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Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

reuters.com

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Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#81

Post by rgbrenner »

kyledrake wrote: post #63
tomp wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think it would have hurt them to err on the side of caution on this one. Erring "on the side of caution" in this case basically means denying someone a job, a livelihood, based on mere allegations that anyone can make. If you strictly enforce this (or even harsher variants, e.g. "no men sitting next to children on planes"), you make it very simple to ruin someone's life.

We're not talking about plane customers here, we're talking about the pilots. Finding trusted drivers in a situation where safety is important because people are in a unique position to trust that driver with their lives, with a startup that has to be extra-careful to prevent major controversies while they are under a heavy spotlight doing ambiguously legal things (or in the case of Portland a few days ago, just outr…

Exactly. When a person is put in a trusted position over another, we often have these higher standards.. teachers for example.

A cab driver -- who's capable of locking the doors and taking their passenger to wherever they want -- is in such a trusted position, and there should be a higher standard for those positions.

This doesn't mean they are being prevented from working. They're being prevented from working in this position. They are free to go do something else where other people aren't trusting their lives to them.

Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#83

Post by yummyfajitas »

tdsamardzhiev wrote: post #66
yummyfajitas wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true. If the Indian government were to shut down modes of transportation because of drivers engaging in rape, then you'd never see a rickshaw on the streets. http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/kolkata/woman-gangra... http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/delhi-13-year-old-girl-al... I've spoken with one woman since this incident. She stills considers radio cabs (taxi4sure, specifically) safer than rickshaws or…

Legalizing weapons will lead to more women being raped. AND then shot. Which group do you think will be using arms more - 20-30yo uneducated, poor and agressive men or 13yo children and mothers of two.

A few days ago my girlfriend took a swing at me. I just let her go ahead - she had basically no real ability to harm me short of hitting me in the eye. Let me emphasize she's bigger and stronger than any Indian woman I've met. If I did anything other than stand there and let her hit me, it wouldn't even be a fight.

Now give us both a gun. I'm probably a better shot, less afraid, and under close-up circumstances I can just wrestle it away. My odds of walking away safe are far worse because she may just shoot me before I can do anything.

Most people who want to be rapists don't need a weapon to do so - men are nearly always stronger than women. Arming both parties brings the odds closer to even.

Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#84

Post by cant-be-serious »

RealGeek wrote: post #10

Uber is not being banned just because of this rape incident. Uber did not following Indian laws & Delhi transport regulations, and operated illegally under the radar. Before this incident, Delhi Government was not aware about how Uber operated. This incident prompted Indian authorities to investigate the operations of Uber. Uber's stance is that we are not a taxi company, we are an app company; so we do not need to f…

>The alleged driver had previously served 7 months in prison for rape charges,

Only 7 months for rape?

Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#85

Post by j45 »

RealGeek wrote: post #10

Uber is not being banned just because of this rape incident. Uber did not following Indian laws & Delhi transport regulations, and operated illegally under the radar. Before this incident, Delhi Government was not aware about how Uber operated. This incident prompted Indian authorities to investigate the operations of Uber. Uber's stance is that we are not a taxi company, we are an app company; so we do not need to f…

It's ancillary to the discussion, but I'm not sure of the due diligence which can reliably and certifiably be completed in India. There may be assumptions made from a belief that these things are present.

Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#86

Post by tomp »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #80
tomp wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds similar to the argument that you should avoid black people because they are more likely to be criminals; clearly that would improve your odds of finding an acceptable mate. Conclusions: individuals are not odds.

In a purely mathematical sense, its advantageous to dismiss candidates with any defect or suspected defect. At least when there is an endless supply. The trouble with discrimination is, it works so well.

> its advantageous to dismiss candidates with any defect or suspected defect

I agree; the problem is just that the society (and laws) judges different cases of discrimination completely differently, even though the underlying mathematical principles are the same. Don't hire a man because he could be a rapist? OK. Don't hire a woman because she might give birth? Outrageous.

Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#87

Post by RealGeek »

ceejayoz wrote: post #36
RealGeek wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber hired drivers in India who does not even have a valid Delhi Transport commercial driver license required for all cab drivers in Delhi. Edit: > and the amount of rape happening in india is crazy, the government needs to do something about that, something more than blaming uber. Do you know that more women are raped every year in UK & US than in India? You hear a lot more about rapes in India because Indians are m…

> Do you know that more women are raped every year in UK & US than in India? Bullshit. Your link states "does not include cases of rape which go unreported, which are not recorded, and does not account for differing definitions between countries". http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/01/07... > Three-fourths of the perpetrators of India's 24,206 rapes in 2011 are still at large, and that's not even…

Rape cases are under reported even in US. Majority of the rapists in US are also let go free. In fact, the rapists often intimidate the vicitim by hiring expensive lawyers and suing them back for reputation damages.

Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#88

Post by tomp »

rgbrenner wrote: post #81
kyledrake wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not talking about plane customers here, we're talking about the pilots. Finding trusted drivers in a situation where safety is important because people are in a unique position to trust that driver with their lives, with a startup that has to be extra-careful to prevent major controversies while they are under a heavy spotlight doing ambiguously legal things (or in the case of Portland a few days ago, just outr…

Exactly. When a person is put in a trusted position over another, we often have these higher standards.. teachers for example. A cab driver -- who's capable of locking the doors and taking their passenger to wherever they want -- is in such a trusted position, and there should be a higher standard for those positions. This doesn't mean they are being prevented from working. They're being prevented from working in thi…

What if somebody who already is in a position of power/authority/trust is accused of something like that? That's what I meant with "easy to ruin people's lives" (e.g. Strauss-Kahn).

Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#89

Post by jtreminio »

notjackma wrote: post #77
snlacks wrote: post #4

So, I'm not a Uber fan, but I get the feeling this is India deflecting a couple of other underlying issues and placing blame. Sooner or later they have to face the issue head on, because scapegoating gets old.

An underlying issue like the Bhopal Disaster? http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/06/photos-bhopal...

What's this got to do with the topic on hand?

Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#90

Post by pc86 »

awinder wrote: post #33
GrinningFool wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No sexual offenses From the article: "Uber, which had employed the driver even though he had been arrested on allegations of sexual assault three years ago" THe implication there is that he had not been convicted of any offense - which means no sexual offense was [in the eyes of the law...] committed. I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand yeah, he was arrested for it and convicted or not, that's probably a risk U…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/10/delhi-rape-one-conv... Of 706 reported rape cases, 1 lead to an actual conviction. So you have an under-reported category of crime which is irregularly prosecuted. There's obvious ethical issues with denying jobs to people based on accusation rather than conviction, but in a society with a broken justice system surrounding that, there's ethical dilemmas no matter how you slice…

> there's ethical dilemmas no matter how you slice it

You're exactly right. So the question becomes, "Is it better to disqualify applicants based on accusation alone, knowing that you'll disqualify some number of innocent people, or is it better to screen on convictions alone, knowing that you could possibly not screen out some guilty folks you otherwise would?"

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