Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

theintercept.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 476 posts

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#361

Post by bigDinosaur »

toyg wrote: post #347
bigDinosaur wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a compelling critique of Arendt that she basically just bought this characterisation wholesale - the Nazis had every reason to present their actions as 'banal' both in limiting the damages selfishly at an individual level and also limiting the damage to their ideology ('anyone could do it'). Eichmann was probably not the nazi-punchcard, mindlessly executing horrible plans, that she states.

The counter to that theory is the sheer amount of Nazi members in Germany - or really rank & file members in any fascist-like regime. That amount of people don't just go insanely evil on a whim, in most cases they are simply dragged there by mechanisms like Arendt describes.

Arendt was very specific though, her book was called Eichmann in Jerusalem. It wasn't 'mid-level German bureaucrat in Jerusalem'. After all, the railway workers (well, the unforced ones, since the Nazis did not have any compunction about slavery) who kept the trains running were fairly banal participants in the Holocaust, but we don't focus on them as the architects of it for a reason. Eichmann had every reason to present himself as a boring- somewhat clueless - bureaucrat as opposed to an architect of horrors of which he understood the full and gruesome extent. The right person in the wrong place can make all the difference.

I'd have to read her responses to the criticism she got again, I believe she did walk back the extent of her claims, but could be wrong (and in saying this, I'm sure someone will correct me if I am misremembering ;))

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#362

Post by goodpoint »

perryizgr8 wrote: post #319
stepbeek wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of libertarianism? Afaik left-libertarianism is in favour of unions. If it's right-libertarianism you're referencing then can you share some of the "economics science" that promotes it?

"Left" libertarianism is an oxymoron. Any philosophy that prioritises the collective over the individual is inherently illiberal.

The very opposite.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism

"Libertarianism originated as a form of left-wing politics such as anti-authoritarian and anti-state socialists like anarchists,[6] especially social anarchists,[7] but more generally libertarian communists/Marxists and libertarian socialists"

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#363

Post by jodrellblank »

mdorazio wrote: post #154
lupire wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jeff Bezos's $200B says he's not paying the most he can while still surviving in business.

Let's do some math for fun. Amazon now employs about a million workers in the US. Let's naively assume 3/4 of them work in warehouses and delivery as opposed to corporate. Let's also assume they work, on average, 2000 hours a year (roughly full-time). For Amazon to raise those wages by $1/hr (or lower efficiency demands by ~7%) it would cost them around $1.5B every year. Now, you're probably thinking that's chump cha…

If it was really losing $800M/year why would they keep it running at all? Could this be "creative accounting"?

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#364

Post by jodrellblank »

heavyset_go wrote: post #77
FinNerd wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don’t their employees quit then and work somewhere better if they have the opportunity? If they don’t have a better opportunity than seems like Amazon is providing a valuable opportunity. Not to mention we seem to be in a worker-favorable economy.

Negotiations exist between two parties in a contractual relationship. Employment isn't a take it or leave it deal, it's give and take between two parties where terms of employment are decided by negotiations between both of them.

Negotiations exist between a single employee and an international team of Amazon lawyers and professional negotiators. Whether that should really count as "two parties" negotiating on equal terms is up for argument.

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#365

Post by lr4444lr »

grapeskin wrote: post #280
josephg wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Programming is really hard. The idea that anyone can "learn to code" is a work of fiction. Nobody says that anyone can learn to do surgery, become a fighter pilot or become a barrister. I couldn't do those jobs. And lots of people couldn't do my job. Telling people that effort is the only thing stopping them getting a 6 figure software engineering salary does real harm. Its notable that most people who say this…

I know people that transferred from psychology degrees to programming jobs strictly through being self taught and they're making just shy of six figures. I know people who got web development jobs right out of high school. Programming is infinitely easier to get into than any other high paying field. There's no standardized exam or certification board keeping people out. The problem is people need time to study it, a…

When you take an intro CS class, just like Chem 101, you see a huge separation of people who "get it" from those who don't in the midterm exam score distribution. I realize you may know some diamonds in the rough who emerged later, but if the average residential college student with the time, lack of other obligations, ability to pass admissions to the school, and the mental suppleness of his age can't learn this stuff like a breeze, I don't think you should so easily dismiss the difficulty barrier.

I think also if you could practice medicine without a license and call yourself "doctor", you'd see a LOT more self taught people doing that who have maybe the capacity of a medical assistant, the brighter ones perhaps performing as well as a junior PA.

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#366

Post by weq »

grapeskin wrote: post #157
uncomputation wrote: post #49

> The major goal of the program, Amazon’s head of worldwide consumer business, Dave Clark, said, was to reduce employee attrition by fostering happiness among workers — and also productivity. Shout-Outs would be part of a gamified rewards system in which employees are awarded virtual stars and badges for activities that “add direct business value,” documents state. At the meeting, Clark remarked that “some people are…

The scariest thing isn't that Amazon is a company worth nearly trillions and using that money to oppress workers to maintain their lead. It's that tech workers are happily applying to get a decent paycheck and crushing people under them, just to protect the company's billions. Then they'll post online about how happy they are to have been smart enough to save up to buy a lakefront home and retire at 45, and say peopl…

FAANG workers are SHEEP. I live on a lakefront at 35, havnt gone into an office in 5years, had FAANG recruiters at my door since i was 21 . They like to get you young because they can then set your expectations of what work culture is.

And while i am at it, LOL to the conferance culture, talk about collecting stars. Every framework needs a speaking circut so you can somehow bring the familiarty of university into your working life because you have never known anything more then this. Swallowed by the system, addicted to consuming, pushed forward by the prospect of making an impact, used and abused by capitalistic entity that courted you, young, impressionable, starry eyed.

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#367

Post by mekkkkkk »

southerntofu wrote: post #348
mekkkkkk wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes it feels like people are confused about the nature of themselves. We have this idealized version of ethics and rationality that maps poorly onto reality. Yet everybody (especially on social media) talks as if this idealized version is the obvious natural state of all humans. Our intellect as a species is a blessing and a curse. We are self aware, but only to a certain extent. The blanks are filled in by wis…

> We have this idealized version of ethics and rationality that maps poorly onto reality. Yet everybody (especially on social media) talks as if this idealized version is the obvious natural state of all humans. So i'm not sure how much of it is "natural" or "cultural", but as others have pointed out the vast majority of people are happy to cooperate and help one another... it's not an abstract ideal. On the other ha…

I'm more talking about opinions framed as "how could anyone do that" or arguments beginning with "I would never".

A good example is malicious actions by companies. You could probably follow the entire decision tree in a lot of cases and not find a single individual that was acting differently than the average person would in those same circumstances.

Systemic issues are becoming obfuscated because human nature is disregarded in favor of ideals. It's much easier to just nail someone to a cross than to empathize and find real solutions.

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#368

Post by cs702 »

uncomputation wrote: post #49

> The major goal of the program, Amazon’s head of worldwide consumer business, Dave Clark, said, was to reduce employee attrition by fostering happiness among workers — and also productivity. Shout-Outs would be part of a gamified rewards system in which employees are awarded virtual stars and badges for activities that “add direct business value,” documents state. At the meeting, Clark remarked that “some people are…

Yes, that was my reaction too.

But what shocks me most is what this implies about the (many?) managers at Amazon who are responsible for it. They must be either:

(a) under so much pressure that they decided to go ahead with it despite being aware of the horrifying similarities their New Approved Language has with Newspeak, the centrally controlled language that prohibits the use of certain words in Orwell's classic novel, 1984; or

(b) so poorly educated that they're blissfully unaware of the parallels, and perhaps even think of themselves as really clever for having thought up this Orwellian scheme on their own.

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#369

Post by ohgodplsno »

sokoloff wrote: post #298
kennywinker wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not just jr devs that should be acting in solidarity with warehouse workers. Their team leads, IT, project managers, etc. I don’t care how much amazon stock you’re getting as part of your comp, until the capital gains on your stock outpaces your salary you’re closer to a warehouse worker than you are to an owner - and your allegiances should be with your coworkers, not jeff. So yeah, this specific case might hav…

Ok. Preventing a coworker from calling another a “slut”, “motherfucker”, “fag”, or “n####r” seems like a pretty reasonable feature for a workplace chat system. Lacking such a system might even constitute creating or contributing to a hostile workplace environment. What’s the level of dev who should show allegiance to fellow coworkers by refusing to implement that? Then some non-dev employee realizes you can block the…

No post body was provided.

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#370

Post by toyg »

bigDinosaur wrote: post #361
toyg wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counter to that theory is the sheer amount of Nazi members in Germany - or really rank & file members in any fascist-like regime. That amount of people don't just go insanely evil on a whim, in most cases they are simply dragged there by mechanisms like Arendt describes.

Arendt was very specific though, her book was called Eichmann in Jerusalem. It wasn't 'mid-level German bureaucrat in Jerusalem'. After all, the railway workers (well, the unforced ones, since the Nazis did not have any compunction about slavery) who kept the trains running were fairly banal participants in the Holocaust, but we don't focus on them as the architects of it for a reason. Eichmann had every reason to pr…

Of course, Arendt was a journalist so her work starts from an event. Not every Nazi member was trialled, Eichmann wad just one of the high-profile ones. The point is that from the particular situation we get a more generalised theory of the development of "evil" at the mass level, that works better than "people just like to abuse others, because the devil or something".
Post reply on HN