If he said something that implied "no risk," then he did say no risk.

Except that here, he didn't imply it at all. He said that unforeseen disasters "won't crack open the cases."

You may disagree with my general positions or conclusions, but you're way off base on the particular points you're arguing.

Claiming there is no risk is to totally misunderstand the situation. It doesn't matter how "casual" your conversation is, misunderstanding things so completely that you think there is "no risk" when there is actually significant known risk, that is just going to be wrong. There is no amount of "casual" that makes it less incorrect.

And it is no surprise that a person who understates the risk to the point of claiming there is "no" risk, will also miss the elephant in the room; there is huge risk because the material has to be moved to that location. So it is not just that the specific mistake I pointed out is egregious; it predicts the other egregious oversights.

I think it is funny you showed up at "news for nerds" and are worried that correcting significant factual errors that are infinite[sic] orders of magnitude away from the truth might be "over the top." It is not as if nuclear safety matters in the world, right?

You say I'm wrong about a general principle I didn't claim. And your generalization of what I said isn't accurate.

Just keep reading until what I said makes sense. When it makes sense and is a factually correct statement, you successfully comprehended what you read. If it seems factually incorrect, you're simply misunderstanding what was written. And from your response, it seems you went between the lines and added your own stuff, that turned out to be incorrect.

You obviously didn't understand what I said, so why comment on it? Just stop. I do know law, and speaking against things I didn't say, and pretending I said them, doesn't prove that you know law, or that I don't.

In the type of case being discussed, yes, following regulations intended to manage the risk of criminality by employees will indeed shield a company from accusations that they shouldn't have hired the person because of some claimed risk. The whole point is that the company isn't accused of having participated in a crime. That's what you seem to imply when you say, "Following a regulation is not a shield from liability." Nobody said that. It is a shield from claims that the specific act that was regulated (in this case, the background check of the driver) was negligent. If the regulation tells the company what background checks to do, and they did those checks correctly, then that does indeed shield them from accusations that their background checking is negligent. It absolutely shields them from claims their background checks were grossly negligent, which is what is usually going to need to be proved.

Instead of asking an open-ended "why" for something that is known, just look it up and then you can discuss it intelligently. If you don't know, how can you use it to argue?

If you do know, and you're asking "why" anyways, it sounds like FUD where you know the actual details don't support your position, but you want to raise the possibility that they might.

Uber is not a "private car service" in NY. There. That has been answered. If you want to go into the details, research it, and discuss it from a position of claiming to understand it.

Wait, wait, are you saying that 2 wrongs don't make a right?! But what if the other person is a total _____, that changes it... right?

If you made out their paycheck to "fuck head" they would be happy. That is hostile enough that even if they somehow didn't have a lawsuit, they could quit and still get unemployment. There are few situations where that applies, but writing pejoratives on the paycheck would tend to make it easier to prove a hostile work environment.

People doing this are usually trying to get fired so that they can claim unemployment. That works, because they can claim that they didn't have to be fired, that they made a mistake and their behavior could be corrected simply by training them, writing them up and telling them not to do it. If they can get the company to want to fire them right away, it will generally be "without cause" because "with cause" can require the employer to prove not only that there was misconduct, but that it was bad enough to warrant firing. Often it isn't worth the trouble. If they didn't intentionally say the awful thing to the customer, they'll probably get fired without cause, and get their unemployment check. Or, they'll get written up and fired later after they get enough write-ups. Not getting fired is the fail, from the rogue employee perspective.

Quitting normally means you absolutely don't get unemployment, so there is no motivation for the lazy to quit instead of taking their chances on getting fired.

The users have no power over the workers, and the workers have real power over the users. The users receive real harm by many known, documented actions of comcast workers. Therefore, it is clear, without going into the details, that the users have very limited capability to do evil to the workers, and the workers have a disproportionately larger capability to do evil to the users.

Even if you convinced me that users are more evil by nature than the comcast workers, the comcast workers would still be the ones more likely to achieve evil acts. And since there are so many workers and users, and there is a history of attempted evil by both groups, it should be obvious that the comcast workers are achieving real evil, and the users are spewing hateful words and wishing they had capability to do evil.

I can, but you can't? If you could, why didn't you post to anything indicating that a private car service was illegal in NYC? Oh yeah, because they are 100% legal (so long as they aren't Uber). It's Uber being singled out, told to operate under inconsistent rules. Their response (right or wrong) is that they will operate under no rules, until forced to do so in court. Pretty much exactly the same as private cars in NYC. And private cars have existed for decades, and are going strong (and are 100% legal, under certain operating conditions).

Because I did look them up, but you're hand-waving. Also, "trust me the answer is ___" is a lame position. I don't expect people to get their facts and numbers from me, I expect people to verify information independently, or at least use a source they have some reason they trust. Feeding you the exact numbers doesn't improve your understanding, IMO.

You're saying they're "working strong," so are the drug dealers. Does that prove that the government isn't trying to fight the drug war, that crack cocaine is de-facto legal on account of the government hasn't stopped it? No? See, you would need to not only know that the illegal behavior continues, but also that nobody gets in trouble for it, to even claim to know that. If you didn't look up the numbers on your own before making the claim, it was a false claim. Even if you had accidentally guessed right and there is no enforcement (you didn't guess right, there is lots of enforcement, paid for by taxi medallion fees) you would still be wrong to claim to known without having checked.

Drug dealers have existed for "decades," and are "going strong." Fail.

We do know what to. He said, "I was late to meet my friends."

And it doesn't matter how important what he was late to was, unless you can prove some sort of gross negligence or that he was intentionally harmed.

It starts from, "Would a reasonable person believe that a [less-than-taxi] ride sharing service has guaranteed arrival time?" So even without considering the terms of service, we can already easily arrive at, no, a reasonable person would know that a ride service, even a real taxi, does not guarantee arrival times. And indeed, an arrival time is never even negotiated. So any harm that is caused by his being late rests on his own shoulders; cars sometimes get flat tires. It can be expected that a car has a chance to get a flat tire, even a hired car. It doesn't matter what the harm is unless you can prove that it is the fault of the driver or ride company.

You certainly never would have a person on the side of "there is no liability for that" having to brainstorm theories of harm. The person asserting liability has to do that. Be default there is no liability; some reason has to be provable.

A jury is going to be very upset at having their time wasted by somebody claiming that they didn't know part of hiring a car was that the car might get a flat tire, be stuck in traffic, or otherwise break down or be late. It is a known and obvious part of transportation by automobile. It is going to be difficult even to keep a straight face while claiming, "I never knew it was possible for a hired car to get a flat tire, and now that I know, I blame the driver. The driver certainly must have known that the car can get a flat tire, and negligently didn't maintain the tire properly." See how much fail there is there? To make it the drivers fault, it has to be both totally unknown to a reasonable consumer that there is a risk of flat tire, and also so well known to the driver that failure to prevent it is not only negligent, but grossly negligent. And in a ride-share, the driver is claimed to be an amateur just "sharing" a ride, not a professional taxi driver, so it rapidly gets more and more stupid. This is all long before you need to worry about what he was late for with his friends.

Compare that to rape. It is almost exactly the opposite; you'll have a hard time convincing a jury that being raped by a company representative is a normal risk that you would anticipate as part of the service. How do you even make the claim? "She should have known that being a woman and leaving the house, she might get raped." The jury isn't going to be in a good mood.

The defense for a taxi company is that the industry is regulated, the risk is regulated, and the local government decides on granting the driver a taxi license or not, and so the company has followed the system. It isn't their fault, primarily because the regulation establish the standard of how much checking they are supposed to do. So it is hard to make a free-form, "didn't do enough" type of argument. Without complying with that regulation, Uber doesn't have any of that protection. They can't hide behind the government. And if the plaintiff can show they made a minor mistake or oversight, or that they could have done better, or that some particular rapist would not have received a taxi license, well then they might win a giant lawsuit.

Absolute statements are not more-correct if you say them more casually.

Claiming "no risk" for something that is guaranteed to have risk, that shows a disregard for risk levels entirely independent of the character of the conversation.

And the character is not just "casual," but "casual debate of policy specifics" where the specific things people say is actually where any value is to be had in what they say.

Nothing you saw can stop Chernobyl from being something that happened, and the risk of it happening is part of the equation.

You blame politics, etc., well guess what: you don't get to choose the future politics of the world. That is the level of failure that exists, that is known.

That you want to write it off and have history somehow "not count" shows a deep disregard for reality; for the part of reality that has already happened, and that really should have better vision than just the covering of eyes.

That isn't "doubtful" at all. Doubtful would come up with a known unknown. This is a known known that you simply haven't learned. When the same amount of carbon is released either way, that is called called "carbon neutral." That is not something to doubt; it is not an unknown. CO2 is captured by the living plant, and unless the plant is building up new soil by being buried prior (and post) decomposition, then it will be released into the atmosphere.

For example "waste sugar" from a fruit processing plant. It would all be consumed by microbes, it isn't going to be stored away underground in a scheme to prevent decomposition. No, it is going to decompose in a giant pile, and whatever is left will be low carbon fertilizer source product.

Yep. And come back to me when the storage and distribution (refill) technology has gotten to the point where I can pretty much go anyplace, rather than having to carefully plan my route around quick-charge stations over overnight stays every 1-300 miles or rent a gasoline/diesel/e85 car..

*ring-a-ling* *ring-a-ling* This already came, but you're so busy hating on it you didn't see it walk in the door.http://www.pev4me.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/PlugShare-Charging-Sation-Map.png Even 5 years ago, there were only a few low population states like the Dakotas without public charging stations. The map is from 2012, and guess what? Investment has increased since then. The rate of growth has increased. The charging stations are everywhere, and in my city, about every 5th car is electric already.

You know you don't get out much when you're writing off something that has been widespread for years as something is perpetually 10-15 years away. 25 years ago when they told you it was 10-15 years away... it was!

I didn't say it will be here in 15 years. I said it is hear already and already popular; it is what is popular in a new car now. So in 15 years, these new cars will be the older cars on the road. That is what I was talking about in regards to "15 years." There was no waiting for technology claimed or implied.

The internet says they're not "tolerated," at all, except in the same sense that drug dealers are tolerated. They get arrested and fined regularly for breaking the rules, and yet, there are lots of people doing it and the enforcement hasn't stopped the behavior. But it isn't tolerated. You can look up the statistics of how many are busted for it.

Why would I need to be "hidebound" to rules? We have Direct Democracy. If the rule is so awful, you can get people that agree to sign petitions and the repeal will be on the ballot. Or you can write new rules, and get those on the ballot.

The existing rules are by consent of the community. They are not imposed rules, they are agreed rules. If you want to change them, come to us and ask to change them, don't just violate them and throw your nose up in the air and insist your rules are better.

We choose our rules, that isn't "hidebound" it is Freedom. You want to take that away from us, by imposing your opinions in place of the agreed system of regulation. Some places, mostly places without Direct Democracy, might cave to that. But don't expect it to standard. And expect those places to grow a backbone after they see those of us that are Free, exercising our right to local rules.

You waved your hands, but you didn't propose a theory of how he was harmed.

Who is whose advertising department? I read the book of Job, and it just isn't clear to me. So I read Isaiah, and I'm still not sure. Is one of the two main demons supposed to be a lesser evil?

Anyhow, regarding the NSA, whenever you're demonizing a group of people and just assuming that others must have a negative view of them, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. Nobody even bothers trying to make the case that some sin they committed is so bad that it is worse than the work they do (protecting from nuclear strike) is good. Nobody even tries. They just wave their hands, regurgitate some pejoratives, and assume everybody agrees. It doesn't occur to them that to an NSA worker, the exact opposite is equally obvious.

Your opinions about the world seem obvious because they're your own opinions, not because they are obviously true. Your friends will probably have the same opinions as you, or at least they'll yet you keep thinking they do. But that only reinforces the mistake, because people who disagree have friends who agree with them, too.

I don't know the details of how drivers in India are screened, and probably there isn't enough transparency to even try to know that. That said, it is impossible to have fully effective preventative measures. It doesn't exist, so it can't be put in place. Even if you put a military squad guarding each car, there would still be some non-zero rate of rapes.

What they can do is to do the same checks that taxis do, so that everybody knows they didn't do it wrong. That is the best they can do, is follow the system so if a rape happens depends on the community and the system of checks, not on which taxi or car service was used. It doesn't do any good to promise their system is just as good, either, because they're a private business and users don't have access to their offices, procedures, etc in order to know. Their duty is to make themselves not be a factor that contributes, or appears to contribute, to criminality, and the only possible way for them to give that reassurance to a community is by following regular taxi rules and having the drivers go through normal procedures in each jurisdiction. That is the only way to disconnect their behavior from the crimes, since they know going in that crimes will happen in vehicles while they are actively in use for their service.