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SF wants startups to behave, so why did it reject the ‘nice guy’ of e-scooters?

sfchronicle.com

1–10 of 174 posts

Re: SF wants startups to behave, so why did it reject the ‘nice guy’ of e-scooters?

#3
What's the end game of all of this corruption with governments picking winners and losers?

I mean there is a difference between reasonable regulations and just outright picking 1-2 cheaters who bribed you for the right to offer a service that supposedly free people are willing to pay for out of pocket.

We get stories about this in Russia and China and call it Putinism and Corruption all the time.

Re: SF wants startups to behave, so why did it reject the ‘nice guy’ of e-scooters?

#5

What's the end game of all of this corruption with governments picking winners and losers? I mean there is a difference between reasonable regulations and just outright picking 1-2 cheaters who bribed you for the right to offer a service that supposedly free people are willing to pay for out of pocket. We get stories about this in Russia and China and call it Putinism and Corruption all the time.

We've lost the ability to evaluate behavior as it is in itself. Before we judge, we have to find out whether it was a "good" or "bad" person who did it. If that doesn't help, we can perhaps find some innuendo to the effect that the actor acted as an "agent" or even "asset" of some known-"bad" "foreign" power. When we fill our brains with garbage, only garbage can come out of them.

Re: SF wants startups to behave, so why did it reject the ‘nice guy’ of e-scooters?

#6
Sounds like standard bureaucracy.

They didn’t submit the required information in the required form. SF wants startups to behave, that doesn’t mean that behaving startups get to ignore the standard procedures or get exceptions from requirements.

Re: SF wants startups to behave, so why did it reject the ‘nice guy’ of e-scooters?

#7

What's the end game of all of this corruption with governments picking winners and losers? I mean there is a difference between reasonable regulations and just outright picking 1-2 cheaters who bribed you for the right to offer a service that supposedly free people are willing to pay for out of pocket. We get stories about this in Russia and China and call it Putinism and Corruption all the time.

We've lost the ability to evaluate behavior as it is in itself. Before we judge, we have to find out whether it was a "good" or "bad" person who did it. If that doesn't help, we can perhaps find some innuendo to the effect that the actor acted as an "agent" or even "asset" of some known-"bad" "foreign" power. When we fill our brains with garbage, only garbage can come out of them.

In an extremely complex modern society it's nearly impossible to tell the effects that certain actions and policies will have. Popular discourse around politics and economics support this theory, since almost nobody can seem to agree. This leads to one of the best heuristics for evaluating the merits of an action as the intention of the actor or the ethics of the actor.

Re: SF wants startups to behave, so why did it reject the ‘nice guy’ of e-scooters?

#8
The application form requires a paragraph labeled A3, and their application had the required information but didn’t label it as A3. That’s the sort of mistake that can land you in bureaucratic purgatory anywhere in the world, which is exactly what happened, and there’s an ongoing appeal right now.

The founder’s take-away from this should have been “double-check the details, especially when dealing with a bureaucracy” instead of “optimize for the short term”. This was an unfortunate but entirely preventable outcome.

Re: SF wants startups to behave, so why did it reject the ‘nice guy’ of e-scooters?

#10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've lost the ability to evaluate behavior as it is in itself. Before we judge, we have to find out whether it was a "good" or "bad" person who did it. If that doesn't help, we can perhaps find some innuendo to the effect that the actor acted as an "agent" or even "asset" of some known-"bad" "foreign" power. When we fill our brains with garbage, only garbage can come out of them.

In an extremely complex modern society it's nearly impossible to tell the effects that certain actions and policies will have. Popular discourse around politics and economics support this theory, since almost nobody can seem to agree. This leads to one of the best heuristics for evaluating the merits of an action as the intention of the actor or the ethics of the actor.

Right to the point. Quite similar to the ideas of Nickolas Nassim Taleb. And part of the reason VC invest in so many "foolish" ventures, but "foolish" only retrospectively.
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