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“Why you should not use Uber (the car ride brokering company)”

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Re: “Why you should not use Uber (the car ride brokering company)”

#121

Post by M2Ys4U »

aembleton wrote: post #64
M2Ys4U wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

install != run. Using that mobile site still requires one to run non-free Javascript, which RMS also has a problem with.

Javascript is an interpreted language. You can view the javascript that your machine is going to execute and step through it line by line. Therefore it is free (as in speech) for you to inspect.

Does Uber's javascript code come with a license that gives you these freedoms:

* Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program for any purpose;

* Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish;

* Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbour, and

* Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits?

No? Then it's not "free software".

Re: “Why you should not use Uber (the car ride brokering company)”

#122

Post by GhotiFish »

sighsigh wrote: post #46

"until every person gets an adequate basic income so people don't need to be employed." Hand-waving pleb magnets like this (the statement, not the person stating) show a painfully inept understanding of how autonomous labor is going to work. Once Moore's Law crosses the processing power/price ratios where robots can perform "good enough" object acquisition and manipulation, (pre-Singularity phase) no nation on earth…

  It is every citizen's final duty to go into the tanks and become one 
  with all the people.
        Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, "Ethics for Tomorrow"
duty calls!!

Re: “Why you should not use Uber (the car ride brokering company)”

#123

Post by cjbprime »

jeremiep wrote: post #31
cjbprime wrote: post #3

> Uber plans to do away with human cab drivers. > It would be easy for a non-plutocratic government to prohibit this, and that's what every country ought to do, unless/until every person gets an adequate basic income so people don't need to be employed. Okay, so I am extremely liberal and everything, but "let's ban any new technologies that might make somebody lose their job to a robot" is seriously the most ridiculo…

> unless/until every person gets an adequate basic income so people don't need to be employed. This. There's far more to his argument than merely "lets prevent people from losing jobs."

If I were to argue "We should declare war on Canada, unless/until everyone in the US has free healthcare", you would be right to respond with "What? Declaring war on Canada is a terrible idea!" rather than "Well, there's more to his argument than merely declaring war on Canada".

Re: “Why you should not use Uber (the car ride brokering company)”

#124

Post by jsprogrammer »

cb18 wrote: post #118
jsprogrammer wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are the 'masses' not capable of knowledge jobs?

Why are the 'masses' not capable of knowledge jobs? If you accept that certain jobs[1] to be performed at a worthwhile level require a certain degree of general intelligence, or at the very least, the vast majority of people performing certain jobs have a measurable general intelligence above a certain level, and you accept that things like general intelligence, height, and other observable, measurable phenotypic tra…

I guess the question is then, "What is General Intelligence?"

It's a question that CS has struggled with for decades and I haven't heard anyone give a compelling definition, certainly not one that could be tested with any confidence.

Re: “Why you should not use Uber (the car ride brokering company)”

#125

Post by cjbprime »

larrys wrote: post #70
cjbprime wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should be more skeptical when people tell you they love their jobs while you are paying them to perform their jobs, especially given the presence of numerous press articles quoting many dissatisfied Uber drivers. There's a significant chance that they are telling you they love their jobs because if they told you they hate Uber and feel trapped by it, you would give them a bad rating and they would get fired.

"when people tell you they love their jobs while you are paying them to perform their jobs" Parent comment doesn't say the drivers said "love" and the comments made don't appear to be over the top in any way. Also you are discounting the parent commenters ability to discern a BS answer from a real answer by interpreting emotion. (Not saying you aren't right to be skeptical as you raised a valid point).

> Also you are discounting the parent commenters ability to discern a BS answer from a real answer by interpreting emotion.

The parent commenter shouldn't feel insulted; I don't trust anyone's ability to perform that task reliably. That's why the entire field of sociological research exists, and is conducted with far more rigour than asking people things and attempting to interpret the answers they give while they are under coercion.

Re: “Why you should not use Uber (the car ride brokering company)”

#126

Post by cb18 »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #124
cb18 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are the 'masses' not capable of knowledge jobs? If you accept that certain jobs[1] to be performed at a worthwhile level require a certain degree of general intelligence, or at the very least, the vast majority of people performing certain jobs have a measurable general intelligence above a certain level, and you accept that things like general intelligence, height, and other observable, measurable phenotypic tra…

I guess the question is then, "What is General Intelligence?" It's a question that CS has struggled with for decades and I haven't heard anyone give a compelling definition, certainly not one that could be tested with any confidence.

What? I'm not sure why you invoke CS(by which I assume you mean Computer Science,) I wasn't refering to artificial general intelligence, which could be said to fall under the domain of CS.[1]

I was refering to the 'general intelligence' that is an attribute of human beings, what iq tests measure basically.[2][3]

It is a matter that has undergone much study since the early 20th century, and there is indeed agreement on what it is among those who study it.[4]

certainly not one that could be tested with any confidence.

Why so certain? It can indeed be tested and has been. Taking intelligence to mean 'ability to deal with complexity,' and taking something complex like say, life on earth, people with higher IQs on average make more money, and live longer. Not to say the amount of money one makes is wholly indicative of successful living of course, but it can be used as a rough proxy since it is something many people seek to do in the complex environment that is Earth and the Universe.

Also, I think the ability to 'live sucessfully' and to find out what doing so entails is an ability spread evenly throughout the population.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligence

[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics) [3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient

[4]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainstream_Science_on_Intellige...

Re: “Why you should not use Uber (the car ride brokering company)”

#127

Post by flycaliguy »

cb18 wrote: post #118
jsprogrammer wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are the 'masses' not capable of knowledge jobs?

Why are the 'masses' not capable of knowledge jobs? If you accept that certain jobs[1] to be performed at a worthwhile level require a certain degree of general intelligence, or at the very least, the vast majority of people performing certain jobs have a measurable general intelligence above a certain level, and you accept that things like general intelligence, height, and other observable, measurable phenotypic tra…

I think there is knowledge to be created but the process of it's creation is not the exclusive domain of the brilliant or even the above average.

Re: “Why you should not use Uber (the car ride brokering company)”

#129

Post by kamaal »

glesica wrote: post #36
agildehaus wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nearly in the job description of every software engineer to create things that ease people's workloads or replace their jobs entirely. I bet Stallman's projects, and the free software movement itself, are responsible for the non-existence of numerous jobs. Also: basic income, or whatever it is that will make sense when there aren't enough jobs to go around, won't be preemptive.

> Also: basic income, or whatever it is that will make sense when there aren't enough jobs to go around, won't be preemptive. Seems like this is really his point, if it isn't going to be preemptive, then (he feels) we should stop the jobs from going away.

>>we should stop the jobs from going away.

We can't stop anything from going away. Technology progress by and large has always been incremental. Large changes haven't occurred since the time of Industrial revolution. And I guess the next one won't occur until we get Artificial general intelligence. Until then affairs of the world will go on as they always have.

AGI would alter the very course of economy in a way the whole concept of a job and a income would be very largely irrelevant. Heck you may not even need a basic income, because you only need to bootstrap a few machines and from there on they are going to do every single thing for you.

Re: “Why you should not use Uber (the car ride brokering company)”

#130

Post by dllthomas »

cjbprime wrote: post #38
rando3826 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First off, that's not what he said. Secondly, lots of smart people have been talking about the need for basic income when robots take over large portions of the labor force. I'm personally unconvinced that it will create mass unemployment, but I don't call it crazy.

> First off, that's not what he said. Can you elaborate on the divide between his claim and my interpretation, operating under the extremely obvious assumption that the world is not switching to universal basic income tomorrow? I honestly don't see it. For the record, I also advocate strongly for basic income. But I don't think that robots taking jobs leads to particularly poor outcomes. For example! Driving a car 17…

"operating under the extremely obvious assumption that the world is not switching to universal basic income tomorrow"

Uber is not automating its fleet tomorrow, either.

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