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This seems like a fault by the individual being 'exploited'. I don't think it is the job of a corporation to run an a cost-benefit analysis tailored for watch i

This seems like a fault by the individual being 'exploited'. I don't think it is the job of a corporation to run an a cost-benefit analysis tailored for watch individual. There is also no obligation to continue driving, so if the drivers cost-benefit isn't what they thought they can always find something else

vernie 7y ago
I'm guessing you love the way healthcare currently works in US. So many choices! Who doesn't love a combinatorial explosion?
- frockington1 7y ago
  I'm not as opposed to most people. I certainly enjoy all of the advances we've had in recent history. I do hate the government waster and subsidizing of the uninsured. If we could get rid of those we could mute many of the burdensome combinations
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    It's not often you find someone whose criticism of American healthcare is "it's not mean enough yet".
  - vernie 7y ago
    Respect.
harryf 7y ago
Yes, but... you can be sure there's a business plan lying around somewhere at Uber that accounts for the fact that some % of drivers won't do the math...
rjtavares 7y ago
We routinely make known scams illegal despite fact that the "fault" lies in the individual being scammed. Not saying Uber is a scam, but "victims should know better" isn't a valid defense of it.
- shantly 7y ago
  Time and resources to comparison shop (in a broad sense) being neither of them infinite, the more we can assure certain definitely- or probably-bad options are absent from the market, the better the market will function. Pro-healthy-and-effective-markets and absolutist pro-liberty or laissez-faire stances aren't always aligned.
  - yellowbuilding 7y ago
    Right, and there must be competitors to compare with. This is why a federal job guarantee makes sense.
throwaway35784 7y ago
This is precisely the way a market for lemons works. Scumbags like you thinking it's ok to prey on the less knowledgeable human beings we live with.
nathan_compton 7y ago
Not one wants to live in a society where your every moment must be dominated by one cost-benefit analysis or another. There is an assumption, I would argue, in the everyday notion that society exists for the common good, that our lives not be either 100% optimized or, otherwise, exploited for profit by some other optimizer. There is a sense in which being induced to consider whether your life is efficient or not is virtuous, of course. Since much of what we use every day is common resource, rather than private resource, we don't want people to be completely careless. But things don't shake out fairly in the real world. The people who are most often punished for failing to optimize are not, by any stretch, the most profligate resource consumers. And yet no one is particularly concerned about whether the lifestyles of the wealthy are completely optimal or whether they could be making more rational use of their resources. Even this state of affairs could be tolerable except that only a clown would suggest the distribution of resources we see now is one that aligns with what people deserve. For the most part, its the vagueries of history which have decided who gets to live without too much care for optimization and who must be completely rational or get fucked.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  > Not one wants to live in a society where your every moment must be dominated by one cost-benefit analysis or another. Except we all do, regardless of how society is organized. For example, is that luscious chocolate torte's taste worth the detriment to one's health? Is driving a little faster worth the extra risk of getting a ticket? Should I buy or rent? Should I buy the expensive shoes or the knockoffs? Should I buy it now at the higher price or wait till I get home and order it online for cheaper?
  - nathan_compton 7y ago
    To some extent what you describe is paradigmatic - the product of a particular set of circumstances (one might even say an ideology, if they were of that frame of mind). Its not inherent to the human condition. Imagine, either as a practical possibility, or an as yet manifested, potentially utopian ideal, where your time wasn't being metered out by any immediate demands and you moved through life on the basis of purely aesthetic concerns. Think of the supposed hunter-gatherers who lived in times of abundance. Only a bit of time was given each day to the dumb gods of survival. The rest of the time could be used for leisure - an idea almost dead in contemporary life (as your comment demonstrates). In fact, just a few days ago, Paul Graham was posting about one important aspect of genius: an impractical (say aesthetically motivated) obsession unconnected to (though perhaps restrained by) practical concerns. Almost every human has some purely aesthetic desires which they would like to act on in the portion of their life which they can carve out from practicalities of survival. I see the social contract or whatever you'd like to call it (if the name contract offends) as an attempt to carve out some portion, hopefully not too meager, of our lives out for just such living, for every human. Its only an immediate condition of modernity, which I'd attribute vaguely to the vague "liberal" zeitgeist, which makes that idea seem alien to all but the wealthiest. Its certainly true that we could rationalize our every moment but in almost any reasonable account a person who wanted to do that or who tried would be considered mentally ill and certainly unhappy. Its inhuman. Its not what we should want. When I spend time with my two year old son I'm not fucking filling in a god-damned column in some great spreadsheet in the sky, is what I'm saying. That should be the privilege of every person.
lonelappde 7y ago
Can I return my car for a refund if I decide I don't want to drive for Uber anymore?

vernie 7y ago

I'm guessing you love the way healthcare currently works in US. So many choices! Who doesn't love a combinatorial explosion?

frockington1 7y ago
I'm not as opposed to most people. I certainly enjoy all of the advances we've had in recent history. I do hate the government waster and subsidizing of the uninsured. If we could get rid of those we could mute many of the burdensome combinations
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  It's not often you find someone whose criticism of American healthcare is "it's not mean enough yet".
- vernie 7y ago
  Respect.

harryf 7y ago

Yes, but... you can be sure there's a business plan lying around somewhere at Uber that accounts for the fact that some % of drivers won't do the math...

rjtavares 7y ago

We routinely make known scams illegal despite fact that the "fault" lies in the individual being scammed. Not saying Uber is a scam, but "victims should know better" isn't a valid defense of it.

shantly 7y ago
Time and resources to comparison shop (in a broad sense) being neither of them infinite, the more we can assure certain definitely- or probably-bad options are absent from the market, the better the market will function. Pro-healthy-and-effective-markets and absolutist pro-liberty or laissez-faire stances aren't always aligned.
- yellowbuilding 7y ago
  Right, and there must be competitors to compare with. This is why a federal job guarantee makes sense.

throwaway35784 7y ago

This is precisely the way a market for lemons works. Scumbags like you thinking it's ok to prey on the less knowledgeable human beings we live with.

nathan_compton 7y ago

Not one wants to live in a society where your every moment must be dominated by one cost-benefit analysis or another. There is an assumption, I would argue, in the everyday notion that society exists for the common good, that our lives not be either 100% optimized or, otherwise, exploited for profit by some other optimizer. There is a sense in which being induced to consider whether your life is efficient or not is virtuous, of course. Since much of what we use every day is common resource, rather than private resource, we don't want people to be completely careless. But things don't shake out fairly in the real world. The people who are most often punished for failing to optimize are not, by any stretch, the most profligate resource consumers. And yet no one is particularly concerned about whether the lifestyles of the wealthy are completely optimal or whether they could be making more rational use of their resources. Even this state of affairs could be tolerable except that only a clown would suggest the distribution of resources we see now is one that aligns with what people deserve. For the most part, its the vagueries of history which have decided who gets to live without too much care for optimization and who must be completely rational or get fucked.

WalterBright 7y ago
> Not one wants to live in a society where your every moment must be dominated by one cost-benefit analysis or another. Except we all do, regardless of how society is organized. For example, is that luscious chocolate torte's taste worth the detriment to one's health? Is driving a little faster worth the extra risk of getting a ticket? Should I buy or rent? Should I buy the expensive shoes or the knockoffs? Should I buy it now at the higher price or wait till I get home and order it online for cheaper?
- nathan_compton 7y ago
  To some extent what you describe is paradigmatic - the product of a particular set of circumstances (one might even say an ideology, if they were of that frame of mind). Its not inherent to the human condition. Imagine, either as a practical possibility, or an as yet manifested, potentially utopian ideal, where your time wasn't being metered out by any immediate demands and you moved through life on the basis of purely aesthetic concerns. Think of the supposed hunter-gatherers who lived in times of abundance. Only a bit of time was given each day to the dumb gods of survival. The rest of the time could be used for leisure - an idea almost dead in contemporary life (as your comment demonstrates). In fact, just a few days ago, Paul Graham was posting about one important aspect of genius: an impractical (say aesthetically motivated) obsession unconnected to (though perhaps restrained by) practical concerns. Almost every human has some purely aesthetic desires which they would like to act on in the portion of their life which they can carve out from practicalities of survival. I see the social contract or whatever you'd like to call it (if the name contract offends) as an attempt to carve out some portion, hopefully not too meager, of our lives out for just such living, for every human. Its only an immediate condition of modernity, which I'd attribute vaguely to the vague "liberal" zeitgeist, which makes that idea seem alien to all but the wealthiest. Its certainly true that we could rationalize our every moment but in almost any reasonable account a person who wanted to do that or who tried would be considered mentally ill and certainly unhappy. Its inhuman. Its not what we should want. When I spend time with my two year old son I'm not fucking filling in a god-damned column in some great spreadsheet in the sky, is what I'm saying. That should be the privilege of every person.

lonelappde 7y ago

Can I return my car for a refund if I decide I don't want to drive for Uber anymore?