'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter • Hacker News Board

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#251

Post by stonogo » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

KittenInABox wrote: post #210

neilv wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since HN loves to veer wildly into rampant ageism, I'll bite... :) When you make your age distinctions, you might be talking about people who are non-technical. Early Internet techies predicted situations like this before they happened. (Pre-Web, we had all kinds of sci-fi predictions, awareness from historical analogues, etc. Post-Web, I talked with startup founders 20 years ago, who would also be 40yo+ by now, who…

Wouldn't that happen in perpetuity for every generation growing up in technology? We want to shield our children from the rest of the internet, and so children grow up with an internet framed for them. Then, as they grow, they are forced to deal with the concept of the internet not being framed anymore and may therefore have some time in their teenage to young adult years where they may be susceptible to shit like eg…

It's much easier to just pick someone to frame everything for you than it is to develop critical thinking skills. I would wager the majority of people from any generation wind up choosing the former, even if it's not a conscious choice. I don't think it's something people 'grow out of' by default.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#252

Post by TheAceOfHearts » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #162

booleandilemma wrote: post #100

Why can't we just have a social network that requires you to sign up using your government ID? No bots, no fake accounts - problem solved. There won't be any anonymity on that network, sure, but there are plenty of other social networks where you can be anonymous.

I mean Bluechecks spread misinformation and harass people all the time. Not sure how verification solves anything.

Well, it definitely means you have far more at stake every time you comment or participate, since you're putting your reputation on the line and creating a public record.

However, I ultimately don't think requiring IDs would be effective and it would probably expose at-risk and vulnerable groups to greater retaliatory action. It's arguably a bit classist as well, since only those who are sufficiently rich and powerful enough to protect themselves would be able to participate with impunity.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#253

Post by freebuju » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 6:36 PM UTC

starclerk wrote: post #184

ahepp wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like both the authenticity and the anonymity of the web. Of course, those two things are often in substantial opposition to each other. The best solution I can think of at the moment is simply to not pay much attention to political speech on the internet.

I completely agree. But it's hard, since "politics" is broad and almost everything touches it in some way. The main way I've tried to achieve this is by largely limiting what I read to: 1. Authenticated contributors, either people I know personally or hired by companies I trust (e.g. NYT). 2. Anonymous contributors with heavy moderation and filtration (e.g. Twitter, but with O(100) muted words and accounts. My feed i…

Interesting, so you've managed to create your own Internet bubble. Isn't this another example of confirmation bias?

I would think it would be better to just scroll past the content you are not interested in engaging in. It certainly will be better to know of something happening, even if in brief terms, than to be completely in the dark of it.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#254

Post by deagle50 » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 6:37 PM UTC

ramblerman wrote: post #246

eeeeehhhhh wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew this was going to be posted. I've been thinking about this post for a decade now and I can't help but feel that, although it does reflect part of reality, the Gervais Principle is overly cynical in my opinion, and those who adopt the view will have it compounded by confirmation bias because it is partially true. The things described happen at toxic organizations but the author leaves no room for honest positiv…

Thank you for putting this so eloquently. I have been down this cycle myself becoming almost nihilistic and seeing it all as a pointless game of machiavelian diplomacy. These days I'm much more optimistic, and doing much better overall but in hindsight your explanation is exactly what I went through at my worst.

Both scenarios can be true, you can be "clueless" and optimistic at the same time. Even if the Gervais Principle is real, it doesn't mean you need to be nihilistic. If your work is giving you meaning and joy, does it matter if sociopaths are benefiting more than you? It's kind of like being resentful of professional athletes, it simply wasn't in the cards... Saying this as a definite "loser" btw.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#255

Post by freebuju » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 6:43 PM UTC

kleer001 wrote: post #23

seneca wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagreed. Authenticity is incompatible with Anonymity. All the surveillance companies would love to tell you you can authenticate your identity with them and be anonymous elsewhere, but they, and Governments, are the exact entities we should be hiding out identities from. People need to be trained to be skeptical of voices online.

I agree with your main point. > People need to be trained But, hmmm, I don't think a call for education is a solution. That's basically whack-a-mole. Stupid people are born every minute, there's no stopping stupid. Better to put bumpers on them and keep the rest of us safe.

You'll be surprised how far misinformation goes. Even among the non-stupid (smart?) people. Some form of Internet literacy needs to be done. We'll be fighting some of it very soon with deepfakes made by AI, and we are still not prepared for that.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#256

Post by mattmanser » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 6:48 PM UTC

eeeeehhhhh wrote: post #152

taormina wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-... This is a fantastic read.

I knew this was going to be posted. I've been thinking about this post for a decade now and I can't help but feel that, although it does reflect part of reality, the Gervais Principle is overly cynical in my opinion, and those who adopt the view will have it compounded by confirmation bias because it is partially true. The things described happen at toxic organizations but the author leaves no room for honest positiv…

He does mention meaningful work, that's done by the clueless. But to the author it's a sidenote that he doesn't bother explaining. It's this bit where he briefly touched on it:

the standard promotion/development path is primarily designed to maneuver the Clueless into position wherever they are needed

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#257

Post by barrenko » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 6:48 PM UTC

throwyetanother wrote: post #200

ActorNightly wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine building a company from the ground up that is succesfull solely because it produces a lot of value to people, and yet random people on the internet still think all you care about is hoarding money and think they can make better decisions than you. Here is the summary of the issue. Firstly, pre-pandemic, unemployment was at an alltime low (and its trending that way to as places are reopening), very close to fr…

>So Bezos is doing the correct thing by being anti union. Unionization is messing with the free market, which never leads to good outcomes historically. Tell that to Sweden, with its 80% unionization rate and productivity (GDP per hour worked) at 97% of that of the United States. And since you said "historically" - it's not a recent change of affairs. In the 1970s Sweden's productivity (GDP per hour) was 90% of that…

Things work differently at different scales.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#258

Post by jcadam » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

Used to work for an employer that was obsessed with its glassdoor rating. Negative reviews of the company were drowned out with tons of identical-sounding glowing reviews that I'm pretty sure were written by interns.

We were actually "highly encouraged" during new hire orientation to go on glassdoor and leave a good review - that was the first hint I made a mistake in accepting the job. It was a pretty awful place to work.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#259

Post by pavel_lishin » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 6:58 PM UTC

ActorNightly wrote: post #164

cecida wrote: post #43

Imagine being worth 185 billion dollars and still obsessing about your workers advocating for better pay and conditions? What a miserable existence that must be. Bezos has always struck me as a man who cares about nothing else only his own personal wealth and success. There is no joy in his life.

Imagine building a company from the ground up that is succesfull solely because it produces a lot of value to people, and yet random people on the internet still think all you care about is hoarding money and think they can make better decisions than you. Here is the summary of the issue. Firstly, pre-pandemic, unemployment was at an alltime low (and its trending that way to as places are reopening), very close to fr…

> Unionization is messing with the free market

Your conception of what "free market" means is wrong, and the thing you're imagining has never existed.

Anyway, here's a few other things that mess with "the free market" as much as unionization:

- Workplace safety laws

- Environmental protection laws

- Minimum wage laws

- Accounting regulations

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#260

Post by axguscbklp » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

skohan wrote: post #3

I feel like authenticity of online communication is an unsolved problem. The web was supposed to be a democratizing platform: all you need to communicate with the world is an ISP and a keyboard. But if there's no way to control for authenticity, online sentiment will just be an arms race for who can pay for the best astroturfing.

As far as I know, the authenticity of communication in general is an unsolved problem. The web just reflects this. Just like with communication in general, if one wants authenticity, one has to add procedures for verifying authenticity on top of a system that doesn't have any built in.