This is really shitty. Regardless of what you think of the immigration issue, blocking legal residents from entering the US is absolutely terrible. It's a contract violation from the US government. This order essentially says America doesn't care you're a full legal resident, because you hold a citizenship from this limited subset of countries (many of which we're bombing), you can't come back.
(America is bombing seven countries by the way, in case anyone forgot. Our last president is the first in history to have the US in armed conflict for every day of his presidency. He will not be the last.)
What I also hate is that Uber tries to play the PR game and show themselves as the great guys here. Forget that they pay their drivers peanuts, that drivers have to drive up to 30% more now to make the same wages as just a few years ago, and that many are calling Uber to unionise.
I hate they way everyone is just using people to further their message and forgetting that these are people.
> What I also hate is that Uber tries to play the PR game
What's the point of casting aspersions on Uber's motives here? I'm pretty sure everyone at Uber has lots of middle eastern coworkers. They have every reason to be utterly horrified. Is it possible that they are, in fact, actually horrified and talking about this publicly is not just a part of some cunning scheme?
I'm not a big fan of the policy precedents that TK has set, and sure, this is probably a publicity stunt, but that doesn't change the fact that this is a vocal, commendable move by someone in a position to drive change.
The only way to "stand up for what's right" is to be part of the conversation, not to shy away from it.
If TK isn't part of that group, then who takes his place?
If you had your way and nobody you approve of politically would have representation.
The answers to our problems aren't blatant partisanship, but a robust exchange of ideas. If Trump invites anyone from SV, it'd be extremely foolish to "protest" by taking yourself out of the conversation.
Conversate with whom exactly? Trump? Bannon? When have these idiots ever given any indication that they're willing to listen to someone who contradicts them? Are there any examples of them actually having listened to someone, taken their advice, and done it all with an even temper? And how exactly is TK "protesting from within" the system? What concrete steps is he likely to take over the next four years that will impact the opinions of the petulant child Americans are forced to call their president?
It's a mistake to not think of this current presidency as unprecedented in it's potential for terror. The path of civilized conduct works with people who are willing to meet you halfway by behaving in a civil manner themselves. Trump just isn't.
Also, I'm more than a little tired of SV CEOs walking around with this transparent facade of integrity and paying lip service to doing the right thign. They care about one thing, and one thing only: protecting their company at all cost, country be damned. It's no use them saying "If we don't do it, someone else will" because that isn't enough of an exoneration of their own conduct. They aren't machines designed with the single purpose of working for a company. They are humans who are expected to have a moral core.
Actually, there's pretty abundant evidence that Trump capriciously formulates his policies based on whoever he just talked to. He's exactly like a "petulant child" that way.
For example, his policy on torture has swayed back and forth based almost entirely on conversations with Mattis.
I honestly do think directly talking to Trump and explaining the real harm his policies are doing to American companies is one of the most effective things that CEOs can do.
> Collaborating with the Trump administration gives it badly needed legitimacy and credibility and facilitates the polices of hate.
Yeah, before I was worried that the Trump administration was illegitimate, but then Travis agreed to be part of their "Strategic and Policy Forum", and now I'm with Trump 100%.
Eh. Not a big fan of the american reliance on companies to be the ones to "drive change" in the first place. That they're considered 'in the best position to' is only the result of the corporatocracy anyways.
Agreed, we should take allies we can, and save the in-fighting for another day. Casting off people who are not pristine-perfect just sets you up to fail.
> What I also hate is that Uber tries to play the PR game and show themselves as the great guys here. Forget that they pay their drivers peanuts, that drivers have to drive up to 30% more now to make the same wages as just a few years ago, and that many are calling Uber to unionise.
I hate they way everyone is just using people to further their message and forgetting that these are people.
This +100. From what friends who were early at Uber tell me, this is not consistent with his character and feels like a PR grab. This issue is beyond f'd up, and while I guess any attention is good attention if it causes action, I draw the line at giving credit for cheap PR stunts.
So what? What'd be right thing to do in this case? I disagree with Uber on a bunch of things, but me judging them to do the wrong thing on some issues, doesn't prevent them doing the right thing on others. By critizing them for doing the right thing you're just disincentivizing from doing the right thing again.
I think this line of argument weakens "our" position considerably.
I realize that the parent comment focused on Uber, but my concern is directed at the personalization of the post. This was posted under Travis' personal Facebook account. It was a statement by him to his employees that he chose to then release publicly (also look at his use of personal pronouns in places). If this were a statement released by Uber I would take less issue with it.
I have seen the fallout from friends who personally experienced horrible treatment by the guy, so this fake hero crusade is what I take issue with. Uber paying affected drivers, on the other hand, is fantastic.
Why do you care? If getting credit as a "hero" is what it takes to get him to do good things, then let him have it. Even if this is a PR stunt, it has positive externalities that can only be amplified by adept public relations management.
I cannot overstress this or agree with you more. I genuinely don't care what people's internal monologue is. I fully understand a lot of altruism is for social credit.
All that is fine, so long as over time it forms a more free, open, and welcoming society for everyone.
No one is forgetting Uber is a company with a checkered past. This just fills in one of the good squares in contrast to the bad ones.
Ubers position on immigration is not relevant to ubers business so it costs them little to take any attention grabbing position they can as that offers the a cheaper marketing model than paying for ads. Ironically trump uses similar strategies.
Assuming that's the case: So what? They could also do similarly on a lot of other topics, some directly opposing the current statement.
I also doubt that opposing positions on one the current government's key issues is actually free. Uber has a lot of local regulatory issues, and complex enough international setup - federal (and some state's) goodwill surely has some affect on Uber's success.
If they actually follow through on paying their drivers that aren't able to work due to this executive order, it won't be "a cheap PR stunt". But, it could still be a PR stunt.
I support tech companies (and everybody else) speaking out, emphatically, against this order, even if I think the company speaking out has kind of questionable moral standing. If only those who are perfect can act against evil actions by our government, then we're in serious trouble.
Uber is imperfect. But, if they are sincere, I support them in this. And, perhaps if it comes time for armed insurrection to depose our Vichy regime, we can all hail an Uber and roll up to the revolution in style.
I don't think there's a very good direct corollary with historical fascist regimes; comparing the Trump administration and the complicit GOP Senate and House to Nazi Germany doesn't feel quite right. I feel like the GOP is more comparable to the Vichy regime in France: Collaborating with a monster for the sake of personal gain, not because they believe in the values Trump espouses.
Any comparison to Nazi Germany and the events that led to the rise of fascism is prone to be reaching; and prone to be dismissed by someone because there are many gaps in the comparison. Likewise, while there are certainly similarities to Italy's Mussolini and Spain's Franco, that's also a stretch. The world we live in is very different from that time and place. Fascism looks different today.
So...it's an imperfect metaphor. I merely wanted to poke fun at the craven GOP who have fallen in line behind a man they spent months criticizing and calling out for his fascist traits. Now that he's in a position of power they kowtow to him. More worrying, law enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and significant sections of the civilian and military government seem to be falling into line behind him rather than pushing back on his unconstitutional and illegal orders, even when I don't think they share his ideals. That's where my Vichy comparison comes from.
It's a stretch, I know. But, every comparison to historic fascists is. It doesn't make it less true that our new president is behaving like a fascist, and seems to have significant support.
Also, Putin's Russia probably had a hand in putting our new president into office.
Perhaps in this case we don't need metaphorical Nazis because American politics now has real people pushing an Americanized version of the Nazi agenda?
Trivia: the specific seven countries are ones deemed by DHS to be "high risk" in February 2016, during the Obama administration, so it's not an arbitrary pick by Trump [1]:
"Have you traveled to, or been present in, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, or Yemen..."
> The choice of countries may not be arbitrary. The Executive Order is most definitely Trump's choice.
The distance between declaring a whole nation to be "high risk" and refusing entry to those coming from those "high risk" nations is very slim.
It would be understandable if there was any backlash or public outcry against labeling whole nations and all people passing through them as being "high risk", but there was none.
As there was zero oucry, this sounds a whole lot more like partisan, kneejerk anti-Trump rants than anything else.
Perhaps this is only a wakeup call for americans to take a long hard look at their immigration and foreign relations policies, which have been put in place since the early 2000s. Trump hasn't revolutionized anything. If anything, he is only directing attention to what the US has been continuously doing since then.
It is arbitrary. He is engaging in collective punishment – holding those hostage who are lawful residents, including those who have already been thoroughly vetted over multiple years. This will result in loss of life, loss of income, and intangible suffering on the part of families and children. Some of those being blocked have specifically assisted the United States in its war on ISIS, and are now under threat specifically because of this.
I wish you wouldn't just quote these numbers without any context. I will not say that Obama administration was Dovish. And I'm personally not happy with other things he did (expanding spy powers, the prosecution of whistleblowers)
If you look at the list and you see the top places Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan are all areas Obama inherited. If you remember Bush II our previous president got us into Afghanistan and Iraq. Syria and Iraq bombs are primarily us fighting ISIS which again is because Bush fucked up Iraq nation building.
There lots of good books / documentaries about the rise of ISIS, long. The long and short is we invaded iraq -> we fired everybody in government -> we occupied the country -> lead to resentment and extorts insurgency (pre ISIS) -> we left to early -> ISIS was allowed to form.
Then Lybia was a NATO operation to create a no fly zone (and destroy air defences) to prevent Kadafi from bombing his own people. If we remember correctly the Obama administration mostly stayed out the conflict. We didn't even arm the rebels that was Quatar. We we mostly ignored that or even secretly agreed, but we mostly stayed out of it.
So again, it's easy to throw out numbers. But without context your statements runup against false attribution fallacy.
> If you look at the list and you see the top places Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan are all areas Obama inherited.
No one is denying that Bush set the stage for (most) of the conflicts, but quite frankly it was Clinton's bombing campaigns in Sudan and Saudi Arabia that stoked the fires of radicalism that led to 9/11. And then of course the entire region has never been given a chance to recover from the CIA's initial 1952 coup that overthrew Iran's first Democratically elected PM (who wanted to nationalize oil) so they could re-instate the Shah, a dictator: http://www.globalresearch.ca/a-timeline-of-cia-atrocities/53...
Most of the blame goes to the US and our allied coalitions (read: US), although some certainly falls on the Soviets and China a few decades ago. The current state of the region is mostly the fault of US Presidents, though.
It's perfectly sound to criticize Obama for not doing anything to improve the situation and to actually add new conflicts, instead of trying to wrap up our initial two as cleanly and quickly as possible (Afghanistan and Iraq). Campaign promises broken, lies, and millions of people have paid the price. And what are we left with? More radicalism than we ever had before (including a savage radical 'country' with non-negligible amounts of land). Obama is a failure at best -- a war criminal, at worst.
> It's perfectly sound to criticize Obama for not doing anything to improve the situation and to actually add new conflicts, instead of trying to wrap up our initial two as cleanly and quickly as possible (Afghanistan and Iraq)
I have no problem with you or the OP criticizing Obama. And if we judge my the standard of the campaign progress, clearly it didn't happen.
Personally I wish we could put the whole regional issue to bad. Sadly we went a destabilized the country and the region beyond what was going on already. There's no "trying to wrap up our initial two as cleanly and quickly as possible". When we tried that, that's where the insurgency turned into what we know as ISIS.
How do you suppose "trying to wrap up our initial two as cleanly and quickly as possible" should have happened?
Now that we have ISIS, how do you suppose we deal with it? Clearly we can't just withdraw since last time when we did under "Iraq Status of Forces Agreement" that also extended we ended up with a vacuum that lead to ISIS. We can't just Carpet Bomb / Nuke them because there's a lot of innocent civilians there.
We're stuck between a rock and a hard place of our own doing. I'm most certainly don't know what how to solve it and neither does the Pentagon and I'm sure they had lots of people working on it. So given magnitude of the quagmire I think it's both unfair and simplifying the situation to lay the blame squarely at Obama's feet.
> Obama is a failure at best -- a war criminal, at worst.
On top of the above, platitudes such as this without really much concrete supporting points force to me to disregard your whole point.
> When we tried that, that's where the insurgency turned into what we know as ISIS.
We did not try that; we never had fewer than 40,000 troops in "the region." We shifted a large number from Iraq to Afghanistan but we were still very active in counter-terrorism within Iraqi borders the whole time.
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R40682.pdf
If we had kept more troops in Iraq at constant levels, would ISIS exist? Perhaps not as a 'country' with semi-permanent settlements, but certainly as another terrorist organization, which is not much different from the perspective of our national security interests. And of course we can't afford it, not that it matters to anyone.
> How do you suppose "trying to wrap up our initial two as cleanly and quickly as possible" should have happened?
It's a difficult question, no doubt. I'm not disappointed that Obama didn't make everything perfect -- it's the fact that he didn't try anything at all. He just stuck to the playbook and expanded things we know are bad, like providing weapons and training to everyone and their mother in war-zones: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2016/08/2-us-backed-g...
Decades of intervention and breeding dependence and hatred cannot be so easily solved -- so please do not dismiss this answer because it does not result in a perfect scenario. President lend0 would cut off all drone strikes. Get the US troops out. Lift all economic sanctions. Recognize one government per country, and return ownership of resources such as oil rights to said government. Then, let organic self-government/revolution arise. Do not try to prop up any government, even the one we originally recognized. It will not be easy, and probably not fast, but we already know that occupations do not work, and it is absolutely not a long-term option financially regardless.
But the most obvious thing is: do not get into any NEW conflicts. We did not need to get into Syria. We could have let Russia deal with propping up the dictator we originally supported.
> On top of the above, platitudes such as this without really much concrete supporting points force to me to disregard your whole point.
Were you expecting Wikipedia-style citations for every point? Which part are you having trouble with -- I will elaborate with evidence. Anyway, this could be said about your entire comment, which provided much less evidence/counter-evidence than mine. I dislike these comments that are purely arguments for the sake of argument, and I have a bad habit of responding to them.
If we remember correctly the Obama administration mostly stayed out the conflict.
That is 100% bullshit. USA bombed Gaddafi out of Tripoli (don't believe me, just read NATO press releases), and then supplied the arms to those who hunted him down (and incidentally, the bayonet that was located in his rectum when he died). And if you ever believed the "bombing his own people" pap peddled by political rivals hiding out in Switzerland, I got a bridge to sell you.
There's a lot of denial on HN about the magnitude of Obama's foreign policy belligerence. I guess it challenges Dem's beliefs that he was a 'good' president, since foreign policy is the one item that is fully attributable to the POTUS.
Please be more detailed. How is it belligerence? Is he doing it against these countries' governments' wishes?
From all i can glean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Joint_Task_Force_–_Op... is aimed against terrorist and rebel organizations, in cooperation with 58 other countries, while the entire world is screaming at the USA to finally destroy those terrorist organizations. Particularly in Iraq this is being done in cooperation with the iraq government as well. And from what i hear from friends who read more about this the usa is actively by the countries in question to help their efforts by doing these things.
It's ironic that the same administration spoke often about restricting rights to bear arms at home and regulating commercial drones.
You could probably consider his renewals of the Patriot Act/ NDAA and other blatantly illegal surveillance that falls outside the scope of even NDAA to be considered a form of botched foreign policy, which unfortunately is mostly domestic policy now.
By the way, the UN isn't some wise, omnipotent, objective organization. It mostly does what the US wants militarily, since the US provides most of the weapons to our allies (by allowing our contractors like Boeing to sell them last-generation weapons)
> Turns out, that isn't Obama's only military campaign.
We were talking about the bombings in the post a few further up though. Let's stick with one topic for now.
E: And if you want to bring in further topics, at least do more than "here's a link to an list of attacks" without at least exploring why they were made and how they're a sign of belligerence (i.e. what better options existed).
E2: I've seen your response below and it is not worth adding another post to this. Sad to see someone drop any pretense of good faith and jump straight into rethorical warfare.
> We were talking about the bombings in the post a few further up though. Let's stick with one topic for now.
Ugh. You responded to my comment which stated "There's a lot of denial on HN about the magnitude of Obama's foreign policy belligerence." Trolling/nitpicking is not welcome here, please.
> And if you want to bring in further topics, at least do more than "here's a link to an list of attacks" without at least exploring why they were made and how they're a sign of belligerence (i.e. what better options existed).
Would you like me to write you a thesis? I don't think you would appreciate it enough to justify the effort. The facts are there -- there are an overwhelming number of topics to explore related to Obama's use of aggressive foreign policy (aggressive defined as leading to people dying). If you truly do not believe Obama was a belligerent, you really should read through some of that. Sorry to burn down your idol.
I agree about some of your points, but the Patriot Act was not Obama's to kill, and we both know it.
A lot of what Obama had to do to get other policies enacted is not optimal, but that _is_ what politics requires for slow, steady progress. And Obama has always been a very vocal proponent of that gradual process.
I'd argue that Obama made SUBSTANTIAL improvements to foreign relationships with the majority of the world. This is definitely not a rejection or denial of the constant bombings and drone warfare we've seen, but we really shouldn't normalize his predecessors insane foreign or surveillance policies.
Even of Obama failed on these two fronts, I'd argue that his work on domestic policy and economic recovery makes him a notable president, especially given the absolutely astounding difficulty he faced from the constant racist catcalling and obstructionism of the RNC and conservative media.
> I'd argue that Obama made SUBSTANTIAL improvements to foreign relationships with the majority of the world.
How so? Obama essentially renewed the Cold War Lite (Russian Syria vs US Syria -- it's 70's Afghanistan all over again). In fact, I could not disagree more, and I think this is a great example of "denialism." I will give Obama props for Cuba, but I don't know of another notable improvement made by the US, and it certainly does not cancel out the Russia fiasco, nor the military engagements that this thread is about.
> Even of Obama failed on these two fronts, I'd argue that his work on domestic policy and economic recovery makes him a notable president,
This is sort of off topic anyway (did not initially intend to get into a full review of Obama's successfulness), BUT I think it needs to be addressed. First of all, what are you specifically talking about? Make sure to link what has been done by Obama (executive policy). I hope this doesn't turn into something like "gas prices fell under Obama," which had absolutely nothing to do with him, and yet I hear it all the time from folks who recently learned how to put the square in the square hole.
> especially given the absolutely astounding difficulty he faced from the constant racist catcalling and obstructionism of the RNC and conservative media.
Alright, this is clearly just being an Obamapologist...
Off the top of my head and on mobile leaving a protest, so forgive the brevity but...
I mean, the LGBT+ community can very clearly point to a huge amount of support, funding and policy execution to improve our role and protections in the US.
And if pointing out that the conservative media executed a racist and outlandish hate campaign with such accusations as "you are not a citizen" and "you are a secret Muslim" and "Obama death panels" (all FOX news headlines, researchable) is "Obamapology" then I say: you are normalizating racism.
> I mean, the LGBT+ community can very clearly point to a huge amount of support, funding and policy execution to improve our role and protections in the US.
He has provided vocal support, but the sole thing he did policy-wise was end DADT. He was actually anti-gay marriage during his '08 run, but as the tide shifted, he updated his stance. It was state legislatures and judges and people that helped the LGBT community make the gains it did. So good for him for going with the flow, but he certainly wasn't the reason progress was made. If that is the best thing going for Obama (which it may be), that's pretty bad.
> you are normalizating racism
Number of logical fallacies here. Wasn't Bush Jr. an ape, a retard? Clinton a rapist? All presidents face tremendous scrutiny, both reasonable and unreasonable hatred, and it's ridiculous to adjust your ranking of a president's success based on ANYTHING, let alone something that is basically part of the job. Was FDR a better president when he was in a wheelchair? Unlikely. Was Reagan better because he had dementia late in his second term? Nope. So the point is that it's completely irrelevant to an assessment of Obama's policies, and it likely is used as filler because there's way more bad than good to Obama's reign.
> He was actually anti-gay marriage during his '08 run, but as the tide shifted, he updated his stance.
I'm not sure if you get this, but this is the vast majority of America and many parts of the world that had this. People trot out, "Such and such was anti-gay marriage or anti-trans." Yes. Bruh. There are trans people who tell me I'm insufficiently trans in 2017 because I don't elect surgery or share much about the femme side of my lfie.
Literally everyone has had to come around to this. The sooner, the better. Trying to discredit someone by saying at one point they were part of a majority that still dislikes the idea is like saying water is wet.
The Obama administration has provided a lot of funding for pro-LGBT+ initiatives. You seem ill-informed here. It's more than DADT (although that is huge). But even just being a vocal supporter and vocally blocking things like Pence's FADA are net good for the community.
> So the point is that it's completely irrelevant to an assessment of Obama's policies, and it likely is used as filler because there's way more bad than good to Obama's reign.
I'm confused. So this is your justification for one of the most intractable congresses in the history of America? Do you actually believe what you're writing?
But yeah, ableism and sexism and uh... yeah Clinton's stance on women was bad there's no ism he took advantage of women. They exist. They have hurt other people. They hurt HRC's campaign enormously. Worth noting that being a proud supporter of rape doesn't really seem to be a black mark on any president.
I'm not trying to downplay Obama's failings. But I refuse to be the kind of fake progressive that refuses any president any nod of progress simply because they didn't completely finish the job. Same as how I refuse to forgive Sanders for his poor handling of BLM (and voting yes on the Trump cabinet) but also give him unceasing credit for his consistent foreign policy points.
> Trying to discredit someone by saying at one point they were part of a majority that still dislikes the idea is like saying water is wet.
I think I give sufficient credit where it's due here, but it wasn't like he was an LGBT hero like many make him out to be. But I'll throw out all of the other good things I know about Obama, too: eased US-Cuba relations, commuted over a thousand sentences of nonviolent drug offenders + Chelsea Manning, shifted some land from the poorly managed BLM to the Forests Service, made it easier to get insurance with pre-existing conditions.. These are good things, but even in the case of the last three, there are huge strings attached. Like the fact that the commutations were only symbolic, because his administration prosecuted hundreds of thousands for the same 'crimes' and did nothing to fix the system. And the fact that the BLM still owns a third of the country west of the Mississippi. And the fact that ACA was terribly implemented and is an administrative nightmare.
And then there are the more 'pure' bad things. Foreign policy + surveillance (as discussed), executive overreach, killing US citizens without warrants, 0% interest rates + QE, trillion dollar deficits and no plan to address entitlements.
I was optimistic about some of Obama's rhetoric at one point, but quite frankly he is just arrogant and I don't fall for the self-righteous "great dad" persona. His pros come with strings attached and his cons are historically terrible, placing him amongst the worst Presidents of the last century history alongside Bush Jr., Bush Sr., Woodrow Wilson, Hoover, and FDR. Trying to restrain myself from putting half the presidents on this list. The point is that the average president is bad, and Obama was below average.
This debate probably won't get anywhere because we clearly place different emphases on the various points listed above, but I think it's fair to say this is a pretty comprehensive list of his main pros and cons.
I just don't think a president with an opposition congress can be expected to do much.
I don't fully understand why Obama was such a proponent of a surveillance state, as well. It is disappointing, but to me it's only somewhat of a problem. I think a surveillance society is 100% inevitable. It is not possible to prevent it, nor is it necessarily the end of all freedom so long as we take care as we're shaping it to make it so that surveillance is uniform and everyone has access to a reasonable portion of the data. That's the best we can do to create a reasonable series of norms around it.
> I just don't think a president with an opposition congress can be expected to do much.
Perhaps not through legislation, but all of the 'pure bad' things I mentioned -- with the exception of the deficit and lack of entitlement reform -- can be blamed primarily on Obama. Even interest rates/QE, as he appointed a Fed chairwoman who maintained the same policies and met with Obama quite frequently.
> I think a surveillance society is 100% inevitable.
I agree, but I don't think it's a good thing or that it makes the politicians who enable it any less bad -- it's just inevitable that the kind of people who run governments will like it.
With the notable exception of Iran, with which diplomatic relationships had improved to a significant extent following the creation of the nuclear framework.
This becomes more relevant, when (if) Trump makes any big changes regarding bombing.
Right now he has just made the life terrible for a lot of people's coworkers, friends and family; so that fact that Obama bombed some other people doesn't really help.
By your logic, you should absolutely be downvoted for making an entire comment dedicated to meta-discussing the scoring system. Your point would have been better made with a silent downvote.
Mine should be, too, if I subscribed to your espoused scoring logic.
Yes, Trump's executive order is really shitty. It hurts good people while doing nothing to reduce real threats from real bad guys.
Kalanick is also really shitty. He legitimizes Trump by collaborating with him. It's complete bullshit that he's going to somehow influence this administration "from within".
Kalanick's collaboration does far more damage than any marginal influence he might have.
If Kalanick really wants to "stand up for what's right", he should publicly resign from Trump's "economic advisory group" in protest over this latest outrage.
blocking legal residents from entering the US is absolutely terrible.
Why? It happens all the time, and shockingly, even before Trump got into office.
A green card does not guarantee you entry into the US. I was informed of this many times when I entered using one. Leave the US for more than 6 months? You can be turned back (and your permanent resident status canceled). Among other reasons.
The six month rule was already known about ahead of time, and thus people can abide by the rules. It's essentially part of the contract. This new rule is a violation of the existing contract.
It's the difference between being towed because you parked in a fire lane (that's your fault), and for being towed when someone came up after you parked, painted in a fire lane, and then towed you (not your fault).
> It's the difference between being towed because you parked in a fire lane (that's your fault), and for being towed when someone came up after you parked, painted in a fire lane, and then towed you (not your fault).
I've actually had this with a handicapped parking spot that was created while my car was in the spot and got fined immediately after they finished putting the post up.
I tried getting it reversed but not dice. Very frustrating.
It is crazy. Especially since the RDW (local equivalent of the DMV) has my address on file and I lived right across the street. All they had to do was ring the bell and ask me to move my car. Hefty fine too, 140 guilders at the time (70 Euros or so today).
What happened with the appeal? I know Dutch law is not the same as common law, but it would seem that this would be something that could be overturned higher up the chain.
It might have but the problem is that you're going to be throwing good money after bad and you might still end up paying. Pick your battles. After getting a lawyer give me a quote I decided that maybe an appeal is not the best use of my resources. FWIW he thought it could have been won.
I understand. I took a parking ticket to appeal myself and it was financially a huge lose (I won the case). I justified going forward only as a self-education experience. I did learn a lot so maybe it was worth it - this is what I tell myself anyway :)
It's long ago (about 20 years) so I'm no longer mad about it but the feeling of injustice was quite strong and when I think about it I still think it was absolutely ridiculous.
A couple of such incidents in your life and you start to feel really bad about authorities of any plumage.
> This new rule is a violation of the existing contract.
The US government down to the municipal level, is not bound by that concept. Ignorance of the law etc. It's strange how many people are figuring out how screwed up the US system is AFTER they decided they don't like something. It smacks of the same behavior that US politicians engage in. Idiocy married with desperation.
Not a law. SMH - Any more than Regulations are laws. I don't need to explain it to someone who is intentionally trying to misrepresent facts. Good luck.
Indeed! Trump told everyone he was all about a xenophobic, islamophobic and quite racist outlook long before he was elected. It was one of the few things he hasn't lied about or tried to hide.
However, the way his office implemented this was terribly irresponsible:
1. Usually immigration policy changes have a window to take effect so that they don't leave a bunch of people in legal limbo. This one didn't. It's quite obviously on purpose.
2. Similar to #1, by not giving agencies enough time to prepare for the policies in question Trump's team has maximized the opportunity for mistakes and deliberately racist actions from within his agencies. Which is what we are seeing, particularly with green card holders (WHY EVEN?) and citizens being banned (sorry sir, too brown for us).
3. Usually when the Executive pens an EO, the staff has vetted the legality of the EO and if it's not directly enforcible this is well understood in advance. Trump's office does not have the power to do this, but does have the power to enforce the law. By issuing this edict, Trump has forced an illegal policy into law and then demanded taxpayer time and money be wasted dealing with the series of domestic and international lawsuits that are inbound over it.
If this is what we can expect from Trump, we can expect the dissolution of the rule of law.
Ok, but this isn't just about people who have left for 6 months. If someone with a green card checked to see if they could travel outside the US last week, they would see:
> Does travel outside the United States affect my permanent resident status?
> Permanent residents are free to travel outside the United States, and temporary or brief travel usually does not affect your permanent resident status
Permanent residence status applies for as long as you're a resident. If you're out of the country for a sufficiently long time (or some other set of circumstances enforced at the whim of immigration applies), your status was invalid before you got to the border - you weren't a legal resident at the time you tried to enter.
What's different here is that nobody's arguing that their status has changed. They are legal residents, and they're being forbidden from entering anyway. These are not the same thing, and it's legitimate to be more upset about one case than the other.
What sucks is when you say "at the whim of immigration". This is how the US government has been operating forever, long before Trump, and this is the foundation on which Trump's new policies will flourish.
Not to defend anything that's currently going on, but you have to consider the possibility of a dispute at the border over whether someone is a citizen or not.
Honestly, this is why I don't complain very much about biometrics and databases, because the realistic alternative (potentially being detained at the border while they try to guess whether your passport is forged/altered/stolen) is much worse.
I can't remember the name off the top of my head but I recall a famous "no fly list" story about someone who was prohibited from returning to the US because their name was a potential misspelling of a suspected terrorist's name.
I, too, remember this happening and being reported, maybe the NYTimes.
I'm having trouble finding dates for some of these cases and none seem to have happened while GWB was POTUS. But here are a few links involving US citizens whose ability to travel into and out of the US were curtailed. None of the following links are the case I remember, which involved an American who was a father (from NY?) and who had been stranded from his family in the US.
• U.S. Veterans Stranded Overseas|Challenge No-Fly ‘Terror’ List [0]
• ACLU challenges constitutionality of no-fly list [1]
• No-fly list grounds another San Diegan [2]
• How a Young American Escaped the No-Fly List [3]
I hate to be obtuse, but this is much more comprehensive. A "no fly list" at least gives you the option of traveling by sea, or flying into Canada or Mexico and coming in through the border. Horribly inconvenient, but not a blanket ban.
If you have thousands of dollars and a week or two to waste.
> Canada or Mexico
If you can get a visa for those places. Both of your ideas are things I, as an affluent Westerner, would try if the US government stuck me on a no-fly list, but for the people targeted they may simply not be possible.
I was in favor of Trumps election campaign because I didn't think he would actually do anything like this. His position during the election was presented to me as a temporary moratorium on immigration from nations with ongoing conflicts. That's not what we got in having people who are temporary or permanent residents of the United States being at risk of no longer being able to live in America. This is one of the most ridiculous and callous policy positions I have ever seen and I no loner support Trump.
(Assuming this isn't a troll.) Really? He was quite clear about the actions he planned to take on immigration: "Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on." (https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-...) His actions since his inauguration are entirely consistent with his statements before the election, on this and many other issues. I'm sorry you're surprised now, but you shouldn't be.
The key phrases there are "until we can figure out what is going on" (suggesting temporary until congress can come up with a new immigration policy) and "entering the country" (not affecting current residents) also his campaign made it clear that this would not apply to all Muslims but only those from regions undergoing conflict which was half true, it doesn't apply to all Muslim countries but the inclusion of nations like Iran which have no current conflicts is also problematic
"Until we can figure out what is going on" is not the language of policy, it's the language of demagoguery, and thus your trying to read it as straightforward statement of policy is a mistake. Further, Trump's willful disregarding of the facts in for instance the matter of where Obama was born, and his general willingness to traffic in conspiracy theories about various topics including Muslims should have made clear to you that he was not being truthful about anything he implied about a supposedly temporary and limited policy change while certain facts were ascertained. He's not interested in ascertaining facts, he's interested in acting on his beliefs, which are not amenable to change by contact with facts. Welcome to the world you say you voted for - with luck you will live long enough to have plenty of time to regret it.
Edit: sorry, you didn't say you voted for him, just that you supported his campaign.
Everything about this act, including the fact that the countries chosen don't actually represent active sources of terrorism and seemingly avoid harming Trump's business interests, are exactly in line with how he presented himself during his campaign.
There's a famous quote to the effect that when somebody tells you who they are, you should believe them the first time. There are some things in the world that nobody has any business being conned by.
This is the crux of the illegality of the procilmation. It's been illegal to use birthplace as grounds to deny immigration since the 60's, largely because of the incredible prejudice we saw towards Asians and Asian Americans.
I assume this is because some countries make it really easy to get citizenship. It would be quite a loophole to just hop over to country X for a few months then onto the US
Then it would make sense to list those countries' dual citizens or naturalized citizens as ones that would take more scrutiny.
But Any country other than the US? Heck, I know what I'm going through with immigration here in Norway, and I have one of the easier immigration avenues - marriage. Work and school are quite a bit more difficult. It usually requires one to live here for at least 7 years first: Marriage can cut that in half. That comes with things like the possiblity of having our house inspected so that the authorities are convinced we are living like a married couple and possible interviews with my spouse. Some countries have a more thorough check.
It just isn't the bureaucratic lottery nightmare that it is in the states. That doesn't mean that it is easy, merely better run and reasonable.
It's not particularly trivial to become a citizen of the UK. It involves living in the country for years and passing a test. This is in line with most other countries.
The Gulf of Tonkin resolution was passed in August of 1964, and LBJ became president in November of 1963.[1] Nixon was the one who quit the war in Vietnam, removing US soldiers from active combat, then from most of the country (which took place 1971-1973).[2]
The USA also never passed a declaration of war against North Vietnam, whereas Obama claimed to be operating under the 'War on Terror' declaration for his whole presidency.
I believe that Obama also has the record for bombing the most countries, though many drone and bombing campaigns have not been fully disclosed (i.e. the extent of the Phillipines campaign).
Where is this story about Uber mistreating its drivers coming from? Uber has been successful in attracting drivers because it is paying above-market rates. It is losing billions of dollars by subsidizing drivers and riders. Will all those people criticizing Uber be happy when it shuts down?
> Regardless of what you think of the immigration issue, blocking legal residents from entering the US is absolutely terrible. It's a contract violation from the US government.
It is. However, its has been done numerous times before. Border Agents have always had the right to detain anyone, and refuse non-citizens entry regardless of Green Card status.
People have been stopped at the border, searched, held, then turned away while carrying Green Cards before. That this is happening uniformly to people from 7 countries is new, but that's all that's new.
> While the cab drivers union was striking in solidarity with protestors at JFK, Uber lifted surge prices to scab for their business. Uber is a parasite, get it out of your life
>Forget that they pay their drivers peanuts, that drivers have to drive up to 30% more now to make the same wages as just a few years ago, and that many are calling Uber to unionise.
Uber can't compete if its workers unionize. Please don't promote the failed anti-free-market ideology of labour unionization, which is based on total economic ignorance and shallow class-warfare cliches that don't conform to the complex reality of economic development and wage growth.
If you talk to Uber drivers, you'll see the vast majority are happy with the opportunity to do what theyre doing. We don't need more misguided calls for authoritarian regulatory prohibitions that violate the right of consenting adults to engage in voluntary economic interactions with each other.
I know it's not fun to see one's wages decline over a span of a few years, but that is what MUST happen if there is a huge influx of Uber drivers that tilts the supply vs demand ratio. Thinking you can legislate the pain away with mandates is failing to grasp that price is an information signal that tells us about supply and demand and allows the economy to adjust accordingly.
It's the right of those "consenting adults" (the drivers) to form an Union if they so desire, who said anything about "authoritarian regulatory prohibitions"? The existence and functioning of a free-market doesn't necessarily mean that no trade unions are allowed. Saying that an employer worth billions of dollars and a potential employee worth many orders of magnitudes less than that have the same negotiating powers is ludicrous.
The only way a union can survive economically is through authoritarian prohibitions against firing people for joining unions. This is because unions provide nothing that has market value. Historically they survived and flourished through illegal trespassing (blocking the company from operating), violence (beating up replacement workers), and eventually by getting legislation passed that imposed authoritarian prohibitions against employers exercising their contracting rights and ending employment contracts with unionized workers or negotiating with non-unionized workers individually (instead of through the mandated collective bargaining track).
>Saying that an employer worth billions of dollars and a potential employee worth many orders of magnitudes less than that have the same negotiating powers is ludicrous.
That's like saying consumers are helpless against Samsung because Samsung is a multibillion dollar company and consumers are individually worth much less. It's one of those thought-terminating clichés that distills the world into a simplistic class-war narrative.
In reality a consumer in a free market has the power to walk away, and choose any better offer that is available to them, and that is all the power they need. Similarly, a person will only continue driving for Uber if no better options are available on the market.
And if no better options are available, that means they're getting the market price for their labour. Using price controls to give them above-market wages has harmful second and third order consequences that reduce long-term wage growth.
I'm not a huge fan of unions but you're wrong about wage drops. Uber is artificially flooding the service with drivers intentionally to drive down wages and therefore the cost of rides. Haven't you seen the insane amount of advertising and rediculous incentive packages?
In markets Uber operates it is largely a monopoly so market mechanisms that would normally cause drivers to go elsewhere don't exist.
Take for example Austin Texas which has no Uber or Lyft. There's five or six competing ridesharing services with considerable market share. The drivers get paid more than twice as much as Uber drivers because it's easy for unsatisfied drivers to switch to a competitor. A few of my friends who did uber in Houston now drive 3 hours to Austin to pick up riders since the pay is much better
They have a right to do that, and others have a right to advertise how much it pays to drive Uber, and if it's less than what people are willing to accept, make it more difficult for Uber to recruit.
Well if he doesn't mean it literally, then what's his point? That Uber drivers are not well paid? I've literally mever heard this from an Uber driver or Lyft driver.
Legal resident != Citizen. Until you have citizenship you can be sent back at any time for any reason. People get sent back or denied entry all the time for various reasons. What he did sucks but the media is making it out to be a much bigger deal than it actually is. The number of people "trapped" overseas is probably in the hundreds.
We're bombing people in almost every country on the list, so I have no idea why this wasn't done years ago.
No, you cannot be sent back "at any time" "for any reason" as a lawful permanent resident of the United States. I don't know what made you believe that.
What you are saying is contrary to what immigration lawyers say to their clients. Do you have a citation from the Immigration and Nationality Act that says that Congress needs to decide whether CBP officers have discretion to turn back legal residents at a port of entry? To my knowledge, this is the prerogative of the president, and this is exactly the legal basis that underlies Trump's executive order.
Federal immigration law also includes Section 1182(f), which states: “Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate”.
The notion that that clause allows the President to override the INA's ban on country-of-origin discrimination was challenged in courts over 40 years ago and proved false. Further, it doesn't pertain at all to lawful permanent residents of the US, so you've also moved the goalposts.
The subtext of these arguments is that we should be less outraged, because green-card-holders were lucky to be here at all and reside in this country knowing they can be removed at any time. That's plainly, flatly, objectively false, in addition to being ethically dubious.
Do you have a green card? Cause I do, and the parent is right. It is not a guarantee of being allowed to enter the US, it can be revoked unilaterally by the government.
Of course, in practice it's rarely done without cause (e.g. committing a felony), but in the texts it is clearly stated.
Congress sets the standards under which a green card can be revoked, not the executive branch on the whim of the President or one of his agencies. The rules are in the Immigration and Nationalization Act. It is a false statement to say that the terms green card holders were here under included "can be sent back for any time for no reason".
As a green card holder, you are not a US LPR at the discretion of the President or any of his agencies. You have, in effect, a contract with our country. Congress could change the rules, but until they do, you have substantial rights to remain in this country.
Even people without LPR status are difficult for the government to remove. Among undocumented immigrants put before immigration court for deportation, over 70% of those with legal representation prevail in court --- unfortunately, in most places in the US, they have no right to counsel, which is why we should all be sending money to immigration law organizations.
How many of those previaled because deportation is politically unpopular in certain areas? There's a lot of places that won't deport you even for murdering someone, and indeed our prisons in some states are filled with loads of murderous foreign gang members
They prevailed in immigration court, where many defendants are forced to represent themselves in complicated legal proceedings without counsel and are as a result deported. I don't think public sympathy with immigrants is the most powerful vector is; I think it's the rule of law that's keeping them in the country.
It is numerically, overwhelmingly the case that immigrants to this country aren't a threat to its citizens, and that we have more to fear from lawnmowers and lightning strikes than we do from the people who are being turned away at the borders today, including people coming to the country to work on computational epidemiology and, of course, the spouses of our own citizens.
The biggest issue with illegal immigration is that is does not benefit the United States. A country is not a charity.
The US would be far better off allowing the same number of people in but only those highly educated or those with a lot of money or status. It sounds mean but job of the US govt is not to rescue poor people in third world countries, it's to benefit it's citizens.
Imagine if instead of 6-8 million illegal immigrants with largely low educations, limited English skills and earning potential, no money, and no status we let in 6 million CEO's, scientists, politicians, and billionaires. It's hard to argue that the current situation is in any way "better"
All the studies point that illegal immigrants positively contribute to the receiving country economy. They consume less public resources (they exercise less rights because, well, they're ilegal; as well as being in average young and healthy) and pay most taxes.
Most ilegal immigrants want to move towards a legal status and integrate successfully in the country.
The "burden" of ilegal immigrants is mostly false.
If illegal immigrants are not a burden why control immigration at all! Let's just let anyone that wants to come here fly on over.
This would lead to the country being completely overwhelmed like is happening in Europe. Did Germany stop letting in unlimited refugees because they were helping the country so much?
I don't know what you're arguing about, but they're detaining and rejecting lawful permanent residents of the country right now. At LAX, ACLU is fighting for --- and is not at all assured of winning --- the admission of an 11 month old American Citizen and his LPR mother, who is two weeks from her citizenship ceremony.
I'm not sure what number of undocumented Syrian refugees I would trade for every American citizen who believes that immigration is "dysgenic", but I think it's probably a high number.
But neither my beliefs nor those of Donald Trump are material here. The laws of this country forbid the kind of discrimination Trump has enacted, and have forbad it throughout multiple cycles of challenge and pushback.
Firstly, I'd like to point out that Travis' post was spot on (I abhor Trump's policies, so the more big names speaking out against him, the better).
However, is Travis really the best messenger? Is this just glorified PR or does he actually care? I can't read his mind, so we can only judge from his actions. Let's see what he's done to "stand up for what's right" in regards to his own organization (this isn't exhaustive, at all):
- Uber employees order fake rides to sink competitor [1]
- Blaming the media for suggesting Uber is liable [2]
- Blind passengers denied rides [3]
- Uber executives looking into critics' personal lives [4]
----
You may think those things are irrelevant, but one should practice what they preach, especially when they have a post titled: "Standing up for what's right." My examples, by the way, only scratch the surface to Uber's own shady practices.
So what? One good thing that's come from the Trump presidency is unity. Me and my more conservative colleagues and friends were always cordial and have had healthy debates but we are now in vehement agreement -- against Trump.
I'll give you that Travis is a total scumbag. Maybe he is. Maybe he doesn't care about this issue. I don't care. He's right this time, about this issue, and when we're talking about it, that's good enough for me. Trump's policies will be devastating and he will attempt to loot, pillage, and destroy every part of the country. It will take our country decades to recover from the damage he does, if it ever recovers. If the coalition that forms up against him is slightly different for every issue and creates some unlikely bedfellows, well so be it. We need all the help we can get. The office of the president is unbelievably powerful -- something some of us have been very concerned about since GWB and on through Obama.
In fact anti-Trump republicans/businessmen/'generally all around bad guys' mean a whole lot more right now than the guaranteed liberal coalition against him.
You're not the only person I've heard say that recently. The question is: can we build organizational momentum to keep this up for the long haul, and can we make it through however long a Trump/Bannon administration will be without grave harm to the country?
I'm hopeful, but we have to do more than appreciate unity and engagement: we have to build on it, and reinforce it.
I disagree. Would you be saying this if Pence wrote this post? I would imagine you'd call him out on his hypocrisy. More messengers are good only if they actually believe what they're saying.
Yes? Of course? I'd be ecstatic that he's showing some backbone and thinks it's important to do the right thing? That someone is willing to check Trump's power when he does horrible, horrible things? If Pence wants to be right then I'll all for him being right even if it's only one time about only one thing -- that's better than nothing.
It'd be great if he [did something], not if he [said something]. I think we're in agreement that it'd be great if he stopped this. However, if he just said he was going to stop it, I wouldn't believe it until it's done.
I'd have to say that it is situational. What we're really discussing here is the old proposition that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".
If Pence denounced Trump's action and detailed what he was going to do about it, I would suspect his motives, and be concerned that he does not mean what he says, but this is a terrible policy that needs to stopped ASAP, and it's likely I would welcome Pence's help in this circumstance (while stating my reservations about him as a person and political actor).
However, in many situations "the enemy of my enemy is my enemy still", and I might not consider the benefit of accepting Pence's help worth the cost of working with him.
A lot of people think that Trump does not sincerely believe the things that he is saying, and furthermore that he not the best messenger. However, at his most incoherent there are people who vehemently agree with anything he says because they think he is a "winner".
I'd guess that anyone who already thinks this is an outrageously bad decision isn't going to change their mind because they dislike this messenger. As for the others, they seem unpredictable when it comes to what works or doesn't work with them. Maybe they think he's implicitly credible as a rich guy who isn't sentimental and doesn't make an effort to be portrayed as a do-gooder.
As an Uber employee, I'm morbidly curious as to how HN will spin this into something negative. :)
For the record, I'm super proud of working at Uber because those on the outside never see the things we do for our drivers. This is a big one and I'm really proud. You just don't see this on the news that often because who knows.
I've said this before but the Uber of the last 2 years is not the same Uber from 2013/2014. As a company it has grown up and matured and realizes the responsibilities it has to its drivers, riders and cities.
God this is a sappy piece that sounds like it came straight from the marketing Dept.
Does one of the things you do for your drivers include not giving a shit about them? Because last year Uber left Austin Texas rather than comply with the cities background check requirement. Overnight an estimated 10,000 Uber drivers lost their jobs and Uber didn't really give a crap. I find the notion that they give a shit about a few hundred of their drivers stuck overseas laughable
Is it sensical to accuse the entirety of HN of spinning all Uber stories negatively, and then in the next sentence note Uber doesn't talk about what it does for drivers, implying you understand that HN's perspective is primarily influenced by reams of rigorous work showing Uber drivers have a very precarious position?
The insanely high star requirements (What is it, 4.4? 4.8?) are more than enough to doubt Uber's charity, especially when your PR department focuses on spinning intentionally breaking laws as a crusade for everyone's rights, instead of communicating all the wonderful things done for drivers.
Imagine if Apple removed apps with lower than a 4.5 star rating, and then an Apple employee commented on Apple's unambiguously helpful response to a national crisis by immediately trashing HN and crowing about all the secret wonderful things Apple does for developers.
The star requirements make total sense if you've ever worked on a review/recommendation system before. The reality is most people don't give accurate ratings. Any sub-5 star score from a rider usually means something went wrong, because otherwise why would you bother putting anything less than 5?
The way it ends up working out, barely any but the most egregious drivers will have a sub-4.5 rating or so because the majority of passengers just mindlessly rate 5 stars. Therefore, the difference between someone rated 4.2 and 4.7 is enormous in practice.
When I see a five star system, my default rating is a 3, unless there's something that sways it in some other direction. Why would the default rating be the very top of the scale?! Then you can't reward excellence. The median trip certainly is not "excellent". YouTube recognized this awhile ago and went to the better "thumbs up/thumbs down" system.
Yeah, but you are forced to rate every Uber ride. If I'm being forced to rate something I'm indifferent about, I'll go with the indifferent option every time, namely, the middle of the scale. Most restaurants I'd never bother rating (they'd implicitly be getting ~3s); it's only the ones that I really loved or hated that I'd bother rating, and then likely with a 1 or a 5.
The only Uber rating I actually ever cared about was a terrible unsafe driver who got into a yelling match with another driver who I gave a 1 and then wrote a lengthy report about. Every other rating has been mostly indifferent, just a ride from one place to another.
People seem to understand stars roughly as well as thumbs up / down (except for some people who review "best ever. 1 star." which does happen). But if you drop it to up/down you lose any signal in the 3-5 stars range, which make up a ton of review rankings.
What do you expect Uber/Lyft to do differently? Minimum wage for drivers? We have capitalism. If you think the drivers don't get a lot of money, why don't all of them quit after the first paycheck? It's capitalism, no one forces anyone to do anything. People are free to do what's best for them. Many of these drivers would be unemployed if not for Uber/Lyft. I'm not saying they're well compensated, I'm saying there must be a reason why they're still doing what they're doing.
I don't particularly expect Uber to do anything different. I do expect someone praising how Uber treats their drivers to be able to answer the question (if they don't know how much a driver in a busy city takes home per hour they have no useful idea how Uber treats drivers).
I don't personally know anything about Uber, but I would be very surprised if it wasn't against company policy to provide such a figure (if it's even internally available) given the divisive and intense political climate that Uber operates in.
We don't have unrestricted capitalism though, far from it. We do have lots of laws that protect workers' rights, including minimum wage laws, which Uber skirts around by classifying their workers as contractors.
Saying "It's capitalism" isn't a justification for anything; it's overly reductive, and we do not live in a purely capitalistic society.
but if the laws that protect workers' rights are so good, why do they even stay with Uber? You yourself said Uber doesn't follow minimum wage law or protect the workers' rights. Doesn't that mean the ride-sharing market, at equilibrium, sets the wage higher than whatever the driver's alternatives might be?
Your argument that minimum wage should be reduced or abolished has some merit. But that doesn't give Uber the right to gain an unfair advantage over other companies.
If you feel tax rates are generally too high does that make it OK to cheat on your tax return?
Capitalism works best without the laws (not all but most of them). Capitalism relies on the fact that producers and consumers are free to choose whatever the best options presented to them. The market should make the decisions, not the government.
Or without factories full of workers burning down, or without pollutants getting dumped into streams, or without company towns locking workers down into slavery-in-all-but-name, etc., etc.
I knew someone who drove a taxi, before Uber was available, and he said the biggest cost is car repairs as they ride them hard each day. Then there is variables like gas and insurance which fluctuate. These costs apply to all drivers, not just Uber. He said he made around $45k/yr if I remember correctly. But he said the freedom of having no boss and driving around meeting people made it worth it.
This will probably depend on where the driver lives and works. There is also the question of whether they are a 'broker' or not with another taxi, meaning they own their own car and also do Uber and/or Lyft on the side while working with another taxi service. Which is common.
In Toronto where our taxis are far less regulated than other cities like New York, allowing for more supply but higher per ride fares to compensate, all of the drivers I've spoken to have said they make more money per ride with Uber than they do with normal taxi services and always give preference to Uber calls over the dispatcher. Also they have been busier allowing them to do more rides per night worked.
Uber likely increases the amount of people taking rides in any city as it makes the UX easier to call a cab reliably, direct it, and pay for it.
> allowing for more supply but higher per ride fares to compensate
This makes no sense to me. With excess supply, the prices should come down. You'd expect prices to increase when the supply is constricted, as it is during Uber surge pricing. It sounds like maybe Toronto cabs aren't playing by the regular rules of economics, as many other cities' cabs aren't, which is exactly why they've been so prone to disruption.
> sounds like maybe Toronto cabs aren't playing by the regular rules of economics
Indeed, I should have said the supply of cars is less regulated in Toronto, or at least it's not made as artificially low as it is in places like NYC (via medallion system which costs $1 million each). But the prices are still heavily regulated and they set the prices higher so the drivers could make money still as a consequence of having fewer rides due to the greater supply.
The big reason Taxi companies hate Uber is that it messes up their control of supply, keeping it artificially low.
The alternative is lots of people without income. One upside of Uber, Lyft and the taxis' ruthless price competition has been the data. Specifically, we now know just how price elastic the demand for taxi-like services is. Raising prices to pay driver's a minimum wage would result in a predictably dire cutback in demand and commensurate cutback in earnings.
We're in the best of possible worlds. But it's difficult to fault Uber to the degree some people do when customers express their demand preferences so clearly.
In his Facebook post, he does not once criticize Trump's Muslim immigration ban. The post has the title "Standing up for what's right" -- but there is not a word in it about what is wrong. It is as if he is afraid of calling Racism for what it is because then he might lose his seat on "President Trump's economic advisory group."
Seriously, what the fuck is going on? I had to read to the middle of the comments page to see this? There is nothing in the post about standing up to anything!
The post can be summarized as:
"Trump's decision hurts many people. We're going to compensate some drivers who were impacted. I had also decided to become Trump's advisor. If you disagree, oh well, tough. Also, I'm fighting for what's right."
Please tell me where I'm wrong, because all I see are vacuous statements with a title that makes it sound like this guy is doing something about something. It doesn't even say what he thinks is "right"! For all we know, he means banning all Muslims from entering the US.
Islam is a religion, not a race. And the ban is for citizens of seven countries which are not ethnically homogeneous, and not because of their ethnicity, but because there are a lot of terrorists who come from those countries.
Feel free to disagree, but please don't call it "racism." It's ridiculous.
Well, I guess you've gotten to see how HN can spin this into something negative.
I will note that Uber could make these people look very foolish by joining the NY taxi workers strike against this policy.
Eventually, after a long stream of failure, people will eventually come around to the view that there are few things less productive than beating up people who are trying to agree with them.
How fucking easy for someone who sits comfortably at a desk in an office to say. "... those on the outside never see the things we do for our drivers". How about you accept the same pay as your drivers, working your non-driver job. Until then, you can shut your mouth, pretending like drivers are treated well.
All those drivers will be out of business in a few years when Uber roles out its autonomous cars. (which is not a bad thing per say; these people will be forced to find other work)
I'm not a particular fan of Uber but I've felt the need to defend it on a number of occasions from random people who misrepresent the organization or their business model.
I find most people treat it as some sort of evil capitalist strawman punching bag. This type of thing happens when the media/politics pits everything as good guys vs villains.
Either way I'm happy to hear it has improved over the last two years, there will always be these growing pains in any high growth organization from freewheeling startup to an organized responsible mega corp.
This may come off as cynical but I think Travis, and similar SV figures like Elon Musk and Sam Altman are giving Donald Trump too much credit.
He is a 70 year old man who just won the presidency with no prior political experience, spewing angry divisive comments against all sorts of weak minority groups. He has a massive following who cheers his divisive comments against foreigners and and against the press.
Yet in spite of this, some commentators (see Travis) think that "if only" he gets some good advice, everything will be just fine. This is a bias of smart, reasonable people: they assume others are the same. They are treating it as a reasonable person who is just misguided.
In fact, the opposite is true. Trump has shown that his values are not aligned with traditional free democracy as we've known it in America. Giving him some good advice or trying to talk reason is futile, and moreover will result in endorsement by association.
Like all movements, the act that makes the most difference is the one that takes most courage. A willingness to do, a willingness to lead, not just wait for/on a leader.
Mass rallies/sit-ins (non-violent ones) is the only real way the people of the United States of America can let their government know how they feel.
Call me a cynic, but calling your senator wont help. Trump has shown that he moves much faster than government is wont to do.
Looking in from the outside, it seems like all the political process that Obama had to go through just isn't applicable?
The example I always comforted myself with w.r.t to Trump was Obama trying to get the gun laws changed - even the POTUS couldn't do it. So then he mustn't have unlimited power. So what's going on here?
I'm really curious how executive orders work in the US. Are they just the first step in a process, or do they override any democratic process? The latter seems to be what all the reporting is implying, but I don't know if that's hyperbole or true.
Executive orders are the President directing the executive branch how to carry out their jobs.
Executive orders can be illegal if they direct the executive branch to either do something illegal or if they direct the executive branch to fail to carry out their mandated duties. In that case the executive order may be challenged in court -- that is one of the things that is going to happen with this executive order. There will be cases flowing up the court system of people claiming this order is illegal, discriminatory, and violates the rights of legal residents.
Executive orders can also not be illegal, but may be taking advantage of flexibility that Congress regrets giving the executive branch. For instance, if the President begins selling off national parks, that may actually be within his authority, but it might inspire Congress to pass a law prohibiting him from doing so in the future.
As to how Trump is doing so many radical things so quickly, I would simply point out that he likely is not worrying about the consequences.
The President can issue executive orders very quickly if he chooses, but when most Presidents issue one creating a new, radical change (as opposed to the several dozen executive orders that get signed every time control of the White House passes between the two parties, like the Mexico City Rule), he first will spend a lot of time working with the affected departments and with his own lawyers to figure out exactly what he has the authority to do. For instance, before Obama introduced DACA, he first had to spend a lot of time figuring out exactly how much of the DREAM act he could get away with implementing purely with his executive power -- he didn't want to take the action and immediately have it reversed by the courts.
Now, if you don't worry about what you can and can't do and just do it, everything moves a lot faster. You might say Trump is governing the Facebook way: Move Fast and Break Things.
Congress writes laws that delegate wide authority over certain things to the President (and thus the various executive agencies of the government). A lot of the immigration process happens to be one of them. Gun control largely isn't.
The husbands and wives of US citizens, many of whom have lived in our country for decades, are being turned away at the border as part of an appeal to bigotry against Muslims. I could give a rat's ass about net neutrality. The big fight is here, right now.
Net neutrality is potentially a bigger long-term effect because in the modern age, it's absence potentiallt substantially impairs practical exercise of political freedoms. So I wouldn't say it's not important.
But the immigration action certainly has graver immediate and acute effects.
And, in any case, it's not a choice of fight this or fight that.
Rereading that, I may have been unclear; I was mainly agreeing with you in broad substance, while noting a different view on the significance of net neutrality.
I know! Just so you know: not that I'm going to let up on the threads in a debate, but I do appreciate it when you call me on comments like this. You're a pretty good rhetorical guardrail.
As others have said, the executive is in charge of applying laws. So if you take the example of the ACA, Trump can't just overturn it. But, he can instruct the relevant departments to half-ass their enforcement of it.
That said, I feel the same way. I'm not an Obama supporter, but I gotta wonder why he wasn't even more aggressive than he was with the orders.
He had Congress entirely against him, that's why. The threat of everyone below you turning on you (remember the government shutdown?) and kicking and screaming against your actions no matter how you compromise (remember the nightmare it was to even create the ACA?) are normally deterrent enough from abusing executive orders. Heck, even Obama was heavily criticized for his use of executive orders, which was pretty high compared to previous administrations. But now that there is no internal opposition with a fully red government, it's smooth sailing to get these things done.
Is it a matter of retribution? If Trump issues an order that Congress didn't like, what could they do? Their job is to create laws, not interfere with the enforcement thereof.
> If Trump issues an order that Congress didn't like, what could they do?
In terms of substantive, direct, responses (e.g., excluding retaliating against other Presidential initiatives and appointments), major notable options include:
(1) Expressly prohibit the things called for in the order by legislation (overriding a veto, of necessary);
(2) Sue the administration claiming the order violates existing (statute or Constitutional) law;
They could pass laws that override the order, or, which was what happened constantly during Obama's turn, simply vote against all directives put forward by the president and his party as a sign of disapproval. They can also vote to strip resources from organizations tasked with carrying out executive orders. Now, Trump's most recent orders have lined up very well with the extreme end of the right wing, so they aren't going to try to stop him.
I'm also surprised that just a few hours after the executive order people have been barred from boarding airplanes in international airports on the other side of the Planet.
The TSA already does passenger screening on international airports before you board a flight to the US. They interview you in your local language to find out if you are a security risk. I think in combination with the required transfer of all passenger data before departure, it makes it easy to implement this rather quickly.
I was just asking myself the same question. As an outside observer it seems Obama tried to get consensus and change the law and Trump just does what he wants. Obama could have instructed e.g. federal agencies to confiscate guns, raid gun shops, etc.. Ignore the outrage from the gun lobby and let the affected people fight through the court system to try and get that reversed which could take years. That's probably what Trump would do if he wanted to enact gun control. He wouldn't bother with changing the laws. Presumably as long as the president isn't impeached he has a wide latitude in his interpretation of what he's allowed and not allowed to do.
To a really simple first-order approximation, it's because the entire government is controlled by Republicans right now. The only branch that might be split is the Supreme Court, and they don't work on short timescales.
Clear message, clear call to action, clear action with the ability to leverage what he is advocating while acknowledging and respecting opposing perspectives.
This had substance and was clear and articulate. It's exactly what Sam's Time to Take a Stand post is missing.
There multiple ways somebody can get a green card. I suspect that the majority of those w. green cards and citizenship from the seven countries that were banned have obtained these green cards by way of refugee status.
I have nothing against helping refugees escape atrocities in their home countries. If possible, good for them.
The problem I see is that there is an inherent unfairness in this process when compared to those who try to immigrate legally, especially when using the H1B process.
A refugees obtains a green card in a matter of months if not 1 year at most. With no particularly serious/harsh vetting. Look at what this has brought, considering that all the past attacks (Boston, California, Florida) where done by people that entered US by this rout.
An H1B has to usually wait if somewhere between 8-16years, sometimes more just to get the green card. And for every step, they are scrutinized and verified in the most intimate detail.
In my opinion this is not a fair process. And, personally, I am ok with increasing the scrutiny on those that apply for refugee status.
I don't think you even remotely understand what a green card is or how difficult they are to get. Green cards indicate legal resident status. You must hold one for five years before even being able to apply for citizenship.
They are not H1-B visas. They aren't holiday work visas. Having a green card means you must always file taxes even if you leave (the United States is the only country to do this. The US is also one of two countries in the world that tax citizens who don't live there).
The US doesn't have a "permanent resident without travel restrictions" type visa, so it is literally the highest visa short of citizenship you can hold.
If you actually want to leave your bubble, read both sides on every issue. If you want to remain in your bubble, read the screaming twitter comments and media only. Choice is yours.
Even the "pro" arguers have serious reservations in this case.
However, there are reports that the ban is being applied even to green-card holders. This is madness. The plain language of the order doesn’t apply to legal permanent residents of the U.S., and green-card holders have been through round after round of vetting and security checks. The administration should intervene, immediately, to stop misapplication. If, however, the Trump administration continues to apply the order to legal permanent residents, it should indeed be condemned.
And another:
First, the order temporarily halts refugee admissions for 120 days to improve the vetting process, then caps refugee admissions at 50,000 per year. Outrageous, right? Not so fast. Before 2016, when Obama dramatically ramped up refugee admissions, Trump’s 50,000 stands roughly in between a typical year of refugee admissions in George W. Bush’s two terms and a typical year in Obama’s two terms.
It's nice, but there is no statement about discrimination based on religion or nationality, or xenophobia in general. His objections seem to result from poor execution: If the ban were better executed so his drivers weren't as affected, would he have any objections?
Also:
I agreed in early December to join President Trump’s economic advisory group along with Elon Musk (CEO of Tesla), Mary Barra (Chairwoman/CEO of General Motors), Indra Nooyi (Chairwoman/CEO of Pepsi), Ginni Rometty (Chairwoman/CEO of IBM), Bob Iger (Chairman/CEO of Disney), Jack Welch (former Chairman of GE) and a dozen other business leaders.
Kalanick and all those people lend their credibility to Trump and his policies.
Glad to see the tech industry leaders taking a stand on these immigration issues. Sam Altman and Travis are being very public but I'm sure many are working the system behind the scenes and there will be more public results in the future.
The fight has just begun. It's just a matter of time now till they to tear apart net neutrality.
Trump might just be the wake up call the nation needed to wake up and stop being so complacent.
"Trump might just be the wake up call the nation needed to wake up and stop being so complacent."
I'll bet that at least 50% of Americans support the premise of a 'temporary ban on entry of people from areas of open conflict or that are governed by jihadi entities'.
Point being - there are many Americans who believe that Trump is the 'wake up call'.
I think there is a lot of danger from people living inside social bubbles making assumptions about what the 'proverbial we' should or are thinking about what is right or wrong.
By the way - I think this exec order is a political gesture.
After 90 days, everyone who was to come to the US, will end up coming.
I believe that most entrants are fairly well vetted already, and that things will get back to normal pretty quickly, with some minor adjustments so that Trump can claim his order was needed and warranted.
Travis likes breaking any law that stands in the way of him making money and breaking into new markets. Now that he disagrees with an Executive order (that really means he's being deprived of a cheap source of labor), he's come out in full PR mode. You can like or dislike Trump, but Kalanick is a hypocrite through and through.
Lol your post doesn't even make sense. According to your own logic, he's fighting local government laws, ie. breaking laws, and now he's fighting an executive order that he disagrees with, so that makes him a... hypocrite? I think you don't quite understand what that word means.
Takes a certain type of arrogance to play the high card with the track record and reputation that he has. He has zero credibility when it comes to standing up for what is right.
>Because the list of countries was drafted by Obama's administration.
So? Obama isn't president anymore. Trump campaigned on Obama's policies, especially his foreign policy, being ineffective. If anything this shows laziness on behalf of the Trump administration – not a good sign.
This is looking at two effects and deciding one of them is the cause.
Saudi Arabia is a close ally of the US. That's the really horrific truth, and that's why Trump has business there and not in countries which the US is less friendly with.
We can't really know whether it's because of his biz interests or because America is friendly with the Saudi regime.
This is why Trump's refusal to divest himself from his businesses is an unacceptable conflict of interest even if he insists it is fine and there are no grounds to question it.
I also posted this above, but the specific list is seven countries DHS deemed to be high-risk around February 2016, denying them Visa Waiver privileges:
"Have you traveled to, or been present in, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, or Yemen..."
It's great to see Uber come out so publically against this travesty of a Presidential executive order. It's a despicable act and all Americans should be ashamed of what's happening. That said, it's interesting to see a company that has regularly ignored the law to build their business dive into the fray. They've also employed many of the same tactics of bullying, just like Trump. Perhaps that's what we need? Perhaps the DNA of fighting and ignoring regulations will come in handy...I just wish it didn't have to. The whole thing is just sad.
"It's a despicable act and all Americans should be ashamed of what's happening."
I think it's rather arrogant to assume that your moral position is 'what all Americans should think or else they are immoral'.
I'm weary of the executive order myself ...
but it's not entirely irrational to temporarily ban entry of people from nations that are in open conflict and from areas wherein the only 'governance' is that of a jihadist entity.
Except Iran - all the others are serious conflict zones, wherein many participants would gladly act against the USA.
Have you looked at a political map of Libya or Yemen lately?
Scary stuff.
What is 'despicable' is the wailing and misrepresentation of the issue across the board.
If Obama were to have done this after a terrorist attack (say, a 'shooting' in Cali or whatever) - and it was done quietly and reasonably so that those with green cards etc. would be allowed in - and so that people 'on flights' would not be affected, I don't think there would be such a huge fuss.
I believe that after 90 days, most of those who would be coming to America will still be coming in.
This will de-facto boil down to a unnecessary political disruption ... but it's both fair and within the bounds of responsible reason to recognize the fact that Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Iraq etc. are very dangerous places, much more so than most places, and that some extra precautions are possibly necessary.
I don't really support it, but it's not out of bounds for people to think it's necessary.
Iran though - that's purely political (admittedly, it's probably all political). Jihadis don't come from Iran.
The premise of your comment is that there is a significant risk that the people this ban impacts are likely to commit acts of terrorism in the United States. But of course, that's simply false. Armed toddlers kill approximately ten times more people in the US every year than foreign-born terrorists do. In 2014, more people died falling out of bed, by a factor of almost 2, than in every mass shooting in the country, terrorist or otherwise.
Since we know for a fact that the overwhelming majority of immigrants to the US are not in fact terrorists, and that the incidence of terrorism is so low, and that the overall incidence of people coming to the United States from the countries singled out by this executive order are so high --- many orders of magnitude higher --- simple statistically literacy tells us that the ban is irrational and should be evaluated primarily on its moral and precedential terms.
But that's besides the point. As the Washington Post reports, this EO was put into effect without consultation with the DOJ or DHS, and apparently without vetting by the President's own OLC. As a result, it bands lawful permanent residents of the United States. Something like 3/4 of the foreign-born spouses of American citizens don't have citizenship but instead simply retain their green cards, and this act prevents many of them from returning to their families from overseas --- so many that big tech companies have had to run war rooms in their HR departments to figure out how to deal with stranded software developers and other employees.
No principled American of any ideology can look at this situation and believe it's acceptable.
The influx is the refugees fleeing the conflict. These are exactly the people that we want to support because they are peaceful and are not contributing to the conflict.
In those 90 days lives that could have been saved might be lost all because we have a moron in charge. Inaction is not acceptable and fighting this thing tooth and nail is the right thing to do because historical precedent says it only gets worse from here.
These are exactly the people that we want to support because they are peaceful and are not contributing to the conflict.
Do you not remember what happened and is happening in Europe with respect to refugees? Rapes and assaults by refugees? It's happened in Austria, Sweden, Germany, just to name a few off the top of my head.
The 'waiting process' for most refugee claimants trying to enter the US is years.
This idea you might have in your mind of 'people running from Aleppo with their luggage onto airplanes' - is just not how it works.
Refugees to the US come mostly from refugee camps, where they have been living a long time.
Also - the vast majority of Syrian refugees go elsewhere - as America (unfortunately) does not take on very many refugees, relatively speaking.
In the end, there actually might be some process/security adjustments that need to be made.
You know the 'no fly list' - that ridiculous 'name based' thing? If you have the same name as a jihadi - you can't fly! It's crazy - and also insecure. Who knows, maybe they'll fix that?
I would urge people to keep the details in mind, and to keep things in perspective.
If I thought people were going to be 'dying' over this, I'd be wailing. But they won't. It's just some temporary, crude regulation.
You keep writing as if this act applies only to refugees. That would be bad enough: empirically, virtually none of those refugees are threats to American citizens, and the evidence that those refugees are threatened in their home countries is unimpeachable. Our feckless policies with regards to refugees are a stain on our history and our standing in the world.
But, of course, these policies do not simply apply to immigrants. So many green card holders have been stranded as a result of Trump's ill-considered, bigoted executive order that large companies are having to run war rooms to handle their stranded employees: see, for instance, Microsoft's all-hands announcement to their employees, 76 of whom are impacted by the order.
You write both stridently and confidently about this issue, in several places on the thread, in some of your messages going so far as to chide other commenters for their thoughts on it. But you yourself do not seem well acquainted with it.
It's heartening to see tech CEOs speak out against bigotry and disheartening to see other tech leaders remain quiet and it all makes a potent narrative and easy access to the tops of message board front pages.
But it does not. actually. matter. what tech leadership does.
We are not all sitting dutifully in our seats at Moscone waiting to see what "one more thing" from CEOs and venture capitalists is going to look like. We're also not prisoners of the management of companies whose CEOs join the administration or attend summits at Trump's garish Barad-Dûfus.
It may not be true for all workers in all industries but as someone who's been working in tech for more than 20 years I'm telling you that our management needs us more than we need them. There has never been a better market for our services or a set of employers more dependent on our goodwill and cooperation than in 2017.
Do not wait for your firm's CEO to take a stand. Organize with your coworkers. If you don't know how to get started doing that, start thinking of stabs you can take at the problem. Organizing is a problem where code actually might make a difference. Organize a pledge, or a group statement, or meetups. Or some other idea we haven't come up with yet.
A lot of engineers want to believe their work is apolitical. I understand the impulse. But your work is political whether you want it to be or not. If you don't put your market power to use for your beliefs, you're just accepting your employer's default settings, and putting it to work for theirs. Don't accept the defaults.
Organize your workplace. You have a crazy amount of influence you're not using right now. It won't always be like this; don't waste the opportunity.
Places to start:
The Indivisible guide:
https://www.indivisibleguide.com/ --- there are at least 10 software projects buried in this thing, but also remember the same ideas apply on a smaller scale both in local politics and at your work place.
https://twitter.com/techsolidarity --- show up to one of these. They're well attended and they'll interface you to your local (serious) activist community, people actually working with those at risk.
Also things I've said in the last few days that I'd rather not repeat but are relevant:
If you're building applications to ensure that people put pressure on their local representatives or, even better, to get normal people to run for local elected office, I want to help!
> But it does not. actually. matter. what tech leadership does.
But it could. Between Musk, Page, Brin, Zuckerberg and a handful of others there are some interesting options that would send a message that you'd have to be stone deaf not to hear.
I have a problem with the helplessness implied in our somewhat breathless reporting of which tech leaders speak out. I agree in general that tech CEOs should resist this administration and do so publicly. But it's even more important that rank-and-file employees organize and put their market power in the service of their ideals, rather than the other way around.
Using your influence and means to promote positive change isn't virtue signaling. This isn't the same as adding a filter to your facebook profile picture.
When did "virtue signalling" become the de facto insult against people standing up for human rights? I've been seeing it a lot around hacker news and from various alt right outlets. I've seen it exclusively in dismissive tones to imply that advocacy only exists in a performative dimension.
I don't support this action but how can you reconcile being offended by this action and yet be blase while we nonchalantly bombs others daily leading to the complete devastation of entire countries and their people.
This does not seem consistent. One is right to move freely and the other is right to live. Why is this so much worse than the other? This is just one more in a line of negative actions towards a particular region and its people who are being abused and killed for self serving geo-political and economic reasons.
I was expecting Uber to ban the Trump administration from using Uber, but instead was pleased see a far classier move to help out drivers stuck outside the country:
>> We are working out a process to identify these drivers and compensate them pro bono during the next three months to help mitigate some of the financial stress and complications with supporting their families and putting food on the table. We will have more details on this in the coming days.
Uber is currently scabbing to break a taxi strike at JFK that is being done against this immigration ban. Kalanick is actively collaborating with Trump.
Travis Kalanick and "standing up for what's right" are mutually exclusive. I thought this would be about finally paying Uber drivers more than starvation wages, and was not too surprised to see it is just a PR stunt.
This afternoon I sent the email below to Uber employees and thought I would include here:
Subject: Standing up for what's right
Team,
Yesterday President Trump signed an executive order suspending entry of citizens from seven countries—Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen—to the United States for at least the next 90 days.
Our People Ops team has already reached out to the dozen or so employees who we know are affected: for example, those who live and work in the U.S., are legal residents but not naturalized citizens will not be able to get back into the country if they are traveling outside of the U.S. now or anytime in the next 90 days. Anyone who believes that this order could impact them should contact our immigration team immediately.
This order has far broader implications as it also affects thousands of drivers who use Uber and come from the listed countries, many of whom take long breaks to go back home to see their extended family. These drivers currently outside of the U.S. will not be able to get back into the country for 90 days. That means they will not be able to earn a living and support their families—and of course they will be separated from their loved ones during that time.
We are working out a process to identify these drivers and compensate them pro bono during the next three months to help mitigate some of the financial stress and complications with supporting their families and putting food on the table. We will have more details on this in the coming days.
While every government has their own immigration controls, allowing people from all around the world to come here and make America their home has largely been the U.S.’s policy since its founding. That means this ban will impact many innocent people—an issue that I will raise this coming Friday when I go to Washington for President Trump’s first business advisory group meeting.
Ever since Uber’s founding we’ve had to work with governments and politicians of all political persuasions across hundreds of cities and dozens of countries. Though we share common ground with many of them, we have had areas of disagreement with each of them. In some cases we’ve had to stand and fight to make progress, other times we’ve been able to effect change from within through persuasion and argument.
But whatever the city or country—from the U.S. and Mexico to China and Malaysia—we’ve taken the view that in order to serve cities you need to give their citizens a voice, a seat at the table. We partner around the world optimistically in the belief that by speaking up and engaging we can make a difference. Our experience is that not doing so shortchanges cities and the people who live in them. This is why I agreed in early December to join President Trump’s economic advisory group along with Elon Musk (CEO of Tesla), Mary Barra (Chairwoman/CEO of General Motors), Indra Nooyi (Chairwoman/CEO of Pepsi), Ginni Rometty (Chairwoman/CEO of IBM), Bob Iger (Chairman/CEO of Disney), Jack Welch (former Chairman of GE) and a dozen other business leaders.
I understand that many people internally and externally may not agree with that decision, and that’s OK. It's the magic of living in America that people are free to disagree. But whatever your view please know that I’ve always believed in principled confrontation and just change; and have never shied away (maybe to my detriment) from fighting for what’s right.
And how many of those are there? Do you think many uber drivers can afford to go overseas? Yes a few, but I doubt it's a high number. This is just a PR stunt.
America is so divided now. So maybe it's better just to divide America into liberal America and conservative America. This is better for both left and right side.
Who really cares what this hypocrite and other US based technology CEOs like him think.
For them it's fine to totally to run companies who:
* Abuse user privacy.
* Constatntly pretend they are driving positive social progress.
* Track people in a non-transparent, disrespectful way.
* Build echo chambers to keep people ill-informed and hooked on using services.
* Avoid paying tax.
* Automate people out of jobs, while not contributing to wellfare systems.
* Get rich off state owned infrastructure and give little to nothing back.
* Give money to political parties.
* Exploit cheap labor.
* Censor things for government agencies.
However, as soon as profts are at risk, they decide to come out swinging.
Where is the outrage when a child goes hungry in Africa, or a person is bombed in Syria by a US drone? The billions and billions of dollars tied up in these companies should be going back into communities, education, medical and food aid. Not on "moonshots", and ambiguous charity initiaivies which only go towards lining their pockets further.
It's companies that operate in this way which gave Trump a voice, knowingly or unknowningly. Trump didn't just magic himself into the Whitehouse, did he?
I feel sorry for anyone affected by this but having CEOs throwing bullshit into the bonfire won't help.
Everyone is responsible for the current situation, it's not just the actions of one man.
Please don't take HN threads on generic ideological tangents. That makes flamewars both flamier and less substantive, and you could hardly have stuffed this one with more genera.
Long term though... bans, tarriffs, protections of any kind are all ill conceived. You will absolutely get a boost in wages, but the cost is quite significant. Shortening supply artificially always raises prices, and ends up meaning the same amount of output costs more to achieve than it otherwise would without the restrictions. Why would any economy want entertain that for too long?
You're right --- but as John Maynard Keynes famously wrote, "In the long run, we're all dead".
In the medium term, it is unreasonable to expect middle America to compete with workers from countries with no environmental laws, no safety regulations, and no worker safety. Likewise, it is unreasonable for ask us free people to compete with H1-B holders who cannot leave their jobs without being deported.
Besides, historically speaking, we make productivity advances fastest when labor is expensive. In a sea of cheap labor, technology stagnates. Of course, in the long run, we're going to have a single integrated global economy. But a policy of immediate free trade and free movement is not a feasible or fair way of getting to this state.
Accounts that use HN primarily for political or ideological battle are an abuse of this site, as I believe you know. We ban them. We've banned this one. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. That eventually gets your main account banned as well.
Throwaway accounts to stoke ideological flamewars are not ok here. There's no possibility of civil, substantive discussion of any of it, so please keep it off HN.
This is an incredibly cynical comment. I'd only say that around 60% workers in Silicon Valley tech companies are immigrant born. As far as I can see, they didn't pushed the salaries down in recent times.
There are only two mods, 'dang and 'sctb, and they definitely don't see everything (which they will readily admit). If you find something you think is inappropriate, please contact them via the Contact link in the footer.
You are right, I am. That doesnt change the underlying reasons for a company like Uber to make this statement. It is manipulation of the public, intended to make Uber look moral, as well as intended to reassure their cheap labor base. The fact that people on here are championing it shows how effective this kind of PR is, even among the educated people of HN.
I'm just saying, it is no coincidence that they say this. There are a lot of influences like this Uber statement that are doing the same thing. Most people are not aware
"While every government has their own immigration controls, allowing people from all around the world to come here and make America their home has largely been the U.S.’s policy since its founding."
To address the trump problem, we must have a good understanding of trump himself, his DNA and this clip helps with that I noticed: https://youtu.be/CTzBZuPx1lQ?t=1643
Too bad he's silent for the past year when these issues were obviously going to happen. He allowed it to happen. And now he's quietly giving Trump lip service behind closed doors. He (Travis + Uber) doesn't give a damn about anyone. As long as they can get some Uber-friendly policy from Trump they'll continue to let him do whatever he wants. They are enabling him by working with him on other issues while ignoring this.
Such PR bullshit. Trying to look good in the public eye.
(America is bombing seven countries by the way, in case anyone forgot. Our last president is the first in history to have the US in armed conflict for every day of his presidency. He will not be the last.)
What I also hate is that Uber tries to play the PR game and show themselves as the great guys here. Forget that they pay their drivers peanuts, that drivers have to drive up to 30% more now to make the same wages as just a few years ago, and that many are calling Uber to unionise.
I hate they way everyone is just using people to further their message and forgetting that these are people.