441–450 of 805 posts
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Both things can be correct if you believe the law in question is bad. The Jefferson quote comes to mind: "If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so."
You'd think they would mention that the law was bad if that was their justification here.
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Both things can be correct if you believe the law in question is bad. The Jefferson quote comes to mind: "If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so."
You'd think they would mention that the law was bad if that was their justification here.
Disclaimer: IANAL.
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Plenty of corporations have done similar or eqivalent actions.
OK. No corporation has nuked two cities full of civilians.
Like, uh, US Steel. [1]
[1] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php? storyId=89051115
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics-jan-june12-slavery_0...
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Not sure I read it that way, but okay. But that reading requires you to ask "why", and sometimes it feels very much like the government lost the consent of the governed a looooong time ago..
If the government had lost the consent of the governed it wouldn't have been elected / it won't be elected again. That's basically what all this is about. Sure, democracy, elections, all this things may not be the best system, but it is very effective at damage control. You don't govern well? You're out after four or five years. All other system known have far worse damage control.
I'm confused by what laws were broken by Greyball. It's certainly deceptive, but is that illegal? In these cases I'm sympathetic to Uber - Let's call it "don't delay the pie to get your slice". One of the types of circumstances described is where a municipality doesn't know how to handle ride-shares, so Uber does questionable things to get ride-shares going while the legal situation is figured out. This seems reasona…
Obstruction of justice comes to mind. There's a concept of "misleading conduct" typically in obstruction laws. Not sure, though, if it applies to tort type infractions...which is usually where Uber plays, or only in cases where the obstruction is hindering investigation of criminal activity.
You are not obligated to assist the police.
But lying to / actively deceiving law enforcement in the act of their work is usually considered a crime.
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Maybe not a popular opinion but I find this entire thing pure genius. >I couldn't find a good source, but it doesn't seem like that's something a CC merchant would have access to. Do they really get to see that? The first 6 digits of a credit card can identify the issuing bank (BIN number - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_card_number ). If you ask your merchant they can readily provide you and up to date list.…
I agree. It's genius in a Lex Luthor kind of way. If I understood the full scope of the application, I like to think i'd decline to work on that. 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. There's a big difference between keeping secrets for market advantage and to evade the law. In the first case, I want…
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My perspective is the opposite. In a world where large multinationals have the power to evade the law in a deliberate and systematic way like this, it's easy for governments to claim they need the same kind of power. Things like this are exactly what bureaucrats point to when they make their arguments for a surveillance state. I don't like the US government much, but I like it a lot better than the average multinatio…
I don't like the US government much, but I like it a lot better than the average multinational. When it comes down to it, we don't have more than our choice of devils. If I don't like Uber, I can... stop using Uber. What can I do if I don't like the service a state provides - can I opt out and stop paying? No, my only option is to flee - which the state will often try and prevent you doing anyway. The state is a huge…
Keep in mind, this is only possible as long as there's an actual alternative to Uber. Once they, or any other multinational for that matter, manage to establish a monopoly you will be flat out of other options. Even worse: Once they are well aware of their monopoly they will abuse it in every imaginable way. Don't be evil.. at least until you are big enough.
>It seems pretty clear to me which is more immoral.
No, it's not. If you dislike "government" so much you are always free to move to a place where there's less or even none of it. Case in point: Somalia has barely any government to speak of, pretty much no regulations and very high rates of firearms ownership, it's basically "libertarian utopia". Strangely enough, barely any libertarians would want to live there?
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I agree. It's genius in a Lex Luthor kind of way. If I understood the full scope of the application, I like to think i'd decline to work on that. 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. There's a big difference between keeping secrets for market advantage and to evade the law. In the first case, I want…
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 t…
They're way less arbitrary than Uber's action, so that's just projection. You want out of the social contract, be my guest.
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> If I don't like Uber, I can... stop using Uber. You can, but if that decision is not sufficiently common in your area, and you don't have sufficient resources to relocate before the problem becomes acute, you may find your practical choices constrained in such a way that you are left with no realistic choice for necessary functions but to use Uber. > What can I do if I don't like the service a state provides - can…
Uber isn't a monopoly. For all the scummy things that Uber has done, they have avoided the most scummy thing they could do to become a monopoly: driver lock-in, making their drivers commit to only drive for them and not for Lyft. Susan Fowler's post has me pretty fed up with Uber, but for some reason greyballing doesn't bother me at all.
Arguably the only reason why is because it would mean they'd have to classify the drivers as employees rather than contractors.