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He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price
181–190 of 325 posts
Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price
#182My experience of whistleblowing even here in the west is that usually it goes very very badly. The only real thing open to you is to refuse to do anything unethical, quit and walk away. Many people can't afford to do that. Things ought to be different but we live in corrupt societies where the law is different for the rich and powerful than for everyone else.
Of course, but I don't think it's specific to "the west" or "corrupt societies". It's human nature. If you're part of a group and you speak against the group, esp. to another group , the group will move to destroy you. It doesn't matter if you're right; it doesn't matter if the group is doing bad things; it doesn't matter if speaking up will help save lives. The function of the group is to survive as a group; it will…
> Laws that go against human nature fight an uphill battle
I'm reluctant to name it "human nature", but let it be.
Most laws are needed to restrict "human nature". Moral codes exist to restrict "human nature". So it is the fate of a law.
> The function of the group is to survive as a group; it will do whatever it takes to achieve that.
It is an oversimplification I believe. Groups have very different goals, and sometimes money is more important then group existence. Groups can accept additional existential risks to increase profits, in such cases it means money has more importance for a group than its existence.
Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
> that was just mostly regular farmers before the first Nakba but slowly became radicalised Regular farmers who were asked by their Arab "brothers" to step aside while they eradicate the Jews. Surprised Pikachu face when that plan didn't work out and the result was that the farmers couldn't go back. The same "brothers" now tell them to not leave the Gaza strip (and enforce it by blocking the one non-Israel-controlled…
I've been to Israel and follow the conflict pretty extensively. The "Meat shield" disinfo is in the grand scheme of things nothing but a gross excuse for the extreme casualties, just like the 40 dead babies thing, or "cave complexes below every hospital" or other campaign PR like "we are doing it because of WMD's in iraq". It's excuses to dominate. Most has been debunked if you follow independent media. But it seems…
> The "Meat shield" disinfo
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2023/10/12/Ga... cites al-Sisi:
> On Thursday, he said that Egypt was already hosting “nine million guests, as I call them, from many countries who came to Egypt for security and safety.”
> But the case of Gazans “is different”, he said, because their displacement would mean “the elimination of the (Palestinian) cause.”
That's "stay there, no matter what", al-Sisi could unilaterally open the Gazan border, after all. In plain English: Meat shield.
> Most people were just regular farmers. That you think a whole region were bloodthirsty barbarians really says more about the racism of american media than anything else.
First, I don't consume american media.
Second, most people in Mandatory Palestine were regular farmers, alright. The armies of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq were anything but.
Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have family in Israel, people who protested against the judicial overhaul every week for weeks. Some of them are also in the military, saying after the Hamas attacks "now is the time to kill arabs". - The way Israel is reacting to the hamas atrocities [1] will not make Israel a safer place. We haven't eradicated Taliban in 20 years, but sat with them at the table after 20 years and negotiated. - Hamas was built in…
The sad truth is that all of this was very predictable. It is also very convenient for Netanyahu, whose family[0] and government coalition has some interesting views about the area as a whole[1], including who Jordan belongs to. One could argue a lasting peace is utterly impossible due to ideological reasons/religious extremism on both sides. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzion_Netanyahu [1] https://en.wikipedi…
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Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
Appalling take on almost every front. 1. "Are you protesting X, why not Y and Z" boring rethoric, I will not even elaborate 2. "Cancelling your amazon account has no impact" well for crying out loud, what are they as an individual supposed to do, lobby the US State Department? Apart from direct action and writing on the Internet about it, not much you can do about a trillion dollar company. 3. "But what about hamas"…
Cancelling your amazon account then posting on a site run on aws (where amazon makes its real money) wont do anything.
I don't think HN is hosted on AWS.
Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price
#186What a shame that companies in question don't even address that a human's right had been violated and do what is right. At least Foxconn could have done the some thing for Tang Mingfang if it wasn't Amazon, if it adressed the issues they had.
Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price
#187My experience of whistleblowing even here in the west is that usually it goes very very badly. The only real thing open to you is to refuse to do anything unethical, quit and walk away. Many people can't afford to do that. Things ought to be different but we live in corrupt societies where the law is different for the rich and powerful than for everyone else.
Unless you're Bradley Birkenfield [1] TBH that's the only circumstance in which I think it would make sense to whistle blow. "In 2012, as a consequence of his whistleblower status, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) awarded him $104 million, 26% of the total $400 million in taxes returned. It was the 4th reward paid to date since the IRS Whistleblower Program went into effect in 2006." He did 40 months in prison…
I would almost be okay with 40 months in white-collar prison for $104 million. It is a pretty long time, though.
Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, most of us don't have that kind of secrets. I have secrets, but if someone were to leak them nobody would seriously employ the term "whisteblower". Implying that because someone doesn't want to stay quiet when he sees unethical/unlawful things they can't be trusted on a personal level is a dehumanizing thing to say. I might be breaking a rule here, but this comment could probably be found verbatim in some company…
Imagine someone blows the whistle on you liking K-Pop. By the way, I don't like it at all. But just imagine if you were to like it and someone was to blow the whistle. I seriously haven't listened to K-Pop at all, I know it's just an embarrassing thing people do.
That's not whistleblowing, that's being a jackass. Whistleblowing is reporting illegal or unethical behavior that is causing real harm to people.
Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price
#189My experience of whistleblowing even here in the west is that usually it goes very very badly. The only real thing open to you is to refuse to do anything unethical, quit and walk away. Many people can't afford to do that. Things ought to be different but we live in corrupt societies where the law is different for the rich and powerful than for everyone else.
One of the reasons I like the SEC solution so much: It is annonymous, you can provide info through am attorny and the payouts for whistleblowers are high enough that people can, theoretically, stop working and retire.
Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
> to protest the Israeli attack on Hamas Usually the critique is that civilians are targeted.
But the Hamas attack against Israel ONLY targeted civilians and OP isn't protesting.
I don't thinks is a surprise that is exponentially harder to target the military when they have billions of dollars backing them up (yeah I know what some of you gonna say, they should target nobody at all and just suffer in silence, yeah that's not how humans think)