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Bye, Amazon

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Re: Bye, Amazon

#81

Post by mercury_craze »

Amazon is a great evil.

It will not be remembered as a company that has had been a positive influence on the world but as a company that has treated its employees (both hourly and salaried) with contempt, driven independent stores out of business and refused to play on a level playing field both through its shady business practices or its refusal to pay tax.

Well done to Tim Bray for acting according to his conscience. Hopefully this sets an example to other Amazon employees and other tech workers working in similarly morally compromised organisations.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#82

Post by patentfox »

dcgudeman wrote: post #14

How many "Amazon VP"s are there, 1000? Whenever I see stories like this the majority of the time the position of the individual is embellished to make the act seem more dramatic.

Amazon is not a bank where VP position is like a senior engineer. VPs are very few and wield a lot of power and influence.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#83

Post by icebraining »

whymauri wrote: post #59
cat199 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pretty sure "the underclass of unwashed workers whose businesses are not awash with cash and thus it's OK to treat them like wage slaves." existed long before computers were ever thought of

I don't think they're saying IT/computers are a root cause, but rather that they might be modern enablers of these power hierarchies.

I think "allowed the creation" rather implies it is the root cause.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#84

Post by austincheney »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #2

> I quit in dismay at Amazon firing whistleblowers Assuming this is the real true reason (I would trust Tim, but you never know, so just being explicit here), it takes huge balls to do something like this. The economic loss has to be somewhat taken in relation to your total wealth (e.g. if you lose $1M by quitting but you already have $10M+ in the bank, it's not as hard as if you had zero in the bank), but still... V…

He has stated in the past that his short stint at Google gave him enough wealth that he never needs to work again. Tim is known for stating things on his blog that are easily interpreted as self-complementary so the real reason for him doing anything, as stated from his blog, is irrelevant.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#85

Post by morelisp »

sradman wrote: post #78
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #2

> I quit in dismay at Amazon firing whistleblowers Assuming this is the real true reason (I would trust Tim, but you never know, so just being explicit here), it takes huge balls to do something like this. The economic loss has to be somewhat taken in relation to your total wealth (e.g. if you lose $1M by quitting but you already have $10M+ in the bank, it's not as hard as if you had zero in the bank), but still... V…

It doesn’t require huge balls, it requires ranking virtue signalling over monetary gain. Firing whistleblowers is a terrible thing but after forming/joining an activist group demanding that your employer addresess climate change, and promoting Naomi Klein as a spokesperson for the blue collar workers at the same corporation, I suspect that your ability to distinguish between whistleblower and social justice activist…

> ranking virtue signalling over monetary gain

I'll cop to not being completely au fait with current right-wing rhetoric, but I thought a core part of "virtue signalling" (insofar as it might actually exist beyond "position I disagree with", which your post suggests it might not) was that it was low-effort / low-cost. In other words, no action where the alternative is non-trivial monetary gain could be virtue signalling.

Between this and Bray's arrest for environment activism previously, I'd propose that this is not "virtue signalling" but simply being virtuous.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#86

Post by whymauri »

icebraining wrote: post #83
whymauri wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they're saying IT/computers are a root cause, but rather that they might be modern enablers of these power hierarchies.

I think "allowed the creation" rather implies it is the root cause.

Mm, yeah. You seem to be right.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#87

Post by Vinnl »

mettamage wrote: post #23

So if I get this right, now a VP will be hired that will approve of these things? I wonder if there'd have been utility to attempt to change the system from the inside out. I guess there wouldn't be. Then this would be the only option left.

Reading through his post, it doesn't sound like the goal was to change things - he just didn't want to be co-responsible for them.

That said, it doesn't sound like there was much more he could've done to change things from the inside-out; and even though it might not be the intention, this public statement does sound like it might contribute to changing it anyway.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#88

Post by enitihas »

mercury_craze wrote: post #81

Amazon is a great evil. It will not be remembered as a company that has had been a positive influence on the world but as a company that has treated its employees (both hourly and salaried) with contempt, driven independent stores out of business and refused to play on a level playing field both through its shady business practices or its refusal to pay tax. Well done to Tim Bray for acting according to his conscienc…

Which is the mythical company treating their low-skill workers far better than Amazon? Does the rest of big tech even employ their non professionals directly? Which of big tech directly employ their janitors and treat them much better than Amazon warehouse workers? Which of big non tech company does this?

>its refusal to pay tax.

What do you even mean by this? Companies can't refuse to pay tax. They have to pay tax as per law. If you mean they are using legal mechanisms to not pay their maximum possible tax, how is that different from Apple or other big tech keeping money in tax heavens.

> driven independent stores out of business

And which big/successful comapny doesn't drive out competitors out of business? Google/FB have driven local newspapers out of business by sucking away all the ad money. MSFT squashed all the competition by extremely evil business practices.

> It will not be remembered as a company that has had been a positive influence on the world

Again, which is the mythical company you are using as a benchmark here?

Re: Bye, Amazon

#89

Post by DagAgren »

morelisp wrote: post #85
sradman wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t require huge balls, it requires ranking virtue signalling over monetary gain. Firing whistleblowers is a terrible thing but after forming/joining an activist group demanding that your employer addresess climate change, and promoting Naomi Klein as a spokesperson for the blue collar workers at the same corporation, I suspect that your ability to distinguish between whistleblower and social justice activist…

> ranking virtue signalling over monetary gain I'll cop to not being completely au fait with current right-wing rhetoric, but I thought a core part of "virtue signalling" (insofar as it might actually exist beyond "position I disagree with", which your post suggests it might not) was that it was low-effort / low-cost. In other words, no action where the alternative is non-trivial monetary gain could be virtue signall…

In pretty much every case, "virtue signalling" is code for "this person is being virtuous, and I don't like it".

Re: Bye, Amazon

#90

Post by thelibrarian »

sradman wrote: post #78
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #2

> I quit in dismay at Amazon firing whistleblowers Assuming this is the real true reason (I would trust Tim, but you never know, so just being explicit here), it takes huge balls to do something like this. The economic loss has to be somewhat taken in relation to your total wealth (e.g. if you lose $1M by quitting but you already have $10M+ in the bank, it's not as hard as if you had zero in the bank), but still... V…

It doesn’t require huge balls, it requires ranking virtue signalling over monetary gain. Firing whistleblowers is a terrible thing but after forming/joining an activist group demanding that your employer addresess climate change, and promoting Naomi Klein as a spokesperson for the blue collar workers at the same corporation, I suspect that your ability to distinguish between whistleblower and social justice activist…

I always find it amusing that people who decry "virtual signalling" seem to be oblivious to the fact that they too are virtue signalling by doing so.
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