[1] Here is an example of how ridiculously far the airlines have gone in claiming everything is a safety issue, even when it is things completely within their power to control: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/air-canada-denies-compensatio...
This makes no sense at all. If I order a pizza and it doesn't show up the reason it doesn't show up is completely irrelevant; they still owe me my money back.
I've made about $1400 from delayed flights in the last 3 years
It reads to me like this law was intended to provide additional compensation to passengers who are delayed. The EU has something similar.
Then the regulators should be asking why there are so many safety issues? Seems like by the airlines' own admission, this is a perfect ground for a full investigation and penalties in case the issues are found to be misclassified under the category of safety.
In the US, I suspect that pretty much any personnel who observed this could raise it as an issue through an FAA safety reporting program. There are some protections for reporters.
(These programs, and the people and organizations who participate in them, are a big part of why aviation is as safe as it is. It's something a lot of people seem to take very seriously. It's pretty inspiring, IMHO, and if only we could collectively believe in other common goals like this, and execute as well.)
"Wrong" reason is subjective. Tickets are nonrefundable because otherwise the network doesn't work, financially. Every hole in that increases costs far beyond the refunds themselves further down the line.
Air travel is not a high margin, luxury product, it's a lot margin mass market product with tons of competition - ergo costs are cut wherever possible. When you force airlines to take on costs for moral reasons, they basically are obligated to find as narrow an application of the moral reasoning as possible to keep costs down.
The laws are basicaly made by those companies.
There have been various court cases to clarify and strengthen the regulations.
It will take another 5 years probably for the Canadian regulations to have a serious effect which gives the airlines plenty of time to shaft customers in another manner.
These outlandish claims wouldn't work nearly as well as they do if claims of safety didn't cause a large part of the population to turn off their brain and side with whoever's making the claim regardless of the details.
Safety is often used as one of our modern analogs of "god's will."
The airline isn't being "punished" - they're being required to either complete a contract, or to compensate their counterparty for their failure to complete.
To take the example upthread, if the pizzaiolo drops a screw in my pizza, the resulting safety issue doesn't void the contract; he has to go off and make me a new pizza, or give my money back. It's not a punishment. If he can't complete on the contracts he makes, he has to stop selling pizzas or go broke.
I don't know any good reason why airlines shouldn't be subject to normal contract law.
In both cases, they were forced to pay out in arbitration after the arbitor determined that their stated causes were false (e.g. providing the tail number for a different aircraft that was legitimately delayed) , but there was no penalty for lying.
In such an environment, it's quite rational for them to lie and deny.
Make spurious 'safety' cancellations expensive, very expensive.
Or, the very fundamentals of the American democratic system have been eroded to a point I previously did not comprehend. This is not anything like the picture Schoolhouse Rock painted about how this all works.
Also, with a veto-proof majority, why on earth would the legislature ever even agree to any changes?
Also also, fuck the governor.
It was pretty much gutted. Right to repair for farm equipment was removed entirely, and rights involving digital devices made far weaker. That got press coverage in June 2022.[2] Other than cell phone screen and case repair, it doesn't seem too useful.
[1] https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2021/s4104/amendm...
[2] https://www.techspot.com/news/94843-new-york-senate-official...
And WHY would they do that?
The fact that corporate entities actively shape the legal framework to suit narrow interests that frequently undermine collective welfware somehow escaped him.
When intellectual dishonesty and amoral behavior reach such systemic levels society crosses boiling points
Friedman's point is not so easily dispensed with by calling him names. He is arguing that a corporation that is formed for the purpose of generating profits for its shareholders is most effective when it focuses on that and then the dividends and capital gains generated for the shareholders can more effectively be applied by them to charitable enterprises as they see fit. That is not an excuse for a corporation to rape and pillage the countryside, break any law, or behave in an objectively unethical manner.
It merely means a corporation should pursue the aims for which it was formed and is legally restricted to, and especially not be hijacked to pursue interests that its members or shareholders would not support. The latter is basically a form of theft, although the loss of focus usually takes milder forms.
The problem is that the laws that are relevant in this context are far from a static body. They are in constant flux as new behaviors, new knowledge and new technologies are adopted. This necessitates continous new rule making and new regulations that must be fit-for-purpose.
Shareholder profit maximization under current systems means it is rational (and a very profitable project) to proactively capture the political system. There is no meaningful penalty and eliminating the downside or creating more upside is enormously valuable (in monetary terms).
Instead of rule takers that must optimize profit within their designated sandbox, giant private entities become the unchallenged rule makers. This is not intrinsically and automatically evil. It becomes so whenever the monetary profit of a narrow set is grossly misaligned with the welfare of broader segments of society.
Examples abound. As they keep piling up they undermine the legitimacy of the very system. Killing the golden goose of a well governed market democracy and opening the door for uglier versions of society.
Companies are not people and do not have rights.
Go away.
As your amoral ideology masquerading as science ruins society and the planet you will find increasingly more "unconvincing folks" annoying your pristine reasoning
For instance, I’m sure that the execs at Microsoft, and a subset of their employees, agree with their lobbying. But I don’t understand how politicians can justify the level of engagement with a big economic player, who represents a tiny amount of people. When we vote, we have one vote each. But when we lobby, our “votes” differ in several orders of magnitude.
When it comes to autocratic foreign regimes, we understand the risks and monitor for behavior that can hurt the nation. But corporations are also autocratic, sometimes nation-state sized, and their interests are often directly opposed to the interests of our citizens. Even from an economic perspective, corporations are semi-detached from their original host nation through tax planning and funneling of assets overseas. However, since their public identity appears shared, from a nationalist perspective, we seem to put our guard down even though they have both the incentives and abilities to harm us in similar ways.
This perspective is in my view politically neutral, even though it may sound leftist in our bizarre political climate. But this is equally – if not more concerning – from a free market perspective. Corporations don’t just lobby against consumers, but also against the competition. In the case of right to repair, we don’t actually need Apple to provide cheap components and repairs, we just need to be able to get them elsewhere on the free market. In fact, Luis Rossman is coming from precisely this angle, as an entrepreneur who wants nothing but the right to serve his customers.
One catch on the site is no definition of FUTO? I looked all over and couldn't find out what the acronym (?) means. Future Use Tech Org? Fun Under The Orange?
[1] https://store.rossmanngroup.com/faq.txt [2] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=FUTO
It's takes decades to change policy, enact legislation. A very readable intro is the Waxman Report. https://www.amazon.com/Waxman-Report-Congress-Really-Works/d...
My unsolicited advice is:
- Convert this outrage into action. Do fund raising.
- Set up an organization that can run a marathon. Burnout for activists is very high.
- Someone, somewhere will pass this legislation. Find them. Even if it's just for virtue signaling. Like a city, which can't enforce such laws, passes a measure, to build awareness and demonstrate support for a policy.
- Get politicians on record. Create a candidate questionnaire. Send it out to all campaigns. Publish the answers.
- Encourage various local political parties (congressional districts, state level legislative districts, etc) to include your questionnaire (as part of their endorsement processes).
- Get various parties to include your policy in their platforms. Again, builds aweness and demonstrates support.
Yes and:
With Percoco v US and Ciminelli v. US, the current SCOTUS has another opportunity to bat down the government's ability to combat fraud.
https://crooked.com/podcast/making-fraud-great-again/
https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/ciminelli-v-unit...
Embarrassingly, or perhaps tellingly, SCOTUS has previously been non-partisan in asserting their own immunity to frivolous stuff like anti-fraud and ethical oversight.
The corrupt government ruined him. It turned a beautiful young mind ready to change the world into a really bitter person. That's not a knock against him, but against the NYS Government. Glad he moved away, and hope he has more success in other districts.
The governor is able to stop "tyranny of masses" by their veto power. Almost no bill in our partisan age is able to pass with a veto proof majority. So the governor has the ability to prevent good outcomes for specific members of their party in the legislature in the future. Sure a budget that makes the party and governor look good will pass, but members who "step out of line", will find that they can't "bring home the bacon" in terms of what is allocated to their district.
So could the bill be pushed through unmodified despite an governor's veto? Of course. The system expressly allows this given a 2/3rds vote. But the legislature needs to weigh their options:
1.) Have all members push the bill forward anyways 2.) Have just enough members push the bill forward 3.) Accept the governor's revisions and move the bill forward 4.) Drop the bill
As a representative it is hard to tell which of 1/2 you are choosing in the moment. The issue is that 2 may paint a target on your back. The members of the party opposing the governor are less incentivized to care about the veto. So do you want the governor to hold a grudge with "1 of X" representatives of their own party who sided against them? Granted the legislature is about 2/3rds democrat, so for a break with the governor to happen maybe half the democratic legislature would have to break with the governor.
3 Is appealing over 4, since you are able to claim victory for now. Something was passed after all, and the name of the bill alone is usually enough to make a good ad come re-election. and if the issues really are so severe, this is just another victory for the future you.
That's democracy. If you water down or prevent the democratic will through ANY means to empower the will of the minority over the majority for ANY reason, then you end up implementing the governance of an elite.
Minority rights of the people are a different matter - they would be guaranteed by the civil law governing human rights in a country - they dont have anything to do with the democratic will.
Nice write up, but leaves me wondering how this works formally.
My main guesses:
1.) There will be a vote to formally accept the new changes, but it’s treated as a done deal.
2.) The governor can formally edit the text to say anything she wants, and it’s up to the legislature to protest afterwards.
"Safety"
Outside of the quote from the governor where she makes this statement, WHERE is this agreement? Under what authority was the agreement made, WHO in the legislature agreed to it? Under what authority did this person(s) make the agreement
I ask because currently the NY legislature is not in session, and no vote could have taken place which is normally how one gets an "agreement" from a legislature
I'm not surprised Louis has gone all in on emotional anti-authoritarian rants, it must play well with 'the algorithm', versus laptop repair.
Not being able to repair a device means less reuse, more e-waste, more garbage and that's bad for the environment.
So this bill can be interpreted not only as "fuck the consumer", it's also "fuck the environment", "fuck our future", "fuck the planet", etc.
It's doubling down on planned obsolescence.
The version that came out of the legislature would have required OEMs to sell individual components instead of only larger assemblies. For example, if something on a macbook board breaks they have to sell the individual component. Currently Apple/Samsung require you to buy the whole board for several hundred dollars
reading between the lines here it's likely that Hochul was lobbied by the listed OEMs and NY law allows the governor to make sweeping changes to a bill before signing it (for some reason?? doesn't seem very pro-democracy to me). Video title should be "Kathy Hochul Sabotages Right to Repair Bill"
Cuomo was famous for pulling this kind of shit regularly, like with the bi-partisan passed E-bike law he vetoed, because he had grudges against sponsors of bills or because they didn't come to him personally and "kiss the ring"[1].
Hochul has proved in short time to be every bit as rotten as her predecessor. Just without the grab-ass.
[1]: trade political favors in exchange for him not vetoing your bill.
more to the dangerous point: for whatever amount they choose, even if they are specifically pricing it to make repair unreasonable.
Pretty sure that the legislature agreed to the amendment. So the blame should be equally shared by everyone. And democrats wonder why they lose seats in NY.
Pretty sure the legislature is not currently in session and could not have "agreed" which to most people would be voting on, the amendments to the law.
Checks and balances are needed whenever organizations are formed to avoid these kind of vices.
But that will never happen.
All I generally care about is that I can get my data off of a device after some kind of failure or having a reasonably priced solution from the manufacturer. If the company I purchase from doesn't hold up their side of the bargain - I just buy somewhere else. I have five machines I've built in the past three years, admittedly I've only changed things in those maybe once a year. Never actually ended up needing an upgrade in any of my laptops.
Independent repair shops have done more damage than good to every device I brought them in most cases, I've legitimately never had an issue getting devices fixed or replaced by Apple.
Granted, as a prior fan of Louis' content, after meeting him in person and being treated awfully (after just saying hi and being chastised for living in the wrong part of NYC) I again have less respect for this "movement".
I personally don’t care for Louis and he may be a jerk as you suggested, but I try to look at ideas instead of people. Some really bad people have had good ideas. If you follow ideas instead of people, it’s not an issue if you agree with someone on one topic and disagree with almost everything else they have said.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34170525 (17 comments)
I've always thought the infamous Ben Franklin quote, despite this not being the intended context originally, has become a memorable and brief way to show your opposition for this sort of thing.
According to the New York State Senate[1] the current version of the bill is S4104A from May 2022, which passed both Senate and Assembly in June. Note that nysenate.gov, at the time of me writing this, has not yet acknowledged the governor signing the bill, or filed any "agreement" with the governor or a changed version of the document. The New York State Assembly[2] has noted the signing and memorandum under actions, but published neither, nor an updated version of the bill.
Are such "agreements to last minute changes" an actual thing in New York? Without changing the document number? Without filing the changes in a public documentation system? Without Senate and Assembly voting on the changes and documenting the vote? Can the New York State governor just scribble annotations in the margins when signing bills and those also become law?
My first guess was that the memorandum includes a badly worded summary of the changes made earlier this year (S4104 -> S4104A) which passed the Senate and Assembly in June. But the memorandum mentions "provide assemblies of parts instead of individual components", which is the main hot button issue in the video, as well as eliminating the requirement to override security features, a big change to section 2.B of the bill, and exempting business-to-business and business-to-government sales. None of that seems to be present in document S4104A. So the memorandum seems to not be talking about the changes made earlier this year.
Is the text of the memorandum about some agreement between governor and legislative complete and utter nonsense? Does the legislative process in New York State allow such last minute changes?
The more i look at this, the worse it gets. There is a lot of criticize this bill for, like exempting motor vehicles and home appliances even if they include electronics. Some rather weird notice about federal law having a problem with repairing gaming consoles. But more than the law itself the process is broken. Why is the only source of this memorandum the twitter account of a journalist[3]? There is a press release on the governors website[4] but where is the canonical source of the memorandum? Does the Governor of New York State not operate a public filing system? And who is responsible to publish the actual signed bill to the public? According to Wikipedia[5] getting deep insight into the legislative process requires a paid subscription. WTF?
New York State may need to repair more than just their consumer electronics.
---
1: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2021/s4104/ Bill according to Senate
2: https://nyassembly.gov/leg/?bn=A07006&term=2021&Actions=Y Bill according to Assembly
3: https://twitter.com/JonCampbellNY/status/1608327624526548993 Memorandum 93
4: https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-signs-digit... Governors Press Release
5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_Bill_Drafting_Comm...
They probably but it out at this time intentionally while the government lumbers through the holidays...
"Every bill which shall have passed the senate and assembly shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the governor; if the governor approve, he or she shall sign it; but if not, he or she shall return it with his or her objections to the house in which it shall have originated, which shall enter the objections at large on the journal, and proceed to reconsider it" (Art IV S.7).
So if a governor doesn't want to sign a bill, he/she may veto it and explain why, come to an agreement about what is acceptable, and then a revised version would have to be adopted in identical form by both houses before it was ready to sign again.
I am all for right to repair, but that is a pipe dream in our country, given our economic realities.
Also mayors weren't involved in this discussion.
Short answer: because I don't read about them.
The news may have it wrong, but that's an oddly specific claim to wrongly make, IMHO.
