Uber should present itself differently, then, to users and should clearly warn them that they may be subject to capricious and potentially negligent actions by those with whom it contracts to drive. I suspect that the average user doesn’t make a distinction between Uber and driver, and possibly assume that drivers are trained to act in a safe manner.
When you hail a regular taxi from Mike's Yellow Taxi, do you think you are subject to the "capricious and potentially negligent actions" of that driver, without being given a waiver to sign?
Do you assume they have any additional training beyond a "for hire" license, and do you expect that Mike's Yellow Taxi has trained them to act in a safe manner?
Probably actually. I don't know anything about taxis but AFAIK its harder to get hired as a taxi driver so I would expect a little more training than Uber. Not a lot, but something
> I suspect that the average user doesn’t make a distinction between Uber and driver, and possibly assume that drivers are trained to act in a safe manner.
The driver was acting on behalf of Uber and was found to have acted in a negligent manner. Whose fault was this, if not Uber’s? If not $40M, what should this young woman’s life be valued at?
The driver's fault. Is there any evidence it was Uber's policies or actions that caused this?
The US government values a statistical life at anywhere from $7 to $12M. Is there any evidence that this woman's lifetime earnings would've exceeded that? If it's a "feels" argument, why not $80M or $200M?
> The US government values a statistical life at anywhere from $7 to $12M. Is there any evidence that this woman's lifetime earnings would've exceeded that?
Thats not what that means. "... when conducting a benefit-cost analysis of new environmental policies, the Agency uses estimates of how much people are willing to pay for small reductions in their risks of dying from adverse health conditions that may be caused by environmental pollution. [...] these estimates of willingness to pay for small reductions in mortality risks are often referred to as the "value of a statistical life.”[0]
> Is there any evidence it was Uber's policies or actions that caused this?
The arbitrator/judge believed there was enough that the company was legally responsible for the conduct and issued a fine to the company for that failure of responsibility to be paid to the parents -- not because he decided that was how much she was worth
That's about the closest value you'll find to what human life is economically valued at. Do you have an alternate measure that is grounded in anything?
Tying human life to a monetary calue as you have done is… well obviously not popular. But honestly, what the actual fuck dude? A woman died and you’re quibbling about how much she might have made working?
What about the pain and loss her family felt upon learning she died because she was left on a fucking freeway? That’s worth nothing in your eyes? If that’s the case you should do the following:
Take a nice long look in the mirror and please internalize the fact that it is people like you that are the literal problem with humanity. I don’t know how you got to that point and I don’t care. Please invest some time in cultivating empathy for your fellows. If you don’t know how try a Hero’s Journey worth of psilocybin.
This hyperbolic empathy is always interesting to me.
There are 100+ fatal traffic accidents each day. Basically none of them will make the news, and almost none of them will result in a 40m+ payout.
Where is your empathy for the 99 other people that died on that day in similar (or even more tragic circumstances)? Why are their lives less important in the eyes of the courts, in monetary terms, and in public opinion?
“Hyperbolic empathy”? Seriously? My empathy isn’t in question. I have a great deal for anyone who loses a loved one to something stupid.
But we’re not talking about me, we’re talking about your seemingly complete lack of empathy. Again, where is yours for the family of the woman who died, hmm? Because you reduced her to a number and a payout, which is only slightly dehumanizing. Why do you disregard “pain & suffering” as valid?
> That's about the closest value you'll find to what human life is economically valued at
Again, that has nothing to do with what you are trying to make it mean.
> Do you have an alternate measure that is grounded in anything?
What? That is completely unrelated to this article and my post, I already clarified what that figured was for -- why are you stuck on this as determining a human lifes economical value? If that topic is near and dear to you for reasons you chose to keep hidden, I can understand why its got you bent, but this is not a relevant thread to air those personal grievances.
It's an economic measure for what should be an economic question. Taking the statistical value of a human life as a baseline feels pretty fair, and adjusting it upwards for special circumstances seems reasonable.
Are you arguing that because she was a nice person, she should be worth more? If she was a mean person, should she be worth less?
> So Flock and the local governments are acting responsibly here. The police officer is not and should be reprimanded.
Who is responsible for ensuring that agents of the government in jurisdictions that host Flock cameras adhere to proper procedures, if not the local governments themselves? Who is designing access systems that permit random text in lieu of actual case numbers that can be verified in real time and properly gate the system? If Flock and the IT departments of local governments cannot provide proper locks against this sort of random surveillance then the cameras should be removed.
The details of course matter; but the overarching principle put on stark display here is that if you don’t meet stabilized approach criteria (on-speed, on-glidepath, minimal necessary flight control deflections) at the 1000 ft AGL gate, go around. Yes grey areas exist but this approach never became stabilized. The whole approach was a missed opportunity to go around.
I am a pilot; and although I don’t fly large transport category aircraft, this sort of procedural discipline makes all the difference no matter what you fly.
It really is. That's why anyone with an aviation background is absolutely stunned that it happened. So, so, so, so, so many opportunities to avoid this accident were actively ignored and/or bypassed. I said it elsewhere but these guys single-handedly punched their way through the entire Swiss-cheese model of safety.
Given the level of negligence on display here I would not be remotely surprised if charges were filed against both pilots.
As a Canadian living in Canada, I see “Lake Ontario.” in Apple Maps. All good. No idea what Google shows because I don’t knowingly use Google products. But I do see the ridiculous “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)” I don’t care what Apple shows inside of U.S. borders but dragging the rest of the world into the clown show is unnecessary.
Although I haven’t much thought through the details, I wonder if these disputed names could be subject to user preference. Basically, a pre-MAGA and MAGA setting.
I’m in the US, near the Canadian boarder, I see both names show up. Lake Ontario shows up larger and when zoomed out. Lake America shows up smaller as I zoom in. I suppose some of this could be a cacheing issue, hard to say.
At the end of the day a map provider has the responsibility to show the official names of places on a map. If it’s one name to the US and another name for the rest of the world, the pragmatic solution is to show the “right” name based on a user’s location.
This seems like a silly hill to die on, when whoever is in office next will likely revert the names of the lake and the Gulf of Mexico, unless they are deep in the Trump camp.
Messing with maps as a negotiation tactic seems rather boneheaded. It’s extremely disruptive, but blaming Google or Apple for any of this is a bad move, imo. There are much bigger fights to be had and they need to pick their battles. This isn’t it, and it will likely resolve itself in time, and should only impact those in the US, if done right.
Google and Apple don’t name things. If the official name inside the US is Lake America, they are only hurting their users by delaying the change, as the map will no longer be in line with the reality the users are living in and things they need to look up.
When it’s only one thing, you might say everyone just knows, but that doesn’t scale.
And like I mentioned, they need to pick their battles. I’d rather them save their politics and favors for things like encryption and privacy, not piss it away on map data, when they can show both names and this will likely be a small footnote in history. In 20 years I can imagine, “What was the name of Lake Ontario for a brief period in the mid 2020s?” Being a question asked at bar trivia.
I would need more information to comment on that. While I am pretty anti-Google and like to assume they are dragging their feet to collect more data, if we don’t assume the worst… I’m betting the changes to comply with new privacy laws requires far more effort and adding a label to a map.
> Today classical music is filled with people who want to pretend to be superior to pop musicians because they keep their repertoire confined to academically acceptable areas.
What an incredibly cynical take. I’ve done several chamber music collaborations with a violist who also plays pop music gigs on keyboards.
There are arrogant pricks in classical music. And in software engineering and every other discipline. Personality is orthogonal to field of interest.
Anyway you complain that classical musicians look down on pop music while you yourself do the same about modern composers.
> while you yourself do the same about modern composers.
I literally gave several examples of modern genres in which classical composers still produce good work. I just said they're unlikely to be found in academia
I think that's part of what is frustrating to so many people? Google isn't a small business, and has the legal resources to at least fight back if they were challenged by the administration. Any such challenge would likely fall apart in trial, but even if it didn't Google would have at least challenged the absurdity of it.
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