Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then they ought not operate there.
Where should they operate?
Places where they aren’t required to enforce medieval, harmful policies that harm minority groups.
Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results
231–240 of 299 posts
Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not defending Walmart. But I will not attack Walmart for playing by the rules. > This is exactly what people find gross about it. Calculating that an employee out on parental leave will cost you more (and hence cause you to be less competitive in the marketplace) than an employee that is working is not gross, it is simply math.
"Don't hate the player, hate the game" is horseshit. If the action is inhuman, I will hate you for it. Maybe those excuses help you sleep at night but if we want to pretend we aren't just especially smart monkeys then we should act like it
Not offering subsidized healthcare is inhuman? What quality of life at work is inhuman?
I think it is inhuman to not offer a woman 1 year of parental leave to breastfeed and raise her baby.
Should I simply not attempt to operate a business in the US, because this benefit would make my payroll costs so high in my line of business, that my customers would opt to buy from my competitors at a lower price and my business would fail.
These are practical reasons that businesses cannot take on this responsibility. Easy for white collar programmers and government workers to take the high road. But there are many who have to compete with much smaller margins and volatile cash flows.
I want to give my employees a year of parental leave. I want them to have many more vacation days. I want them to not have to depend on their employer for healthcare and be able to shop around for different jobs easily. That is why I support political efforts to do all these things, but I cannot afford to enact it at my business because my customers would go to my competition. That is a perfectly valid reason to “blame the game” and not “blame the player”.
Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. Also: Suffragettes and abolition of slavery were both called crazy in their time.
In their time triple distilled water containing radium was sold as an energy drink, they thought bathing was unhealthy, and they ate mercury. I will go out on a limb and say we can judge things a bit better now. Sure, right now we accept plastic and plasticisers everywhere around us. Which is crazy. And quite probably contributes to the great hormonal disruption and the trans craze.
This type of transphobia would be hilarious if it wasn’t so harmful.
Reducing the entire history of transgenderism down to a “craze” is a perfect culmination of your ignorance and fear.
Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
You seem to have taken this quote out of context. My point is that "a less censored platform is always better", in other words "Google but censored is better than Baidu".
Back when India was throwing off the British Raj there was a strategy among the rebels to murder the good British officials (judges and so on) rather than assassinating the corrupt or incompetent ones. The idea was that the good British made the Raj more tolerable. - - - - Edit to add: I should point out that that strategy did not result in victory. It was famously Gandhi and the Non-violence movement who ultimately…
>It was famously Gandhi and the Non-violence movement who ultimately succeeded.
Was Ghandi's method really the reason for success or does western media (& ruling class) prefer that narrative?
Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results
#235I just cannot understand why so many people get so angry about what other consenting adults get up to in a closed bedroom. Live and let live.
I also can't understand why we need parades that share what other people do in their bedrooms. This cuts both ways.
Thousands and thousands and thousands of gay people were born into families that believed, to their core, and therefore taught, with generous zeal, that being gay is against god's wishes, a sin, immoral, wrong, and therefore should be considered SHAMEFUL.
I feel like it's reasonable to have LGBTQ people hosting events to try and let these people know that you shouldn't be ashamed of a perfectly normal thing.
Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
Back when India was throwing off the British Raj there was a strategy among the rebels to murder the good British officials (judges and so on) rather than assassinating the corrupt or incompetent ones. The idea was that the good British made the Raj more tolerable. - - - - Edit to add: I should point out that that strategy did not result in victory. It was famously Gandhi and the Non-violence movement who ultimately…
>It was famously Gandhi and the Non-violence movement who ultimately succeeded. Was Ghandi's method really the reason for success or does western media (& ruling class) prefer that narrative?
How would I know? I wasn't there, and I don't have a crystal ball nor a time machine.
If you check the Wikipedia link in my previous comment you'll see that it was actually a whole epic constellation of events and forces and personalities and masses of people. Not quite the Mahabharata but still pretty epic.
The particular thing that Gandhi's "arc", if you will, achieved was to demolish utterly the rationale for the British Raj in the first place: that Indians needed outside governance. The non-violent movement showed that Indians were the moral equals or even superiors of the British, and Gandhi knew it.
Winston Churchill: What do you think of Western civilization?
Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.
Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Is there any argument here in Amazon’s defense? Can you phrase the attack you imagine they need defense from in a way that doesn't assume your worldview is the universal position (or that tries to achieve a universal position) everyone must adhere to?
> Can you phrase the attack you imagine they need defense from in a way that doesn't assume your worldview is the universal position (or that tries to achieve a universal position) everyone must adhere to? Why not apply your same maxim to the UAE and see where you get? Why do gay people in the UAE have to submit to what the UAE requires to be universal?
I am not above UAE to apply anything to them, and when interacting I'll interact in common ground, if possible and necessary.
Are you above them? You both have humility when faced with whoever you consider inferior - LGBT people that are so oppressed people think Amazon should consider them in their decisions, and presumption against your superiors: UAE asserted themselves and you can't even admit you'd change them by force if you could. But you can't.
Cry more.
Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
The trend of “we’ll pay for your abortion, but won’t make it tolerable to be a working mom” is extremely gross.
I do not see why it is gross. Employees have more utility if they get an abortion and less utility if they have to spend time out for parental leave. If society wants to promote parenting, then society should pass laws about parental leave. Individual businesses have no obligation to reduce their competitiveness in the marketplace.
No post body was provided.
Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a world of a difference between pride, ISIS, and porn.
I am not arguing that they are the same, have a look at what I quoted. This is really annoying me with HN, people looking for an easy dismissal of an argument instead of trying to actually talk about the underlying point. The point that I am trying to make is that the argument I quoted doesn't work, because we already have situations where someone might look for something and can't find it. I am not agreeing this is…
The examples you used for that point are bad because they come off as false equivalence, and “porn on YouTube” (age rating) and “ISIS books on Amazon” (murder) already have very legitimate justifications. Banning pride can be just a shirt with the word “gay”, and that’s absurd without needing an explanation.
Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
This weird obsession some have to make everything about the usa is just ridiculous especially in this case. If you think there is any similarity between the UAE/KSA and even the most regressive US states in how they treat LGBT rights, you should really really take a step back and reconsider. Yes, it's funny to call those states the equivalent "American talibans" or whatever, but it doesn't make it true. It's so weird…
You do realise that even UAE and Afghanistan both have more humane abortion laws than some of the southern states, don't you?
What does it have to do with LGBT rights? Also, your comment is completely wrong, but again it's representative of the weird hyperbole that sounds completely hysterical from an outsiders perspective. For starters, even if abortion becomes completely illegal in any given US state, you can still travel across state lines and get one. Not ideal, but in Afghanistan you can't get an abortion or even travel without your husband's consent. And that's even if we were to take at face value the assertion that abortion is not illegal in Afghanistan (it is, for all intents and purpose).
And if we were to simply go by official laws instead of what the reality on the ground is, abortion in germany (and some other EU countries) is still technically illegal except for medical emergencies so surely Afghanistan and the UAE are actually just more progressive than the west!