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Accountability sinks

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Re: Accountability sinks

#131

Post by switch007 »

lmm wrote: post #122
rougka wrote: post #64

I remember experiencing this in one of the German airports/airlines and having that exact thought. It was this fully automated airport, where the checkin is self serviced and you only interact with computers. Eventually, when I inserted my boarding pass I had a printed piece of paper back that said that they had to change my seat from aisle to midseat I then tried to find someone to talk to the entire way, but comput…

At this point everyone needs to get in the habit of using small claims court. You can often do it online in a few minutes these days. Make a good faith effort to get your problem addressed, and record the fact that you've done so to use in your hearing if it gets that far. Then just file the claim. Generally they fold immediately, and this way you incentivize actual customer service in the only language they understa…

I do agree but also feel if people did this en masse, that system would get a rate limiter. After 2 claims per year you would be barred for being "vexatious"

Re: Accountability sinks

#132

Post by nh2 »

rougka wrote: post #64

I remember experiencing this in one of the German airports/airlines and having that exact thought. It was this fully automated airport, where the checkin is self serviced and you only interact with computers. Eventually, when I inserted my boarding pass I had a printed piece of paper back that said that they had to change my seat from aisle to midseat I then tried to find someone to talk to the entire way, but comput…

Germany is somewhat rubbish.

I arrived at the train station in the night after 6 hours train journey. German Railways app shows there will be my final leg train in 45 minutes. I wait in the cold at night, sitting in the station building because it's warmer there. 5 minutes before departure I go on the platform. The local display shows no train, even though the all still shows it. I waited for nothing.

Syncing the app with the train station? Somebody else's problem.

In half an hour there should be a replacement bus for another cancelled train. There are no signs in the app or the station that indicate where that bus is to be found. You just need to know.

Putting sings for replacement buses due to degraded service that's long planned and already happening for 2 months? Somebody else's problem.

An old man asks if the bus will allow to catch the train connection at its destination. The bus driver bitches at him for asking that question -- not his job. Somebody else's problem.

Training the bus driver that, being an official replacement of a train, he needs to know that, clearly also somebody else's problem than that of the German Railways.

It's pitch black outside, the windows are opaque due to moisture, so I can't tell where we are even though I was born the area and lived here for 18 years. The bus driver makes no announcements about the stops, there is no display. Knowing when to request a stop to get off? Somebody else's problem.

The bus is ice cold for an hour. When am old lady gets off and tells the bus driver that it was freezing all journey, he asks "well what can you do". Bewildered she answers "turn on the heating"? He didn't expect that. He seemed to think that everything except driving was somebody else's problem.

This is just one night's bus journey story. I also got my SIM card deleted and a parcel was lost in the subsequent week. Documenting here the amounts of "somebody else's problem" I encountered in their customer support hotlines is somebody else's problem for me for now.

Re: Accountability sinks

#133

Post by larsrc »

I've long thought that that is one of the main functions of corporations. There's a reason they're called limited liability. The fact that you can conjure up new companies at a whim makes it easy to shuffle responsibility into an obscure corner.

This is a strong reason that corporations should not be considered people. People are long-lived entities with accountability and you can't just create or destroy them at will.

Re: Accountability sinks

#134

Post by formerly_proven »

larodi wrote: post #107
eloisius wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar experience in Germany about a year ago. Train stations are mostly self-service now. The ticket kiosk ate my €50 and promptly rebooted. It didn’t print a receipt or anything. The only human I could find was a security guard. He told me to call the number on a sticker on the machine. The person who answered couldn’t speak English. My €50 is out there somewhere but it would cost me more than that to trac…

That’s a sad experience and I would definitely try to chase them robots. Sadly even though German public transport fascinates with its ease of use and quality, though when it comes to human service you can find yourself in peculiar position. And particularly if you are not German and happen to be in one of those international cities there where Germans are fed up with visitor. You waive goodbye to your 50€ and keep a…

> german public transport fascinates with its ease of use and quality

You have something mixed up there.

Re: Accountability sinks

#135

Post by 082349872349872 »

throwaway48476 wrote: post #130
notTooFarGone wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accounts are hacked every second. They are wildly insecure and noone should trust them. Frankly saying you are just a hacked account is at worst plausible. You logic is flawed at the core. With that train of thought you can infer everything. Why trust voting it can be manipulated.

Is the objective truth of what I say contingent on whether it is a hacked account? I'd say no. All voting systems can be manipulated, there's no need to make it so easy though.

In the days before voting machines, the dead people simply voted in alphabetical order, eg (1962) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41706655

[my recommendation: try to build a high trust society instead of patching epicycles onto the side of a low trust one]

Re: Accountability sinks

#136

Post by atoav »

larsrc wrote: post #133

I've long thought that that is one of the main functions of corporations. There's a reason they're called limited liability. The fact that you can conjure up new companies at a whim makes it easy to shuffle responsibility into an obscure corner. This is a strong reason that corporations should not be considered people. People are long-lived entities with accountability and you can't just create or destroy them at wil…

The buck has to stop somewhere and a human has to be responsible for things.

Re: Accountability sinks

#137

Post by jazzypants »

throwaway48476 wrote: post #112
spit2wind wrote: post #93

This is a terrible example because it's simply not true: > Davies gives the example of the case of Dominion Systems vs Fox News, in which Fox News repeatedly spread false stories about the election. No one at Fox seems to have explicitly made a decision to lie about voting machines; rather, there was an implicit understanding that they had to do whatever it took to keep their audience numbers up. Rupert Murdoch conce…

Voting machines are hacked every year at DEFCONs voting village. They're wildly insecure and no one should trust them. Frankly, any claims of manipulation of voting machines are at worst plausible.

And, yet these companies won their lawsuits, and no wide scale voter fraud was ever found.

So, your point is entirely irrelevant.

Re: Accountability sinks

#138

Post by atoav »

nh2 wrote: post #132
rougka wrote: post #64

I remember experiencing this in one of the German airports/airlines and having that exact thought. It was this fully automated airport, where the checkin is self serviced and you only interact with computers. Eventually, when I inserted my boarding pass I had a printed piece of paper back that said that they had to change my seat from aisle to midseat I then tried to find someone to talk to the entire way, but comput…

Germany is somewhat rubbish. I arrived at the train station in the night after 6 hours train journey. German Railways app shows there will be my final leg train in 45 minutes. I wait in the cold at night, sitting in the station building because it's warmer there. 5 minutes before departure I go on the platform. The local display shows no train, even though the all still shows it. I waited for nothing. Syncing the app…

And the root of all that? Privatization.

Re: Accountability sinks

#139

Post by immibis »

switch007 wrote: post #131
lmm wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point everyone needs to get in the habit of using small claims court. You can often do it online in a few minutes these days. Make a good faith effort to get your problem addressed, and record the fact that you've done so to use in your hearing if it gets that far. Then just file the claim. Generally they fold immediately, and this way you incentivize actual customer service in the only language they understa…

I do agree but also feel if people did this en masse, that system would get a rate limiter. After 2 claims per year you would be barred for being "vexatious"

Only if the claims are illegitimate.

Re: Accountability sinks

#140

Post by immibis »

formerly_proven wrote: post #134
larodi wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a sad experience and I would definitely try to chase them robots. Sadly even though German public transport fascinates with its ease of use and quality, though when it comes to human service you can find yourself in peculiar position. And particularly if you are not German and happen to be in one of those international cities there where Germans are fed up with visitor. You waive goodbye to your 50€ and keep a…

> german public transport fascinates with its ease of use and quality You have something mixed up there.

It's definitely easy to use. You show up at the station when the train is coming. You get on the train. Later, you get off the train. No security checks like an airport. No multi step check in. Just be there and get on. In many cases your ticket won't even be checked, and when it is it's while you're seated while the train is moving. Getting a ticket is no problem: the ticket machines are multilingual, and you type in the stops you want to go from/to and the date. You can also book one online and get a QR-like code you can print or display on your phone.

Quality is mediocre. The trains are often delayed, which is a problem with the size of the network and cascading failures. Once they do get to A, they get from A to B just fine, the seats are okay, the luggage space is okay, etc. The DB Navigator app is useful for finding alternative routes but it won't tell you whether your ticket is valid for them. It will tell you if the delay is so long that you're allowed to use any route.

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