Driving is licensed and regulated by the government. Are you suggested internet licenses that required semi-regular tests and strict enforcement by governments?
Interesting choice to cherrypick and then straw man one part of one example.
They didn't say the government should get to decide where someone drives; it was the OEM, BMW in their example. That is basically what Google is doing here by locking down a previously open-ish platform.
Having a license doesn't mean you are restricted in where you can go unless we start considering the fringes like provisional (learners') permits complete with curfew. Therefore, your example doesn't fit. But OP's does, because it is equivalent to asking "do you think your refrigerator should refuse to cool items manufactured by an entity it doesn't like... to Keep You Safe(tm)?" Maybe you buy from non-verified cottage industry workers at the local farmers market. People who maybe didn't upload their PII and licenses to the refrigerator manufacturer, so it refuses to operate until you remove the offending item. Out of the utmost respect for your safety, of course.
Imagine if Charter Communications/Spectrum decided to block you from using their service and modem/routers from accessing any media created by Universal (owned by their rival, Comcast). It doesn't really have anything to do with safety, but they could pearl clutch and blame it on some risqué content that Universal releases via its imprints.
Sure, that might insulate him and put him in an echo chamber, but blocking is entirely his right, and he's the one who'll get the consequences from that.
I also tend to do a similar thing in spaces I curate, and it's honestly better for mental health. Someone comes out from nowhere with something completely 180 degrees from what I say? That's not reality TV, that's my private [social network page]. I'm not gonna be baited.
Saying someone "can't block" is an asshole move. Nobody should be forced to talk and see messages by anyone.
The problem is that he has way more influence in the world than you or I due to his status, money, connections, etc. The amount of harm resulting from him being in an echo chamber is much larger, especially since he actively posts in order to influence large amounts of people.
People judging you for your blocking is one of the prices you're socially expected to pay in return for those privileges.
It's not his job to give anyone a larger venue to reply.
Someone popular being in an echo chamber causing problems for society is a larger issue that maybe we should address separately. It's not on him to solve problems created by social media at large. Maybe limit reach of Twitter accounts.
Even if it were kind of his responsibility, that doesn't preclude him from being fully in his right to block people when he doesn't want to interact directly in a social network. That should be an inalienable right.
You can criticise anything you want, and I'm not saying you're not in the right to do so. But saying this is a problem comparable to cancellation is making a gross exaggeration.
To take an example from my own experience, if I automatically tuned out anyone who said something bad about the requirement to make things accessible for blind people, I would deny myself the opportunity to learn how they think and become more effective in my advocacy or, possibly, revise my position.
Yes, I mention that in the second paragraph. That's his to decide.
If you're interested in hearing the other side in all cases, then of course blocking is counter-intuitive. Wether he wants or not, it's his choice.
However, even if you were to block everyone, you could still curate the experience of hearing from the other side in other situations: by consuming articles, by asking someone privately, by not blocking some of the replies.
I also would disagree 100% that social networks are a proper venue for this kind of exchange.
He still has 100% the right to block and saying this is akin to cancellation is bullshit.
I took this essay's main thrust to be around a lack of nuance in the discourse. His own behavior indicates he's pretty unwilling to have any nuance himself; pot calling the kettle black, etc.
It kills your livelihood. It will make it hard for you to get a future job if they don't give you a good reference, especially if the industry is close-knit.
It puts your financial wellbeing of you and your family at risk.
You and others will probably think twice before dissenting otherwise you better dust off that resume and tap into those savings.
But I guess people aren't killing people so cancel culture is okay, is that your standard?
There is a lot of ridiculous hyperbole and disingenuousness in this post so it's a little hard to take seriously.
As someone who has lived in New York for the past ten years, the entrance of Uber hasn't changed my life at all, other than some VCs subsidizing/coercing some lower income drivers into taking $10 off my fare when I go to the airport.
Public transportation, which you deride, usage utterly dwarfs taxis/ubers/etc (notice all of the large buildings _in Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn_ where people work?). The MTA definitely has some issues, but calling it dysfunctional because it takes a little extra time to go from Astoria to Prospect Park is absurd.
I don't need to be reminded of the standard, clean, regulated experience I have every time I jump into a yellow or green cab. Boro taxis were introduced into the city _two years after_ Uber entered NYC. How can you possible hand wave them away with "too little too late"? And Uber has its fair share of drivers who have no idea where they're going (actually, definitely more, but I will say they're better about following GPS, which can be both good and bad).
They're taking about limited the number and providing a minimum wage, hardly life changing stuff.
> As someone who has lived in New York for the past ten years, the entrance of Uber hasn't changed my life at all
Ehh, depends where in the city you are. When I was super broke I used to live in an out of the way part of Long Island City. 50% of cabs in Manhattan would just refuse to drive there, and once there, good luck finding a yellow or even green cab. The local car service was also pretty unreliable and slow. When Uber came along I suddenly had more options to get home, I was able to reliably get cars to the airport, etc. It was a huge and instant bump in my quality of life.
> As someone who has lived in New York for the past ten years, the entrance of Uber hasn't changed my life at all
As someone who has lived in NYC for longer, I find your experience atypical. Do you take taxi/ride-hail trips outside of Manhattan? Are you a person of color? If either of those are true, your transportation experience has been fundamentally changed by the existence of Uber/Lyft.
And I'm sorry, but any favorable comparison of the cleanliness of an NYC yellow cab to an NYC Uber is laughable. The cleanest, best-smelling NYC yellow cab I've taken was worse than the dirtiest NYC Uber I've ever taken.
>There is a lot of ridiculous hyperbole and disingenuousness in this post
Nothing but actual experience, hello from Brooklyn.
>The entrance of Uber hasn't changed my life at all, other than [...] when I go to the airport.
Good for you, and I can actually know I can go to the airport.
>Public transportation, which you deride,
Who, me? I love public transportation. Especially when it works. Have fun using the MTA getting from Brooklyn to Queens, though.
>but calling it dysfunctional because it takes a little extra time to go from Astoria to Prospect Park is absurd.
A little?
Getting to LGA from, say, Kings Highway in Brooklyn is a 2+ hour trip using trains and buses, going through Manhattan and crossing the water twice.
Getting to JFK is 2+ hours using subway, LIRR, and Airtrain.
Taxi? 45 minutes.
That's one practical example for you, but we can sit down with the map one day and talk actual trip times for people living outside Manhattan.
>I don't need to be reminded of the standard, clean, regulated experience I have every time I jump into a yellow or green cab
Hahahaha. These cabs only got GPS and card readers like, what, five years ago? I still remember getting into a yellow cab with a driver who circled around the block asking for directions - and charging me for it.
>Boro taxis were introduced into the city _two years after_ Uber entered NYC. How can you possible hand wave them away with "too little too late"
That's why I called it too little too late. First, because it was too late. Two years too late, thanks for pointing that out. Secondly, because it's still too little; I very rarely see green cabs (but tons of Ubers).
>They're taking about limited the number and providing a minimum wage, hardly life changing stuff.
This sentence, to me, seems, how should I say it - ah, hyperbolic and disingenuous; thank you.
I understand and respect the fact that this may be your opinion colored by your own experiences, but as a long time New Yorker I have to admit I giggled a bit when I read your fairy tale statement re: yellow cabs.
> the standard, clean, regulated experience I have every time I jump into a yellow or green cab
Huh, haven't been in one where the driver wasn't on the phone in ages. Two weeks ago, my black friend was refused pick-up. Brooklyn-based friends are regularly refused transport. At least the credit card machine broken trick stopped a few years ago.
> Every single one of those things is illegal, and can be reported
Yet they're still common. I've reported them, and occasionally there's a fine, but at a certain point the cost of constantly reporting outweighs the benefit. It doesn't help that the TLC is a political position with the same financial conflicts of interests as the City Councilman who presented this bill [1].
>> We had several goals in mind. One was being wire-format compatible with an older internal product to allow developers to migrate applications easier. Another was to have a database that could be updated anywhere and stay in sync everywhere. The first goal could only be satisfied in-house. The second was either in its infancy for open source products, or available at high cost from commercial sources.
It's hard to take something like this seriously when it spends 3 (large) paragraphs scare mongering about the fact that fish "may" contain plastics, only to end with:
>> Even though current research shows we do not absorb most plastics, it’s possible that a small amount (about 1 percent) can still accumulate in our bodies over time.
That number might change: research on microplastics in our food is still in its infancy, and while some studies have documented the detrimental effects of plastics on fish and other aquatic animals, we still don’t know much about their long-term effects on humans.
So, all current scientific evidence points to this not being a problem. But it _might_ _maybe_ _someday_!
edit - I've also never heard of any food safety guidelines that specify different storage temperatures for different species of fish. The whole thing is pretty suspect.
> So, all current scientific evidence points to this not being a problem.
Do you mean our lack of current scientific evidence? The fact that we have no idea about long term effects of ingesting those plastics should be alarming enough.
I didn’t sign up to be a guinea pig for this experiment. Thanks to this article at least I know I’m part of one.
Anyone using a computer several hours each day will collect probably much more micro particles of plastic in its fingers; as our badly worn-out keyboards can tell us.
Note, too, that he abruptly switches from "microplastics" to "plastics" in mid-sentence.
As far as I know, the "detrimental effects of plastics" that have been "documented" are stuff like getting caught in six-pack rings, getting intestinal clogs, etc., none of which are likely to be an issue with microplastics.
>> It went so quickly from a semi-plausible portrayal to a fetishization of [black hat] hackers.
One can already see from the first episode of season 2 (which I suppose you haven't seen yet) that it's much more complex than that.
In season one we saw the culmination of that extreme "fight club" ideology. In season two we're going to see the results of those actions. And so far it isn't pretty.
