Roles Flipped

Online, people rate everything, from restaurants to movies to books. Given how freely we rate our purchases and experiences, would it feel odd to be the one getting rated? To be the ratee, not the rater?

Uber, the ride sharing app (company), allows for just that! The person getting the ride rates the driver via Uber’s app. But also, as Adam Greenfield says:
“What riders are not told by Uber — though, in this age of ubiquitous peer-to- peer media, it is becoming evident to many that this has in fact been the case for some time — is that they too are rated by drivers, on a similar five-point scale. This rating, too, is not without consequence. Drivers have a certain degree of discretion in choosing to accept or deny ride requests, and to judge from publicly-accessible online conversations, many simply refuse to pick up riders with scores below a certain threshold, typically in the high 3’s.”
How did that make you feel?

Most of us curse our politicians for not being willing to make the tough and unpopular but necessary decisions, don’t we? But how many of us would make those same decisions? The only way to know for sure was to become a politician and see what one would do in that same situation. Until now, that is.

Remember Greece? The country in the news for being on the verge of bankruptcy? The first rich country to have defaulted on an IMF loan? And also (relevant to this blog), the country set for a referendum on 6th. So what’s the referendum about?

The institutions that Greece owes money to have asked for Greece to continue with reduced government spending and higher taxes as a way to pay back its loans. Not exactly a popular decision. So Alexis Tsipras, the Greek PM, who came to power on a plank of throwing out such policies, has thrown the ball into the public’s court with his referendum asking a simple question:
Do you, the citizen, agree to the terms proposed by the creditors?
If they vote Yes, surely the public can’t then blame the government for the higher taxes that will follow. But if they vote No, Greece would default on their other loans and risk getting thrown out of the EU, lose the right to use Euro as their currency, have to create a new (and worthless) currency, and face higher tariffs for any goods exported to the rest of Europe.

How do you think the average Greek citizen will vote? Like the politicians we love to hate? Or like the high minded, long-term planners we love to think of ourselves as? After all, it's their call!

Comments

  1. KumarJuly 4, 2015 at 4:57 PM

    I thought we in India have this problem. No politician can be a leader here because for the vote bank what counts is only populism and populism alone! Outsiders may not know how badly we are stuck here. And the knowledgeable people living here have no say on this matter; for that matter they have no say on may matters that are bad here.

    Not a surprise that Greece has no leadership worth mentioning. Obviously Greece is not a stable, economically strong European country. The Euro currency usage had been 'sort of' allowed in a condescending way. That Germany allowed this mistake to occur and France did not 'veto' the idea then are matters of the past.

    I think I can predict that the referendum result. Greek people are going to opt out of the the EU. Good thing to happen in my opinion.

    Incidentally, why don't you write a blog on the pros and cons on a future possibility of India going to referendum on some possible issue. Can a referendum on any issue (however important for resolution of some vexing yet undecidable issue) be of any meaning/relevance here at all, at least for quite some time to come?

    ReplyDelete

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