91–100 of 289 posts
Nevertheless, I see a huge risk to doing this kind of business. Short term there might be profit, but long term it hurts your brand with consumers and erodes trust.
A consumer dependent company like Amazon should avoid getting into ethical issues. Because it limits long term growth.
At least that's my two cents.
"If we want to lead, we need to make a choice between people and profits." As an AMZN shareholder, I pick profits. Well, growth actually.
How do you justify this ethically?
My government actively engages in different military operations around the world, even if I may disagree. For "ethical" reason the bank managing my pension fund refuse to invest in companies supplying the military my government use for missions I disagree with. So I have mixed feelings about mixing ethics and business.
"If we want to lead, we need to make a choice between people and profits." As an AMZN shareholder, I pick profits. Well, growth actually.
How do you justify this ethically?
As a personal investor I hold a few Amazon stocks (yes, not much, but I have a small bet on Amazon). Nevertheless, I see a huge risk to doing this kind of business. Short term there might be profit, but long term it hurts your brand with consumers and erodes trust. A consumer dependent company like Amazon should avoid getting into ethical issues. Because it limits long term growth. At least that's my two cents.
In crazy circles maybe. I'm not seeing any sort of backlash against the military as Americans generally have a very positive view of it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Now that violent attacks against the police and emergency services, stabbings, rape, murder and generally a complete refusal to accept the law become more common [...] Citation needed.
Which one do you want citations for? These are all publicly accepted problems by now, so I'm not going to do a writeup for all of them just because one person asks for it. Your downvotes change nothing, by the way. This is not a sinister outlook, it's already happening right now and I'm provably right. We get more police and they get more permissions, including broader surveillance, and they're looking to adopt taser…
In short, crime is getting better, not worse, and your argument for increased surveillance is the one given to you by those who already want increased surveillance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/dec...
Ok, nod, nod...
> The letter also contained demands to kick Palantir, the software firm that powers much of ICE's deportation and tracking program, off Amazon Web Services and to institute employee oversight for ethical decisions.
Nope, lost me. These should not be lumped together for a myriad of reasons. First, you are diluting your original goal. Second, you risk AWS being seen as non-neutral based on the whims of employees' feelings about a company (as opposed to something illegal). Third, you cannot be consistent with this approach (e.g. all the gov cloud stuff). Fourth, there is a clear delineation between computing services like AWS and targeted software efforts like facial recognition systems, like the difference between a phone company and a weapons manufacturer. Fifth, AWS is not value added enough nor can it see enough of what's going on with its customers for this to be any more than virtue signalling.
If you want to ban companies you disagree with from AWS, I disagree with it, but at least separate the requests. The Google employees you are following in the footsteps of are not demanding that Android calling be disabled for certain companies or Google search be restricted from use by them. Maybe Amazon should also not ship any products to that company too?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally, I see it as the opposite side of the same argument people use about drugs - that simply banning things doesn't work, motivated people will find another way to obtain them. There is no one more motivated and persistent than the US Government... Even if all the US tech firms join together and refuse to sell to them, the US is not the only country on Earth with tech companies making innovations in this area.…
People who don't think that the NSA already has technology that even casinos use have their heads in the sand.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you do not believe that people should profit from increasing the lethality of the military, then you do not believe in the utility of having a military. That doesn't follow. One can believe in the utility of the military while at the same time holding that it must operate purely as a public service, so that no incentives are created for a state of permanent war. Famously, an American president expressed this ver…
Unless the staff operating the public service receive no compensation at all, then there is profit involved.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you do not believe that people should profit from increasing the lethality of the military, then you do not believe in the utility of having a military. That doesn't follow. One can believe in the utility of the military while at the same time holding that it must operate purely as a public service, so that no incentives are created for a state of permanent war. Famously, an American president expressed this ver…
Unless the staff operating the public service receive no compensation at all, then there is profit involved.