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'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

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Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#331

Post by rgblambda »

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…

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

Making positive contributions to society doesn't change the fact that you're being exploited. It's become increasingly clear that Doctors (at least where I'm from) have low pay early in their careers, unsafe working conditions, and have almost no life outside of work. On top of that they have a stressful job involving interacting with members of the public.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#332

Post by james4k »

ActorNightly wrote: post #319
marricks wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they create high turn over because they’re selecting for the best people to exploit? It’s a gestalt, you can see it two ways and I have no clue why someone would want to see it as a “good practice” unless that view was beneficial to their job and career advancement.

Exploit is a loaded word. Employment is fully at will. And again, 3% unemployment rate.

"At will" is incredibly loaded. Employment is necessary for survival.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#333

Post by asdff »

mimischi wrote: post #315
asdff wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you can find an example of these ridiculously artificial reviews on every single product on the Amazon store.

What makes you think it's a bot or paid shill, not a human that found it funny that someone is selling such bullshit and making fun of that fact?

Because that sort of cynical sarcastic person with too much time on their hands is pretty rare given how many of these blatant fake reviews I see all over Amazon and elsewhere on the internet, where there is a strong financial incentive to game reviews. I'm also aware that people are far more likely to leave a negative review than a glowing one. I'm not going to review some toaster I like positively, why would I waste my time on this $30 toaster that does the job it's supposed to do? But if I have an axe to grind, I get serious catharsis warning future people from buying this toaster from hell. It's especially telling when the reviews are highly bimodal: you see either people all have the same exact fault with the product, or borderline cult level derangement 5 star reviews that don't even mention the name of the product and could have been written about anything from a hair dryer to a garden hose.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#334

Post by [deleted] »

ActorNightly wrote: post #309
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

Hmm its almost like goverment regulations that apply to ALL companies are somehow different than selectively unionizing the labor force of a certain company or sector. Where are all the comments about Walmart unionization?

[deleted]

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#335

Post by [deleted] »

ActorNightly wrote: post #327
moate wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bec…

[deleted]

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#336

Post by pavel_lishin »

ActorNightly wrote: post #327
moate wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bec…

> by definition you should be ok with what Amazon is doing.

Only if we're on the side of definitions, I guess.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#337

Post by o_p »

ActorNightly wrote: post #308
Tiktaalik wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unionization is messing with the free market, which never leads to good outcomes historically I think the 8 hour week, and ending child labour are good outcomes.

Non sequitor. Saying that unions were reponsible for those things so they are good is the same thing as saying that Nazis are good because a lot of medicine research and breakthroughs happened under their regimes.

If it was for market alone those issues would never been fixed, full free market is just bad for labor market because of the power asymmetry between supply and demand.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#338

Post by rhizome »

mrfredward wrote: post #240
mdpopescu wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where does that leave people like doctors who earnestly help their patients? In fiction? Back on the original topic, Erik Dietrich's "Developer Hegemony" has a less extreme view of the corporation; worth reading IMO.

+1 For Dietrich's version of it. He renames sociopaths, clueless, and losers to opportunists, idealists, and pragmatists, and in general tones the theory down a bit, and I think the result is something that is both more palatable and more reflective of reality. The opportunists see the corporate world for what it is and do what is best for their careers, the idealists believe in the shared corporate myths and put in…

Is the corporate world "what it is" without the actions of these categories of employees? You may have the causation arrow pointing the wrong way, because to me, being more "reflective of reality," it's better worded as, "the corporate world is composed of the decisions, actions, and personalities of (sociopaths|opportunists), (the clueless|idealists), (losers|pragmatists)." Your choice of terminology is only a value judgement on each of the categories, but it's all the same people, working in a company, and making it a living thing. The specific words don't change the meaning of the principles being discussed.

I don't think the subjects of the Gervais categories are broken people so much as dangerous ones, careerwise (and possibly mental healthwise).

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#339

Post by scubbo »

ActorNightly wrote: post #300
scubbo wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unionization is messing with the free market, which never leads to good outcomes historically There are definitely some true, fair, and pertinent points in your comment (though, to be clear, they're not strong enough to actually make a compelling point, and I still disagree with your conclusion and position), but this is just nonsense. Every single social welfare program is "messing with the free market", and while…

>Every single social welfare program is "messing with the free market" I mean, saying that a human life is worth something so you can't just treat people as expendable labor is "messing with the free market" technically, but thats a very low boundary. Social welfare addresses the lower tiers of income, specifically to aid people in basic needs of housing, food, healthcare and education. Those people aren't putting an…

And where do you suppose that the money to fund those social welfare programs comes from? Not the free market, that's for sure.

EDIT to be more clear-and-explicit and less snarky - taxes are an interference with the free market. I am making the claim that a high-functioning society that cares for its citizens and ensures a good quality of life must necessarily a) impose taxes, in order to b) provide social welfare programs. In particular, I claim that no purely-free-market motivated company will address social welfare needs as comprehensively as public programs would (though I do concede that, for some subsets of society, some companies will often do so more efficiently than public programs would, at the cost of non-universal coverage).

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#340

Post by dillondoyle »

mox1 wrote: post #7
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.

Yes, and if you are somewhat tech savvy OR "grew up" on the internet (say 40 and younger) you understand this. The problem is previous generations who don't really understand this. Perhaps one angle to tackle the problem is to educate the group(s) of people who continue to believe whatever they read on Twitter, Facebook, etc.

I'd add HN to that list!

I have previously downvoted comments on my opinion on some instances of this on HN lol

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