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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • The article lists an insane revenue of $1.6B, yet the losses are only on the order of $42M in the last 3 months. Against that much revenue, it looks to me like they are managing the company at a slight loss on purpose. They probably could close that gap if they wanted to, but have some favorable tax implications or something by running that “slight” loss.

    (And who knows, maybe this is part of the attempt to close that gap and show a profit before the founders cash out and it all gets sold to a Shittier company)






  • The more I think about it, though, the more I think this is a genuine discrimination case. If Uber had rolled this out and said “White drivers can choose to pick up only white passengers”, would that be OK? Or even “Male drivers can choose to only pick up male passengers”?

    Heck, I even think if they rolled this out and said “female users can choose a preference for only female drivers”, that might be able to fly, because it’s the buyer of the service expressing that view.

    But to me, for the people offering the service, there is no difference between this and someone who doesn’t want to make a cake for a gay wedding. When you are offering a service to the general public, you can’t really discriminate like that. Yes, I understand the safety thing. But a store that catered to women wouldn’t be able to bar men from entering at all. Why is a car service any different? Yes, drivers are using their own cars, but it is still a car service.

    You know what sucks the most about this? They’re probably gonna get sued over it, either by the Trump DOJ or some shitty Red State AG, who is probably gonna win.





  • I understand why women feel this is necessary, but I also understands that a policy like this paints all men with the same brush. It’s like they are saying “Since a small number of men are creeps, we give you the option to avoid all men”. Which seems to be counterproductive.

    Meanwhile, Uber has invasive tracking, where they know everyone’s history. They know how many drives a customer has provisioned without incident. And I have always considered these rideshare things to be particularly safe, because all parties are consenting to the tracking. That’s not guarantee nothing will happen, of course, but it is more unlikely when all parties know Big Uber is watching you.

    If Uber had rolled this out and said “you have the option to avoid rides with the opposite gender without an established history in our files”, then I think I would have less of a problem with it. But it seems like I can do everything right, and be respectful of everyone, and give Uber shitloads of money, and still be potentially waiting longer for a ride, just because of my parts. How is that OK?








  • I find it interesting how the article is just casually dismissing the fact that countries can now fly around and take pictures of other countries’ geosynchronous satellites. It says “Yeah, pics are OK, but Russia might be listening, too, and that’s bad.” Whicn is bullshit. I don’t think anyone is going through the trouble of sending up a remotely piloted space drone but saying “Let’s not listen to the data it is sending, that would be unsportsmanlike!” So all those craft we say are “just taking pictures”? Yeah, they’re listening too.

    I think any country that broadcasts signals into the air like that will have some really good encryption going on though, so listening to the signals is about as useful as listening to static



  • dhork@lemmy.worldtoYou Should Know@lemmy.world*Permanently Deleted*
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    19 days ago

    You need to look at it a bit differently: it’s not that 38 states are needed to approve amendments, but rather that only 13 states are needed to block them. And Republicans have been very effective at electing politicians at the state level. Republicans have total control of 28 State Legislatures, and also hold the Governor’s seat in 23 of them.

    So, any amendment that manages to get through Congress (and the filibuster) will have to be approved by a bunch of these State Republicans. So pretty much any policy that that can be considered liberal will be DOA.

    In fact, Democrats have more to worry about in the other direction. They only hold 18 State Legislatures, holding the Governor’s seat in 16 of them. That is perilously close to the threshold of not being able to block amendments. If Democrats lose just a few more of those safe states, the the next time Republicans hold majorities in the House and Senate, they may be able to force amendments through that the blue states don’t like.

    (Source: https://www.ncsl.org/about-state-legislatures/state-partisan-composition)