> Plus, isn't the free speech crowd usually about letting private companies do what they want?
You can believe that a private company has the right to do something but also be opposed to them exercising that right.
There's a difference between free speech as a legal principle and free speech as a moral principle. I personally support both, so while I acknowledge that YouTube has a legal right to restrict speech, I still disagree with their use of that right in this case.
1.25 per 100 million miles is almost certainly a bad benchmark since the majority of those miles are interstate miles. Fatality rate per mile of urban driving would be much better, although I'm not really sure whether I would expect that number to be higher or lower.
Edit: Actually, maybe I'm wrong in assuming (a) the majority of miles driven are interstate miles, or (b) that the majority of existing miles logged by self-driving cars have not been on the interstate. Would love to see some data if anyone has it, although I suspect Google, Uber, et al. are reluctant to share data at this point.
Do you own a car? Do you realize how big of a pain in the ass it can be to own one (maintenance, parking, cost, etc.)? I live in a suburban area in the Midwest and even I would love to ditch my car if there was a reliable alternative.
I find that law even more ridiculous given those requirements. Making it illegal to do X unless they force you to do X undermines almost all arguments for criminalizing X.
Not entirely. The companies that must collect presumably have better security safeguards than those just wanting it just because it's easy or customary.
I have a client that must collect and store drivers license copies for 2 years by state law. The system encrypts with GnuPG, such that only an offline private key stored on a crypto smart card can decrypt, and the encrypted image into a cloud storage bucket with an expiration date. Unless they get a spoliation order because the police come knocking no one ever sees the data. After 2 years, the file auto deletes and a record is left indicating that the record was "deleted in the ordinary course of business." The company does not really want to do all of this, but its required by law and good infosec practices.
It seems like you have an impossible standard for determining proof of identity. What type of verification do you envision that isn't subject to flaws? Presenting an ID in person also only proves that someone had access to or a copy of an ID. Of course, there are some physical appearance constraints, but it's not hard for a determined identity thief to get around those.
Personally, I'm glad I live in a country that doesn't criminalize identity verification that utilizes 21st century technology (though I'd gladly accept some other German public policies).
Making a photocopy of an ID is in my opinion not a finest example of the 21st century technology.
One option to have a proof of identity without an actual in person visit is to use a trusted third party (what has verified the person in person). This could be a state (if it provides such service) or a private institution (a Bank for example).
Otherwise you can use old and proved method of trust. I understand that of course for a service like airbnb this might not be enough and this is also the reason why I probably would not use them in the future.
Denmark's online id system, called NemID (EasyID) requires
* A username
* A password
* A one-time verification code, either from a card which is posted to your registered address, or using some kind of USB thing (as far as I know, the USB option is mostly used by companies).
The system is run by the government.
I don't know what information a business using this system for authorization gets — I'd guess name, address and perhaps date of birth — but they at least don't have the password or single use verification code, so they can't authorize themselves in my name.
How? Free market capitalism is the epitome of creative thought.
It's not a limiting doctrine that says you can only do this or that. It's a doctrine that says you are free to engage with others however you want so long as you respect their autonomy and freedom to make their own decisions.
If someone wants to start a voluntary socialist commune, they have the freedom to do so within a free market. Unfortunately for aspiring socialists, most people don't voluntarily want to adopt socialism (at least beyond a particular point) and socialists must then turn to force and coercion in order to enact their preferred style of society. Ignoring the emergent orders that arise from a free society of creative individuals is the truly limiting mode of thinking. (Note: I just used socialism as an example. You could substitute any style of governance that doesn't respect individual autonomy.)
>It's not a limiting doctrine that says you can only do this or that.
Of course it is. It's a limiting doctrine that says "you may use the resources allocated to you within the property system, and no others".
This idea that property rights aren't a form of coercion is one of the most tiresome aspects of libertarian rhetoric.
Capitalism is a very effective economic system, and that efficiency often affords people more freedom than the alternatives, but it is still fundamentally a system of coercive constraints, as indeed any economic system must be.
It's only coercive when you adopt some backwards conception of what coercion means. (E.g., The rapist claims they are being coerced because they can't do whatever they please with other peoples' bodies.)
I'll agree that there are many ways in which the status quo contains injustice as it relates to claims of ownership, but that's entirely different than calling the system of private property coercive. I also don't think there is one objective standard for what confers just and unjust title (i.e., I think this is an emergent social convention rather than some clearly definable concept), but that again is an entirely different topic.
>It's only coercive when you adopt some backwards conception of what coercion means.
If I try to use particular resources, the system will use violence to stop me. If you claim this isn't coercion, then I think it is your conception which is backwards.
>(E.g., The rapist claims they are being coerced because they can't do whatever they please with other peoples' bodies.)
Yes, the prevention of crimes is indeed a form of coercion.
This only sounds strange if you start with the assumption that coercion is inherently bad. If instead you recognise coercion as a necessary consequence of conflicting desires, you can start to discuss what coercion is justified.
Now I think property has shown to be a very effective economic system, and that using coercion to enforce it is therefore entirely justified. But it's still coercion.
But my freedom requires the exploitation of millions. Don't impede my creative thought!
Your binary perception of the world doesn't take into account why we have systems at all, be they capitalism or government. The point is to maximize quality for everyone, and you can't get there with a single tool.
The fact that governments rely on coercion to enact policies like Social Security is not controversial among political philosophers. It's widely accepted.
The controversy is regarding which cases, if any, governmental coercion is justified. There is a wide degree of disagreement here, but even those who believe coercion is justified still admit that it's coercion.
We adjusted to it and I don't know anybody who makes a coherent case for it not making everyone better off, so long as we can figure out the accounting for the temporary, "pig in the python" problem looming.
There are lots of coherent cases against Social Security. For instance, there are far better ways to achieve the desired ends of providing a social safety net. My favorite would be eliminating all other forms of welfare and adopting a basic income.
> There are lots of coherent cases against Social Security. For instance, there are far better ways to achieve the desired ends of providing a social safety net
Social Security is not even in theory aimed at providing a general social safety net, so its not surprising that there are better means if that is your goal.
In parent's defense, I believe that needs are endless and there is always a tiny motion that can be rationalized away or a shiny item that can be obtained before the others get it (think iphone a decade back).
Unless we reach the singularity, there will always be the need for something.
And if you think of needs as something as abstract as "power over the universe" (which is still a limited resource, even after the singularity), you cannot ever reach the state where machines produce everything we need.
Hence, the premise can be unreachable, or - in parent's words - "ridiculous"
> a shiny item that can be obtained before the others get it
> machines produce everything we need
There's a difference between need and want. People want iPhones, but they don't need them, so they can decide themselves whether working more is worth it.
On the other hand, people need food. The only choice is work or die, which isn't really a choice. There is an infinitely large jump between extremely cheap food and free food (and energy/shelter). As food gets cheaper, wages decrease as well, so you still need to work about as long to survive. When/if food becomes free, people won't need to work any longer.
The things that people think they need. Be it plain consumerism or something cultural or social like honor, an iphone, a beautiful wife, a car for boys to impress girls or to go to work, a marriage before losing virginity.
In each of the above cases need in the survivalist sense and need in the subjective sense cannot be more different.
One will have a hard time arguing that those people don't need what we think they don't need.
There already exists a renewable surplus of food, water, and shelter but so much of it goes wasted every year. So poverty is not a problem of production but of distribution.
I disagree. The issue is that for production of food and energy, we still need labor. A lot of this labor is low-paid (supermarket workers, truck drivers, fruit pickers, butchers ...). If you make food free, you won't be able to motivate these low-paid workers any more, so noone will work on food production, so food production won't be free any more.
It used to be 90% of the population was working to produce food, now its around 1% and decreasing with increasing efficiency. So it is an increasingly negligible amount of labor needed to provide an already surplus amount of food.
It is cynical and ignorant to assume the dollar is the monotheistic deity of motivation for everyone. There are and have been countless cultures across the world who don't require monetary payment to produce the requisite food for the community.
Exactly. As a demonstration, compare our current production situation to the production situation as of, I don't know, a thousand years ago. It used to be the case that 90% or more of the population was dedicated to food production. Right now, something like 2% of the population is dedicated to food production. By their standards, we've got machines producing everything we need.
>By their standards, we've got machines producing everything we need.
Except we don't live by their standards -- we live by our standards. And even if they had lived to see today, their standards would have immediately readjusted to want more. That's why it's ridiculous to assume we will ever have "everything we need".
Whilst I certainly want things that my iron-age ancestors wouldn't even have known they could want, my actual physical needs are not greatly different from theirs.
Part of the "challenge" a capitalist society faces is making sure there are jobs despite that only a tiny fraction of the population needs to work to provide everyone's basic biological needs, but that without work everyone else can't pay for those needs to be satisfied.
>And even if they had lived to see today, their standards would have immediately readjusted to want more.
This is not true of many tribal or "uncivilized" cultures. Conspicuous consumption, luxury, and economic advantage/inequality as moral value systems are taboo for close knit tribal communities.
>Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men, we didn't have any kind of prison. Because of this, we didn't have any delinquents. Without a prison, there can't be no delinquents. We had no locks nor keys therefore among us there were no thieves. When someone was so poor that he couldn't afford a horse, a tent or a blanket, he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift. We were too uncivilized to give great importance to private property. We didn't know any kind of money and consequently, the value of a human being was not determined by his wealth. We had no written laws laid down, no lawyers, no politicians, therefore we were not able to cheat and swindle one another. We were really in bad shape before the white man arrived and I don't know how to explain how we were able to manage without these fundamental things that (so they tell us) are so necessary for a civilized society.
Not really. Machines don't care if you instruct them to build a Ferrari or a Toyota. There's no difference in robot labor. After that, all that's left is resources, and sending robots to mine outer space isn't a deal-beaker either.
AI + Space = everything we need
Machines have been labor saving entities since the invention of the wheel. Inevitably, one day they will perform all labor.
To think in absolutes would be to believe that human desires are finite. Even if I'm 100% materially comfortable in life (an unlikely occurrence given our ever increasing standards), I'm going to desire forms of consumption that can only come from human interaction.
If you're 100% materially comfortable in your life you would have increased freedom for human interaction. As it stands now we spend more time at work than we do with family or friends.
Then disagree with the premise. Is it wrong? Why is it ridiculous? Are the adavances in robotics and ML that we are currently experiencing going to hit a wall soon?
It's not that advancements are going to hit a wall. It's absurd to assume human demand for consumption is finite. There will always be human desires that cannot be satiated by machines.
Even if that's true, it doesn't say anything about ratios. Say 90% of our needs are met by machines, 10% is not, we still have a huge problem in terms of labor/capital value mismatch.
Uber will reimburse you if your driver screws up. It would be better if they didn't make mistakes in the first place, but this type of accountability never existed among yellow cabs.
Uber is highly regulated by the forces of market competition. Forces which are far better at protecting and serving consumers than the government.
>What is superior about purely paid drivers?
Low cost of transportation for consumers. No driver is entitled to a job. The efficient movement of goods and people are far more important than preserving jobs from being destroyed by technology that enhances the well-being of society.
Now while I am arguing for significantly reduced regulation around Uber, I would not say markets in general protect or serve consumers better. If markets had their way, anyone could sell a product that claims to do anything else, and if the consumers cannot organize information and catalog what products are fraudulent then people are vulnerable to deception.
That already happens today, in our "tightly regulated" market. Wonder drugs or miracle cures or instant diets or self help books claim to fix everything and do nothing. Drop regulation and it gets worse. Consumers are simply bad at organizing information about businesses, though I would concede that might be partially due to an expectation that "the government will take care of it".
Other things - environmental pollution / destruction (and other secondary costs of business), exploitative employment practices (particularly exploiting the poor and uneducated), using economies of scale to drive out competition, rent seeking, collusion, asset hoarding, and fraud all occur in a natural market and to varying degrees government involvement helps abate some - certainly not all, and certainly not perfectly - these anti-consumer effects of business.
You can look at almost any industry and point at gratuitous and stifling regulation, very often used as shut door tactics by wealthy market players who use force of law to stop competition, because playing in markets usually keeps you honest. Just because Uber is innovative does not exonerate them from how they are playing legal hardball just as bad as many of the companies that preceded them, and if given the opportunity would not erect the same walls to competition their fore-bearers put up. Besides the concerns about workers rights for their drivers, they are actively lobbying cities around the globe to both reduce regulation for themselves and increase it for Lyft or other possible competitors.
I think you're being too narrow in your conception of what markets do. I'm not denying the existence of snake oil salesman--they absolutely do exist--but there are many ways markets combat such behavior. I suspect much of this gets crowded out by the existing regulatory regime, but it's not hard to envision how it would work outside of the status quo (with substantially less cost to consumers).
Underwriters' Laboratories, Consumer Reports, Amazon Reviews, and Yelp are all good examples of effective, though imperfect, market regulation. Producers have no interest in harming their consumers and consumers have no interest in dealing with producers who will harm them. Everyone has an incentive to find ways to ensure mutually beneficial trade. However, when regulatory regimes are monopolized, a new set of incentives emerge which often have nothing to do with consumer safety. Worst of all, consumers and producers have no means to express their dissatisfaction and exit the regime. This is inherently different from companies like Yelp who must fight on a daily basis to continue delivering value to their customers.
Except the whole point of my argument is that while I personally believe in the ethical capacity of fully free markets to work, it requires all participants be informed, intelligent, and educated on how markets work, and they must be rational.
Go walk down the main street of any town in the US and realize how few people are actually educated, or rational, or functional. It is absolutely a product of both culture and the state as it exists that most normal people are raised to become these... zombies? But they are not going to use rational means to pursue products, which is why we have this nanny state consumer production giant looming over everything.
But like I said, we cannot just dissolve those overabundant regulations and growth stifling control with people as stupid as they are. That is just a recipe for pandemic exploitation to degrees even greater than what our current advertising industry pumps out. Just look at how often you hear a story of someone or their kid spending a months worth of wages on some shitty Android game because they were raised to be completely oblivious to obvious swindling.
If we could raise a generation and/or a nation of smart, rational, informed consumers, we could easily replace all the certification and licensing that slows innovation to a crawl with self regulation. Until then we are stuck in a world where people buy self-help books, booze, and Viagra instead of paying off their credit cards.
> Producers have no interest in harming their consumers
If you mean by 'interest' what I think you do, they have an interest only in making money. They have no more interest in NOT harming their consumers than they do in harming their consumers -- and producers of inherently harmful products (cigarettes being the obvious incontestable example) in fact do have an interest in harming their users. But there are PLENTY of producers who have demonstrated an enthusiasm to harming their users, if it sells product.
My wife is a therapist as well. She has to clock out and do documentation on the evenings or weekends to meet productivity (documenting while treating isn't an option given her need to be hands on with patients). They also require her to overbook (i.e., book >100% productivity) so that she stays above 80% in the case of no shows. I get the logic behind it, but it really sucks for her when she doesn't get no shows.
They don't care if she gets overtime (so long as she meets productivity), so that's nice, but I really can't understand why they don't just go to salary or work with insurance companies to incorporate documentation into billable time. I can't imagine the patient experience would be hurt too much by shifting from 1 hour sessions to 45 minute sessions with 15 minutes of paid documentation. If anything, insurance companies should get better documentation and that should help them combat fraud while also improving care. Granted, I think the clinic my wife works at is almost entirely built around Medicaid reimbursement and Medicaid doesn't have many real incentives to reduce costs or improve quality of care.
You can believe that a private company has the right to do something but also be opposed to them exercising that right.
There's a difference between free speech as a legal principle and free speech as a moral principle. I personally support both, so while I acknowledge that YouTube has a legal right to restrict speech, I still disagree with their use of that right in this case.