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Lyft donates $1M to the ACLU, condemns Trump’s immigration actions

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Re: Lyft donates $1M to the ACLU, condemns Trump’s immigration actions

#81

Post by alphonsegaston »

rashkov wrote: post #34
awolf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Travis Kalanick, Uber's CEO, made public statements indicating that Uber must work with the Trump administration. Four days later Uber stepped up as scrubs while the rest of the New York's taxi service protested Trump's deplorable racist actions. It's hard to pretend this is a coincidence.

I'm not denying that, and I feel weird defending Uber at all, but then you'd also need to account for why they offered to compensate their drivers affected by this travel ban, and why would they lower their surge pricing. I'm okay with saying that they're trying to play both sides of this.

Which in the context of a strike, isn't possible. The purpose of these kind of labor actions is to force a clarification about with whom one holds solidarity, in this case refugees and immigrants.

Breaking the strike is breaking the strike. They did not hold with refugees and immigrants, even after the taxi drivers explicitly asked them to do so. Everything else is just trying to mitigate damage to the point where people forget/engage in apologetics to obfuscate the choice they made.

Re: Lyft donates $1M to the ACLU, condemns Trump’s immigration actions

#82

Post by emilsedgh »

rashkov wrote: post #34
awolf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Travis Kalanick, Uber's CEO, made public statements indicating that Uber must work with the Trump administration. Four days later Uber stepped up as scrubs while the rest of the New York's taxi service protested Trump's deplorable racist actions. It's hard to pretend this is a coincidence.

I'm not denying that, and I feel weird defending Uber at all, but then you'd also need to account for why they offered to compensate their drivers affected by this travel ban, and why would they lower their surge pricing. I'm okay with saying that they're trying to play both sides of this.

Get some free PR by condemning the EO while actually offering support to Trump administration by removing pressure by nullifying the strike.

Now that's being a hypocrite on a grand grand scale.

Re: Lyft donates $1M to the ACLU, condemns Trump’s immigration actions

#83

Post by [deleted] »

cf wrote: post #49
inverse_pi wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it. How about other people that were not part of the protest and were trying to get home/get to the airport? How about the Uber drivers trying to make a living? Just because they were not part of your protest you'll give them hate?

A lot of people from Iran and other countries were also trying to get home that day. They couldn't call an Uber.

[deleted]

Re: Lyft donates $1M to the ACLU, condemns Trump’s immigration actions

#84

Post by pikzen »

rashkov wrote: post #32
EthanHeilman wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The taxi strike was part of the protest at the airport. Offering reduced pricing was a way to hurt the taxi workers who were losing money to show solitary with the protest. If Uber was trying to help, they should have said so.

edit: Re-reading this, and I realize I missed your point. You're absolutely right -- they did not say "we are cutting surge pricing in support of the protest". This was my original post for posterity: "They did say so. This was their tweet: 'Our CEO's reaction to immigration order: "We'll compensate drivers impacted by the ban pro bono for next 3 months." http://ubr.to/standingup'"

They're helping their own workers. While a good thing, the rest of ther message is complete PR and sending ubers to JFK undermines the strikes, because it's such an easy way for them to make a profit.

Re: Lyft donates $1M to the ACLU, condemns Trump’s immigration actions

#85

Post by [deleted] »

cls59 wrote: post #70
inverse_pi wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it. How about other people that were not part of the protest and were trying to get home/get to the airport? How about the Uber drivers trying to make a living? Just because they were not part of your protest you'll give them hate?

I don't get it either. Given the status of Uber drivers as independent contractors, I'm not convinced it's Uber's place to call an action like a strike. Such a decision should come from the drivers. On the taxi side it sounds like there were unions who clearly have the representation to make this sort of decision.

[deleted]

Re: Lyft donates $1M to the ACLU, condemns Trump’s immigration actions

#87

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

AnOscelot wrote: post #61
smpetrey wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What phrase would be more effective in describing Bannon?

neo-nazi Leninist The former term is how his detractors, including me, would describe him. The latter is a term he famously used for himself. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/22/steve-banno...

That's not what Leninism means tho (it's not "smash the state" as Bannon says, it's about having a vanguard party and control of political power by the working class).

Re: Lyft donates $1M to the ACLU, condemns Trump’s immigration actions

#88

Post by benchaney »

danharaj wrote: post #75
benchaney wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So protesters are entitled to hold people hostage for an arbitrary amount of time, just because they are unhappy? Give me a break.

It doesn't matter if they're entitled or not, they did it, and then Uber did what they did, and people are now evaluating those actions based on the facts and their values. You don't have to agree with every protest. There isn't a universal rule that says all protest is good. But every protest can be judged on its merits, which is what people are doing, not reducing the motivations to "just because they are unhappy".…

My point isn't whether this particular protest is "good" or "bad". Even knowing relatively little about this protest, I think that I would likely agree with the protesters. My issue is that I don't see any reason why Uber should be obligated to stop service just because there is a protest going on. A lot of people in this thread seem to feel that having a protest entitles you to ruin other peoples' day and anyone who helps the people you are screwing is a bad guy. I see no good argument that supports that mentality.

Re: Lyft donates $1M to the ACLU, condemns Trump’s immigration actions

#89

Post by MichaelBurge »

facetube wrote: post #7

Donald Trump is being powered by conspiracy theorist Steve Bannon, the "Breitbart News" head and board member of Cambridge Analytica, an analytics firm that used psychological profiling to cynically exploit the American electorate. Despite his inexperience and stated desire to "blow things up", he was appointed to an influential national security position, over the Joint Chiefs of Staff [1]. This is an existential th…

Your comment is nothing but alarmist rhetoric. I mean, each sentence is specifically engineered to be as negative-sounding as you can make it. People don't usually do that, even with actual dictators.

> being powered by

Donald Trump needs a supernatural explanation, presumably because you think he's incompetent. At the least, you're saying he can't do what he's doing by himself.

> conspiracy theorist Steve Bannon

The term "conspiracy theory" is supposed to discredit him. But, if he has trouble telling truth from reality, why is he enabling Donald Trump? People who make mistakes interpreting data lose elections.

> board member of Cambridge Analytica, an analytics firm that used psychological profiling to cynically exploit the American electorate.

It's called "marketing", and everyone here does it. Nothing wrong with it. Again, how's a "conspiracy theorist" going to exploit psychological profiling? They're supposed to see patterns where none exist, which means whatever analytics they're doing would be ineffective.

> This is an existential threat to the American public and to the world

You haven't actually described anything that could be an "existential threat". Examples include: Nuclear war, a large asteroid, an incurable highly contagious disease, etc. You can only call him an "existential threat" if you believe America and the world will literally stop existing in 4-8 years.

You did say it right after a comment about being appointed to a "national security" position. I imagine many people on HN get triggered by the phrase "national security", getting flashbacks to George Bush and the Patriot Act. If you think politicians have been abusing the term "national security" to push their bad policies, you should welcome the position being effectively removed from the President's advisory.

Nothing you've presented is really bad, so I'm not really sure how to respond to the facts. People might be interested in Stefan Molyneux's "The Untruth about Steve Bannon" video[1], though. He's not as bad as people are making him out to be.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI0aAVh0dJc

Re: Lyft donates $1M to the ACLU, condemns Trump’s immigration actions

#90

Post by tomjen3 »

facetube wrote: post #56
asktomsk wrote: post #35

Political shit like this should not be allowed here.

At what point does the situation become dire enough to warrant your attention?

HN is not the place to post politics. There are plenty of other sites.
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