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

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#321

Post by 8note » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 9:44 PM UTC

skrtskrt wrote: post #238

gsk22 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Financial worth absolutely has to do with the fairness or lack thereof. Bezos has created nearly 200 billion dollars (!) of wealth for himself since founding Amazon, so debating the moral value of those gains in comparison to how everyday employees are compensated is well within reason. And if my employees said I was treating them unfairly, I would try to understand their perspective and make changes to improve worki…

> Bezos has created nearly 200 billion dollars (!) of wealth for himself Bezos' employees have created nearly 200 billion dollars of wealth for Bezos

I don't they they could have done it without him there. The value of the employee's labour is insignificant without the organization and systems he set up.

If they were working somewhere else, they wouldn't be generating 200 billion dollars of wealth at all

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#322

Post by nerdponx » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 9:45 PM UTC

cyberlab wrote: post #242

nerdponx wrote: post #22

Is this illegal? It should be illegal.

You can't fight astroturfing without resorting to astroturfing yourself. You have to play the game and do counter-narratives to stop this. The law can't keep up with sockpuppetry. It's too rampant to kill. Welcome to The Internet.

That doesn't mean it shouldn't be illegal, that just means it's hard to enforce.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#323

Post by james4k » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

ActorNightly wrote: post #301

james4k wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unionization is a correction of the market if anything, as labor has a buyer's market. Both by the immediate need of survival by the seller, and a similarly high rate of exploitation at competing jobs that limits real choices. And arguably an actual monopsony/oligopsony, but that's besides the point. Edit: It's an interesting admission when you basically say that Amazon's worker productivity depends on coercion.

>Unionization is a correction of the market if anything, Nope. Injecting money into lower end income levels, through things like raising the minimum wage to $10-11, or social welfare programs, causes every company paying minimum wage to slightly bump up their salaries - thats a market correction. Unionization is economically equivalent to rent control, which is not a market correction. The reason why rent control doe…

Amazon is in the spotlight right now because of their very loud anti-union efforts and being the second largest employer in the US. Excluding the Department of Defense, but that's a digression.

You're right that Walmart should be in the overall discussion, but they aren't the ones in a unionization vote happening at this very moment.

And it's weird to conveniently act like the discussion of issues that benefit low income workers haven't been core political topics, like the $15 minimum wage you keep bringing up.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#324

Post by ezekg » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #316

ezekg wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to that day! except it's not bots as you imagined -- it's programmed people.

I read an article where Russia's Internet Research Agency learned it was easier to just take existing propaganda and memes, amplify them past the long tail of engagement with their bots, and let the racist hateful online population snowball that message organically for them. People aren't rational, we are inherently emotional. Reason and logic need to be taught, and controlling your emotions is one of the hardest thi…

> so many people live in lives where they aren't exposed to other perspectives

I don't think it's that people aren't exposed to other perspectives -- it's that people have been programmed to be vitriol of other perspectives. It's the ever growing polarization of world views.

I'm not sure how to reset it either.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#325

Post by doublejay1999 » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 9:47 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…

Forgive me for being blunt :

> leaves no room for honest positive and meaningful work, and at risk of pointing out the obvious, there's a lot of meaningful work to be done.

There's plenty of meaningful work to be done, but most of it doesn't generate profit, so it doesn't get done. That which does get done, often pays poverty wages. Raising good citizens, caring for the elderly, educating our children, producing high quality nutritious food, cleaning our streets of litter - all meaningful and vital, all pay buttons. Many more jobs pay so little, we dont even bother doing in the West anymore and give those jobs to other countries.

> Where does that leave people like doctors who earnestly help their patients?

What percentage of the workers Doctors ? Bonus : why isn't everyone a doctor ?

> Adopting this philosophy is dooming oneself to a neverending feeling of being exploited and the argument that this is what is actually happening in totality is all philosophical opinion so why would I adopt a philosophy that is so personally ruinous, demoralizing, and demotivating?

Pretending you are happy and contributing to society while you are required to piss in a bottle is to concede all human dignity. To pretend that giving up 70 hours a week crunching numbers so a Corporation pays less tax that is to sell your soul and work to the detriment of society. To think anything else, means it's already too late for you.

tldr : meaningful jobs exist, but are rare as rocking horse shit and great swathes of us never get to experience meaningful jobs, because our culture needs obedient workers to make profits ahead of anything else.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#326

Post by colinmhayes » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 9:47 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…

The labor market has monopsony power. Unions are the only way for labor to negotiate on even grounds, fixing the market failure.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#327

Post by ActorNightly » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 9:48 PM UTC

moate wrote: post #280

pavel_lishin wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

The idea that "workers can't band together to make demands" somehow is in opposition to "market forces" and not ITSELF a market force is how we got into this mess in the first place. It's like saying "people are boycotting product x because they disagree with company policy " isn't allowed because "cancel culture is messing with the free market".

Unionization is by far more than "workers banding together to make demands".

Unions have things like the ability to force someone to join a union and pay dues. From the point of view of the union, you ofcourse want that in order to stop the union from loosing power to non union members.

And also, if you think that unions are market forces because they represent the interest of workesrs, so are anti union measures because they represet the interests of companies, so by definition you should be ok with what Amazon is doing.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#328

Post by raincom » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 9:49 PM UTC

Mordisquitos wrote: post #33

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #2

Why is "fake" in scare quotes? The accounts are fake.

They are not "scare quotes", it is part of the BBC's style guide. It is to make clear that they are not the ones declaring that the accounts are fake, but that it is attributed to someone else.

So, it is to signify the use-mention distinction. BBC doesn't use it, but mentions it.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#329

Post by owl_troupe » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 9:50 PM UTC

ActorNightly wrote: post #303

owl_troupe wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing off legitimate complaints about working conditions at Amazon–which are, in fact, widespread–as "outrage of internet leftism" is dismissive and plain incorrect. [1] By what definition of "free market" is unionization fairly characterized as "messing with" said market? Isn't the idea of the free market that actors within that market have the opportunity to use resources and organize resources the way they see f…

>is dismissive and plain incorrect If you are going to post any proof, at least read the stuff that you posted. 16 cases of complaints with extremely vague information in them is hardly proof. Don't bother looking for actual evidence though, because you won't find it.

We could look at one of the cases cited there:

>A National Labor Review Board (NLRB) investigation has now found that Amazon illegally interrogated and threatened Jonathan Bailey, a lead organizer of the Queens Amazon walkouts, and has issued a federal complaint against Amazon, according to official NLRB documents...

>The case was settled before it went to trial, but the issuing of the complaint means that an NLRB investigation found Amazon broke the law.[1]

Perhaps we could look at another:

>Last month, the National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint in Bowden’s case, meaning the agency found merit in her allegations that Amazon threatened, suspended, and ultimately terminated her because she had been talking with coworkers at an Amazon warehouse in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, about pay and other workplace issues, which is a legally protected activity.[2]

Then of course, there is the article that is the subject of this post. Call it speculation, but a corporate astroturfing campaign is not a convincing indication Amazon is on the right side of morality, law, or the facts here.

[1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy8ngk/amazon-interrogated-w...

[2] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/amazon...

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#330

Post by asdff » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 9:54 PM UTC

ezekg wrote: post #324

asdff wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read an article where Russia's Internet Research Agency learned it was easier to just take existing propaganda and memes, amplify them past the long tail of engagement with their bots, and let the racist hateful online population snowball that message organically for them. People aren't rational, we are inherently emotional. Reason and logic need to be taught, and controlling your emotions is one of the hardest thi…

> so many people live in lives where they aren't exposed to other perspectives I don't think it's that people aren't exposed to other perspectives -- it's that people have been programmed to be vitriol of other perspectives. It's the ever growing polarization of world views. I'm not sure how to reset it either.

I think exposure at least offers you the opportunity of engagement with other perspectives. If your dad is racist but you go to school and make a black friend, that might change your perspective vs. if you lived in an area where mostly white people lived, and you had no practical experience to weigh against your dad's racist perspective. A lot of people stay siloed, especially after schooling ends. They work with the same people for decades, attend the same church, or otherwise cement their social circle for the most part, since there are fewer opportunities to meet people from different perspectives as an adult. This is in contrast to say undergrad, where half the kids in your dorm were from another country and everyone is looking to make friends as soon as possible, or public school where you make friends both rich and poor because you don't see class really when you are six years old, you just want to play tag.