[argonaut]

Something that struck me is: almost half of the country would disagree with you (the more conservative half). A lot of the American public believes what Kalanick said to be very true when it comes to low-ish income people complaining about what wealthier people do to them.

[gingerbread-man]

In my experience, it isn't the wealthy who think the poor are lazy/irresponsible-- it's the working poor and the lower middle class. The "more conservative half" of the country isn't particularly the wealthier half of the country. Speculating as to why that is would probably overflow this comments section.

[lazyasciiart]

I know a lot of well off programmers who absolutely believe that the only reason anyone isn't a well off programmer is laziness and poor character. Don't know how you're making your class divisions, but I certainly wouldn't call them lower middle class or below.

[gingerbread-man]

Many lower-middle-class Americans look down on the poor because they see themselves on equal footing, and believe that "If I can work two jobs and make ends meet, so could s/he if s/he had the work ethic."

The most arrogant programmers I know seem to think the exact opposite: that they are among the elite few graced with the gift of true programming intuition. (Not true.) They don't think the poor are lazy, they think the poor are helpless and un-talented.

[frgtpsswrdlame]

Sure, but those are just two different ways to achieving the same goal: a feeling of superiority.

[inimino]

It's absolutely a true statement, and it is absolutely and completely an inappropriate tone for the CEO of a company to take toward someone that just got fucked over by his company's changing policies, after his company pushed people into taking out loans they can't realistically afford.

It's like Taleb's stuff about skin in the game--Kalanick pushed the risk of his business model onto drivers like this one while keeping the upside for himself. When the driver got screwed by Kalanick's pricing changes, he comes back with technicalities and finally blames the guy for not taking responsibility. Talk about projection!

That's the reason why this is disrespectful to the driver. Kalanick minimizes his loss and refuses to take any responsibility for it himself, despite the fact that the only real mistake the driver made was trusting Uber.

[MaxfordAndSons]

So many (seemingly) intractable issues in contemporary life regress back to the question of personal responsibility.

It's a difficult thing to push back on, because even those of us most sympathetic a complex-systems based understanding of inequality don't want to completely give up on the value of personal responsibility, as to do so would be to tacitly give up the belief in free will. But if we grant that each individual does have some degree of agency and responsibility, then the libertarian side immediately points to any number of self made/rags to riches individuals and says "So? Stop complaining and do that!". But why can't they admit that it's an issue of degrees?

Sure, you have some agency in improving your situation, but if you're born less advantaged the systemic factors arrayed against you make it significantly harder to leverage your agency to improve your lot. Just because some lucky few do rise from rags to riches doesn't mean that a winner take most, predatory lottery system will create the best outcome for the most.

Is it a failure of human probabilistic intuition? Or is it a more malicious effort to control and frame the debate, pushed by those who benefit from the unequal system? Probably both.

[Hydraulix989]

What a useful spell they are all under then, how could the wealthy ever brainwash them to "buy into" such an exploitative system so effectively?

[MaxfordAndSons]

Dunno if you're being /s or not but there are myriad serious answers, most of them pointing back to the elevation of predatory capitalism to an quasi-religious ideology, often intermixed with judaeo-christian symbolism and messaging.

[throwaway91111]

Yes, because conservative people don't complain.

In reality, it's a dismissal indicating a lack of respect and/or lack of any fucks to give. Yes, I'd say that's about half the country.