4 ms·
Yes, Uber did something enormously creative. But it also did something destructive and we're guilty of an accounting sleight of hand if we focus on one while pr
by smallmancontrov 4mo ago
Yes, Uber did something enormously creative. But it also did something destructive and we're guilty of an accounting sleight of hand if we focus on one while pretending the other doesn't exist.
We still want to encourage creative destruction to move forward, but paying taxes to clean up the destruction is the very least that the victorious parties can do because the entanglement exists in moral accounting even if it doesn't exist in financial accounting.
- AnimalMuppet 4mo agoDestroying inefficient monopoly rents? By all means, let us not pretend that doesn't exist.
- smallmancontrov 4mo agoYou're forgetting the workers, who were the important part of this analysis.
- AnimalMuppet 4mo agoWhy are the taxi workers more important than, say, the taxi customers? If the companies are providing garbage service, why do I have to care about protecting their workers?
- smallmancontrov 4mo agoWhen you lose your job to AI, you will understand.
- Esophagus4 4mo agoTechnology has always displaced workers. And then the society adjusts. Plenty of people will lose their jobs to AI, but most workers will be redeployed elsewhere. The agricultural revolution displaced farm workers with machines. There was unrest and migration to cities, and eventually that fed the Industrial Revolution and created a working class. Change is tough, but we will all be fine.
- smallmancontrov 4mo agoLast time inequality cooked up it took a lifetime to go back down. It did so very painfully through capital incineration on a monumental scale: a great depression, where the incineration was metaphorical, and two world wars, where it was very literal. In both cases it was economical and in both cases it fixed the problem but at enormous cost. We should aim to do better.
- inigyou 4mo agoPlus all the union violence. The ones where owners used guns to break strikes so striking workers also started bringing guns and using them. I don't think we want that, do you?
- samiv 4mo agoYeah and it took about 150 years until industrial revolution started to actually benefit the common people and the workers started to have their working conditions improved. What it took was social democracy and unions and other social movements. Saying that "it's happened before, it'll be alright" is a bit naive and short-sighted.
- inigyou 4mo agoIt took a literal civil war, which you don't read about in history books so much because it's not beneficial for the owners of those publishing houses to have more people hear about it. Lots of people died on both sides.
- strictnein 4mo ago> which you don't read about in history books so much Just to clarify, are we referring to the American Civil War? The reason I ask is that the idea that it is not a topic that is broadly covered in history books and discussed at depth all throughout schooling is simply false.
- 4mo ago
- AnimalMuppet 4mo agoThat doesn't answer the question. In a world where AI has not yet taken all the jobs, when a company provides lousy service, why do its employees deserve to keep their jobs more than the customers deserve good service?
- nullorempty 4mo agoI honestly don't know how uber drivers can even make a living with the price of gas and upkeep for the car [being as hight as it is]. How many hours a day do they work? I know there is a 12 hour limit at Uber but you could continue to Lift until the next day. Then what? So they drivers spend their life Ubering, not learning new skills or anything and next thing you know - AI takes their jobs. Then what? That's how you get revolutions.
- jojobas 4mo agoIt created another monopoly to collect more rent, and some would say it's a worse one to boot.