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Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a difficult lesson learned

ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com

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Re: Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a difficult lesson learned

#331

Post by cookiecaper »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #325
ZoFreX wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't find it that surprising, given that we are taught from birth to obey authority figures (parents, family, teachers, policemen) /without question/. It's perhaps a useful simplification in early life but is one I've long-considered harmful.

> given that we are taught from birth to obey authority figures (parents, family, teachers, policemen) /without question/ One of the important aspects I'm trying to maintain with my kids is a right to reply and express their opinion. My eldest's teacher goes against this, she demands "do it first time" whilst I demand a response - he can refuse but he can't ignore a request, if he can reason his way out/in to somethi…

It's important to teach children to obey authority figures. It's also important to teach them critical thinking skills and learn how to detect when a thing is arbitrary. However, instead of teaching the child to disrupt the authority in place, I think it is preferable to teach the children to obey unless there is a moral imperative against doing so.

For instance, while your son's teacher may assign him some silly work, while there is no reason to do this work other than the teacher said so, he should learn to work within the framework and do the work anyway because he is subject to the teacher in his current circumstances. If the teacher, however, assigns him to physically harm another student or participate in another morally objectionable act, he should refuse to comply. Things go much smoother this way than they do if people are constantly nagging and arguing over things that really have no incident; much energy could be saved by both your son and his teacher by compliance with non-useful but non-harmful requests rather than disrupting the flow of instruction and encouraging further disorder and disrespect to authority.

Re: Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a difficult lesson learned

#332

Post by Dn_Ab »

edw519 wrote: post #147

I get angry when I realize I will never again be who I've always been before, someone who lived strong and free by the creed that people are essentially good, that if you think optimistically, trust others. Please don't let them steal this too. I'm really sorry for your bad experience, but remember: - You can still live strong and free. - People are still essentially good. - You can still think optimistically. - You…

The vast majority of People are good yes. The main problem is that most people stop caring too quickly. On a multidimensional empathetic scale they stop caring with a nigh exponential drop off the further away from the this and now the other person is. Once someone's genetic and then phenotypic expression is far away from theirs, once the spacial, chronological and cultural locations etc. are diverged; people stop caring enough. Sometimes the person that they do not care about is their future self.

The keyword is enough. Certainly if everyone was too empathetic that would neither be good. But I do think the world would be a better place if more people did not set the line of when to stop caring and empathizing so close to Now and Me. If they picked a slightly less steep atttenuation function then we would not have so many perfectly good people that were bigoted Xist bastards when it came to topic X. or peopele who were just following orders. or just having a bit of fun. or well at least it is not me. or on and on. for example.

Re: Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a difficult lesson learned

#333

Post by [deleted] »

varunsrin wrote: post #319
Timothee wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well… I don't know. Sure, it's easy to think "look, YC changed the title because it gave a bad light to a YC company!" and that might be part of it. But the truth is that this story only got the spotlight here because it had AirBnB in the submission title, but the events it describes are not really specific to AirBnB. It could have happened through many other rental services. Also it's typically frowned upon changing…

"But the truth is that this story only got the spotlight here because it had AirBnB in the submission title, but the events it describes are not really specific to AirBnB. It could have happened through many other rental services." That doesn't make the original title in any way inaccurate. Is this like saying, oh my Google apps account was compromised and all my business data was leaked - but really its unfair to po…

[deleted]

Re: Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a difficult lesson learned

#334

Post by watty »

Timothee wrote: post #313
Omnipresent wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not cool.

Well… I don't know. Sure, it's easy to think "look, YC changed the title because it gave a bad light to a YC company!" and that might be part of it. But the truth is that this story only got the spotlight here because it had AirBnB in the submission title, but the events it describes are not really specific to AirBnB. It could have happened through many other rental services. Also it's typically frowned upon changing…

No, it's bullshit. YC shouldn't censor the articles, especially one as potentially dangerous as this. AirBnB has everything to do with the title and blog and they deserve any bad PR they receive. Very disappointing.

Re: Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a difficult lesson learned

#336

Post by gord »

Heartbreaking to read this.

Hang in there.

It may help to think that a) these people are broken in some profound way, possibly from some early abuse b) this may not be directed at you personally, you did not deserve this, and this was not your fault

I do think the AirBnB business model needs to take into account some kind of insurance cover, or set aside some percentage of funds to apply to help in the edge cases like this - so that some of the practicalities are taken care of [ such as cleaning the apartment, temporary accommodation ] giving the victim some breathing space to heal from this.

Re: Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a difficult lesson learned

#337

Post by forgotAgain »

zacharypinter wrote: post #281
vladd wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey brian, - what's your side of the story on being unreachable 14 hours after the event? - did you offer AirBnB credit or compensation to the victim to stay elsewhere during this?

This doesn't specifically answer your question, but the post does seem to mention that financial compensation from AirBNB was offered: "They have offered to help me recover emotionally and financially, and are working with SFPD to track down these criminals."

TechCrunch is reporting I spoke to Airbnb about EJ’s situation. They won’t reimburse her for damages, they say, and they do not insure against losses. They are helping police track down the person who did this, but their help ends there.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/27/the-moment-of-truth-for-air...

Re: Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a difficult lesson learned

#338

Post by jeffdavis »

ajays wrote: post #190
hammock wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emotionally devastating story, but it seems like there is an easy solution to this. Have AirBnb contract include an insurance policy (superseding the homeowners insurance) for the time of rental. Also, have Airbnb keep credit card info on hand and hold guest responsible for any damage. Pretty standard business practices.

But an insurance policy would further cut into their revenue stream. A credit card number doesn't help much when you're dealing with anti-social elements (they'll just use a stolen one).

"But an insurance policy would further cut into their revenue stream."

If the value of the service is so low, and the risk so high, that it's essentially uninsurable, then perhaps that's a sign that it's a bad business model.

Re: Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a difficult lesson learned

#339

Post by estel »

zacharypinter wrote: post #283
hammock wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emotionally devastating story, but it seems like there is an easy solution to this. Have AirBnb contract include an insurance policy (superseding the homeowners insurance) for the time of rental. Also, have Airbnb keep credit card info on hand and hold guest responsible for any damage. Pretty standard business practices.

At the risk of it being slightly poor taste to go down this tangent: Given how rare this type of thing is, AirBNB could have a great extra source of income by offering optional insurance for an extra fee (similar to car rentals).

I imagine it's possible, but there's probably a whole mountain of paperwork and cost involved in insuring property in various countries.

Re: Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a difficult lesson learned

#340

Post by alanh »

Steve0 wrote: post #269
AretNCarlsen wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are still essentially good. Experiment indicates that the majority (65%) are not: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment I am sorry to be a downer, and I agree that it is nice to pretend that people are essentially good. Ignoring the Milgram results, however, leads us to forget why we have to maintain societies with complex crime deterrent schemes, and why we should not trust anonymous individuals w…

That doesn't seem to be the conclusion of said experiment. "In Milgram's first set of experiments, 65 percent (26 of 40)[1] of experiment participants administered the experiment's final massive 450-volt shock, though many were very uncomfortable doing so; at some point, every participant paused and questioned the experiment, some said they would refund the money they were paid for participating in the experiment." I…

So people know what they do is wrong and do it anyway. How does this make people "good"? It makes them knowingly evil.
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