they have to pay for their own hospital bill.

I am an American and I pay for all of my medical care privately, without insurance :)

So if tomorrow you got a rare form of cancer that cost millions of dollars to treat, you plan to be euthanized?

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#135

Post by zzzzzzzzzman »

rootusrootus wrote: post #111
zzzzzzzzzman wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your response and POV :) Why can we not assume that the doctor monkey is operating a private medical practice, his daughter is sent to a private monkey school, and they drove together in a privately produced car on privately maintained roads? In the USA, I pay income taxes, and I still have to pay for all of these things above (fees, fines, tolls, surcharges, sales tax...)

We can assume the doctor monkey is paying for his kid's school, but it's possible that doctor monkey also benefits indirectly from the other monkeys' kids education as well. All the roads you drive on are toll roads? Here in Oregon none are, and when I was back East only some highways were toll roads. Surface streets are nearly all paid for through taxes AFAIK. I don't get the severe anti-tax stance some folks have.…

Thank you for your well-formulated points and civil response :)

Re: roads, I agree that not all roads are toll roads. The good news is that roads are relatively inexpensive to build and maintain (for example, the federal transportation budget is only 2.3% of total yearly spending, 28 billion dollars).

So, those who want to use roads, should be charged a fair price, and road companies should compete to lower costs where possible.

The argument that "if we don't pay taxes (which are ever increasing and are going towards services that are decreasing in quality), then everyone will go nuts and modern society will collapse!!!" is actually extortion and a clever diversion.

We all want cheaper, more effective services. We all want the poorest members of society to not be kicked when they are already down.

The issue is that world governments are run by an elite few people who funnel our taxes to their bank accounts through scams and poorly rendered services.

And when we figured out this scam and went public with the info, we were yelled at to keep paying our taxes ;)

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#136

Post by [deleted] »

krisroadruck wrote: post #93
kalleboo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there's no way to opt-out of the benefits of a well-educated, well-protected society with good infrastructure. If we could send everyone who wants to opt out of taxes to some island somewhere, we would.

And if you could allow them to leave without taxing them 50% of their wealth on the way out the door, a lot of them would go. You pretty much hit the nail on the head in 2 directions. People are not given the option to vote with thier feet or their dollars. I know I wont ever need social security (if it even still exists by the time I want to stop making money) and yet I can not opt out of it. Why? The reason why is…

[deleted]

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#137

Post by TillE »

edblarney wrote: post #131
kalleboo wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You started talking about "anti-business and anti-entrepreneurial", now you moved the goalposts to "big business". Yes Swedes don't worship people like Trump like Americans do. But people going into business (hairdressers, contract work, running a supermarket, startups) is very different.

I didn't say 'big business' - I referred to 'anything that was not a cool startup'.

> I didn't say 'big business'

> But the cultural aversion to 'big business'

C'mon dude.

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#138

Post by edblarney »

laughingman123 wrote: post #123
edblarney wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talk to an older Swede. If you're young, and talk mostly to young Swedes, it's a different story. Actually, one of the reasons that this may be 'contentious' is because of 'startup culture'. When I say 'business' - you might be thinking 'startup'. Surely - it's 'cool' among young people to be at a startup, doing some cool thing like 'games' or 'music'. But the attitude towards most business, by that I mean what is re…

Yeah right, let's all ignore the swedes talking about their own nation and listen to actual facts

Possibly: young Swedes on HN talking about young cool startup culture vs. someone who has lived around the world, in many countries (i.e. strong comparative basis), including a fair bit of exposure to Scandinavia, and worked for the European Government (European Investment Bank) towards establishing comparative basis for entrepreneurial and business clusters in USA and EU.

Someone who has not lived outside of Sweden does not know what how their culture compares relative to others.

General attitudes towards business in Sweden are far, far different than they are in North America, and it's a cultural/historical issue - a point by the way, which is not very contentious, despite how it may seem here on HN.

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#139

Post by sgift »

thlst wrote: post #67
3poundkilograms wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One monkey says to a group of other monkeys: "We all need to take one of the 5 bananas we individually have to feed the doctor monkey, the asphalt monkey and the teacher monkey, from whom we receive services." One monkey from the group, which just came back in his car from the doctor monkey with his daughter that goes to the local monkey school: "I refuse to give up my bananas!". Remember context. Full context is imp…

That sounds like forcing a service (that you might not want) down your throat, and accusing you of stealing if you refuse to pay. It would be surprisingly better to let monkeys pay for what they want to use, instead of making every monkey pay for what they won't ever use.

> That sounds like forcing a service (that you might not want) down your throat, and accusing you of stealing if you refuse to pay.

You can leave if you do not like it. Or you can vote for a different system.

"hey, I want to sleep in this room, but they say they don't let me until I pay, THEY FORCE ME TO PAY!!!"

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#140

Post by kalleboo »

krisroadruck wrote: post #93
kalleboo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there's no way to opt-out of the benefits of a well-educated, well-protected society with good infrastructure. If we could send everyone who wants to opt out of taxes to some island somewhere, we would.

And if you could allow them to leave without taxing them 50% of their wealth on the way out the door, a lot of them would go. You pretty much hit the nail on the head in 2 directions. People are not given the option to vote with thier feet or their dollars. I know I wont ever need social security (if it even still exists by the time I want to stop making money) and yet I can not opt out of it. Why? The reason why is…

You're talking about the US now right? The US is a special kind of fucked up. No way I'm going to defend that, I'm Swedish. We have safety nets and self-funded public pensions (you can even choose the investment).
Post reply on HN