Perhaps if there were more people like Tim Bray the Death Star might be a little more progressive and might not be the de facto “winning team”.
Just like with politics, those people have a way of letting their personal ethics select them out of the organization they were hoping to change.
"You know, any contractor willing to work on that Death Star knew the risks. If they were killed, it was their own fault. A roofer listens to this... (taps his heart) not his wallet."
In my opinion, it won’t do anyone any good for him to quit “in solidarity with” the fired workers. If he wants the situation to improve, he should remain VP and use his power to help make things better. Now he‘ll probably just be replaced with someone who is less sympathetic to the workers.
Is amazon one of those companies with a hundred VPs or does the title actually mean something?
"everyone" "always" "I haven't read the article but..." "always the evil ones" "always little enslaved saints" Thanks, I just filled out my bingo card edit: Sorry gang but some comments just don't warrant being taken seriously. Especially when using inflammatory, offensive language designed specifically to be maximally confrontational. So you'll excuse me if I take a little pleasure on Monday morning taking the piss…
IMO, private companies do not necessarily become evil when they get big, but public companies cannot help but become evil, even when not all that big.
(My impression is that public companies are essentially required to maximize profit and shareholder value at any cost... at least at any cost that's technically legal and which wouldn't create significant blowback from society--blowback which would cut into those profits. Private companies owners have the freedom to follow their conscience and not sell their company's soul even if doing so would greatly increase profits.)
To sum it up, the imperative (or lack thereof) to maximize profits.
When one side has all the power and the other side has none, to pretend that the benefit of the doubt accrues equally to both is an act of moral cowardice.
How about considering the facts of the situation and not generalizing and applying a pre-conceived narrative?
I don't really know how to address the kind of confusion that mistakes a statement of principle for an imposition of narrative.
> Why does big always become evil? Diffusion of responsibility [1]. I hypothesise the frequency of deliberate evil is similar among companies big and small. What's more frequent with large companies is unchecked sporadic harm. Over time, that accumulates into uncoördinated patterns of behavior. These patterns would get called out in a smaller company. Social mores almost force us to. But those mores get washed out in…
I've long thought that in many ways, a corporation is nothing but a system which shields people from the moral consequences of their actions. A company like Altria, for example, couldn't function if you were told your job was to give people lung cancer, so the company instead has layers and layers of bureaucracy and paper pushers so that each individual person takes actions which they're only slightly uncomfortable with at worst. When I was in my early 20s, I saw how it works first hand when I worked at a company that did market research surveys at a mall, and we had a survey from Phillip Morris, and I refused to do it, and my manager tried to say: "You're not doing anything wrong, you're just asking people their opinions, you're not giving away samples or advertising to them, etc..." It all sounded so convincing, but it eventually came down to me either doing it or being fired, so I quit. Easy to do when you're still living at home and don't need the job, a lot harder if you have a family.
Credit is due to anyone willing to sacrifice, no matter how small, for the voiceless and underrepresented.
"When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.” -- Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison
Most people are busy trying to free their children, spouse, and immediate family, even if it means sacrificing others’ freedom to do it.
When one side has all the power and the other side has none, to pretend that the benefit of the doubt accrues equally to both is an act of moral cowardice.
How about considering the facts of the situation and not generalizing and applying a pre-conceived narrative?
Yeah, totally. People are so annoying with how they want to learn from history! Like you, I too wish people would just be total morons and not ever learn from the past.
If the firings disproportionately or systemically impact races or genders, the firings can be racist/sexist -- even if race or gender is not involved in the firing decision. Racism and discrimination are related but separate concepts.
> the firings can be racist/sexist -- even if race or gender is not involved in the firing decision Uh? Can you elaborate?
I think "racist/sexist" may be muddying the waters a little bit since they are not narrowly defined and probably have more implication of motive, but de facto discrimination is a well recognized concept and it is illegal.