Really, given the facts on display and a history of the 19th century only a few clicks away, why exactly does Uber still have defenders?
Because the taxi racket has been enjoying its monopoly for too long. Where I am, we have some of the highest taxi prices in Canada while many the taxi drivers are near minimum wage (because the drivers rent the licenses from the people who could actually afford them). An Uber driver told me he makes more money on Uber than he did driving a cab, although I didn't ask if that factored in vehicle wear'n'tear.
Everyone I know had pretty much stopped taking cabs because they were so unreliable. You could end up waiting an hour longer than claimed, or the cab just wouldn't show. Uber has effectively brought taxis back into our lives as a viable option.
From everything I've heard, Uber takes advantage of its workers and uses some pretty shady tactics. I support government regulation to ensure drivers can make a decent wage. But they've disrupted a market that desperately needed disrupting and have noticeably improved my personal standard of living.
So given the choice between Uber and the previous status quo? Yeah, I'm an Uber Defender, if a cautious one.
The galactic scale actually helps the pro-alien viewpoint. There are so many billions of planets in the galaxy that we would expect them to spawn life. Many systems in our galaxy are far older than Earth. By the time the Earth was formed, the linked solar system had already had a chance to evolve from accretion disk->Kardashians.
So maybe alien life is common, but not a single one of the isolated species decided to expand to the stars. Maybe travel between the stars is somehow impossible, even for machines. Maybe they're extinct or maybe then never existed to begin with. But one thing that doesn't explain the absence of aliens is the vast galactic scale. It's smaller than you think.
I think that's the point of calling you sociopathic. You shouldn't need a reason, because the empathy present in most humans would be enough.
I can't give you a personal reason, but I can give you one that applies to people as a collective: I live the full live I have now because of the sacrifices made by the generations that came before. People who put off their own happiness to improve the world in some way. It's a form of paying it forward, and I have a huge debt. I'll never be able compensate those countless generations who got the world to where it is now, but I can do my part to improve upon their work.
True. Some of the best fiction I've read was first published on that site.
There was another one about the corpse of an angel, found floating in space, hooked up to play a perfect allegorical game of Go to solve political and economic puzzles for its masters.
Very few things stick with me for this long, but K5's fiction did.
Can you point me to some examples? Religious schools tend to be private institutions, so aren't beholden to non-discrimination clauses. Same goes for churches. No one has ever been forced to lend the weight of their religion to a marriage. Can you point to a case where a private institute has been forced to go against their religious beliefs?
People who own public companies like bakeries do not have the right to discriminate when selling wedding cakes. People who work for the public government do not have the right to discriminate when deciding who gets a marriage license. For those people, their religion prevents them from providing protected classes the same rights granted to everyone else. As I mentioned earlier, their religion has started affecting others, and that's where their rights stop.
And no, no one can be punished for believing in God, or lacking a "belief in the lack of a god". But again, once their beliefs lead to actions that affect others, all bets are off.
From what I can see, the intolerance towards "beliefs" only starts when those beliefs start affecting other people. People have every right to believe gay people are sinful and going to hell. But they shouldn't have a right to fire someone just because they're gay.
Note the difference between tolerating a belief and tolerating an action. Yes, a lot of actions are informed by religious beliefs and are no longer being tolerated. But that's exactly as it should be. Religion should not have an adverse effect on anyone not of that religion.
Can I just say I appreciate you responding rationally and calmly to this line of questioning. It's refreshing to see a well-thought-out answer in the face of the obtuse disingenuous questions being thrown your way.
If you had been born with different genitals, but were 100% the same in every other aspect, do you think you'd identify with the gender that matches your sex? I wouldn't.
I believe (and there is growing supporting evidence) that there are innate psychological differences between men and women. Some people are born with a psychology that does not "match" their sex. They're literally a man born in a woman's body. You suggest psychiatric care to fix their psychology, but why not cosmetic surgery to fix their genitals? Both suck, but the latter seems less invasive (and empirically gets better results)
I mean, Linux must suck if this half-assed Windows integration is any threat at all. It's not like tons of dev shops already force its devs to use Windows for some reason, yet still manage to deploy to Linux.
And let's not forget that Microsoft makes the best servers too. Sysadmins have been lamenting for years "If only this web server ran a Windows UI, I would be complete!" The second this integration is complete, every Linux server in the world will be migrated to Winbuntu, because it's obviously better.
Or maybe you need to chill the fuck down and recognize that Linux is still around for legitimate reasons, and a little thing like being more accessible than ever isn't a threat. I have no doubt that Microsoft would love to eat into Linux's market share with this move, but I can't see it happening, and someone who has to use Windows, I can't see this as anything but the best thing ever.
Bottom line, Microsoft has tried to crush Linux in the past, and this isn't going to succeed any better today than the past 2 decades. Today, Linux is running on more devices than Windows could ever dream of.
I shall repeat this message several times in the coming days.
Uh...why? I'm seriously asking here. What's your motivation behind this?
If you just want to annoy us, go for it, I guess. But comment spam is always specific enough that I feel there's a goal behind it. Why do you feel this is the most important story we could be reading right now?
God, like I needed another reason not to vote for that asshole.
Sure, I'll continue living my life without fearing robots, but apparently Trump doesn't want me ordering them to jump into volcanoes for my own amusement.
Slashdot Mirror
Really, given the facts on display and a history of the 19th century only a few clicks away, why exactly does Uber still have defenders?
Because the taxi racket has been enjoying its monopoly for too long. Where I am, we have some of the highest taxi prices in Canada while many the taxi drivers are near minimum wage (because the drivers rent the licenses from the people who could actually afford them). An Uber driver told me he makes more money on Uber than he did driving a cab, although I didn't ask if that factored in vehicle wear'n'tear.
Everyone I know had pretty much stopped taking cabs because they were so unreliable. You could end up waiting an hour longer than claimed, or the cab just wouldn't show. Uber has effectively brought taxis back into our lives as a viable option.
From everything I've heard, Uber takes advantage of its workers and uses some pretty shady tactics. I support government regulation to ensure drivers can make a decent wage. But they've disrupted a market that desperately needed disrupting and have noticeably improved my personal standard of living.
So given the choice between Uber and the previous status quo? Yeah, I'm an Uber Defender, if a cautious one.
The galactic scale actually helps the pro-alien viewpoint. There are so many billions of planets in the galaxy that we would expect them to spawn life. Many systems in our galaxy are far older than Earth. By the time the Earth was formed, the linked solar system had already had a chance to evolve from accretion disk->Kardashians.
And yet the galactic scale is no impediment to colonization. Assuming a 0.0025*c travel speed, it would take only 50 million years to colonize the galaxy. That's nothing in galactic terms.
So maybe alien life is common, but not a single one of the isolated species decided to expand to the stars. Maybe travel between the stars is somehow impossible, even for machines. Maybe they're extinct or maybe then never existed to begin with. But one thing that doesn't explain the absence of aliens is the vast galactic scale. It's smaller than you think.
Another clue: picking out a simple spelling mistake and ignoring the actual point, again as an AC. Well done.
No, an anti-scientific non-sequitor posted on a tech blog by an Anonymous Coward must be a troll.
I think that's the point of calling you sociopathic. You shouldn't need a reason, because the empathy present in most humans would be enough.
I can't give you a personal reason, but I can give you one that applies to people as a collective: I live the full live I have now because of the sacrifices made by the generations that came before. People who put off their own happiness to improve the world in some way. It's a form of paying it forward, and I have a huge debt. I'll never be able compensate those countless generations who got the world to where it is now, but I can do my part to improve upon their work.
Tell that to the people who have been asking for MRU tab-switching for ages
Chrome doesn't even allow plugins to enable MRU for ctrl+tab.
This is a different author. As far as I can tell, K5 was the only host for this story on the entire internet.
(and yeah, I'm signed up for localroger.com's newsletter. Prime Intellect and Passages in the Void are incredible stories)
And I just found it on Google cache. Glad I could grab it before it disappears forever:
http://webcache.googleusercont...
True. Some of the best fiction I've read was first published on that site.
There was another one about the corpse of an angel, found floating in space, hooked up to play a perfect allegorical game of Go to solve political and economic puzzles for its masters.
Very few things stick with me for this long, but K5's fiction did.
Can you point me to some examples? Religious schools tend to be private institutions, so aren't beholden to non-discrimination clauses. Same goes for churches. No one has ever been forced to lend the weight of their religion to a marriage. Can you point to a case where a private institute has been forced to go against their religious beliefs?
People who own public companies like bakeries do not have the right to discriminate when selling wedding cakes. People who work for the public government do not have the right to discriminate when deciding who gets a marriage license. For those people, their religion prevents them from providing protected classes the same rights granted to everyone else. As I mentioned earlier, their religion has started affecting others, and that's where their rights stop.
And no, no one can be punished for believing in God, or lacking a "belief in the lack of a god". But again, once their beliefs lead to actions that affect others, all bets are off.
How, exactly?
From what I can see, the intolerance towards "beliefs" only starts when those beliefs start affecting other people. People have every right to believe gay people are sinful and going to hell. But they shouldn't have a right to fire someone just because they're gay.
Note the difference between tolerating a belief and tolerating an action. Yes, a lot of actions are informed by religious beliefs and are no longer being tolerated. But that's exactly as it should be. Religion should not have an adverse effect on anyone not of that religion.
Can I just say I appreciate you responding rationally and calmly to this line of questioning. It's refreshing to see a well-thought-out answer in the face of the obtuse disingenuous questions being thrown your way.
You seriously can't tell the difference between "intolerance towards X" and "intolerance towards intolerance"?
Are you also against financial penalties for thieves, because that would be theft?
If you had been born with different genitals, but were 100% the same in every other aspect, do you think you'd identify with the gender that matches your sex? I wouldn't.
I believe (and there is growing supporting evidence) that there are innate psychological differences between men and women. Some people are born with a psychology that does not "match" their sex. They're literally a man born in a woman's body. You suggest psychiatric care to fix their psychology, but why not cosmetic surgery to fix their genitals? Both suck, but the latter seems less invasive (and empirically gets better results)
<sigh> That'll teach me not to preview
I mean, Linux must suck if this half-assed Windows integration is any threat at all. It's not like tons of dev shops already force its devs to use Windows for some reason, yet still manage to deploy to Linux.
And let's not forget that Microsoft makes the best servers too. Sysadmins have been lamenting for years "If only this web server ran a Windows UI, I would be complete!" The second this integration is complete, every Linux server in the world will be migrated to Winbuntu, because it's obviously better.
Or maybe you need to chill the fuck down and recognize that Linux is still around for legitimate reasons, and a little thing like being more accessible than ever isn't a threat. I have no doubt that Microsoft would love to eat into Linux's market share with this move, but I can't see it happening, and someone who has to use Windows, I can't see this as anything but the best thing ever.
Bottom line, Microsoft has tried to crush Linux in the past, and this isn't going to succeed any better today than the past 2 decades. Today, Linux is running on more devices than Windows could ever dream of.
Not to mention the statutes of Egality and Fraternity.
Oh, right....pre-coffee I can be pretty dumb.
Should I be extradited if I send anti-Chinese-gov't documents to someone in China? This isn't a precedent we want to set.
That said, I do think it's a special case and not the beginning of a slippery slope. I just don't like the logic being applied.
I shall repeat this message several times in the coming days.
Uh...why? I'm seriously asking here. What's your motivation behind this?
If you just want to annoy us, go for it, I guess. But comment spam is always specific enough that I feel there's a goal behind it. Why do you feel this is the most important story we could be reading right now?
They created the demand.
If he'd been selling completely-original Ratmobiles, he would not have sold as many, nor commanded so high a price.
I've got plenty of gripes with copyright law. This is not one of them.
Trump will do away with that Second Law shit.
God, like I needed another reason not to vote for that asshole.
Sure, I'll continue living my life without fearing robots, but apparently Trump doesn't want me ordering them to jump into volcanoes for my own amusement.
With the number of hacks coming from China, I'd at least expect them to understand the value of signing their code.
You mean a general low-level chaos killing thousands instead of a civil war killing hundreds of thousands?
Yeah, it's a nightmare alright.
Brilliant! You should call the FBI immediately and let them know!