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Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

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Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#351

Post by yowlingcat »

user-the-name wrote: post #336
harpersealtako wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a million authors worth reading if your standards are low enough, but there's only one Friedrich Nietzsche.

There are plenty, plenty of people who are as good or better to read. There is only one of any given person, that is not an argument to read them either.

A problem with privileging "good" is that it is socially constructed, and social constructions of good can sometimes reveal themselves rather painfully to be fads of the time which ironically are anything but good, such as Lysenkoism [1].

On the contrary, real insights tend to stand the test of time, which is why Nietzsche continues to remain relevant and timeless. Lysenkoism, not so much.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#352

Post by yowlingcat »

screye wrote: post #140
manux wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inefficiencies aren't always bad. Efficiency, for example, is often the opposite of robustness. Many companies have learned that the hard way when COVID hit, even though they had an efficient supply chain and production pipeline, it was not robust.

I guess part of it is just personal anecdotes. India was (democratically elected, but single party monopoly) socialist from 1945-1991. It is still pseudo-socialist in many senses. Watching how deeply these inefficiencies from bureaucracies plague us, has been genuinely angering. So yeah, I do come into it with personal priors which lead to be deeply suspicious of any unnecessary inefficiency. (emphasis on unnecessary…

You're getting downvoted but you raise a fair point. Sometimes, the inefficiencies from bureaucracies don't trade off and create more robustness or greater scale. Sometimes they are purely extractive or arguably corrupt.

With that said, is it really fair to call India pseudo-socialist? For all intents and purposes, India is closer to the EU and a region/confederation of nations than it is to a single country. One can say that inefficiencies from Indian bureaucracy plague the country, but that would be to treat India like a monolith, which it certainly is not.

India is a panoply of genetic, cultural, and linguistic diversity -- a plurality, and one of the world's oldest democracies. Even so, India's growth remains blistering in real terms. Perhaps we see things a certain way because our finite lives exist in a certain point in history; but could our children or grandchildren see India the same way we see China today?

It's personally hard to fathom that the answer is yes, but it's equally hard for me to fathom that the answer is no. In a way, I almost expect to be surprised.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#353

Post by username90 »

fourtrees wrote: post #349
manux wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inefficiencies aren't always bad. Efficiency, for example, is often the opposite of robustness. Many companies have learned that the hard way when COVID hit, even though they had an efficient supply chain and production pipeline, it was not robust.

I'd go further: many people died because the healthcare industry has embraced efficiency (likely not the precisely right word) at the expense of robustness.

The healthcare industry used exactly that argument to bottleneck the economy and create a lot of inefficiencies so healthcare can't be provided to everyone. Lots of lives would be saved if it got a lot easier for immigrant doctors to practice, but that would be too efficient and not "robust" enough so they can't do it.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#354

Post by monocasa »

cratermoon wrote: post #343
monocasa wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No more than a contractor with a fixed length term loses at the end of the contract.

Hmm, do contractors also normally get hung out to dry to cover for their employer's failures?

A lot of contractors are hired to be a lightning rod for the blame that should have gone to management of the employing company, yes.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#355

Post by raxxorrax »

brainfish wrote: post #26

I cut my teeth on Diablo, and played Diablo II for probably fifteen years after its release off and on as a way to stay connected with a friend who loved it similarly. More recently, I have consistently played Starcraft II since its release and enjoy a sense of mastery over that game unparalleled by my experience in any other. I haven't purchased new Blizzard products since the Hong Kong censorship debacle[1] and qui…

I think at the time when Starcraft 2 was released the company changed significantly.

I remember Bobby Kotick TD in SC 2. If he hits you, you lose money, if you hit him, you lose money too. It was banned after a short time.

I enjoyed SC2 very much, but I left their platform shortly after. Most of my friends stopped playing too.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#356

Post by user-the-name »

yowlingcat wrote: post #351
user-the-name wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty, plenty of people who are as good or better to read. There is only one of any given person, that is not an argument to read them either.

A problem with privileging "good" is that it is socially constructed, and social constructions of good can sometimes reveal themselves rather painfully to be fads of the time which ironically are anything but good, such as Lysenkoism [1]. On the contrary, real insights tend to stand the test of time, which is why Nietzsche continues to remain relevant and timeless. Lysenkoism, not so much. [1] https://en.wikipedia.or…

You are somehow turning a remote possibility into a near-certainty in this argument.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#357

Post by minusSeven »

kelnos wrote: post #142
brainfish wrote: post #26

I cut my teeth on Diablo, and played Diablo II for probably fifteen years after its release off and on as a way to stay connected with a friend who loved it similarly. More recently, I have consistently played Starcraft II since its release and enjoy a sense of mastery over that game unparalleled by my experience in any other. I haven't purchased new Blizzard products since the Hong Kong censorship debacle[1] and qui…

I don't really understand this attitude, or line of reasoning, or whatever you want to call it. Sure, if a company does something that you find reprehensible, not giving them further money (or attention) is certainly a reasonable -- and honorable! -- thing to do. But if you've already purchased a standalone[0], non-subscription product from that company, and that company doesn't gain any benefit from your further use…

You buy a game not just to play it but also to support developers. If you don't give a shit about this part you can always pirate it. By telling the company you will no longer use their product you are sending a clear cut message about that you a paying customer will no longer use their product.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#358

Post by scrollaway »

Fordec wrote: post #341
scrollaway wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're all very proud of you.

Your contributions to meaningful, thoughtful discussion a credit to this community and really makes me want to support your Heartstone simulator.

So to recap:

- you give someone shit for their nickname they adopted as an 18-19 year old kid

- you boast about how much of a hard working kid you were (no mention of the less pleasant things I'm pretty sure you did)

- your best idea of a comeback to all this was to randomly dig up an abandoned side project of mine from like seven years ago and threaten me not to support it.

Take a moment to reevaluate all that.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#359

Post by scrollaway »

podric wrote: post #195
scrollaway wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hades is a better Diablo than any of the Diablo games imo. I feel like it's the perfection of the mechanics that diablo's dungeon runs were supposed to be.

Hades definitely has more interesting game mechanics, but it's more of a Roguelike ARPG than a classic ARPG. I also find its enemy design and atmosphere lacking in consistency and quality. It just doesn't have the dark, dangerous, and foreboding feel that Diablo 1 and 2 have mastered.

Yes, i agree but then again i still feel it nailed down what the addictive parts of diablo were and put them into a far better game and context. That's why I maintain it's a better Diablo than any diablo or POE.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#360

Post by gurleen_s »

pdabbadabba wrote: post #301
beebmam wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quote from the article: '"Wilmerhale’s own site advertises its expertise as "union awareness and avoidance."' Therefore, yes, it is accurate to define them as a "union-busting firm". They fulfill other roles than just that, but they do act as union-busters, and they even describe themselves as such.

Maybe it's accurate. But isn't it irrelevant? Based on my read of the article, WilmerHale was almost certainly brought in to review Activision Blizzard's policies relating to sexual harassment and discrimination with a view towards tightening them up. This is a common thing for a big firm like WilmerHale to be hired to do. If so, the headline and the article's description of WilmerHale's "union busting" is just a gra…

It’s out of situations like this that unionization happens. Slim chance that they just happened to hire a union-busting law firm by accident.
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