Uber has a history of sketchy behavior, such as investigating journalists who have written less than complimentary stories. Uber has basically done the Exact thing Fowler is explaining before. To me, that provides a pretty convincing argument that they are more than capable, and more than willing to do it again.
It sounds like the criticism is "I hate that she might change her mind based on new evidence". I'd say its a good thing that they were willing to alter their policy based on whether it would create jobs or not.
> It sounds like the criticism is "I hate that she might change her mind based on new evidence". I'd say its a good thing that they were willing to alter their policy based on whether it would create jobs or not.
The only "new evidence" that would sway Clinton's opinion on the TPP were poll numbers.
Consider the pressure / race to the bottom this puts on the rest of the EU though. The EU has an incentive to try to keep things fair between the states (disallowing sweetheart deals to lure companies away from other members), because this sort of competition is harmful to the EU as a whole. It's not like Apple is going to stop selling to Europe; they'll be somewhere if not Ireland, and the EU benefits as a whole if Apple is not allowed to skip out on paying its share.
The problem is, no-one's offered a sane alternative.
The top employment sectors in Ireland are Food&Drink, Pharma, and Tech. The latter two of those are massively dominated by multinationals. Combine that with multinationals contributing the bulk of corporate taxes, and we simply can't afford to scare them away. Without these MNCs, Ireland's economy would be basically beef, beer, and American tourists. There simply isn't enough native industry to make up the short-fall (which is the part I think should actually be addressed, rather than the symptoms).
(And away they will - Ireland is not the lowest corporate tax rate in the EU. Liechtenstein and Cyprus have the same rate, and 3 more states have a lower rate.)
I do understand the desire for a level playing field. It's a noble goal. But we're basically being told "We'd like you to drive your economy back to the 1950s, because France feels it'd be more fair". It's not a particularly enticing proposal - all stick and no carrot.
Ironically, they're championing our post-bailout growth as a success, while they retroactively make the mechanisms behind it illegal.
Since when was the EU supposed to be about making things "fair" between countries? The EU does not advertise itself as a club that requires you to become less competitive in order to avoid upsetting the French.
Tax competition doesn't harm the EU, it makes it stronger. Because you realise, that there are countries outside the EU too, who can also lower their tax rates ...
IMHO, Taxes (or market access/safety-of-life etc) are absurdely overpriced. We are seeing market-competition. And I for one welcome it, like any other competition.
I dont know whats "fair" and I dont care. I want things as cheap as possible.
There's a whole article above about what laws were not followed and a solution that works for both parties: Apple pays the taxes it owes. If it is unhappy with that burden, it can leave Ireland and the EU, but I suspect that will not happen.
If your cause is to decrease advertising on the web, and these actions diminish its effectiveness and potentially lead to decreased advertising in search of a better revenue stream, well that sounds like effective activism to me.
That doesn't mean it's not vandalism, too. The fact that no property is actually destroyed does mean that, but I think there is a qualitative difference between blocking ads and attempting to swamp ad-pricing signals with injected noise.
Ugh, we've had this argument so many times.. By your logic, the website operator can also say "it's my website, I'll serve the ads I want the way I want.. don't like it? don't visit my site"
And yet, there you are anyways, with your ad blocker.. hard to take the high ground I think..
Indeed they should. In most cases, they still send the page when requested. The problems start when authors decide they don't just want to control what they serve at their website. The advertising model also requires control of the client to guarantee that the ads are shown.
That kind of control is possible with a contract (e.g. a paywall or similar controlled access). Instead, a lot of "content creators" want to have the benefits of a contract but only from one side.
> And yet, there you are anyways, with your ad blocker
So stop sending them data when they ask for it. In the meantime, ad blockers are going to show exactly how little some "content" was actually worth. If your content is worth so little that nobody is willing to pay for it in money or time, don't be surprised when attempts to force payment (in time or attention) results in blowback.
> hard to take the high ground I think
It isn't unethical to use as desired data that you were freely given. The only people that are ceding ethical high ground are "content creators" that want to control how people use their website. Delusional beliefs about what they think contract law ought to be is no substitute for a business model that understands what the internet actually is.
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TL;DR - We aren't ethically obligated to prop up your business plan that relies on artificial scarcity. If you don't want people to read your web pages, stop sending those pages without pre-{payment,authorization}. I suggest finding a better business plan.
Except they're pretty clearly private companies, not Public Goods. And as such, they can do basically whatever they want about speech on their platforms.
At which point does a service offered by a private company become a public good? There was such a transitioning point for electric power, for telephone service, etc. Will it occur for social media? And if so, at which point?
But the article doesn't argue for NO parking lots; it argues that FREE parking lots are the issue. The stores could stay open with paid parking, and could lower costs for non-drivers because they no longer needed to subsidize that free parking by charging everyone more.
Any store that tried to make people pay for parking would go out of business equally as fast as one without parking. (i.e. in some places that would fly, in most it would not.)
Your store or entertainment or whatever better be something absolutely unique and special for me to be willing to pay for parking.
The reasons cities require stores to build free parking is otherwise people park in residential areas and annoy the residents with extra traffic.
I'm not sure how you can argue drones minimize foreign civilian casualties, given the constant reports of drones bombing weddings and social gatherings based on the location of a cell phone. That's basically just repeating direct propaganda.
Short of a complicated and "nuanced" response, I'd suggest:
How about not invading a sovereign nation? Worst case, the UN could block-off all in-out with that country. Trade, travel, communication. All of it until they abide by UN laws.
But that isn't because they're drones. People have a visceral, irrational reaction to drones because they feel autonomous and impersonal. But ultimately there is a human pressing the button to fire those missiles.
It's really no different from a fighter jet dropping the bombs, there's just no risk of casualties on our side. Yes, those casualties are bad, and we should be agitating against them, but it isn't the drones that are the problem.
Is that accurate? The USA has been willing to use regular manned aircraft for bombing in plenty of situations that are more dangerous than Pakistan and Yemen.
There is basically zero chance the taliban can shoot down an F15. Drones are used because they are cheaper and the better tool for the job.
In fact, Drones only work in areas where the opposing forces have virtually no ability to shoot down aircraft. Because drones are sitting ducks. In a shooting war against any country with anti-air capabilities, drones wouldn't stay in the air for long.
Is it? In [0] (from 2015) the number of US citizens who had been to Iraq and/or Afghanistan was around 2.5 million, or about 0.75% of the population at the time of writing.
Why do we continue to send these men and women over there? Because no one knows them. The risk to someone the average US citizen knows is near 0. This lack of connection allows people to make the decision to commit these anonymous soldiers to a war on the other side of the world.
This is only exacerbated by drone warfare. Now, we'll be committing even fewer of our own citizens lives to the risk of war. Materiel is easily replaced in comparison, and the losses are more easily covered over.
One of the reasons that we, finally and way too late, pulled out of Vietnam was the draft. The idea that you, or your brother, or your son, or your cousin could be drafted and thrown into a war that none of you wanted.
Now it's an all-volunteer military. While we may be wary of war, it's far less of an emotional and ethical strain on the people of this country when they go into their voting booths.
I don't disagree that this is an interesting and troubling trend to keep an eye on. The lowered cost of war absolutely has all the effects you describe, and that is, in a global sense, absolutely a scary thing, with disconcerting implications.
However, it is philosophically untenable to take the position that we should be forced to risk a life in order to take one. That is an anachronism that only feels justified out of a misplaced sense of moral fairness. What we should be doing is focussing on better procedures to prevent civilian casualties. Drones actually represent a great opportunity to employ very stringent procedures to prevent such things. Much more so than a fighter jet or troops on the ground. You can easily do things like have multiple people sign off before a missile is launched, employ machine learning to enhance images and attempt to classify and predict common sources of operator error, etc..
I was irked that you were downvoted, hopefully my upvote bring you out of the gray.
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You make solid points, I don't disagree with you entirely. I do want to clarify: my point of view is not based on a sense of moral fairness. War is probably always going to be unfair, otherwise it's an even match and even more pointless. If I were for fairness I'd want the war to be local and not just in other countries, but I don't want that.
What I want is for it to end. The ability to cover up the human costs by distance from the front, distance from the people fighting (on either side), means it's too easy for us to allow it to continue. I don't want US men and women in harm's way. I want them out of harm's way, and for us to stop killing people who (mostly) just want to live their lives. Some level of military action will probably be necessary somewhere in the world, as entangled as we are, at any given time. But going to more automated and unmanned systems allows us to continue to be far more violent than circumstances actually require, with little cost to the elected and appointed officials directing this violence in our name.
I basically agree entirely with you. However, I think almost everyone would. If you asked Obama or any of the generals running these drone ops to sign off on what you just said, I think they'd gladly do so. They'd then likely go on to say that the war they're waging is one of these unfortunate necessities. Further, that the civilian casualties horrify them, but they're doing what they can do stop them while still accomplishing the (in their minds) paramount goal of eliminating terrorist threats.
What it seems to me to come down to ultimately is that it's ok to use drones when you come down on the right side of that moral calculation and not when you don't. Which, of course makes the drones an irrelevant part of the equation in the first place, since that is the fundamental moral question of all use of force.
Maybe the answer is to un-depersonalize the nature of drone strikes. Maybe their video feeds should be publicly available after X amount of time when they've used their weapons?
If I get you correctly another re-phrasing could be: If we put a human soldier into a situation that is dicey, like a mix of civilians and terrorists we didn't expect, we are obligated to get that human out even if it risks more soldiers and local civilians. But if we put a drone in the same dicey situation we can just accept the loss of that drone and self destruct it without harming any soldiers or civilians.
It is, but it's also not what I said. I'm saying, in relation to the comment chain, that drones do lead to more foreign casualties because of how we're willing to use them, i.e. casually.
Do you have an argument that doesn't involve rephrasing mine?
It is equivalent to what you said. If you are criticizing the way that we use drones, that's fine and you have no argument from me. Criticizing the use of them at all because of their lower cost is silly.
No they aren't. Certain paths may get easier, but it's just up to us to choose the right ones. There is nothing about drone use that entails the killing of civilians, any more than any other form of killing. The fact that it makes it less personal, as i've pointed out elsewhere in this thread, can be an advantage and a disadvantage.
If you care about a goal that actually matters, like reducing violence, you'll push for better verification procedures when a target is going to be struck. Not a reduction in drone use in general, and not an attack on the concept of drones.
Drones present a unique opportunity thus far in war to have stringent procedures in place that control the pulling of the trigger. They represent an opportunity to dramatically reduce civilian death, and increase responsibility for those that abuse their status as drone operators to murder civilians. On a battlefield, it's almost impossible to evaluate killings ex-post. Not so for a drone operator. They are perfectly safe, every single input available to them will be available to any tribunal who wishes to review their actions. They do not have the excuse of feeling threatened, or the heat of battle, or anything like that.
Drones are going to be a good thing for civilian casualties, IF and only if we guide them in the right direction. And that isn't going to happen if we keep naively complaining about their use in blanket terms.
Creation of a new type of weapon cannot be separated ethically or conceptually from the ways the weapon will be used. The design of a weapon influences the manner of its use, and that is unavoidable. The same is true of all objects -- design influences behavior. This link is inextricable.
No it's not. It is precisely equivalent to the argument you're making. If you think there is some moral imperative to impose costs on war, then it is incumbent upon you to draw the line. Why body armor but no drones? Both of them are cost reduction mechanisms. Why is one ok and the other not?
No it's not. It is precisely equivalent to the argument you're making.
No it's not. I would go into more detail but I don't feel you are arguing in good faith, so my effort would be wasted. It seems more like you are trying to out-post your opposition with silly false equivalences that waste time and sidetrack the discussion about drones.
But for anyone else reading, I will say that a distinction can be drawn empirically. Body armor doesn't seem to change the types of situations in which an attack would be considered, while drones do.
> No it's not. I would go into more detail but I don't feel you are arguing in good faith, so my effort would be wasted. > It seems more like you are trying to out-post your opposition with silly false equivalences that waste time and sidetrack the discussion about drones.
I'm not arguing in bad faith, you just aren't bothering to think through your point. As your very next sentence illustrates.
> But for anyone else reading, I will say that a distinction can be drawn empirically. Body armor doesn't seem to change the types of situations in which an attack would be considered, while drones do.
That is pretty obviously false if you spend two seconds considering it. And even if you were to take that as true, what about tanks? Planes? Those unequivocally change the considerable situations.
People are already complaining about the introduction of tanks in new settings like local police forces. Also, when you send a bunch of kids into a putative warzone and they powerslide their tanks around the local streets at 60MPH, it tends to make the locals unhappy. And again, you are shifting goalposts to avoid talking about drones.
> People are already complaining about the introduction of tanks in new settings like local police forces.
That is an irrelevant non-sequitur.
> Also, when you send a bunch of kids into a putative warzone and they powerslide their tanks around the local streets at 60MPH, it tends to make the locals unhappy
Ditto.
> And again, you are shifting goalposts to avoid talking about drones.
I'm not moving the goalposts. The goalposts remain the same. You claimed that weapons that change the operations you consider should not be used. And it is by that criteria that you object to drones. I falsified that criteria a bunch of different ways, and you've failed to respond to any of them adequately.
You've been throwing random distractions at a misconstrued, simplified version of what I've said. It's clear that there is zero communication taking place, so I will not respond further.
Why can't we blame the democratic candidate, who was so unappealing to progressive voters that they preferred Nader? I would suggest it is the fault of that candidate (and his party) that they lost the election. No one is entitled to anyone else's votes, regardless of how bad the competition is. Voters have agency, and have no compulsion to vote for one specific candidate to avoid another evil one (that specific candidate still must earn those votes).
Yep. It's a myth that Nader lost Gore the election. In Florida, 10x as many registered Democrats voted for Bush as voted for Nader.
The main argument for voting for a guaranteed-to-lose third-party candidate is that it gives the parties a clear, quantitative signal about how many voters their base-unfriendly policies are losing them.
And also the down-ticket races, of course, though many of them are so gerrymandered here that your votes don't matter in them, either.
> Yep. It's a myth that Nader lost Gore the election. In Florida, 10x as many registered Democrats voted for Bush as voted for Nader.
This isn't a counter-argument. Yes, there are innumerable ways Gore could have gotten the handful of votes needed to push him over the top in Florida.
But it's difficult to argue that, if Nader voters voted for their second choice instead, Gore wouldn't have gotten enough votes to win. To argue otherwise is to argue that a majority of Nader voters would have picked Bush as a second pick, and that's difficult to imagine.
