Posts by BenWilson
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber Driver…, in reply to goforit,
I have to admit I am surprised you have not been deactivated by Uber, most of us earlier drivers got deactivated just telling them The Transport Act needed to be followed.
I'm very highly rated, and have had exactly one complaint, which was just about navigation (the rider put in the wrong destination, but did verbally tell me to go to Mt Eden station. No one, not even Google, knows where Mt Eden station is :-)). They would have no excuse to deactivate me other than a deliberate assault on my freedom of speech. I think they're too smart for that, that they know that it would actually free me up to work on the association even more, and give me a martyr like hubris. Best to just ignore me.
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I first heard about Hard News because of the impending war. I asked a friend who was more net-savvy (read: had a lot more spare time on his hands) than I, if there was anyone writing anything that made sense about this debacle in this country, so pathetic was the mainstream media reporting. Hard News was high on his list of go-tos for sensible journalistic opinion on it. I think I pretty much gave up on MSM opinion pieces on that day. MSM is now something that I read/watch/listen to only for strictly factual detail – anything that is not a statement of something that actually happened is something I don’t even read/watch/listen to. It’s been extraordinary to find myself in MSM recently, since I barely partake of it myself. I find out about it from other people, and don’t feel that enthusiastic when I do. I still rate ten times higher than a media interview a simple engagement from a committed good faith commentator. In that discourse comes the soul of rational thought. In clips and soundbites comes the destruction of it.
So this site, with it’s long and consistent deconstruction of the predictable and disgusting intervention in the Middle East, has been a great thing, a rare thing, an important thing. In my opinion. From that backbone comes the many other cool things that it has built, the other interesting authors, a community with a soul.
I was there protesting when 15 million people protested against the US invasion of Iraq in a single coordinated demonstration of rejection. I felt how powerless we’d become in that way, and it was a very alarming feeling indeed. Organizing truly effective protest takes a lot more than that. I don’t know what the future of progressive movements is. The only hope I really have is that another thing that happened in the 10 years since, the move from fringe to outright dominance of Linux and Wikipedia in their respective spaces, has the seeds of the future of human organization and work in it.
If we must work for free, at least we could work on what is righteous. The vast bulk of people can’t afford to, but those who can, should. To that end, I applaud you, Russell, for working on at least keeping some of the record straight on Iraq. It's a huge job, your contributions a tiny piece of the global picture. But it still helps, it was still worthwhile, however little you got paid for any of it.
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber Driver…, in reply to goforit,
Ben you have only been in the industry for about 4 months give a thought to the men and women who have keep the industry going for most of there working lives and there been some really hard times to cope with.
It's quite a battle in the association I'm helping to build to convince members that the taxi industry is not our enemy, but in fact our friend, compatriots. It's hard because Uber have so effectively framed what is going on as an outright war against taxis. I don't see it as helpful to buy into this mentality. It is an old tool in the capitalist playbook to keep workers at odds with each other. I'm certain that the price drop was timed to coincide with the compliance drop for this exact reason. It was to tear worker cohesion apart. It has worked, to some degree. But with monolithic efforts by a small but growing group, there is at least some sense of common purpose being formed. It's extremely unfamiliar territory for me, but no one else was putting up their hand, and I became basically ashamed of my country, and decided that it had to be done, and despite it costing me dearly, it was a cost I was prepared to wear, at least for some time.
So have no doubt that I spare a thought for the taxi industry. I'm being assisted by it on a daily basis. Your contributions here are also coming from there and I'm hearing them. A very large body of the driver base are also taxi drivers. In the end, there is a common purpose.
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I guess we have to have these battles over and over. The giant experiment that was already conducted by people perverting Nietzsche godwins any debate, and Godwin has thus perhaps unwittingly released the cat among the pigeons (for so the Ubermensch see the Untermensch).
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If this is what they think, then their organization could be viewed as a vast experiment in this philosophy, and the outcomes of it can be viewed directly in the disgusting lack of an "affinity of friendship" that they have ever displayed to their "driver partners", and the way in which they have made work for them much more onerous, and how "transvaluation" here is synonymous with "devaluation".
But lets not get philosophical here. If any director wants to wax philosophical with me they might find they've picked a farting match with a skunk.
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber Driver…, in reply to izogi,
To what extent is this true?
Well my contract with Uber for providing the transport services that the so carefully distance themselves from before then completely taking over the entire operation with 4 pages of what reads like an employment contract, says that it's jurisdiction is the Netherlands. I'm presuming they mean the country, although given the way they named their company unwittingly with fascist overtones, I can't be sure that they don't think the Netherlands is some part of the internet and would be surprised to hear that it contains the Hague. I'm joking, of course.
ETA: For that matter, I'm not even sure that the fascist overtones are an accident. I would not be surprised to hear that the Uber Men who started the company are not at all displeased with the idea of being the Übermensch.
ETA2: I expect that they would argue that it is the anarchistic strain of Nietzschean philosophy, that the drivers themselves are the Übermensch: From Wikipedia
Bookchin says that "workers must see themselves as human beings, not as class beings; as creative personalities, not as 'proletarians,' as self-affirming individuals, not as 'masses'. . .(the) economic component must be humanized precisely by bringing an 'affinity of friendship' to the work process, by diminishing the role of onerous work in the lives of producers, indeed by a total 'transvaluation of values' (to use Nietzsche's phrase) as it applies to production and consumption as well as social and personal life."
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I wonder if he will find out soon what Uber standing by him 100% means. If it's anything like what it means for drivers, he's in for a rough time.
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber Driver…, in reply to izogi,
Is he in any way personally liable?
He is certainly putting his neck on the line a lot more than any other high up executive. I'm quite amazed that someone with legal training would be so incredibly indiscreet on the radio as to frankly admit to encouraging law breaking. To date, they have challenged the illegality of what they are doing. To be open about it is a very strange turn. As I say, it's establishing dominance. At this point, he is literally challenging the entire NZ criminal justice system to do a damned thing about his organization's blatant and large scale inducement into criminal activity of thousands of people.
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber Driver…, in reply to goforit,
Ben they canned it because of the outcome of the review, they thought by the bribe they had given to a certain MP and his side kick was going to have the review favour tthere model.
Be very careful about making accusations of bribes to MPs. Thankfully you haven't named anyone here. This site's protection against libel suits is something I am very careful not to test. If you have proof of bribery, please contact me directly and immediately, on benedictwilson@hotmail.com
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber Driver…, in reply to izogi,
Are any or all of these companies affiliated with NZ’s Uber presence?
I would be amazed if any of them are. They are probably Uber drivers who registered companies for their own personal use, something that is not at all uncommon.