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Bye, Amazon

tbray.org

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Re: Bye, Amazon

#131
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

with the emphasis on Capital (his millions) The joke being "ally" is a term used by those fighting against the injustices of capitalism, and this dude has millions from literally being the Boss and accrued from exploitation. Of course that doesn't matter as he's now a good guy speaking up for the oppressed. It's quite amusing if you believe in anti-capitalism.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. It often takes a while for us to internalize and accept how some hard things and maybe he spent years trying to make sense of this problem and finally reached a breaking point.

I really don't see Tim Bray as coming out as an anti capitalist here. That's why this is amusing.

To clarify, it's not bad what he did, he is the good guy now. To put him up as an example of anti capitalism in its own right (even discounting the fact that the warehouse workers who were sacked are not) is hilarious.

Edits - As most comments in the thread suggest, most people are not seeing this as a form of anti-capitalism at all.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#132
post #6

> I’m sure it’s a coincidence that every one of them is a person of color, a woman, or both. Right? Including this bit is interesting. So he is accusing Amazon of being both sexist and racist in addition to treating workers poorly.

He is right to.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd suggest working with or managing a place with low-skilled people. They of course aren't all like that but it seems it attracts low-motivation, low-effort, or low-caring Pay low wage, get low motivation. No one's going to bust their ass over a mcgriddle for minimum wage.

Give an inch and they take a mile. You could pay a McDonalds worker all you like and he'll still just try to get away with doing less work.

It's good were on the same page: your employees will be motivated to further their work-related skills and efficiency, thus doing less work.

My deployment process at work used to require a ton of work, but I spent a few afternoons to automate it and now I get to do much less work.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#134
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you can trust that it's the real reason, because either way it's going to make him radioactive for the next gig like this. No large company keeps its hands completely clean. Defense contracts, Chinese censorship, exploiting addiction, anticompetitive behaviour, sexism, the list goes on. Having a public figure at your company that's willing to martyr themselves to push the knife in just a little deeper when yo…

What an utter disaster this society is if having a conscience makes you "radioactive" to employers. I can only aspire to be as radioactive as possible, then.

Speaks volumes doesn't it.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#135

> 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…

I think you can trust that it's the real reason, because either way it's going to make him radioactive for the next gig like this. No large company keeps its hands completely clean. Defense contracts, Chinese censorship, exploiting addiction, anticompetitive behaviour, sexism, the list goes on. Having a public figure at your company that's willing to martyr themselves to push the knife in just a little deeper when yo…

re, Bray being radioactive, on the contrary his appointment would be a PR coup for a large enough Amazon competitor. I'm thinking Microsoft or even Google (again)

Re: Bye, Amazon

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard of his name, after reading this essay I looked him up on Wikipedia; impressive resume (TL;DR: specced XML, ATOM, JSON). But Wikipedia also mentions him being arrested protesting an oil pipeline. It seems to me he's always been a man who's looking out for the environment, and for the community. Not just to maximise his individual dollar amount "ROI" in prestigious jobs.

> specced XML, ATOM, JSON Urgh. Not exactly excellent engineering. Downvote me all you want but that's a pretty low bar.

[deleted]

Re: Bye, Amazon

#137
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…

> I thought a core part of "virtue signalling" … was that it was low-effort / low-cost

Huh. I’m sure I was introduced to the idea with the exact opposite. It was described as the moral equivalent of Rolex watches: pointlessly expensive if considered as a timepiece, and ownership of a fake has negative consequences.

But I agree with the general point that most of the people who use the phrase — and all who use it as an insult — do so without self awareness. It’s pretty much universal in human behaviour.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#138
I'm still feeling blue from leaving AWS back in mid-2019. I worked with a talented team, had an amazing manager, and overall miss everyone all the way up to the VP of the org.

Articulating why I left has not been easy, but Mr. Bray touches on some of the issues that resonate with me.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#139

> 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…

Somewhere between university and the present day we went from being idealistic to realistic to defeatist and the tone of this conversation stinks of pre-covid stereotypes let me guess you enjoy the free coffee and casual culture too much to walk away from a neo-fascist dictatorship with corporate characteristics or maybe you're mortgaged up to your eyeballs

Edit: don't you think some liberal leaning corporate behemoth would want this guy whoever he is to use as a pawn because he took an ethical stand and can lend a patina of legitimacy to their gray area shady dealings? the world has suddenly become too complex for the IT crowd it seems

Re: Bye, Amazon

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you can trust that it's the real reason, because either way it's going to make him radioactive for the next gig like this. No large company keeps its hands completely clean. Defense contracts, Chinese censorship, exploiting addiction, anticompetitive behaviour, sexism, the list goes on. Having a public figure at your company that's willing to martyr themselves to push the knife in just a little deeper when yo…

I'm not sure he's radioactive. He probably saw some grey-area stuff being done, everyone who's had a position of responsibility in such a large organization for any serious amount of time has. He didn't quit over those. He quit over what seems to me to be flagrant disrespect for basic human rights. I want to hope most companies who can make use of a person of Tim's skills - and those are few and far between - do not…

He's not by far radioactive, and he's got tons of friend, including Tom Waits, and etc, he's got tons of contacts, and ephemerality my dudes, he can get jobs.

You know. But this was a f good post. Yeah. He's friends with Tom Waits, dudes, and tons of other people, he'll get jobs like hell.

Brave move though. I love you Tim Bray been reading the blog for ages it seems. Tim things up. Good luck onwards.

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