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A ‘Grass-Roots’ Campaign to Take Down Amazon Is Funded By Its Biggest Rivals

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Re: A ‘Grass-Roots’ Campaign to Take Down Amazon Is Funded By Its Biggest Rivals

#101

Post by dymk »

Porthos9K wrote: post #22

I'm surprised more cyberpunk authors didn't anticipate that wars between corporations wouldn't be fought using hackers or "street samurai", but with teams of propagandists competing to do a better job of bullshitting the general public. Yes, I'm calling marketers and advertisers propagandists. As far as I'm concerned, marketing and advertising are nothing but private-sector psyops.

By that logic, my Tinder profile is nothing but self-sanctioned psyops manipulating people into liking me.

I can use scary words to describe mundane things too.

Re: A ‘Grass-Roots’ Campaign to Take Down Amazon Is Funded By Its Biggest Rivals

#102

Post by bilbo0s »

logicprog wrote: post #93

Okay so wait, we have corporations trying to turn the public against a competitor for being "too successful," in the hopes that it will let them use the apparatus of government to hobble said competitor in any way without repercussions, and no one is upset about this? Instead, we just go along with this fake-grassroots idea of "oh yeah Amazon is an evil empire"? This doesn't process for me. I mean seriously, Amazon i…

>in the hopes that it will let them use the apparatus of government to hobble said competitor in any way without repercussions

This is the problem nowadays. We can't really trust anybody. The threats to our privacy and freedoms are coming from every quarter.

And the worst part is,

that some of the people and organizations telling us about the threats to our freedoms and privacy, are, in fact, likely the biggest threats to our freedoms and privacy.

Re: A ‘Grass-Roots’ Campaign to Take Down Amazon Is Funded By Its Biggest Rivals

#103

Post by hollerith »

guerrilla wrote: post #96
hollerith wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you write is true, but leaves out the fact that taking down Amazon or putting restrictions on Amazon's warehouse operations can unintentionally make things worse for low-skilled workers if their other employment options are worse than working in an Amazon warehouse.

It could just as well mke them better by raising the standards.

Even if the standards get raised across the warehouse industry, the restrictions might harm low-skilled workers more than it helps them. E.g., they might make it economically rational for Amazon to automate the jobs away. E.g., Amazon might be forced to pass on their higher costs to consumers, causing a transfer of spending from Amazon.com to brick-and-mortar outlets where the jobs for available to low-skilled workers pay even less than the eliminated jobs the Amazon warehouse did.

Re: A ‘Grass-Roots’ Campaign to Take Down Amazon Is Funded By Its Biggest Rivals

#104

Post by logicprog »

bilbo0s wrote: post #102
logicprog wrote: post #93

Okay so wait, we have corporations trying to turn the public against a competitor for being "too successful," in the hopes that it will let them use the apparatus of government to hobble said competitor in any way without repercussions, and no one is upset about this? Instead, we just go along with this fake-grassroots idea of "oh yeah Amazon is an evil empire"? This doesn't process for me. I mean seriously, Amazon i…

> in the hopes that it will let them use the apparatus of government to hobble said competitor in any way without repercussions This is the problem nowadays. We can't really trust anybody. The threats to our privacy and freedoms are coming from every quarter. And the worst part is, that some of the people and organizations telling us about the threats to our freedoms and privacy, are, in fact, likely the biggest thre…

I'm not exactly sure what you think the threats are, but it doesn't matter. This is a very correct sentiment! Well said.

Re: A ‘Grass-Roots’ Campaign to Take Down Amazon Is Funded By Its Biggest Rivals

#105

Post by adventured »

logicprog wrote: post #93

Okay so wait, we have corporations trying to turn the public against a competitor for being "too successful," in the hopes that it will let them use the apparatus of government to hobble said competitor in any way without repercussions, and no one is upset about this? Instead, we just go along with this fake-grassroots idea of "oh yeah Amazon is an evil empire"? This doesn't process for me. I mean seriously, Amazon i…

Large companies always use the government - when they can - to kneecap their competition. It's the very rare exception of a corporation that won't stoop to that level of behavior. There's practically an unlimited number of excuses a company can come up with to rationalize proceeding (with using the government as a leveling club).

It's exactly what many of Microsoft's peers did in the 1990s. They waged a large, persistent campaign across years to convince the government to pursue and break up Microsoft. Larry Ellison went so far as to basically purchase trash from a cleaning company to get at info related to lobbyists supporting Microsoft's position.[1] Some of it was spot on, Microsoft was doing what they claimed; some of it was nothing more than ugly, base envy, jealousy, greed.

[1] https://www.newsweek.com/diving-bills-trash-161599

Re: A ‘Grass-Roots’ Campaign to Take Down Amazon Is Funded By Its Biggest Rivals

#106

Post by groby_b »

Porthos9K wrote: post #79
groby_b wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm. Maybe it's taking the "punk" part to literal that prevents getting better stories. I mean, the point (as far as there is one) of punk is anti-corporatism, anti-fascism, combined with direct action. That'll end up in street warfare one way or another. I'm honestly not sure how an actual punk story involving psy-ops would even look like. (Sure, the setup might be different, but sooner or later, heads are going to b…

I think that a "-punk" story with direct action and psy-ops would probably incorporate culture jamming . Are you familiar with the term? https://www.thoughtco.com/culture-jamming-3026194

I wasn't - thank you for introducing me to it!

Re: A ‘Grass-Roots’ Campaign to Take Down Amazon Is Funded By Its Biggest Rivals

#107

Post by leereeves »

logicprog wrote: post #93

Okay so wait, we have corporations trying to turn the public against a competitor for being "too successful," in the hopes that it will let them use the apparatus of government to hobble said competitor in any way without repercussions, and no one is upset about this? Instead, we just go along with this fake-grassroots idea of "oh yeah Amazon is an evil empire"? This doesn't process for me. I mean seriously, Amazon i…

> Instead, we just go along with this fake-grassroots idea of "oh yeah Amazon is an evil empire"?

Perhaps people really feel that Amazon is an evil empire regardless of this competitor's actions.

Re: A ‘Grass-Roots’ Campaign to Take Down Amazon Is Funded By Its Biggest Rivals

#108

Post by prepend »

SmirkingRevenge wrote: post #69
prepend wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part where somehow that’s abnormal for warehouse workers. Warehouse work is hard and low paid. Working for Amazon is working for one of the best warehouse jobs but that doesn’t make it easy work. I’ve seen article about long days and injuries and such and they never bring up industry hours or wages or injury rates. So I suspect they are negative PR. So I don’t think they are fabricated, but they are misleading.

> Warehouse work is hard and low paid. Working for Amazon is working for one of the best warehouse jobs but that doesn’t make it easy work. I’ve seen article about long days and injuries and such and they never bring up industry hours or wages or injury rates. So I suspect they are negative PR. Yep, exactly. There's no basis from which you can judge on Amazon's (or anyone's) warehouse conditions, unless you have that…

My limited understanding is that Amazon is the best when it comes to warehouse work-highest wages, healthcare, etc.

I would love a good review of the warehouse industry. But I think it’s ultimately boring. The few articles I’ve read about Amazon are pretty useless and imagine they are a modern day The Jungle or something. But I don’t think warehouse work is meatpacking.

Re: A ‘Grass-Roots’ Campaign to Take Down Amazon Is Funded By Its Biggest Rivals

#109

Post by guerrilla »

hollerith wrote: post #103
guerrilla wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could just as well mke them better by raising the standards.

Even if the standards get raised across the warehouse industry, the restrictions might harm low-skilled workers more than it helps them. E.g., they might make it economically rational for Amazon to automate the jobs away. E.g., Amazon might be forced to pass on their higher costs to consumers, causing a transfer of spending from Amazon.com to brick-and-mortar outlets where the jobs for available to low-skilled worker…

or it might not.

Re: A ‘Grass-Roots’ Campaign to Take Down Amazon Is Funded By Its Biggest Rivals

#110

Post by mikelyons »

high_5 wrote: post #66
opportune wrote: post #15

It’s funny because the whole “Amazon ambassador” thing is just Amazon doing the same thing in reverse. What I hate most about the 21st century is how almost nothing feels genuine anymore. The news, any sort of campaign, even “science” in a lot of cases are just people using money to tell us what to think. Maybe it’s been like this for decades and we’re just now waking up to it, but regardless it just makes it all fee…

That's what postmodern era is. End of belief. IMO that's the fruit of scepticism as a way of life which has become well entrenched in the modern, well educated societies. As if we're in another stage of consequences of eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge (as a society).

The big problem is that it's not true skepticism, it's false skepticism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kzZdps9PG4
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