mrmanner

They’re not exactly synonymous though, at least most dictionary definitions differ.

Street example[1]: a road in a city or town that has buildings that are usually close together along one or both sides

Road example[2]: a long, hard surface built for vehicles to travel along

A street in this case is a type of road. A stroad is another type of road (where buildings are not “close together”, f.ex.)

1: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/street

2: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/road

They’re 100 % government owned, but not by the Swedish government. That’s not so important though - what is important is that they’re operating commercially under the same regulation as numerous competitors that are not part-owned by the Swedish government[1]. Police, judges, and other actual government officials have much less freedom to strike.

[1]: Some owned by private investors, some owned by other governments. Welcome to the EU.

The Swedish DMV has been ordered by the court to ensure Tesla can pick up their plates within seven days at the latest, so your argument at the end is sort of what’s happening here :)

That’s not exactly the case though - the court in the other Tesla case, against the government, has ordered the agency registering vehicles to ensure Tesla can pick up their plates directly from the manufacturer:

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/domstol-teslas-registreri...

The government has an obligation to deliver services according to its laws and agreements it has entered. The current view of the courts seems to be that there’s no law clearly defining an obligation for the state so provide postal services in this specific situation.

Will be interesting to see where this ends.

I think the notion of a “public utility” in the sense of “common carrier” may be more important in common law than in the Nordic tradition. If Postnord had been a government agency, results may have been different.

But, and this is important, a mail carrier is not allowed to discriminate freely under Swedish law either. Labour conflicts are an exception (in many areas of law) simply because almost no one wants the government to intervene. Collective bargaining with some conflict to get the Elons of the world to play along is simply working out better.

I think the courts agree with you: There are two cases, one against the government agency registering vehicles and this one against Postnord, a company co-owned by the governments of Denmark and Sweden. Both cases are still pending, but:

In the former case, the court order an injunction(?) forcing the government agency to release plates through other means than post. In the latter, the company Postnord was not immediately forced to act.

IANAL, but the subtle difference between “the government” and “government owned company” seems relevant.

> Can it be exercised for other postal customers for other purposes than their workers striking, e.g. for support of certain political beliefs?

No - this is limited to labour market conflicts. The Swedish state (courts included) tries not to get involved in such conflicts. Both because of history (there were some unfortunate situations early last century) and because most voters are quite happy with how things work out.

I totally agree that these things should be available and financially viable. Getting that in order should be the political conflict in one of the richest countries on earth. Allowing dangerous people on the road to avoid fixing emergency care is a terrible workaround :/

We _do_ accept some false positives in the legal system, but the relevant comparison here is not fair vs wrong executions. The relevant comparison would be wrong executions vs lives potentially saved because of the fair executions that are only possible because we also accept the wrong executions.

...and even then, prison time or executions are not the same as vehicle rules.

Why should people have to drive desperately to the hospital in an age where intensive care ambulances and helicopters exist?

Indeed. My first thought when I read this article's description of the law was "where's the _switch_?". Not literally a switch of course, but there's not even a figurative switch IMO. It's a something else.

> This attitude is inspired by the desire to sell more, and often times, it means to sell more unwanted crap, where customers are trapped by the "package deal", where they are either forced to update to gain useless features and the headache resulted from various inconsistencies and defects coming from the last update, or they are unable to get the product at all (because the provider cancels support or wouldn't sell older versions etc.)

Selling more is how service providers are able to sell their generic service at a lower price than the cost you would incur by building it in-house. In other words, being forced to upgrade to accommodate features that other users want is the price you pay for sharing the development cost with those other users. That's not shady.

Or something related to personal romantic relationships between them

_Openly_ gay people, possibly. Within an economy you could make the opposite point - openly gay people are underrepresented in the economic and political elites.

Web of trust could work fine here.

Have I met them? Check. Has someone I know and trust met them? Check. Has the government met them? Half check. Has the google met them? Quarter check.

My objection is that OpenAI, at least to my knowledge, still is a non-profit organization that is not part of the government and has some kind of public benefit goals - that sounds like an NGO to me. Thus appointing “NGO types” to the board sounds reasonable: They have experience running that kind of organization.

Many NGOs run limited liability companies and for-profit businesses as part of their operations, that’s in no way unique for OpenAI. Girl Scout cookies are an example.

> this is why you don't bring NGO types into your board

OpenAI is an NGO…?

Who pays to let people know there’s a referendum they should vote in?

> after having donated substantial amounts of cash to their campaign ensuring their hold on power

This is the main problem, and there is a solution. If campaigns are financed by enough public money, donations have less power and can be regulated more heavily.

Similarly, if individual politicians get enough from the state to feel secure even if voted out, we take away the power of the promise of a next job and can enforce a grace period before working on anything related.

Sounds like a 19th century robber baron

They’re not being blocked from work - the article clearly states that work is conducted in Tesla workshops. Other workers refuse to work on Tesla-related assignments, that’s freedom in action.

Some countries legislate minimum wages. Now that’s some market manipulation.

Strong unions working together are a small price to pay to keep the government from interfering.

I don’t get the current hype around text (or voice) interfaces. This problem, for example, is much better solved by a calendar interface where everyone including the club can share availability.

If I could choose I’d much rather book by sending a calendar than a text message

> SUVs usually have great visibility because of large windows.

SUVs provide drivers great overview of traffic, visibility of other cars, and long-range visibility. This is good. However their height severely limits the visibility of people and items near the car, which is very bad in cities where drivers often share space with cyclists, children and potted plants:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/americas-cars-trucks-ar...

Can royalties put on mineral extraction on public land be considered taxes in this regard, though? If the same minerals were found on privately owned land, the land owner would ask for a piece of the proceeds to allow mining.

Ah, i may have misread. I thought you asked why only the employee side were allowed cartels, which is not the case.

SAAB didn’t die, they just didn’t care about making a profit selling cars. Fighter jets are much, much, much more profitable.

I don’t know about Europe at a whole, but there are examples of unions also employing step 1). Like, announce a strike and then beat up or even murder people working anyway.

Also many unions did what business owners had done for centuries and went into politics. The social Democratic party in Sweden for example, is a part of the largest labour union. This is somewhat controversial in some circles, for sure, but changes the power dynamic for steps 2 and 3 a lot.

On the labour market they are allowed. Unions typically negotiate with employer’s organizations with most businesses as members. Also, labour conflicts are adjudicated in a special court made up by representatives from unions and employer organisations. Kind of like arbitration, but it’s sanctioned by law.

Why? We don’t trust the state to do it better. Neither employees nor employers do.