Retired Penn professor arrested for blocking Uber Eats robot

good for her. nonviolent obstruction of a commercial endeavor she opposes, much like a sit-in. whether you agree with her perspective or not I think it is important to support her ability to protest in this way, though (as she is well aware) it may come with consequences.

Amen, our fast food deliveries should only be made by humans with questionable immigration status in leased Priuses, and then only so efficiently that they forego bathroom breaks

Here's the relevant criminal code for disorderly conduct in Philly, if anyone wants to play armchair lawyer:

https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/philadelphia/latest/ph...

Apparently these robots are classified as pedestrians in Philly. This is a huge mistake, they should be the same as bicycles

I do this whenever possible. I honestly don't understand why these aren't constantly vandalized. I just wanna peacefully protest them like this ex prof, but there's plenty of folks out there who'd like a free meal that's rolling by in a beach cooler that stops when you stand in its way.

Maybe it's Bluesky selection bias, but it feels like are a large chunk of social science professors are essentially full-time political activists.

I don’t agree with her stance, but it’s absurd to call standing in the sidewalk “disorderly conduct.” I hope the judge sees it that way too and dismisses the charge.

> Marvin, 78, said she's not sure how many times she's blocked the path of these robots, which hit the streets of Philadelphia in March. The University of Pennsylvania professor emeritus has made a practice of it to protest "corporations that displace human delivery workers in order to enrich their own bottom line." Her past encounters have circulated online. The Wednesday incident was the first time, however, that the police got involved.

> Officers approached Marvin after she'd been there "quite a long time," she said. They asked her to step aside and let the robot complete its delivery. When she repeatedly refused, they arrested her for disorderly conduct.

Good. I want delivery robots to be able to operate in public, I don't want people like Marvin to be blocking them because they disapprove of the concept of delivery robots or think it's bad that they're displacing human jobs, and I think that a disorderly conduct arrest is an eminently reasonable response from the criminal justice system.

> Marvin, who plans to contest the charge on the grounds of her First Amendment right to protest, has been undeterred by the arrest. She plans to continue blocking Uber Eats robots and chatting with curious passersby who ask what she's doing.

The first amendment doesn't and shouldn't protect interfering with reasonable delivery robot use of the public streets; indeed the law should protect the rights of operators of delivery robots to have their robots deliver items to customers without interference. The criminal justice system should absolutely incarcerate her if she publicly intends to continue interfering with delivery robots.

Is this the new "dog bites man"?

and yet no-one is arrested when these things block pedestrians