
Travis Shrugged - ajsharp
http://pandodaily.com/2012/10/24/travis-shrugged/
======
jrockway
I personally like the model "try to do something illegal and then complain on
the Internet". When people realize the laws are wrong, they'll change them.
(Remember how epically SOPA failed? Awareness is a key catalyst for change and
many laws are for special interest groups rather than general interest.)

But even ignoring that, this article is crap. It basically claims that taxi
licensing exists for safety and that Uber is jepordizing the safety of the
average man for the benefit of the out-of-touch Silicon Valley elitist. Using
facts to support this view, however, is difficult as there are none. Uber uses
licensed car services that are licensed to transport passengers but not to
pick up people without a certain amount of notice. The law that's being broken
is saying "I want a car now" when the law says you have to say "I want a car
in one hour" or otherwise hail a medallion vehicle. Presumably the licensing
process for drivers of cabs and car service cars is around the same (drivers
must not rape their passenger, to use the example from the article).

The worst side effect of letting car services pick up passengers immediately
is that the artificial value of taxi medallions will return to its true value
of zero dollars, making a lot of people very poor very quickly. There is an
argument to limiting the number of cabs as a traffic-calming measure, but
there is really no reason to discriminate based on vehicle type -- just
implement a congestion charge and everything will work itself out.

Anyway, I like to see counterpoint articles on HN so I'm glad this was posted.
But writing a whiney blog post about how Uber is sticking it to the poor man
is tiresome.

~~~
bpatrianakos
The article isn't crap and you're too focused on the wrong part of it. You're
missing the bigger point. It wasn't about whether the laws that Uner had
trouble with we're justified or not, it was about how Disruptive startups try
to paint any and all regulation and laws as unjustified despite there often
being merit to them. It's about not being a cry baby and just because you
label yourself Disruptive doesn't mean that the rules don't apply to you.

At the same time yes there are laws that are laughable and truly need
disruption. It's a real fine line to walk and this article points out the
danger in the Randian attitude. I personally think that Rand did have some
good points. Unfortunately the entire ideology is entirely one-dimensional and
self-serving to the point where it ignores any and all counter arguments even
if they really are more correct. This kind of mentality is dangerous in the
same way religion is dangerous. Or can be dangerous. On the one hand you have
you the moderates who are all about the good parts and loving everyone but
stop short of holy war. On the other hand you have the zealots who take every
word of their book as objective fact and will blow up a building to remind
you.

Not everyone believes what I believe. Luckily, my beliefs do not require them
to.

~~~
nirvana
You actually called a mentality "dangerous" that you aren't even being honest
about!

Instead of internalizing leftist propaganda and repeating it as fact, you
should actually read the book.

"it ignores any and all counter arguments even if they really are more
correct."

The most accurate characterization of that statement is that it is the exact
opposite of what he philosophy actually advocates. Which you would know if
you'd read Atlas Shrugged.

"On the other hand you have the zealots who take every word of their book as
objective fact and will blow up a building to remind you."

In this case, you are the zealot who is taking lies told about the book as
fact, and advocating violence against those who disagree with you.

And of course you have to characterize them in derogatory ways.

If Ayn Rand was so wrong, why can't you, and others like you, such as Paul
Carr, be honest about what she actually said-- and address her actual
arguments and philosophy, instead of lying about them and characterizing them
in a derogatory fashion? Which is, as far as I'm concerned, nothing short of
calling them names.

If you weren't a zealot, you'd have read the book to find out what it actually
said. If you claim to have read the book, then lying about it makes you a
zealot.

But worse, anti-intellectual. And that's what I really find offensive.

------
guylhem
You should read Atlas Shrugged instead of bashing it. Who knows, you may learn
one thing or two - like the basic principle of refusing to live at the expanse
of someone - and to let no one live at one's expanse in return.

 _> Laws don’t exist merely to frustrate the business ambitions of coastal
hipsters: They also exist to protect the more vulnerable members of society_

No. They exist to skew the odds in favour of those who are already "in the
business", or to line up the pockets of the friends or financial backers of
those that make the laws.

(EDIT: some of them also exist to get reelected, and very few of them for what
laws are really needed for - protecting private property)

The market is the only thing that can beat some sense to a politician - but
only after he's used your tax money to fight back, and until after reality can
not be denied any longer.

Take any eco 101 book to learn how the NYC medallion scheme is damaging and
learn for yourself. Here's a good read which requires little domain knowledge:

[http://www.worthpublishers.com/Catalog/uploadedFiles/Content...](http://www.worthpublishers.com/Catalog/uploadedFiles/Content/Worth/Product/About/Look_Inside/Krugman,_Micro_in_Mods_2e/KrugMicro2eMods_Mod09.pdf)

(EDIT2: Downvote as much as you want. An article with that much politic biais
deserves IMHO at least a matching response.)

~~~
bpatrianakos
I think it's hilarious how the little guy buys into Ayn Rand am regurgitates
this nonsense. Ayn Rand does not have your back. The Only people for whom it
makes any sense to believe in Rand's ideology are those very same people who
are skewing the odds that you rail against. Unless you're worth a few million
(at least) then you are the greater fool if you believe in Randianism.

Not very law and regulation is a huge conspiracy and in fact, most of the very
unnecessary and self serving ones were created by Randians for Randians.
Everyone hates the RIAA around here so I think they're the perfect example of
this.

I really love how Randians selectively pick and choose examples to support
their ideology that just happen to be totally hypocritical. If you read Ayn
Rand without trying to fit it into your personal ideology it comes off
sounding like it was written by a narcissistic sociopath (redundant, I know.
Sociopaths are already narcissists)

~~~
guylhem
The ideology can be summed up to refusing to live at someone else expanse, and
refusing that people life at your expanse.

It goes both ways, and I need no one to back me up. I am happy with my
ideology, and I won't be coerced into anything I won't do out of my free will
- with or without money. That is true freedom.

BTW even stretching that definition very far, I fail to see how it can include
the RIAA, which lives at the expanse of our legal system, and which makes a
lot more people life at its expanse.

Information goods are not in the domain of economy (even if some like to say
they are non rival and non excludable like a public good) - they are not
scarce resources.

And the free software movement has show that no special incentive was required
to produce high quality information goods.

The answer to the RIAA is in the market - in the artists around us whose work
we enjoy and can financially support. kickstarter movements now make that
possible.

~~~
cantankerous
_The ideology can be summed up to refusing let someone else live at your
expense._

Fixed that for you. I've read the book. There's quite a bit of kicking
freeloaders to the curb. My takeaway was that if you didn't want to be kicked
to the curb by some tough guy, you shouldn't live at his expense. Which is
really some lame contrapositive of "don't let freeloaders live at your
expense".

It was a terrible piece of fiction, by the way. The characters were way too
unbelievable.

~~~
invisiblefunnel
The characters aren't really meant to be believable.
[http://books.google.com/books?id=TYZaNwrIM8YC&pg=PT664&#...</a>

~~~
cantankerous
I guess "believable" is the wrong word. They were one-dimensional and boring.
The book is a terrible description of a way of life masked as a story, and in
my opinion, that's all it is.

------
clarkm
I'm still trying to figure out the point of this article. I think the author
is trying to discredit Travis Kalanick and Uber by associating them with Ayn
Rand, but the argument seems to backfire.

Besides the fact that the article is annoyingly snarky, it just doesn't make
good arguments. There are much better ways to criticize Uber than raving about
some Ayn Rand connection. The writing meanders through several topics, but
seems to be just grasping at threads. The author wants us to believe that
Travis is some sort of Objectivist Fundamentalist, but fails to tie them
together with anything more substantive than a Twitter profile picture and
three year old forum post.

However, I do have to give him credit for creative character assassination. He
includes lots of suggestive anecdotes (e.g. caricaturing Travis as "downright
adolescent"), re-educates us with some condescending philosophical
mischaracterizations (though he seems rather desperate in his attempts to
portray Rand as the Worst Person In The World), and tops it off with some
complete non-sequiturs (like trying to convince us that, _hypothetically_ , if
faced with Airbnb's problems, Travis would've ruined everything, all because
of Ayn Rand).

I honestly can't tell if this article was motivated more by the author's hate
of Travis or his hate of Ayn Rand. I imagine he already hated Travis, but upon
noticing Travis' twitter icon, became irate and penned this screed.

My favorite part:

> Worse still, Rand inspired Paul Ryan, The Tea Party and the Koch Brothers.

You read right -- Uber is basically The Tea Party. So overall, I think the
author does a better job of discrediting himself than anything else.

~~~
freditup
The implication that it's automatically bad to support Paul Ryan or support
the Tea Party, and the declaration that anyone who defended Uber on Twitter
was an 'idiot' is somewhat astounding considering the author rails against
internet bullying at the beginning.

I'm personally convinced that the tech world getting politicized is absolutely
the worst thing it can do for itself.

------
gw
> Back home in London (where such statistics are available), 11 women a month
> are attacked in unlicensed cabs, and unlicensed drivers are responsible for
> a horrifying 80 percent of all stranger rapes.

Naturally, if you make a peaceful economic activity illegal, the ensuing black
market will have an over-representation of people willing to violate other
(more serious) laws. Back home in the US, ignorance of this simple truth
continues to dictate our policy on -- well, take a guess.

------
tptacek
The Airbnb point this article tries to make is incoherent. Airbnb operates in
defiance of hotel regulations, it says. You can see how this harms society:
someone's house got trashed! Except that's not what hotel regulations address.
People trash hotel rooms all the time. That's a cost of being in the hotel
business. For this article to make sense, at least w.r.t. Airbnb, it'd have to
be arguing for people to need licenses to stay in hotel rooms.

There are regulatory issues Airbnb does face, but you'd like to think an
article taking startups like Airbnb to task would actually know what they are.
This one doesn't.

------
pdeuchler
Oof. 2,400 words and I still don't understand the majority of this article.
I'm going to ignore the Randian meanderings (verging at one point to
medicare?), and just address the attack of "disruption" and startups that is
mostly relevant to this community.

First off, I'm not the biggest fan of the word disruption. I think it's a
great description of what we as an industry do, however it seems that the word
has created some sort of cargo cult, and now it appears to have become
synonymous with "Killing it, bro!".

So to associate the entire startup industry with the word "Disruption" and
claim that all who work within Silicon Valley adhere to a so called "pro-
Disruption argument" is ridiculous. At best it's a badly worded
generalization, at worst it's a blatant attempt to marginalize all of the
efforts we put into making our businesses seem professional and legitimate, as
he implies that if you subscribe to this argument you automatically ignore all
laws in your area.

Continuing on we see that the author digresses into some rather, shall we say,
pedestrian, class warfare. It's laughable to assume all startup CEO's are
millionaires... much less that most can afford that $50 trip to Whole Foods
(Whatever happened to the ramen fueled startup? Am I the only broke college
student working on a side project in his off time?).

To finally address the claim that this community is some sort of collective
hipster law breaking mob, I don't think you'll find stronger proponents of
rigorous property and civil liberty law anywhere else on the internet besides
reddit. Articles for stronger privacy laws are regularly ranked #1 here.
Really, when you strip away all of the ad-hominems you're left with "Laws
don’t exist merely to frustrate the business ambitions of coastal hipsters".
Ahhhh, I see.

Not to pile on, but I'd like to add that it is disturbing to see a
professional journalist use profanity so willingly in such acerbic personal
attacks.

------
DanielBMarkham
This is yet another one of those rambling, wide-dispersal attacks on SV.

So here's the thing: we have solved many of these problems. Many of these
problems boil down to trust relationships and increased information in the
marketplace. The internet is pretty good at this.

Ever order something from a person on E-bay? Why? Heck, with big-ticket items
on there, you could easily get ripped off. And back in the early days it
happened a lot more. But E-bay implemented a peer-to-peer rating system. Now
when you buy anything, you look at the seller's rating. They look at your
rating. People with long histories of happy transactions are highly unlikely
to ruin it all for just one. It happens, sure, but it's highly unlikely.

Nobody is arguing to throw grandmother out into the snow. I think anybody with
a brain realizes what various laws were put into place to do. And anybody with
a heart would agree with their goals. But it's a fair question to ask if the
solutions from 1950 still make sense in the internet age. Many times -- not
all, but many times -- they do not. We've got a better way worked out. We
figured it out through trial and error and rapid iteration.

EDIT: And for those of you who missed the kicker, perhaps I didn't make this
clear enough. _We've found that peer-to-peer ratings/trust systems
statistically outperform enforcement activities, because you are enlisting
everybody in the community as an enforcer_ So you get your great social goals
_and_ better adherence. It's a thing of beauty.

~~~
rgarcia
I agree, but it begs the question: is there a point at which the damage you
can inflict with a single bad transaction makes some central authority
necessary? e.g. if every 20th car I sell on eBay is a lemon, I still have a
95% rating. If I'm a driver on Uber/Lyft/Sidecar and every 20th person I leave
in a ditch I still have 4.75 stars.

Obviously regulation isn't meant to stop outright crime like this, but I think
it's meant to guarantee a minimum level of service so that the distribution of
outcomes has a reasonable lower bound.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I think it _can_ be. Obviously you wouldn't use a system like this to decide
who gets to own nuclear weapons.

There are a couple of factors: cost per "incident" and volume of transactions.
P2P trust systems work where there is a large volume, the cost-per-incident is
relatively low, and, most importantly, the provider looks forward to continued
transactions. To me cabs seem to easily fall under this rubric.

You know, it's possible to get a medical license and be so inept as to kill
people for decades until you get caught. It's possible to get a hoteliers
license and spy on your customers and cheat them out of services -- happens
all the time. So we have to be clear that we are not comparing absolutes.
There will always be problems with either solution. The question, to me, is
"which system is more adaptive?" Some systems adapt quickly as conditions
change. Most legal systems do not.

I'd still want legal recourse for bad actors in many situations. But things
like taxicab drivers robbing you? We already have legal recourse, yes? So in
reality with the taxi situation we're only talking about the cab fare, not a
FUD list of possible really bad things (tm) that could happen in a taxi.
Geesh. That'd be a huge list.

------
kamaal
There you see the problem with this post and people who talk like this. The
whole point is they make it a "Us vs Them" debate. 'We are poor' and 'They are
rich' so obviously they must be exploiting us for their wealth, kind of
thinking. Once you say this then you get a free run to depend on the 'rich'
for anything and everything. And if they deny any help and ask on what merit
you ask for help, you can brand them straight evil.

If there is one thing people like this need to learn its that no body gives it
to you in life, you have to go and get it. People who started AirBnb are not
descendants of aristocrats and kings, they have not inherited billions in
wealth to start new businesses on zero risk. Those people bit by bit have
built their own success. Do they have to give back something to the society?
Yes- Taxes. But they are not responsible for all wrongs going in the society.

Besides what is Ayn Rand saying anyway? All she is saying is we must not make
up a few pay up for everybody else. Are you as a millionaire responsible if
somebody else isn't. How the hell are you responsible for it? Laws and
Regulations are supposed to make to help everyone get rich, not to make every
one poor on average.

When a disruptive business model makes it debut a lot of pain ensues.
Automation replaces people, new model of supply chains eliminate middle men
etc. Our job is to move to new productive level of work, instead of fighting
new trends. Its futile to fight disruptive trends, because the inherent
benefits they offer means there is nothing stopping them.

Expecting a stranger to worry about your financial well being is the most
ridiculous way of living your life. He has no obligation towards you, and its
stupid on your part if you expect something from him.

~~~
loopdoend
That would be fine if we all lived on our own planet in the middle of our own
universe. As it is, we have an obligation to others simply because we must co-
exist. If someone is suffering it is likely because they have been deprived of
something, be it resources, "property", or some technological innovation. We
cannot artificially restrict each other into poverty, and if you cannot
understand this you should take a moment to reflect on your morality.

~~~
kamaal
Oh, C'mon- morality?

How am I poor on morality when someone whom I don't even know is poor. I
didn't steal anything from him, and at the same time no one gave anything to
me. Opportunities are made, there is nothing like a limited pool of them in a
free market economy.

I agree there is going to be a little trouble initially for somebody who is
poor(I know it as I was poor once myself). But as time goes, by and large you
have you make you own way out of the problem.

I also agree that a person builds on other contribution especially social
ones, but remember they are available equal to everyone. So unless you are
disabled, or have serious health problems- You have no reason to not work on
your problems.

------
KaoruAoiShiho
>In Atlas Shrugged, Rand’s hero John Galt grows tired of the leeching workers
that live off the business acumen of others, so he leads an upper-class strike
that leaves industry decimated. Rand’s point is that without economic
supermen, the country would collapse. She of course ignores the fact that the
same outcome would result if every working stiff in the country up and quit
too.

Would it? We're headed towards a welfare state where de-facto every working
stiff in the country is going to go on permanent vacation. Only this time it
won't be bread and circuses, it'll be sustainable because of the power law and
automation.

~~~
a_bonobo
Does your country really head towards a "permanent vacation"?

In Germany, we have a great social system, with (basically) free university,
healthcare for everyone (until a couple years ago it was unheard of that a
person didn't have health-care), a good public transport-system (I know, USA
is bigger, hard to compare), pretty good unemployment benefits (which are
being cut down by the liberal party more and more), a very good protection of
workers and still we're one of the top economies in the world.

Every time I see Americans complain about their alleged "welfare-state" I'm
just reminded of your crippling student-debt, people dying because they can't
afford basic health-care, people getting fired because their boss threw a
hissy-fit, people working two or three jobs so they can pay rent and I can't
help but wonder how you people can even _think_ of heading towards a health-
care state.

~~~
angersock
How's the healthcare situation in Greece, Spain, Italy, etc. compare with
Germany's? Didn't austerity measures help with that?

~~~
illuminate
"Didn't austerity measures help with that?"

Austerity measures are meant to crush an economy, not help.

~~~
angersock
(this was the joke you see)

(our german friend is better off, perhaps, from the looting of those nations)

~~~
a_bonobo
Looting?? Germany divides a substantial amount of its money to these nations
so they don't collapse and take the currency with them!

~~~
nirvana
Are you enjoying being forced (by the threat of currency collapse) to give
your money to a deadbeat country that has spent the past two decades in lavish
and irresponsible spending, while you were working hard to better yourselves?

And yet you think its wrong for individuals to feel that they should keep what
they spent their lives building, rather than have it taken at gunpoint and
given to someone who chose to waste their lives?

------
rgarcia
_The pro-Disruption argument goes like this: In a digitally connected age,
there’s absolutely no need for public carriage laws (or hotel laws, or food
safety laws, or… or…) because the market will quickly move to drive out bad
actors. If an Uber driver behaves badly, his low star rating will soon push
him out of business._

Well-said. This is the point of view I've come to agree with, so I was eager
for the counterpoint. But then came this:

 _It’s a compelling message but also one with dire potential consequences for
public safety, particularly for those who can’t afford to take a $50 cab ride
to Whole Foods._

What? We're talking about Uber Taxi, not the black car service. In theory Uber
Taxi should lower the cost of a cab since there's presumably less overhead.
What I really want to see is a bigger discussion about government regulation
being forced out by tighter feedback loops, which is the main point of
contention I see with things like Uber, Sidecar, etc.

------
zdean
The author cites this quote:

"The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals.
Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many
things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without
breaking laws."

but doesn't realize that the "One" it is referencing is government, not the
"disruptive" citizens Mr. Carr is attacking. The point of the quote is that
where the government fails to find criminals (criminal activity), it (the
government) will create criminals by declaring "so many things to be a crime
that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."

If he doesn't understand that basic premise of the book, my guess would be
that Mr. Carr hasn't in fact read the book at all but is simply pulling quotes
off of the internet for which he really has no context.

~~~
nirvana
Yes, in fact, this article is like every other Rand bashing article I've
seen-- they aren't honest about what Rand actually said.

It's politically motivated, and written by someone who has no integrity.....
he doesn't care if he's lying. People getting outraged at his lies is, as far
as he's concerned, good publicity.

The sad thing is, every month you see a Rand bashing article posted to hacker
news and every month you see a lot of people posting in the comments attacking
Rand for things she didn't say.

They believe what they're told to think about Rand and they internalize it so
that it becomes fact.

So, they actually believe she thought charity was evil, for instance.

This is the kind of anti-intellectualism that is consuming american political
discourse.

They want to prevent others from reading the book, so they lie about it.

------
gojomo
Carr mentioning the 11 assaults per month by unlicensed cabbies in London, as
if it's a knock on the Uber approach, is completely backwards.

An Uber-style system -- mobile-dispatched and mobile-paid -- is a stronger
system of regulation than traditional city licensing, _especially_ against
threats like assaults.

Those assaults happen because the traditional system fails at enforcement,
tracking, _and_ providing an adequate supply. That causes riders to risk
taking random cabs... or equivalently, leaves them helpless to distinguish the
dangerous cabs.

In an Uber-like system, bad actors can't get assigned riders. Rider and driver
can visually-authenticate each other via photos from their trusted devices --
much stronger than the 'mimeographed license taped to the window' system in
legacy cabs. And more info is retained to investigate and resolve disputes
after the fact.

So it is the malfunctioning legacy system that bears responsibility for those
sorts of assaults/rapes. The legacy cab system is also responsible for other
problems that have plagued it in the decades before Uber even existed,
problems like rider/driver cash thefts, underservice at peak times and
disfavored neighborhoods, and overcharging tourists. These will all be _far
less prevalent_ under an Uber-like system than the traditional system, and
this improvement doesn't require a drain on city commissions and police.

~~~
illuminate
Right, I've used Uber a few times, and you can rate the drivers AND the
drivers can rate the passengers. In one case, a local driver was heckled by a
drunk, rude woman and she was bounced from the system entirely. My service is
better because the drivers aren't bitter and seething over the next possibly
crappy fare.

I don't know how anyone could compare the service to a "gypsy"/unlicensed cab.
Towncars and limos are not the same animal.

------
bubla
I was interested in this statistic: " Back home in London (where such
statistics are available), 11 women a month are attacked in unlicensed cabs,
and unlicensed drivers are responsible for a horrifying 80 percent of all
stranger rapes." I can't find where this info comes from. I was trying to find
out the same stats on LICENSED cabs. I did find someone else trying to find
this same info, by doing a Freedom of Information request, and they got the
ROUND-AROUND and DENIED.
[http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/cab_related_sexual_ass...](http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/cab_related_sexual_assault_stati)

------
robd003
Officially the dumbest thing I've read on YCombinator ever.

------
stretchwithme
11 people attacked in unlicensed cabs. How many were attacked in licensed
ones, I wonder? Zero?

Just like the nurses strike here in the bay area. The media repeatedly
informed us, some died while replacement nurses were working. I guess no one
dies when union nurses are working.

~~~
loopdoend
The reason they get attacked in unlicensed cabs is because the drivers of
licensed cabs can be easily identified.

Unless the driver of the licensed cab wants to go directly to jail, he
politely refrains from raping passengers.

To be clear, I don't believe that argument works against Uber, quite clearly
the drivers can be identified, so I don't know what the author's point is.

~~~
stretchwithme
Yeah, its just an attempt to smear non-anonymous people with the acts of
anonymous people. Its quite in keeping with the rest of it.

------
rohern
Moronic and supercilious article.

