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

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

#241

Post by I_Am_Nous »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #199
plagiarist wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's not whistleblowing[1]. Whistleblowing is a legal term, not a "slipped up and told my mate's secret" event.

1. https://www.dni.gov/ICIG-Whistleblower/what-is.html

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

#242

Post by I_Am_Nous »

honzaik wrote: post #74

"Under Chinese competition law, the complainant has to show proof that their business operations were hurt by the theft of trade secrets. Foxconn said that, as a result of Tang’s disclosures, it had incurred costs of Rmb1.4mn (about £150,000) in August from having to raise its salaries." I don't think this would even fly in the US.

I guess the distinction would come from whether salary levels are considered "trade secrets". In the US it definitely wouldn't fly, salary discussions are specifically allowed and retaliation against people discussing their salaries is illegal. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen under some other pretext, but it definitely won't be as blatant.

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

#243

Post by overtomanu »

cafeoh wrote: post #176
sgjohnson wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is right though. The companies are accountable to the shareholders, and the shareholders (usually) don't care. Companies are not sentient beings, they are made up of people. People that don't care. Personally, I'm a consumer and I don't care either. I know where my t-shirts are made and I have a vague understanding under what conditions they are made. This is not a problem that has to be fixed in the west. It's a…

> You really cannot blame only the companies without blaming the consumers too. Right, the problem is structural, but consumers for the most part aren't and can't realistically be in the know as to the horrible work conditions under which what they consume is produced, most of them aren't particularly happy with their own work conditions in the first place. And even if they do know (when the company has failed to hid…

Same thing can be applied for consumers of meat, where meat gets produced from rearing animals in congested places, violent treatment etc.

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

#244

Post by NemoNobody »

pixl97 wrote: post #231
verisimi wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laws are for thee, not for me. They are a control mechanism for the masses, nothing to do with right or wrong, which is written in our hearts. But, if you want to disempower the individual, take his money (tax), use that money against him (police, tax inspectors) you need some authorised hymnsheet for the feeble minded to get behind. And that is law.

>nothing to do with right or wrong, which is written in our heart It's just quite unfortunate we're all reading from different heart books.

I don't think we are reading different heart books at all - we are taught that we are but we are pretty much exactly the same when it comes to matters of the heart

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

#245

Post by spencerflem »

rmbyrro wrote: post #217
tttp wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP is protesting against Amazon providing infrastructure for selecting targets for the IDF to bomb. I'm not aware of Amazon providing services to Hamas, so that the OP is not protesting there isn't that surprising, nor does it imply that OP isn't protesting against Hamas attack.

Speaking about pro-palestinian activism in general, not particularly OP, who I don't know: If one is an activist, a group commits atrocities and there's no private business related to them, then one sits and do nothing? The people I see protesting against Israeli invasion of Gaza I failed to see protesting Hamas brutal and inhumane attacks weeks earlier. It seems to me they were silent. I'm having a really hard time…

There's nothing to protest against - the government does not support or aid Hamas, and corporations do not support or aid Hamas.

What change would the protests do?

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

#246

Post by brightball »

hn8305823 wrote: post #215
brightball wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anybody who becomes the target of large orgs is going to have a bad time. Just think about the guy who was falsely accused of being the pipe bomber at the Atlanta Olympics after he saved people.

> the guy His name was Richard Jewel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_jewel

Thanks. Couldn't think of the name.

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

#247

Post by [deleted] »

kossTKR wrote: post #128
bawolff wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a grotesque display of war actual war crimes Even if we assume that number is accurate. Dead children dont neccesarily equal a war crime, it depends on context. E.g. if the children are combatants, not a war crime. If it was collateral damage, not a war crime (assuming that it wasnt reckless, there was a porportional military advantage, etc. lots of details here). To be a war crime requires a bunch of stuff be…

The Yemen civil war is 9 years. So on average 1300 kids a month? If the Israeli military has killed 8000 kids, that's in two months, so way more than even the dirtiest of other wars, and really the west should be held to higher standards. I tried to check and multiple NGO's have confirmed that 6000-8000 dead kids is the real number and the death tolls have usually been correct from the palestinian side even if it sou…

[deleted]

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

#248

Post by jabroni_salad »

thfuran wrote: post #133
DanielHB wrote: post #63

Didn't the US have a whistleblower bounty with the IRS? I heard it was one of the most successful programs they ever ran. Whistleblow on your company's tax evasion and you get paid a pretty good chunk of money from the IRS. IRS collects its due and you get paid proportional to the amount of tax revenue evaded (I remember a few cases where the whistleblower got tens of millions of dollars). It is kind of bizarre, but…

>The IRS doesn't want to catch the small fries, to some extent tax evasion is desired for smaller companies. What?

That does come across weirdly but the IRS is a perennial favorite defund target so they don't have the resources to go after everyone, they should only choose juicier cases in that respect.

There are some good points in this article (the optimal amount of fraud is non-zero) that can be extrapolated to other parts of the financial world. The highest level point is that sometimes, a little slippage is needed for business to get done, and getting business done is the main goal of the economy.

https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fra...

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

#249

Post by sgjohnson »

xkcd1963 wrote: post #238
sgjohnson wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is right though. The companies are accountable to the shareholders, and the shareholders (usually) don't care. Companies are not sentient beings, they are made up of people. People that don't care. Personally, I'm a consumer and I don't care either. I know where my t-shirts are made and I have a vague understanding under what conditions they are made. This is not a problem that has to be fixed in the west. It's a…

Companies are to blame because they are the ultimate decision makers. This is how responsibility works. If you kill someone, you'll be blamed for the murder, you won't be able to use "the circumstances lead me to it, I'm poor I needed the money" or "my brain/hands decided to do so" as a defense.

Yes, but murder is illegal, but outsourcing manufacturing to a Chinese company is perfectly legal.

If Foxconn kills someone, a US company that hired Foxconn shouldn’t be responsible.

It’s not even Amazon exploiting these employees. It’s Foxconn.

If it was Amazon doing the exploitation, I’d absolutely agree with you.

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

#250

Post by bawolff »

lots2learn wrote: post #197
bawolff wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 expell…

I mean, that kind of demonstrates my point though - your narrative could be applied to whichever side you prefer.

"A people were ethnically cleansed from the lands" - From context you are probably referring to the Nakba, but you could just as equally be referring to the Jews being kicked out of Arab countries in the 40's and 50's. Or any number of other events for whichever side you prefer.

There's plenty of blood to go around in this conflict.

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