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

Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

thewire.in

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 277 posts

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#131

Post by ganzuul »

whitepaint wrote: post #110

I've read similar articles so many times but they all lack one thing - solutions. Seriously, what should we do about it? Yeah, I agree that workers shouldn't be working so hard that they can't even go to the bathroom. Would we have a better world if Amazon didn't exist? I personally doubt it. So, it's not Amazon per se, it is the system, isn't? So, what are the solutions? How do we make it better? How do we minimize…

> Seriously, what should we do about it?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative

Perhaps one can replace the legal contracts involved in this with algorithms to achieve the necessary scale.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#132

Post by RalfWausE »

yossarian1408 wrote: post #127
RalfWausE wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A radical thought: If i have the alternative to work for an dystopian megacorp or starve to death... why then not choose the third option: Go to jail while causing as much damage as possible? (Disclaimer: Only a philosophical thought)

Your third option is likely to only reinforce the sociopolitical conditions that lead to corporatism and starvation in the first place.

I have thought about this: We know that pressure produces counterpressure, the more you knock down a populous the more likely they are to rise up and burn everything down regardless the consequeces (see the various slave revolts in history)... it might not IMPROVE the situation directly, but with every burning down of a society there is a new chance that what rises out of the ruins may be better.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#133

Post by TFYS »

whitepaint wrote: post #110

I've read similar articles so many times but they all lack one thing - solutions. Seriously, what should we do about it? Yeah, I agree that workers shouldn't be working so hard that they can't even go to the bathroom. Would we have a better world if Amazon didn't exist? I personally doubt it. So, it's not Amazon per se, it is the system, isn't? So, what are the solutions? How do we make it better? How do we minimize…

The solution is to go beyond a competition based society. No matter how good the people running these companies are or want to be, competition will force their hand to create things like this. If it's not them, it'll be someone else. I'm sure we could find a way to encourage innovation without this competitive system.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#134

Post by ExposeThem »

WalterBright wrote: post #77
fxtentacle wrote: post #50

Reading this, I'm so glad that in all of the EU it is illegal to fire someone purely based on a software decision. There's a minimum level of humanity that we should extend to everyone. Letting a known faulty AI decide if someone will have money for food tomorrow is way across the line. I'm not surprised that treating humans like cattle on their way to slaughter is hugely profitable. But I'm not sure we want to opera…

People have historically complained a lot about firings not being based on an objective formula. Now the complaint is an objective formula is being used. > WW2 prisoner camps For starters, those camps would shoot anyone who tried to leave. Not the same thing at all.

Idiot.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#135

Post by whitepaint »

ganzuul wrote: post #131
whitepaint wrote: post #110

I've read similar articles so many times but they all lack one thing - solutions. Seriously, what should we do about it? Yeah, I agree that workers shouldn't be working so hard that they can't even go to the bathroom. Would we have a better world if Amazon didn't exist? I personally doubt it. So, it's not Amazon per se, it is the system, isn't? So, what are the solutions? How do we make it better? How do we minimize…

> Seriously, what should we do about it? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative Perhaps one can replace the legal contracts involved in this with algorithms to achieve the necessary scale.

So, make it a law that if you hire a person they'd have a stake in a company automatically?

No one is stopping anyone to create worker cooperatives.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#136

Post by RalfWausE »

southerntofu wrote: post #80
RalfWausE wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A radical thought: If i have the alternative to work for an dystopian megacorp or starve to death... why then not choose the third option: Go to jail while causing as much damage as possible? (Disclaimer: Only a philosophical thought)

Well you don't need a Joker-style nihilistic attitude to cause as much damage as possible to everyone without distinction. This can also be achieved in a meaningful way following the workers tradition of sabotage and direct action. Hurt or destroy those people/structures making our lives hell. That makes sense. Just don't drag random people into it.

Yeah, this is what i have thought... in german there is the saying "Mach kaputt was euch kaputt macht" (more or less "destroy what destroys you").

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#137

Post by BeFlatXIII »

yanderekko wrote: post #71
fxtentacle wrote: post #50

Reading this, I'm so glad that in all of the EU it is illegal to fire someone purely based on a software decision. There's a minimum level of humanity that we should extend to everyone. Letting a known faulty AI decide if someone will have money for food tomorrow is way across the line. I'm not surprised that treating humans like cattle on their way to slaughter is hugely profitable. But I'm not sure we want to opera…

>Letting a known faulty AI decide if someone will have money for food tomorrow is way across the line. So is the implication here that humans are less faulty, or that there's something intrinsically wrong about an AI making this decision rather than a human? If the former, then this is an issue that the technology will probably eventually solve. If the latter, well... that doesn't seem very justifiable, to say the le…

How unfortunate would it really be for customers? The worst I can think of is Amazon Basics cables being six eurocents pricier per foot.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#138

Post by gouda-gouda »

If you consider America to be a corporatocracy, it’s hard not to consider it to be an authoritarian state at this point.

The company I work at recently had everyone install some advanced monitoring software on every company’s laptop. Being fully remote, this effectively gives root access to someone in my home 8 hours a day. Sure, it’s a “company laptop” and all of that, but something feels extremely invasive about it and I don’t like it one bit.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#139

Post by jseban »

whitepaint wrote: post #110

I've read similar articles so many times but they all lack one thing - solutions. Seriously, what should we do about it? Yeah, I agree that workers shouldn't be working so hard that they can't even go to the bathroom. Would we have a better world if Amazon didn't exist? I personally doubt it. So, it's not Amazon per se, it is the system, isn't? So, what are the solutions? How do we make it better? How do we minimize…

Here's my suggestion: change from an 8 hour work day into a 6 hour work day. Pretty simple really, I don't think we need to uproot society here...

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#140

Post by skrebbel »

fxtentacle wrote: post #50

Reading this, I'm so glad that in all of the EU it is illegal to fire someone purely based on a software decision. There's a minimum level of humanity that we should extend to everyone. Letting a known faulty AI decide if someone will have money for food tomorrow is way across the line. I'm not surprised that treating humans like cattle on their way to slaughter is hugely profitable. But I'm not sure we want to opera…

> like WW2 prisoner camps

FWIW I think your comment would've been more powerful without the Godwin.

Post reply on HN