For the sharing economy to work, it must be racist and discriminatory. Would you let anyone into your home? Why would you want to let groups with high rates of criminal behavior into your life? Why would you want to rent to them or give them rides?
REPORT: “Women who share living spaces with guests may refuse to rent to men. But they may not refuse to rent to trans women. … You can still decline to rent to families, young people, or old people, except where otherwise prohibited by law.”
* Rather symbolic of our time that “families” have less protected status than trannies.
* I stayed at an AirBnB a couple of weeks ago in upstate New York. Yesterday, I received this email. I have edited it for brevity’s sake. A link to the full report follows:
Dear Airbnb community,
At the heart of our mission is the idea that people are fundamentally good and every community is a place where you can belong. We don’t say this because it sounds nice. It’s the goal that everyone at Airbnb works towards every day – because we’ve all seen how when we live together, we better understand each other.
Discrimination is the opposite of belonging, and its existence on our platform jeopardizes this core mission. …
In June, we asked Laura Murphy, the former head of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington D.C. Legislative Office…
…
Brian Chesky
CEO, Co-founder
* I hope this is just AirBnB paying it’s tithe to the diversity racket so that they can continue to broker the honest, fair and apparently effective trade between owners and (temporary) renters.
* AirBnB has been a pleasant surprise.
An unexpected benefit has been the novelty of being able to stay in a variety of private homes in America with families and individuals. This has made travel in our country a lot more interesting—I get a much greater sense of place than I usually do when I stay in sundry hotels and motels.
Of course, the quality of my stays is a function of the good cheer and natural hospitality of my hosts. But I have been able to form an idea of these qualities in advance, thanks to AirBnB’s review system. Their reviews are tightly moderated, use real first names and pictures, and seem quite open and frank—which has led to a high degree of predictability of experience.
I am impressed by their screening (I had to submit a picture, a copy of my driver’s license and a link to my LinkedIn profile) and they took a couple of days to approve me as a guest. I expect their screening of hosts is pretty good, too.
It will be a real shame if it all comes crashing down thanks to overly meddlesome intervention. AirBnb has been, until now, simply an online marketplace and exchange between hosts and guests, which is why it has worked well.
Unfortunately, it now wishes to be a policeman.
* Discrimination is not the opposite of belonging. It is the counterpart.
This is not just a cheap point. Ingroup/outgroup behavior is one of the major features of primate species. That diversity officers never grapple with nor even acknowledge this fact dooms them to eternal failure – and eternal employment.
* The idea of staying at someone’s residence or even second home is creepy. My wife feels even more strongly about this. You don’t know or need the negative energy from what has gone on in that house or what negative history lies hidden there. It’s like a curse. It’s also the reason I don’t read books by people who’ve committed suicide (e.g., Confederacy of Dunces, Canticle for Leibowitz, etc.) or died in compromising ways. I don’t want to get in the head of someone who left this world in such an ignominious manner. But a lot of people are not freaked out about this kind of stuff even if they have full knowledge of negative history. I know guy who bought some suits from an estate sale where there was a triple murder and he doesn’t give it a second thought.
* It has already happened to bad thinking websites. A Christian dating site was forced to allow homos to join, because, you know, so many homos are closet Christians.
