I believe the analysis. Here in Canada, the government passed a law not that long ago (during the pandemic) to enshrine rights of passengers for delayed and cancelled flights, which included right to specific amounts of monetary compensation in those scenarios. The law, however, had an exception, where no compensation is due if the flight is delayed or cancelled due to a safety issue. Lo and behold, the airlines have started classifying almost every delay and cancellation as a safety issue [1] and denying compensation claims left and right.
The law, however, had an exception, where no compensation is due if the flight is delayed or cancelled due to a safety issue.
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.
They want to avoid the following situation. X% of the time a plane crashes and costs $Y. It costs $Z to cancel/delay a flight due to penalties and compensation. $Z > X% of $Y, therefore fly the unsafe flight. So they lower $Y in the case that it's a safety issue to save lives.
The free market at work. "Do you want me to provide plain bad service or bad service that also puts the customers' lives at risk? The choice is yours, dear regulator!"
But more seriously, I think the sibling posts are right here: A plane crash is more than a monetary risk: In the worst case, managers of the airline could be criminally liable for lost lives.
The free market at work also generated the airlines and travel industry that so many enjoy. We created the FAA and other entities to regulate the market participants to make sure we get the outcome we desire while balancing generating economic activity. If something isn’t working right, it’s the responsibility of regulators to fix the problem, or ultimately the people to elect representatives who will.
This casual cynicism regarding markets is dangerous and infectious because instead of focusing on fixing problems that have solutions via the levers of government, people give up completely and then nothing is ever made better. We need more participation in government, not less. When you toss up anything bad as “that’s the free market folks!”, people have no recourse. They can’t vote away airlines. So you end up directing action toward something that can’t be actioned upon. It’s misdirection.
Also claiming that “this is the free market” ignores the vast civilian infrastructure that is built and maintained by the State and regulatory agencies and practices that have been created. Not to mention bailouts in the past of bankrupted airlines and such. Airlines in particular are not a good example of “that’s the free market”, and even so markets don’t operate in a vacuum, they serve at the behest of the people and the government.
And with respect to additional compensation for delays, it's arguable that may be a good thing as a matter of policy. But people should understand that the net effect is to add a surcharge to all airline tickets to cover both expected payments and the cost of additional slack airlines may build into their systems to reduce delays.
Which may be reasonable as a matter of policy. Increase ticket prices, hopefully reduce delays, and provide compensation when delays happen anyway. That may be a reasonable tradeoff but not sure everyone would agree.
ADDED: The strongest argument is probably that, while it will increase prices somewhat, it encourages airlines to build more slack into the system at the cost of some efficiency. But that may be a net positive given that delays externalize costs, including non-monetary ones, onto all passengers--including those that are less price-sensitive.
> This casual cynicism regarding markets is dangerous and infectious because instead of focusing on fixing problems that have solutions via the levers of government, people give up completely and then nothing is ever made better.
I don't think this follows, and I think it's because you're missing a piece of what's going on here.
You seem to be coming to this from a perspective of "obviously, a healthy system has a market with sensible regulations on it."
That's a world away from where most people (or at least, the loudest people) who criticize regulations are coming from, which is basically, "Unregulated free markets solve all problems, and government only creates problems."
If you feel like you're seeing a lot of cynicism directed at "free markets", this is likely why: it's a reaction against these extremely vocal "drown-government-in-a-bathtub" types.
Thing is, there are generally two different things that people can mean when they say "free market":
1. A "market economy", as contrasted with a "command economy"—ie, more or less the way the US does things, as opposed to the way the Soviet Union did things.
2. An "ideal free market", as described by Adam Smith, which can, in theory, ensure that many systems find a stable, efficient equilibrium that balances consumer desires with producer desires.
The problem is that, however much many (particularly of the Libertarian bent) wish to believe in it, the latter is not real. It is a thought experiment, and it requires a bunch of conditions that don't always apply (eg, perfect information, commoditization, etc). The other problem, of course, is that as I said, the two are often called "free markets" interchangeably without clarification, which leads to much confusion.
> If you feel like you're seeing a lot of cynicism directed at "free markets", this is likely why: it's a reaction against these extremely vocal "drown-government-in-a-bathtub" types.
Yea but that’s bad because it’s unsophisticated and it also creates people who start to believe that the market mechanic is a bad thing or the source of their problems, when it’s not. This creates bad ideas, cynicism because you can’t take action against this invisible market, or people lose interest in participating in government.
> The other problem, of course, is that as I said, the two are often called "free markets" interchangeably without clarification, which leads to much confusion.
> and it requires a bunch of conditions that don't always apply (eg, perfect information, commoditization, etc)
Not only this, but large parts of the current economy only function because the conditions don't apply.
E.g., we know that humans don't make perfectly rational decisions but are influenced by all kinds of biases, etc. And we have the entire advertising and marketing sector that does nothing else than exploit those biases.
Yet at the same time, whenever there is the risk of new regulation being introduced, the fantasy of the perfectly informed, fully rational consumer is pulled out of the box...
Agreed. Just a nitpick, when I think of libertarian absolutists, I don't necessarily think about Adam Smith. I haven't read "Wealth of Nations", but I believe he was much more reasonable than an Ayn Rand for example.
American style libertarian absolutists are usually not very subtle, sometimes even clownish like she was.
From what I understand, having also not read The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith had some...biases and blind spots, but was overall talking about useful ideas.
Thing is, he recognized them as theoretical. Too many of the people parroting them think they were meant to be applied directly to the real world, as if we had an actual spherical market cow in a vacuum.
> The free market at work also generated the airlines and travel industry that so many enjoy.
Not so sure about that. Remember, the airline industry used to be very regulated and it was an absolutely wonderful experience.
The very young might not have experienced it, but flying was really great. No extra fees for anything, everything was included. Service and food for the whole plane was better than one gets in business class today. Flights were not jam packed full all the time, there was plenty of space to stretch and always space for your luggage. Plenty of knee room even in the cheapest seats. Flying was great.
Then it got deregulated and it has been a race to the bottom ever since. Less and less amenities, less space, even less space, every little thing is an extra fee, every flight is jam packed full, seats are within inches of each other, no room for your carryon because every square inch of space has been oversold, passengers getting bumped regularly due to oversold flights. Flying is miserable and I'd rather never do it again.
Russia continues to have a dismal aviation safety record.
The West has largely regulated away airline crashes - the last in the US was in 2009, and it's down 95% in fatalities-per-passenger in the last two decades or so. Stuff like the 1500 hour rule certainly weren't industry initiatives.
The 1500 hour rule didn’t improve safety, and, in fact was applied as supposed remedy in response to a pilot-error caused crash in which the pilot had well more than the 1500 hours of flight time.
That’s hard to assess on an individual level, especially with how rare crashes are today; confidently stating it did nothing is hard to support. On a collective level, the impact of the entire set of regulations on safety is very clear.
> was applied as supposed remedy
No. The post-Buffalo changes included some direct changes like the rules on pilot fatigue. They also included some proactive changes like the 1500 rule.
We don’t have to wait for a crash to make things safer.
Nobody does, because the Soviets didn't record data even vaguely accurately. The human origins of these behaviours are deeply woven into these cultures.
There are countless examples of this, but the most transparent I've come across is Chernobyl.
The above comment wasnt complete. The airline must still provide either a refund or alternate travel arrangements (regardless of if a delay is within their control or not). There is additional monetary compensation required if the flight is delayed by more than a certain number of hours (but only if it is within the airline's control)
I've made about $1400 from delayed flights in the last 3 years
> If they suddenly have way more safety issues, the logical next step would be to prevent them from operating an airline, right?
Thing is, you, as an external observer, can't tell.
There are a zillion things that slightly increase risk. If a manager ignores a couple to avoid having a black mark due to costing the company money its very unlikely to bite him in any way that can be pinned on him. But the combination of a very large number of these little decisions will eventually result in a crash.
And before you ask, no, saying "well you just tell everyone they must take no risks at all or its prison time" is not the answer as that will basically kill the airlines as a form of mass transit, leading to everyone taking the more dangerous car trips. There's always something more that can be done to reduce risk.
which is already illegal, and has consequences. The airline will probably lose reputation and business if the public catches wind of it. The exception for cancellation should not have been in place, except as a way for airlines to get out of the obligations but also allow law makers to be seen to be doing something. Basically theater.
Then have a panel from canada's regulatory body review every case and fine those who misclassify their cancellation, then have an independent audit of those panels to avoid regulatory capture.
That's labor intensive. You could always set a threshold.. where if more than X% of your flights are canceled due to safety issues in any month, your maintenance operation gets fully audited.
No, I would remove the exception and put up even heftier fines (i.e. costs more than the (partial) refunding) for safety violations. There should be structures and procedures for that in place already and you avoid creating even more bureacraziness with all the problems that brings.
You mean better lying than they already do by reclassifying everything as a "safety issue" to avoid paying out customers because they skipped on a lot of things already to increase "shareholder value" or other such garbage?
I just hope they don't drain additional time & people to check into each of these "safety issues" now, thinning out the crowd who will also check into actual incidents ...
The idea of having multiple layers is to make foul play more difficult to cover up; i.e the chances of someone screwing up grows exponentially with every person you add.
That assumes that every person you add has the ability to understand all the details plus is actually willing to do their best to find any remaining issues. Somehow this doesn't match up with my real world experience. It also assumes that convoluted rules will hinder larger companies from exploiting the rules, which is actually the other way around: The larger they are, the better they get at finding loopholes and using them for their own gains. Plus you make it increasingly more difficult to see where your regulatory body has been compromised.
Humans don't work like tech, so adding more and more layers doesn't help really, and I haven't found any organizational form which can inherently prevent humans from being human, it just doesn't exist. For example, all the "paperwork" around safety only works if humans are actually interested in maximizing safety and not just filling out papers.
The safety issues have nothing to do with the planes. They are to do with lack of crew to fly the planes. The airlines are not maintaining a sufficient reserve of backup crews because doing so costs money. The is profiteering under the guises of "safety".
I think the response to that would be (based on the assumption that this safety clause is being routinely thrown around), "why do you keep dropping screws in so many pizzas?"
Based on our non-biased investigation, our rate of screws in pizzas isn't any higher than that of our competitors. (subtext: Financial incentive)
If you want less screws in pizzas, maybe you should petition your representatives in government [who we've paid off to ignore the issue]
In fact, we'd support any legislative action to subsidize investment into improving the rates of screws in pizzas across the industry because we care about your well-being so much [as long as there's no oversight over how those funds are actually used, papa needs a new Ford F150]
> Lo and behold, the airlines have started classifying almost every delay and cancellation as a safety issue
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.
You need to be very very very careful not to disincentivize people declaring safety issues. They should really just unwind the wrong incentive and handle it differently.
Random spot checks of declared safety incidents + serious penalties for fraud (which this is if the companies are lying about safety incidents to avoid paying out compensation) is probably sufficient without changing any regulations in any meaningful way. No regulation is perfect but it’s quite surprising how effective regulations become when you start spot checking whether everyone is being honest.
Sure that’s one example but I think there’s various things like this. You have to make sure that investigators can also be made undercover where makes sense (if it’s possible to obfuscate malfeasance) and rotate the inspector’s physical location (to avoid potential for corruption due to personal relationships). You always still have other corruption vectors (eg getting buddy buddy with the inspector’s boss and influencing them indirectly). It’s an unsolved problem but you can always do better than nothing.
Under what basis do you have to claim those "random" inspections "work very well"
Personally I believe they do almost nothing. Food born illness is pretty common and almost impossible to trace unless it is a wide spread outbreak.
Many cities only inspect a food establishment every 2-3 years and in some cases as long as 5 years.
I think reputation, and economics play a larger factor in safety then government inspections. Dirty places making their customers ill tend to close long before the government inspectors come around.
Given we are in a topic thread about the US State of NY, about a Law in NY State. I am referring to the US, and Specifically NY which has been famous for their health dept in come cases not inspecting places for years
Ok. But a state being disfunctional in a specific way surely means we should be looking externally for places where it’s not that disfunctional to figure out how to fix the disfunction. No? Am I taking crazy pills?
Enforcement, transparency, and accountability are critical to regulations working correctly, which is why companies lobby against them at every opportunity. If they can get a toothless regulation on the books companies and politicians can all pretend something has been done to address the problems while the people can continue to be endangered/exploited.
They only care about safety issues during flight. Flights that dont happen are not a "flight safety" issue. The safest trip is always the one that doesnt try to leave the ground.
That is an odd take - so any shit can happen to the customers as long as they don't get in the air? IMHO they should also care about customers being cheated out of compensation on account of misclassification of the reason for the flights being cancelled.
And regulators all the way down.. regulations seldom work without unintended consequences and people finding loopholes or blackmarkets. They do more harm than good.
This might be more of a reflection on the governance where you are. The idea of an unregulated country sounds terrible to me, and I am unaware of examples of it working. Most countries regulate things like aircraft safety with good effect. Regulating certain professions to ensure minimum standards is another good example.
If you have any interest, check out the below link for a great piece of legislation. It protects NZ consumers and effectively puts a warranty on everything you buy here.
Another example which I appreciate every day is the regulation imposed on our telecommunications industry. We have gone from a trash copper network to an excellent fibre network that is fast and inexpensive to use - all via regulation, investment and legislation.
Regulation works just fine when done properly, and I’d like more of it here in NZ. I’d like the supermarket monopoly broken up via regulation. I’d also like the building supplies and fuels racket broken up.
Note that the aircraft industry, although state-regulated, almost behaves as self-regulated since airlines are mostly demanding of excellent regulations and high safety standards to reassure passengers. Very different from, say, Dupont (chemicals), who is regulated for OSHA reasons, but who would always find workers even if they dived at Bophal levels of safety.
I'm inclined to agree, but I am somewhat curious about this. The Boeing 737 max crashes certainly demonstrate that the industry does not universally prioritize safety above all. At the same time, there are strong incentives for any airline to not have a catastrophic safety incident. I recently flew on a 737 max and was willing to do so not so much because the FAA cleared them to fly but because I assume the pilots are not suicidal. In the absence of strong government safety regulations would things just devolve to YOLO? I'm not sure either way. Having said that, Chesterton's fence applies to any existing regulations.
> The Boeing 737 max crashes certainly demonstrate that the industry does not universally prioritize safety above all
There is regulation and there are consequences of not following the spirit of the regulation (most focus seems to be on compliance to the letter of the law and avoiding to do anything beyond that ignoring the spirit of the law). Consequences don't seem to be particularly deterring in much cases; the offending company pays a penalty, no executive goes to jail and people forget about it soon. Unless these executives get jail time, there won't be any fear of consequences.
That's interesting. At first glance, a safety issue looks plausible. But if it turns out someone is playing business optimization games with safety issues, by consciously creating the safety issues, with the intention of using them to get out of some other regulatory compliance... that doesn't sound in the spirit of the aviation safety programs.
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.)
It's likely that there just isn't any legal oversight. They made this loophole, but there are intentionally no provisions to ensure it isn't abused. This is something that would need to be legislated again, but if they screwed up this badly this time (on purpose), I doubt that'll ever happen.
We need some 3-strike rules for companies. Three 3-strikes like wrong reasons used and you are permanently out. Your property is confiscated and sold, wages are paid out, any debtors are paid if there is any money and rest is forfeited as penalty to state.
"Be a good person" is not a law I want anyone writing, because such a policy relies on the moral fortitude of random executive bureaucrats.
"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.
> Tickets are nonrefundable because otherwise the network doesn't work, financially.
This is 100% false. Southwest Airlines is one of the most profitable airlines in the US and their refund policy for refundable flights is a full refund up to 10 mins before the flight. For nonrefundable flights you get full credit if you cancel up to 10 mins before your flight, with no additional fees.
During the pandemic, ALL airlines moved to full credit with no change fees if you cancelled your flight. Previously they would have absurd $200 change fees or loss of your flight.
The idea that airlines can’t survive with flexible, consumer friendly policies is a lie. Things like the check in fees or fuel surcharge are pure profit.
No it's not 100% false, it's about 70% correct, refunds are in (expiring, non-transferable) flight credits not money-back. The preceding poster said "your money back" not "flight credits".
Flight credits expire (with US carriers, typically in 12 months, sometimes within only 3 months (Spirit), with European carriers, sometimes up to 3 years), and cannot be transferred to any other passenger [0], unlike even airmiles; and using them with partner airlines can be restricted; many passengers are unaware of much of that and airlines do not point it out, and rely on the fact that passengers may not realize till the credit has expired.
(In 7/2022, Southwest did uniquely eliminate expiration on flight credits unexpired from July 28, 2022 onward.)
Just because an airline only initially offers (restricted, expiring) travel credits, doesn't mean much; in some cases [1] passengers may be entitled to an actual money-back refund: (a) canceled flight b) passenger has documented medical circumstance c) cancellations due to Covid d) possibly other circumstance).
One excellent advocacy resource is [2] Elliott.org 12/2022: "The complete guide to using your airline flight credit now".
EU regulations are more pro-passenger than USDOT.
Southwest in 3/2022 unveiled its long-awaited new fare category "Wanna Get Away Plus" whose key perk is the ability to transfer flight credits, which Southwest calls travel funds (which sounds like intentionally misleading language, but anyway). But again, SW charge more for WGA+.
> Southwest Airlines... refund policy for refundable flights is a full refund up to 10 mins before the flight.
But that's the minority case: only Southwest's Anytime and higher fares are (money-back-)refundable, and they are typically way more expensive (2.5-4x) than non-refundable WGA fares. I can't find data but AFAIK most SW non-business passengers are WGA fares.
So the statement:
>> Tickets are nonrefundable because otherwise the network doesn't work, financially.
is in the general case true.
(One well-known travel hack with SWA for frequent travelers who didn't know their departure dates 3 weeks in advance used to be to buy 3+ different non-refundable tickets spaced out by say a week each, then refund whichever tickets you didn't end up needing. This was still cheaper than one Anytime fare.)
Airlines did not qualify for PPP loans. They did receive substantial direct support from the federal government however. PPP "loans" were reserved for businesses with less than five hundred employees that weren't worth very much (relatively speaking) either.
Probably. All told the government basically covered 18 months of airline payroll expenses but the airlines had to pay about 25% of that back. PPP "loans" were intended as payroll support for a shorter period with 100% forgiveness in most cases.
Which didn’t even fully cover the dramatic drop in customers let alone these policy changes.
What people forget is companies are in competition, if every airline is forced to refund ticks then the industry simply reaches a new equilibrium with very slightly higher ticket prices. However, if any airline defects to worse customer service they all end up doing the same. Thus the need for customer focused regulations.
> Tickets are nonrefundable because otherwise the network doesn't work, financially.
Wait. I don’t understand you. “Nonrefundable” means to me that you who bought a ticket can’t decide to not fly and ask for your money back.
If the airline for whatever reason decides to not fly the route, or doesn’t have the capacity then that is a different thing altogether. Are you arguing that it is okay for an airline to take your money, do not provide you with the service promised and keep your money?
I fly a lot. But only on Delta and American. So I can’t speak to the other airlines. But they both have three tiers of tickets for the same main cabin seating. For Delta those are basic, main and main refundable.
Looking at a random domestic flight. The difference between the three tiers are about $30-$45 each.
Never buy Basic. But if you at least by the middle tier, while the tickets aren’t refundable, you can change the tickets without paying a fee or cancel a flight and get a credit that’s good for year.
The network works fine with people cancelling and changing flights all of the time.
The difference is a lot more, I usually see >100. But even for a cheap flight that was 138 jet blue basic, it's 60 for the middle tier and 110 extra for the refundable.
The middle tier is the real price in my opinion. The only reason the basic tier is there is as upsell opportunity and meant to be punishing.
I read somewhere that only 5% of seats sold on Delta are basic. I get it. It’s meant for people who are price sensitive. But aren’t those the ones who can least afford to lose money if something happens?
Exactly. Basic Economy fares were created by airlines to artificially prevent them losing rankings against competitors (esp. LCCs) in the results box for OTEs like Google Flights, Kayak/Booking Holdings, Skyscanner/Trip.com.
I've had a customer rep openly admit to me that they don't expect that anyone should ever actually fly this fare, and strongly discourage them for "satisfaction reasons".
Yet another weaselly practice I found out the hard way recently was that some airlines rules (e.g. JetBlue) intentionally restrict it so that if one leg on a return ticket is Basic Economy, the other one must be too (even if it's priced $$ higher than plain Economy, as was in my case. It tooks me 2hrs of searches mysteriously failing when I tried to checkout ("Rule XXX does not allow this itinerary" and then it invalidates your entire flight search incl. seat assignments). Like the booking process couldn't simply tell you upfront. I called the support number and offered to show them a screenshot of the price difference and they didn't care. It was intentionally impossible to find the cheapest roundtrip price for my itinerary on their own website for any economy search, because their internal search engine typically shows the "cheapest economy fare" which will invariably tend to be basic economy for one segment; and of course this result is garbage if you have bags, which their engine doesn't even allow you specify. So you use a third-party OTE search engine.)
It's amazing the number of opaque anti-consumer practices the US airline industry gets away with.
The only legit use-case for a Basic Economy fare is a price-sensitive last-minute passenger who's 100% sure of their travel date(s)/one-way and has no luggage, or is willing to do without. Essentially what standby (or compassionate fares) used to be back in the 1990s, before the industry quietly killed those off.
> I read somewhere that only 5% of seats sold on Delta are basic. I get it. It’s meant for people who are price sensitive.
Anecdata, but I believe most “basic” tickets on the big US airlines were paid for by someone other than the flyer. If an individual themselves were price sensitive, they’d fly a budget airline like say Spirit more than likely.
I don’t know if they’re operating yet for Canadian flights, but there are at least a few companies that will go through the hassle of battling it out with European airlines in exchange for a cut of the proceeds. Worked for us when Swiss tried to give us the runaround by inappropriately using a similar exception to the one you’re describing.
Entirely predictable if you follow the history of the same protections in the EU. Many get out clauses and varying interpretations of the legislation meant lots of weaselling out claims. Many things were “extraordinary circumstances”
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.
> Here is an example of how ridiculously far the airlines have gone in claiming everything is a safety issue,
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."
Such things are rarely, if ever, included accidentally. There is far too much collusion between regulators and the regulated, and that hand-in-hand attitude moves upstream to those who write the laws and give them to the legislators to introduce.
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.
The error is in trying to handle such a specific situation in the law. This should be sorted out using some form of court. If a customer is unhappy about any aspect of the service from any business, he can approach the court and the judge will decide what is appropriate. No super specific laws.
But unfortunately pretty routine. In two out of two cases where I've claimed compensation for delayed/cancelled flights under the EU law, the airlines have outright lied about the causes and denied compensation.
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.
Surely these are engineered in cooperation with corporations so that politicians can get their win with the electorate and eat their corporate cash too?
They should make an addendum that any safety-related cancellations require a full inspection/re-certification of the aircraft that takes either a lot of time or a lot of money to go through. And any crew involved will be required to pass some sort of check flight or related process (at company cost of course.)
Make spurious 'safety' cancellations expensive, very expensive.
That would defeat the purpose. The point of the carveout is so that we don't accidentally incentivize the airlines to fly a flight that should be canceled for safety reasons, and this would do exactly that.
Indeed. I feel like so many of these arguments that “airlines are making up fake safety or weather cancellation reasons; when’s the last time an airline crashed from a safety or weather reason; they’re over-stating the risks just to get out of paying penalties!” seemingly without reflecting on why the second clause is the case.
Perhaps they could require the people who make the go/no-go decision on flight safety to visit a prison every three months and receive a lecture on how this will be their new home if they knowingly approve a plane not safe to fly.
I don't understand. The bill was passed with an overwhelming, veto-proof majority. Then it sat on the Governor's desk until she made changes (after intense lobbying)? But the NY legislature is not in session, but the bill is signed? So how were the changes approved by the legislature? What is the precise legal mechanism here? Is this legal? My initial impression is that this is an illegal act of tyranny and should be met like that. The governor should be impeached.
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?
The amendment happened back in May 2022, apparently.[1] You can read the pre-amendment and post-amendment versions there.
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.
The current debate is about an agreement mentioned in memorandum 93 ( https://twitter.com/JonCampbellNY/status/1608327624526548993 ), which describes changes that were not part of the amendment in May 2022. I also thought it may just be a bad summary of those changes, but it details changes that were not done in may. So it is either a very badly written memo, or there is something more going on than can not currently be seen in the public paper trail on the senate website.
The bad stuff went in back in February, 2022, and was adopted in May 2022. Compare the "Limitations" section of S4104 and S4104A. That's what guts the bill. Here's the "sponsor memo" on the amendment:
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ORIGINAL AND AMENDED VERSION:
This version makes technical clarifications to the bill, including
providing that the requirements will apply to products with a value over
ten dollars, adjusted annually based on the consumer price index. Another adds that nothing in the section will require that an OEM or authorized repair provider make available any parts, tools or documentation if
the intended use is for making modifications to digital electronic
equipment. Others provide that nothing in the section will require an
OEM or authorized repair provider to make available parts, tools or
documentation for 1) public safety communications equipment used for
emergency response or prevention purposes by an emergency service organization, 2) where it may be in violation of federal law such as with
gaming and entertainment consoles, related software, and components, or
3) home appliances with digital electronics embedded within them.
Manufacturers, distributors, importers, or dealers of off-road equipment
are added to the exclusions, those to whom the requirements would not
apply.
Amendments also include extending the effective date of the bill from
120 days to one year after it shall have become a law.
the "bad stuff" currently discussed is about manufacturers only making assemblies available, not components. (that is the big topic in the linked video) I diffed S4104 and S4104A and don't see that in the changes. I also don't see the interpretation of Louis Rossmann in the old version, the definition of "part" was always quite open to interpretation and neither "component" nor "assembly" are mentioned in S4104A. But the relevant point here is: the governors memo explicitly states that the manufacturer only needs to provide assemblies, not components, if there is a risk of injury. The only change from S4104 to S4104A using the word "injury" is the new section 5 about liability. The change mentioned in the governors memo is not in the amended bill that passed Senate and Assembly in May/June 2022.
The governors memo also talks about eliminating the requirement related to overriding security features, which is section 2.B of the bill. Again the change the governors memo describes is not in the amendment made earlier this year.
The governors memo also talks about business to business and business to government sales. There is a point 3.E related to emergency communication equipment, but it would be a stretch to match those. Again the change the governors memo mentions as being agreed upon is not there.
I would be happy if the governors approval memo is horseshit and talks nonsense. Because the alternative is that they are making backroom deals changing the bills text between senate vote and signing.
You can also blame the system. The fact any sort of executive official can rewrite what the legislative wrote is insane. To hell with your limericks about checks and balances. Once a bill's done, no one ought to be able to stop anything.
No, the system was always intended to have entry points for highly interested groups to make a play, at all levels. Remember that many of the balances in place are levied against (what the founders saw as stupid) people represented by popular vote (e.g. the electoral college).
One comment on the video a) notes that the legislature approved the changes and b) would not have passed the bill otherwise in the first place, but get to blame the governor.
That’s such a weird thing to not vote for someone for. I mean, I get it - it’s a principled stance and all. But you should never vote on principal. You should vote to win so that the real issues you care about are reified. Principal could make you feel good but you still lost. Winning is the only thing that matters.
Many people consider not having election deniers in government to be a “real issue” in and of itself. Having people in office who sow discord and continue to promulgate a fantasy about election integrity actively takes focus away from more important things.
The winning at-all-costs attitude is what got us here in the first place: people so concerned with winning and having their people in office they don’t care if they actually won the election, and tell themselves increasingly nonsensical things to justify it.
It’s about outcomes. If that’s an outcome you care greatly about then that’s your decision to make. For me it ranks low on the set of outcomes I desire, especially when compared to the outcomes the opposition desires.
The book “Rules for Radicals” talks about this and it has been a tool of left wing activists for 60+ years. You see it today for instance with various activists groups that plea for “our democracy” on one hand while destroying things and disrupting society until they get their way outside the democratic process.
Having elections transition smoothly according to the vote is low on the set of outcomes you desire?
That seems like a meta issue, that if not supported, all other issues are moot. So I'd certainly vote against party on any given platform plank in order to maintain the meta process that applies to both present and all future parties regardless of platform planks.
I didn't say that it doesn't work. It has been a major part of the anti-abortion and pro-gun movements as well and it has been very effective there.
However your quality of life in society is much more important than any single issue. Knowingly voting for a candidate who is not competent just because you agree with them on a single issue will not solve any of the larger issues in society.
Consider you have to 2 groups, A and B, and a set of issues. Each issue has different importance to me and each group has a generally opposing stance on each issue.
One group may have a stance on a subset of issues I generally prefer but more importantly the other group could have a stance on issues that terrify me. Their stance would lead to negative outcomes much worse than negative outcomes from the other group. It could even be that I disagree with many of the stances of the group I vote for but I’m not terrified of the outcomes associated with those stances.
So it is therefore more important to win to stop the opposition group from producing undesirable outcomes.
You're misunderstanding issues versus the mechanism of issue management. You're saying ability to manage issues is less important than any issue being managed, which makes no sense.
Unless, of course, you don't believe in democracy and an election process.
I believe in winning so the issues I care about most are either acted on or prevented from being acted on. Without winning it’s pointless. You need to win to take power so winning is the most important thing before anything else. Everything else has winning as a prerequisite.
…assuming you trust the system to enact policies you care about. Punishing the act of disingenuously eroding trust in the system for political gain isn’t just a matter of principal but a clear long term strategy. Believe it or not there’s another election cycle after this one.
If you vote for me, I’ll work to enact everything you want, but then I’ll also ensure I become dictator so that later I can repeal everything I don’t like, including most of the things I passed for you. Good news is, you won!
Not really; I refuse to vote for evil politicians (it keeps my karma nice and shiny). Unless voting is mandatory, you can simply not vote for anyone. My practice is to vote for someone that won't win, like the Greens, but for whom my vote might save them their deposit.
Refusing to vote doesn't change the outcome if the only choices are bad ones. If anything it means you effectively voted for whoever had the majority in the end and are still guilty of supporting the greater evil if they turn out to be such.
>If anything it means you effectively voted for whoever had the majority in the end and are still guilty of supporting the greater evil if they turn out to be such.
No. This is a nice lie that conveniently encourages one to vote for the major parties but no. If someone comes up to you and offers you a choice of being shot in the arm or shot in the leg and you say "I don't want to be shot at all" you have no moral responsibility for being shot or where you were shot.
More importantly, not voting sends a message. A very important message. When no one votes (as is the case in Russia), it makes it clear to everyone that everyone else thinks that the system is corrupt. The government can still say "99% of people voted! WOohoo! Democracy!" but everyone knows that it's fake, because nobody they know voted. That's why some of the most corrupt countries on earth have mandatory voting.
>If anything it means you effectively voted for whoever had the majority in the end and are still guilty of supporting the greater evil if they turn out to be such.
Thats red herring. Our electoral system is completely corrupt. The only way your vote would actuallycount is if all of the politicians we're replaced at once. Then maybe there would be an even playing field where it would matter.
Your statement of "you effectively voted for whoever had the majority" is like living in a state controlled by a two party system of gangsters and telling us that we just voted for the greater evil. Our two party system is corrupt, both parties are corrupt, don't lie to yourself.
I think you make it too easy for yourself to drop responsibility. "Both parties are corrupt, everything is corrupt, the system is corrupt" is just a cope out.
There are efforts to introduce alternative voting systems that make 3rd party systems viable. There are efforts to get ~~corruption~~ lobbying out of the system, ...
If you really think that the system is "totally corrupt"; do something to fix it.
Im not AT ALL responsible for a system that is not controlled by the people. That has been as clear as day for the past 50 years. If you are supporting it, you are the problem. You are supporting corruption by playing its game.
Yes my "do something" is focusing on supporting grassroots people and efforts that we have direct control over.
I have no interest in supporting systems that are not backed up by common individuals.
> Im not AT ALL responsible for a system that is not controlled by the people.
In the US system all power - nominally - derives from the people. And it still is controlled by the people, as the balance-of-power upset in 2016 - when Trump was elected GOP candidate despite the GOP leadership disfavoring him - showed. But yes; most of the time the two party system is doing a laudable job keeping the the people disunited over petty squabbles, while the moneyed class is poking the fire. And you feeling that "the system [..] is not controlled by the people" is just part of the strategy; you are still an actor in the system and as such you bear responsibility.
> You are supporting corruption by playing its game.
I'm not permitted to participate in US American politics. I'm just an observer. The system I'm living in is a semi-direct democracy with federal, regional and local levels, on each of which I do participate. It's pretty much "by the people, for the people". Still; not without flaws.
> Yes my "do something" is focusing on supporting grassroots people and efforts that we have direct control over.
That's a laudable effort, I congratulate you. Are you aware of other grassroot movements that try to break up the two-party system and to get money out of politics?
Sure, but then you can't either act surprised when the more evil politicians are elected and blame people for either not voting or voting for better politicians.
That’s only looking at a single election. Being willing to vote for scum means your party is happy to send scum to the next general election, at which point you get to vote for even more scum.
Have some standards in the general election and people start looking at scum thinking their not electable.
If you want better politicians, there are two things you can do:
Vote in primaries, there are different rules about this but if it means you have to join and participate in party activity to vote for a candidate then so be it.
hold them accountable together as ironic as it is: as a lobbying group, or even more grandiose work together with as many citizens of the state (even across the party line, no craziness though), to hold the governor/politician accountable.
Yep don’t forget the second option. Direct action is always possible. I subscribe to a “block of marble” theory of politics: you can always METAPHORICALLY beat those in power into shape.
> but if it means you have to join and participate in party activity
Yeah. But my shiny karma doesn't want me to join a party whose policies I disagree with, just so I can influence their choice of candidates. That seems hypocritical, and I regard hypocrisy as the cardinal political "sin".
I've never agreed with the policies of any parties, so I have never joined a political party. The closest I got was that I joined CND, about 40 years ago. I quit about 39 years ago.
Doesn’t work like that. I’ve had my red team grandparents saying not voting was the same as voting for blue team, and my blue team grandparents saying not voting was the same as voting for red team. Both things can’t be true. And even if they were, then not voting would be the same as voting for every team, in which case the difference in votes between each candidate doesn’t change.
Not voting is just not voting.
Election denier is such a stupid phrase - right now Democrats like to act like they have never disputed an election, which is a total crock. Hell Stacy Abrams had to be defeated twice before she finally conceded. And then you have people like some of those in this thread that not only buy into it, but feel morally superior at being duplicitous. Sigh.
If you really can't see the difference between Trump's fraudulent "election was stolen" claims that led to a whole attack on capitol and that he still can't get over it to this day vs Stacy Abrams recount or whatever, there is nothing that can be be done to persuade your kind. It's like being too far gone to see any logic.
Every such event reminds me of that celebrated fraud of an academic who argued that corporations exist to maximize profit within the applicable legal framework and that it is how things should be.
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
There are many types of corporations beyond those organized for profit. Non-profit corporations typically have different governance structures. Both types are restricted to pursue the aims and purposes described in their articles of incorporation. Labor unions are a good example of a non-profit corporation for example, as are credit unions, and most charitable organizations.
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.
> That is not an excuse for a corporation to rape and pillage the countryside, break any law, or behave in an objectively unethical manner.
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.
Very well said. I believe in the ideals of individual initiative and market economy as means to achieve a better world for everybody, but when externalities and systemic inefficiencies are ignored and frameworks to deal with them are shaped by the same entities that are supposed to be ruled by said frameworks, the whole system corrupts and devolves into a machine that only benefits the few, while keeping the facade of legitimacy, which makes it doubly dangerous.
I'm not sure I understand what the alternative is - should you pretend that corporations are not ruthless profit maximizers, and allow them to have undue sway over our legislative system all the same? It seems like the root of the problem is that we've let the institutions which are supposed to hold our politicians to account when they exhibit blatant corruption fall into disrepair.
A corporation is a type of association and has rights that are derivative of its member's rights. An association is composed of people. The only reason why a corporation (or other association) has First Amendment rights is because it is exercising the First Amendment rights of its owners and members. The personhood of a corporation is a legal fiction. The personhood of the ultimate members or shareholders of a corporation is not.
Corporations rights don't trump the rights of people. They are subject to the people for a reason, they are organizations that exist for the people, of the people and by the people. This is why we ALLOW them to exist with charters to operate and the discretion of the people. And by the way that part has also been corrupted, charters essentially don't even matter now.
I'm not sure what that means in terms of the common people. In my mind, shareholders, in the shareholding position, are the same as the corporations. When a person has a vested interest that could run counter to the will of the people, then In my mind that is not role where the person has rights that trump the will of the common people.
I know laws are made differently in different countries. But the idea of common law is more about doing whats right for everyone involved in daily living regardless of country. Corporations and making profit, in principle, is a byproduct of people and when those for-profit situations runs counter to the will of people, then in principle, that system should be subject to conditions set by people who actual care about its effects on the world.
But people have rights and just because you organise together as a union or a company, the government can't use that as a backdoor to limit your rights (Citizens United).
Why not? If you organize together that means you have more power than an individual. Governments can and should certainly try to equalize that imbalance where possible and where it makes sense.
It was a normative statement I believe ("companies should not be people and should not have rights") rather than a factual one (I'm sure they're aware & that's why they felt compelled to make the declaration). English is sadly lacking in this regard, where you often get to make a strongly worded statement or an unambiguous statement, but it's very difficult to do both at the same time.
The funny thing is that corporations have a bunch of advantages like limited liability on top of the US Supreme court ruling them to have the same rights as people, which means that corporations actually have more rights than regular people.
I mean, doesn't that necessarily follow from an implicit understanding that corporations are ruthless profit maximizers though? I fail to see the supposed ideological inconsistency...
there are plenty of remedies. the interface of private (narrow) and public (broad) interest is vital and unavoidable but it should be subject to outmost transparency and independent checks. further, corporate structures (size, contracts etc) can change themselves (they are just legal constructs after all) to reduce perverse incentives.
The problem is that while corporations are in fact ruthless profit maximizers, government officials are ruthless power maximizers. So not sure how to manage the interaction between them. The goal should be to keep them fighting, though.
Is this an academic who is celebrated and is a fraud or an academic who was defrauded. The second would be deliciously ironic. The first alas could describe entire economics sub fields
its been revealed by other comments. it might be a bit unfair to single out any particular person as responsible for providing intellectual cover to a manifestly inaquate ideology. he is basically just the convenient reference for an entire school of thought. had he not existed somebody else would have had that role.
As your amoral ideology masquerading as science ruins society and the planet you will find increasingly more "unconvincing folks" annoying your pristine reasoning
Lobbying in its current implementation is functionally equivalent to bribery. That doesn’t mean interest groups can’t talk to politicians. But the attention should be proportional to the people they represent.
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.
This is an awesome resource, but I'm left wondering how to interpret the data. For instance I see that Microsoft paid for a bunch of lobbying for a bunch of things, and it's clear they had 2 meetings with NY Senators and Executive staff about S 4104. What I don't see is what they were advocating for. Are they for or against it? Did they push some language that would benefit them in the long run? All I can see so far is that they were at the table. I haven't seen the video just yet but I'm sure Louis will break it down.
Yes, my friend, we ought to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt, since they gave us VSCode and GitHub. Why would they lobby for such an evil thing? Surely, this must be some grave misunderstanding!
That’s a bad assumption. The “DIGITAL RIGHT TO REPAIR COALITION” and “ AGRIBUSINESS ASSOCIATION (NYS)“ were on that list. I’d find it hard to believe they were involved with neutering this bill.
I would still agree with you though, most of the orgs on that list were likely at the table attempting to ruin the bill.
Shameless plug, the organization Louis (and I) work for, FUTO, is hosting a fellowship program sponsoring people to work on open-source software for three months for $20k-$80k and free housing in Austin. Applications are due Jan 1st!
Very cool project! Louis is one of my favorite youtubers.
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?
According to Rossmann's FAQ[1] it's 'supposedly "four letters that sound good together".......'. Someone did also add an entry on Urban Dictionary[2] defining it as "Fuck You, Tech Oligopoly"; seems that's the closest we're gonna get to an answer for now...
This is not shameless plug, this is very late plug considering Jan 1st is less than 24 hours away. Should've done it faster, never heard of this until now.
- 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.
Embarrassingly, or perhaps tellingly, SCOTUS has previously been non-partisan in asserting their own immunity to frivolous stuff like anti-fraud and ethical oversight.
This is really sad. I used to watch Louis when he was coming up. I didn't even own an Apple device, I just liked how he'd treat customers and show all of us his approach, and how to do it, for free.
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.
He'll be ok. Bitterness comes when one focuses on how reality does not meet expectations. However, reality is noisy, and just as often exceeds expectations. We can all choose where to place our focus.
Louis isn't bitter. Outraged, concerned, but not bitter. There are so many dimensions and textures to "upset", I feel like folks have lost their ability to discern all the different types.
My understanding is that it is more a consequence of politics than the system... Sure you have a veto proof majority on this bill, but what about what comes next?
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.
Pure majoritarianism isn't necessarily best either, it just always takes the majority's side in disputes where a strongly-held minority opinion comes in conflict with a weakly-held majority one. Like, it's obvious that you should take the side of the majority when it's "we'd rather not be slightly inconvenienced by paying for rent-seekers" regardless of how intensely the minority of rent-seekers want to rent-seek, but it's much less obvious that we should have zero handouts to narrow interests when it's "please spend $10000 per life saved via rare-disease research and treatment, I don't care how little the general public is aware of and cares about it and would generally prefer lower taxes"
> but it's much less obvious that we should have zero handouts to narrow interests when it's "please spend $10000 per life saved via rare-disease research and treatment, I don't care how little the general public is aware of and cares about it and would generally prefer lower taxes"
In reality, this turns into we should have billion dollar handouts to narrow interests because rather than use taxpayer funds to R&D cures into the public domain using the existing world class university system, the narrow interests would prefer being able to benefit from patented medicines:
> Since August, U.S. or European health regulators have approved four new products intended as one-time treatments for rare genetic diseases that carry list prices of at least $2 million a patient, including two from Bluebird Bio Inc.
Okay, make the hypothetical be malaria nets or insulin then. The exact specifics don't matter all that much, it's just an illustration that you can't use issue-by-issue majoritarianism to generate a coalition that can pass a broadly popular group of policies that lacks individual plank-by-plank popularity. There's no enforcement mechanism to coordinate a "you vote for my pet issue and I'll vote for yours".
> it's "please spend $10000 per life saved via rare-disease research and treatment
That's an extreme extrapolation. Sure, the majority would maybe not care at all for such a minority treatment if it came to pass. But then again, the practical reality is that in a system that allows minority to override the majority, everything else goes wrong even if that one goes right.
There is an example. The US was explicitly crafted as a format that would allow the minority to override the majority to prevent 'the tyranny of the majority'. This was explicitly expressed by various founding fathers of the US, especially by de facto architect of its constutition, John Adams. And that's the reason why there is FPTP, the Senate, the supreme court, with the latter two easily able to override whatever majority vote is.
They did this because they feared the majority demanding land redistribution and passing it with their vote. The British aristocrats' lands were confiscated and redistributed after the revolution, that was ok. But the founding fathers feared that it would give ideas to the people about the lands of the now-American-but-ex-British elite like themselves.
The dichotomy above is impossible to interpret. What does that even mean. So when a democracy is representative, the minority's will can override the majority's will? Then what does the representation part in the representative democracy mean.
> So when a democracy is representative, the minority's will can override the majority's will?
Yes, and this is a feature, not a bug. Majority voting on issues one at a time cannot generate a deal that a majority would prefer when the compromise is presented as a block. Eg, if there are six different compatible single-issues that 10% of the people care solely about each, each individual one would get voted down 90-10, while representatives can make a bargain that delivers a combined platform approved of by 60%.
That's not relevant. You are talking about coalition governments, in which the ensuing coalition government still represents the will of the majority. Each ~20% segment of the population represented by the 20% participant in the coalition government pushing forth ~20% supported issues and passing them does not mean that those are the will if the minority. It means that only 20% want to pass it now, but the rest do NOT object to its passing. That's still a majority government.
For a democratic majority-minority situation to occur, you must have 20% of the population wanting to pass something, but at least 20% of the population opposing it.
In this hypothetical, the rest do object to the pet issues of others in the coalition, but only weakly. Like, I personally would vote against corn subsidies by itself, for abortion rights, and for a package of (corn subsidies plus abortion rights). The exact policies I mentioned don't particularly matter, I'm sure you can find your own set of two issues that you'd vote this way on if it came down to it - the issues you have an opinion on, but you'd hold your nose and concede the issue if it was the price of something really important to you.
And when two or more minority interest groups feel this way on each other's issues, it is a failure to enact the "will of the people" if you use strict issue-by-issue majoritarianism. After all, each individual pet issue fails on its own merits - they just aren't broadly popular enough.
Fundamentally, the issue is that strengths of preferences do not show up in a referendum on a topic. Furthermore, there's no way to credibly commit to a compromise that gets you something important in exchange for a relatively unimportant concession. I'm not saying these issues outweigh the benefits of direct democracy, they're just problems that can get solved by a representative system.
> In this hypothetical, the rest do object to the pet issues of others in the coalition, but only weakly
That means that the majority wants those issues. If 20% of the population wants something, 10% opposes it, and 70% doesnt care if it passes, it means that a majority wants that policy to pass. The majority does not need to be for something explicitly for it to be a majority decision. There has to be more people in a society wanting something than those who dont, and the rest not objecting to that policy. Its still a majority decision.
> If 20% of the population wants something, 10% opposes it, and 70% doesnt care if it passes
That isn't the hypothetical I'm using to make my point. Obviously if you change the hypothetical you come up with different results, but then it isn't the scenario I'm using as an intuition pump.
Like, what I'm getting at is that there are sometimes policies you want your government to pass, even though more people oppose it than support it and nobody being truly undecided. Not all policy choices are equally important, and not everyone considers all policy choices equally important. A referendum is structurally incapable of enacting policies with minority support, for good or for bad. It's usually for good, true, but there are circumstances where you can do better by making sure that people think that the important policies are implemented, even at the cost of the majority not getting their way on relatively unimportant matters.
> even though more people oppose it than support it
In no case in which sufficient amount of people oppose something, a policy can pass. Of course, Im talking about proportional representation systems. In first past the post, what you speak of is possible if that issue is not so critical to that amount of people that they may not vote on it as their #1 issue. Then the opposing party can win with a low margin on some other issue in which they have majority, meanwhile passing that other policy as well. This is an ill of the FPTP system. In proportional representation, that does not happen.
Of course, FPTP itself is something that was implemented to avoid the democracy of the majority, so that's no surprise.
> A referendum is structurally incapable of enacting policies with minority support, for good or for bad.
With a single-subject rule, that’s often (but not always) true; without it, it is less true, because policies can be packaged to achieve a combined majority, so long as there isn’t a majority that thinks it is important enough to defeat any part to overcome any support within that majority for other parts. (Even with a single-subject rule, this can sometimes be done, so long as the policies packaged relate to sufficiently closely related subject matter as to fit within the way the rule is applied.)
This is common in legislative bodies, and it works with citizen-legislators, too.
Even without a single-subject rule, there's zero enforcement mechanism to prevent other interest groups from reneging on the packaging agreement and defeating one or more parts in detail. There's no stable point you can get via referenda if (policy A + policy B), (policy not-A), and (policy not-B) all would garner majority votes.
> Even without a single-subject rule, there’s zero enforcement mechanism to prevent other interest groups from reneging on the packaging agreement and defeating one or more parts in detail.
Sure, after the package passes, groups can try to form separate coalitions to pick things out of it; there are methods to protect them, generally (such as putting together a similar coalition to put up a trigger bill that deletes the parts the other groups want to protect conditioned on the other repeal passing, undermining its support.)
> There’s no stable point
Yeah, real world politics is generally not about finding stable equilibria, as much are the things most easily amenable to theoretical analysis.
Something like a policy proposal costing a low but non-zero amount of money for exactly zero benefit outside of the eyes of the 10% who really care about their pet cause. The non-packaged proposals get voted down not because the majority hates them, but because they don't care, at least not like the special interest does.
If a vector space is more your jam, imagine a six-dimensional vector space of policies, and each of these six hypothetical interest groups as voting for any combination of policies with a positive value along the axis in question, and against any combination of policies with a negative value. [100, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1], [-1, 100, -1, -1, -1, -1], etc, will each get voted down when presented individually as policies, but their sum as a package gets supported by each interest group.
The language on their website implies that they act collectively in the event of a veto “A vetoed bill can become law if two-thirds of the members of each house vote to override the Governor's veto.”[0].
Practically speaking, there are usually committees (may be area specific, or general such as scheduling/introductory) that make the first choice as to how the process will continue. For new york this seems to be the standing committee which decides what will be put to a vote, “ Members of Standing Committees evaluate bills and decide whether to "report" them (send them) to the Senate floor for a final decision by the full membership.”[0].
Thank you for the explanation, but that does not quite hit the spot: it explains what would happen if the governor vetoes the bill. In this case the governor claims she made some "agreement" with the Legislative to change the text of the bill shortly before signing it. And it appears that happened without Senate and Assembly voting on these changes, completely skipping this "final decision by the full membership".
I would like to know who the governor made an agreement with. The Standing Committees might be a possibility. kwiens named the bills sponsors as a possibility. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34193369). If the bill was changed shortly before signing it, i would also like to know what the text of the signed bill is. This whole process implied by memorandum #93 seems irregular to me.
Stuff like this should be documented publicly, IMHO.
“The only safe way to do _____ is for our competitors to have to play by our rules, on our turf, and with us making sure they don’t do anything we consider unsafe.”
Right? That seems pretty antithetical to democracy. At least where I live, when the senate doesn't like a bill, they send it back to Parliament with recommendations. They can't just tack on whatever they feel like and ascend it from there.
I have asked this repeatedly. Maybe you can answer it
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
It reads like either a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signing_statement sort of scenario, or that there's been an agreement with leadership to push through an amending law as soon as possible.
Given that the original law was passed with a veto proof majority, what happens if the actual members of the legislature simply refuse to pass an amending law?
Can the original sponsors just change the bill, between the bill passing the senate and the governor signing it, without having such amendments voted on by the senate and assembly?
Representatives won't be picking the fight against governor since there's a chance that said governor might veto something else with their name on it. One hand rubs another in other words.
I just can’t watch Rossmann’s videos anymore. He’s a smart guy with important things to say, but it’s hard to take him seriously. His videos are 90% hyperbole, cynicism, and snide remarks. It’s too much to put up with to figure out what he’s really trying to say. I have to wonder if this style appeals to his audience, or if he’d be more effective without it.
This happens with a lot of full time YouTubers. They optimize the facets of their performance that boost the metrics with the mainstream and it often alienates the core audience that got them off the ground.
I'm not surprised Louis has gone all in on emotional anti-authoritarian rants, it must play well with 'the algorithm', versus laptop repair.
It seems like ballot measures are the only way a real R2R bill will pass. The incentives will never allow it to pass through the usual legislative route.
tl;dr Kathy Hochul sabotaged the version of the bill passed by the state legislature so that it requires only what Apple and Samsung are already doing
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"
Mind-blowing that you can have a rare nearly-unanimous decision be reached at a time when agreement is hard to come by, and it still won't get through.
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.
>(for some reason?? doesn't seem very pro-democracy to me).
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.
Corruption is a bipartisan endeavor, particularly in New York and Chicago. But it must be said that it was made wholly legal by W Supreme Court appointees.
>>Pretty sure that the legislature agreed to the amendment.
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.
Yes I am aware of what she said. You have yet to provide what that means, clearly no vote took place as they are not in session. So how did the legislature agree, under what law, rule, or mechanism was this agreement reached.
I have yet to see anyone explain that, they just keel quoting the governor which has zero meaning and given I do not trust the governor I have not reason to trust that statement
The state legislatures in NY are Democrat super majorities. As of Jan. 1 the Assembly will still be majority Democrat but will no longer be a super majority. Super majority meaning the Party can pass any legislation they want and the minority cannot do anything to counter.
They lost them in terms of population, and the lost them in terms of party flips. The primary reason Republicans have a slim Majority in the next session of the US House is party flips in NY and FL
There were also a couple seats in CA the left expected to take from the right and failed to do so. The right in CA figured out they need to ballot harvest (it is legal here).
Sadly, the only surprising thing about this is that anyone is surprised the bill got 'mysteriously' nerfed at the last minute. This is the danger of centralizing too much power in government. A very good first step would be "one-and-done" term limits for all state and federal elected officials with restrictions on accepting employment with lobbyists or stakeholders with significant government business for five years after holding office.
Right to repair is quickly starting to enter similar territory as the 'free software' absolutists. Basically, people who refuse to basically look at the current environment of software / hardware realistically and decry their outdated ideals onto everyone else.
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 envy your experiences. I personally have had the opposite experience. It’s important to remember that your personal experience may not be the same as others. As this movement is very popular in the general public, my guess is many others have had bad experiences with trying to repair their device (i.e. $500+ for a simple repair from the manufacturer).
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.
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.
Louis Rossmann claims in this video that the bills text was changed in the last few days, an argument that hinges solely on the text of the memorandum attached to the governor signing it, which mentions an "agreement" between Governor and legislative, and hints at the content of said agreement. The document number mentioned in the memorandum as the signed bill is S4104-A
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.
As you might expect, the Constitution of New York states: "nor
shall any bill be passed or become a law, except by the assent of a majority
of the members elected to each branch of the legislature" (Art. III S.14).
"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.
As a country with a strong economy of defining things of producing IP, it makes no sense to allow others to modify our definitions; they are immutable and sacrosanct. On the other hand, if we were a country with an economy producing tangible things like parts or assemblies that can be used to repair something, it would make sense to allow folks to repair things.
I am all for right to repair, but that is a pipe dream in our country, given our economic realities.
I wasn't referring to this particular case. Mentioned what I read in the past about (city) mayors and (state) governors and how to me - an outsider from the EU - it's these people who make New York similar to Gotham City.
The bill originally was going to make available to customers and independent service centers the same parts and manuals that manufacturer repair centers have. The governor edited the bill slightly in a way that makes it almost useless now. It was edited to say that manufacturers don't have to provide parts if they think that there's a safety issue. They can just make a "full assembly" available rather than individual parts. This means that if you have a $800 device, and a $10 part can fix it, but the manufacturer decides that it's a "safety issue" to sell anything less than a $700 "motherboard assembly" then this negates the entire purpose of right to repair. He says "this bill allows for malicious compliance in a way that makes it functionally useless".
I'd also note (assuming the local news I saw had it right), that the changes also only require manufacturers to provide such "assemblies" if and only if they are manufactured in New York state after June 1, 2023.
The news may have it wrong, but that's an oddly specific claim to wrongly make, IMHO.
Seems conceivable that this could come back to bite a manufacturer. For example, more cause for "safety recalls", or need to admit in testimony that a major assembly "had a known safety issue". Or might dealers be on the hook for higher certifications of repair technicians?
Madison Avenue may disagree about the statement about creative people. There are a lot of creatives in New York especially. As for good-looking people, there are several fashion modeling agencies there, which are an integral part of advertising. :)
[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...