{"id":180326,"date":"2017-05-22T22:47:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-23T03:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/05\/22\/why-a-turtle-should-not-carry-a-scorpion-across-the-nile\/"},"modified":"2017-05-22T22:47:00","modified_gmt":"2017-05-23T03:47:00","slug":"why-a-turtle-should-not-carry-a-scorpion-across-the-nile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/05\/22\/why-a-turtle-should-not-carry-a-scorpion-across-the-nile\/","title":{"rendered":"Why a Turtle Should Not Carry a Scorpion Across the Nile*"},"content":{"rendered":"
Because stinging you to death is in its nature.<\/div>\n

Case in point, the City of Pittsburgh’s extensive efforts to suck up to Uber<\/a>:<\/p>\n

When Uber picked this former Rust Belt town as the inaugural city for its driverless car experiment<\/a>, Pittsburgh played the consummate host.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can either put up red tape or roll out the red carpet,\u201d Bill Peduto, the mayor of Pittsburgh, said in September<\/a>. \u201cIf you want to be a 21st-century laboratory for technology, you put out the carpet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nine months later, Pittsburgh residents and officials say Uber has not lived up to its end of the bargain. Among Uber\u2019s perceived transgressions: The company began charging for driverless rides that were initially pitched as free. It also withdrew support from Pittsburgh\u2019s application<\/a> for a $50 million federal grant to revamp transportation. And it has not created the jobs it proposed in a struggling neighborhood that houses its autonomous car testing track.<\/p>\n

Blame is being pointed in many directions. While Mr. Peduto had trumpeted his relationship with Uber\u2019s chief executive, Travis Kalanick<\/a>, he didn\u2019t get any commitments in writing about what the company would provide for Pittsburgh. That became an issue in Pittsburgh\u2019s Democratic mayoral primary this month, with Mr. Peduto\u2019s challengers criticizing his relationship with Uber and one calling the company a \u201cstain<\/a>\u201d on the city. (Mr. Peduto won the primary.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was an opportunity missed,\u201d said Michael Lamb, Pittsburgh\u2019s city controller, who has called on Uber to share the traffic data gathered by its autonomous vehicles.<\/p>\n

The deteriorating relationship between Pittsburgh and Uber offers a cautionary tale, especially as other cities consider rolling out driverless car trials from Uber, Alphabet\u2019s Waymo and others. Towns like Tempe, Ariz.,<\/a> have already emulated Pittsburgh and set themselves up as test areas for self-driving vehicles. Many municipalities see the experiments as an opportunity to remake their urban transportation systems and create a new tech economy.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are two lessons here:  The first is that if you give public assets to a private business, there will be little if any long term goodwill generated in response, and thesecond lesson is that Uber in general, and Travis Kalanick in particular, are snakes, and they cannot be trusted.<\/p>\n

*<\/sup>The folktale of the turtle and the scorpion<\/a>. Just read it.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Because stinging you to death is in its nature. Case in point, the City of Pittsburgh’s extensive efforts to suck up to Uber: When Uber picked this former Rust Belt town as the inaugural city for its driverless car experiment, Pittsburgh played the consummate host. \u201cYou can either put up red tape or roll out …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[365,364,439,406,403],"class_list":["post-180326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-business","tag-evil","tag-government","tag-stupid","tag-wanker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180326"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}