He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price • Hacker News Board

Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price

#191

Post by financltravsty » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 1:04 PM UTC

ryloric wrote: post #82

highwaylights wrote: post #5

One of these days I'm going to make the Internet prove to ME that IT's not a robot and see how it likes it

I wish HN gave me the ability to gild comments like reddit does.

I visited Reddit yesterday for the first time in a long time. I saw an interesting meme and wanted to write a long form piece of content in the comments. After I was done: I received two low-effort replies that revealed to me I have less-than-great communication skills or the readers put zero focus in active reading skills; and one reply with an axe to grind that focused on attacking me and making all sorts of assumptions on who I was as a person, while assuring me I was the person who couldn’t take someone challenging his ideas, and that I was the problem.

Reddit is a cesspit.

Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price

#192

Post by c0brac0bra » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 1:07 PM UTC

ikurei wrote: post #142

bambax wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So many laws go against human nature; those might be the most important laws. I don't expect the greedy and powerful to change, but as a society we should do more to protect whistleblowers, the same way we protect threatened witnesses. Also, more solidarity between workers, although not always possible, would go a long way. So many Google employees can definitely afford to quit in solidarity, or strike. Not saying it…

You might even say that ALL laws go against human nature. If it was in our nature to follow a certain law we probably wouldn't need it codified.

Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price

#193

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 1:09 PM UTC

LastNevadan wrote: post #84

keiferski wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I encourage anyone interested in the consequences of whistleblowing to watch The Insider. A truly excellent film about a whistleblower at a tobacco company and the terrible things they did to try and stop him. Russell Crowe, Al Pacino, Bruce McGill, Christopher Plummer, many others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Wigand Trailer: https://youtu.be/MGOb29aePyc The best scene: https://youtu.be/gNKmmA6_oTQ

A similar film is Silkwood, which is about the life of Karen Silkwood, who reported concerns about corporate practices related to health and safety in a nuclear facility where she worked. She was severely harassed by her employer and then died in a suspicious car accident. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Silkwood https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/silkwood

[deleted]

Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price

#194

Post by gadders » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 1:09 PM UTC

plagiarist wrote: post #187

gadders wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I reckon I could do it if I knew I had $104m waiting for me. Think of it as $31m/year to live somewhere equivalent to a moon base or the ISS or something.

Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price

#195

Post by School-Cotton » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 1:13 PM UTC

wizerdrobe wrote: post #148

isilofi wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can also answer (in the same way) about the escalations in the last few decades since 1948. Almost everything Israel did was reactive, they rarely shot first.

I don’t think you can justify ethnically cleansing the Palestinians in 1948, and I hardly think the (Jewish) Israeli government gets to play the “it was 80 years ago, it’s old news” since playing on the historical misfortunes of the Jewish community is their justification for existing. After Ariel Sharon went full false-flag terrorist in Lebanon, again it’s hard to describe these actions as “reactive”. They were very…

Even if one wants to leave what happened in 1948 in the past, Israel is still doing plenty of damage to Palestinians today, for example:

1. Indefinitely blockading the Gaza Strip by sea and air thus not allowing it to trade normally with foreign countries.

2. In the West Bank, applying separate legal systems to Jews (who have Israeli citizenship due to their ethnicity) and Arabs (who have no way to become Israeli citizens)

3. Continuing to expand Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank (remember no country recognizes the West Bank as belonging to Israel, not even Israel themselves, so this is one of the most unambiguously illegal things according to international law that you can possibly imagine).

4. Generally restricting the freedom of movement and property rights of non-Jewish civilians in the West Bank (which, again, does not actually belong to Israel). Something like 99% of building permits in Area C go to Jews only.

Does all this justify killing innocent civilians in random parts of Israel proper? No, I don’t think it does. But it’s all still horrible. I wanted to point it out because a standard pro-Israel talking point is that 1948 is so far in the past that wanting to fix it is akin to trying to evict all whites from former Native American land in the US. Be that as it may, Israel is STILL doing plenty of harm TODAY and could at least stop that much.

Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price

#196

Post by financltravsty » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 1:13 PM UTC

octacat wrote: post #46

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I cannot accept or understand is that the owners and managers of Western companies, who supposedly share my moral ideals Are you really sure that these people share your own moral ideals? ;-)

Western companies which cared, went a bit bankrupt sadly. We have negative selection here.

Patagonia? Chick-Fil-A?

I think when you go full B2B, you are destined to be a soulless corporate automaton.

Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price

#197

Post by lots2learn » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 1:13 PM UTC

bawolff wrote: post #98

lots2learn wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hamas started this last flare up only if history begins on Oct 7. In fact, Hamas's action on that day is an inevitable reaction to decades of systemic oppression, unprovoked aggression and ethnic cleansing.

This entire region is a clusterfuck of, no that side did this first, no the other side did that. No matter what point you are starting at you can go further back in history to say the other side did X. That said, oct 7 was a clear escalation by hamas and was much more violent than what came before. Unsurprisingly that garnered a response.

It's not complicated at all. The party of this conflict which is the settler-colonizer would like everyone to believe it's complicated but it's quite simple: A people were ethnically cleansed from the lands they lived on for centuries and those people continue to be oppressed and subjugated till this day, not only denied to return back to the lands they were expelled from, but continue until now to be forcibly expelled from the small amounts they remain on.

Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price

#198

Post by WinstonSmith84 » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 1:15 PM UTC

bambax wrote: post #85

PaulKeeble wrote: post #16

My 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…

OP has written: > even here in the west

No indeed it's not specific to the west, but the emphasis was worth it: many western people have such an high opinion of their country that they believe it could only happen in Iran, Russia, North Korea and the likes

Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price

#199

Post by mewpmewp2 » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 1:17 PM UTC

plagiarist wrote: post #188

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Imagine hanging out with Snowden, you both have done a few rounds of pints. Suddenly you slip up about your music preferences. Next thing you know, tomorrow you see a tweet on Snowden's Twitter account and thousands of comments laughing at you.

Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price

#200

Post by gcanyon » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 1:18 PM UTC

ordu wrote: post #182

bambax wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 somet…

> simplifying: "laws and moral codes exist to restrict 'human nature'"

I strongly disagree with that. Laws (and moral codes) exist to codify the general, agreed-upon human nature. They therefore "restrict," as you say, a subset of people whose internal moral compass is broken.

To pick the most extreme example: most people don't need a law, or even a moral code, to not kill other people. We all (for some large and growing, but not 100%) agreed that killing is wrong, and most of us do not need the threat of a murder trial to talk us out of killing someone who cuts in front of us at the fast food line. To be clear, not 100% of us, but more than 50%, and I hope in many places, much more than 50% of us.

For other, less extreme crimes, the percent of people in consensus might be lower. But even for something like speeding on the highway I think human nature is, on average, a limiting factor more than laws or moral codes, rather than being an uncontrolled source of chaos reined in by law.

People (on average) drive maybe 60-80 mph on the highway (depending on the highway -- looking at you, Montana). If there were no speed limit at all, that wouldn't jump that much: the average speed on the autobahn is apparently 125kph, or 78mph.

Everyone's human nature is, on average, reasonably aligned, and laws tend to reflect that average.