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

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251–260 of 325 posts

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

#251
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 gro…

So the issue with laws is they are many types. Criminal, civil, statutory. Defining how the power grid works, what frequency it runs, what devices can be plugged into it so they don't explode is a set of codes/laws. If you violate those there are other sets of civil/criminal codes that can be used to remediate the situation. And that's just one facet of our lives. In a low complexity society, especially ones with sma…

Sure, I'm not arguing that laws aren't needed, just that they're generally more descriptive than prescriptive. I think the same applies even in cases where there is a clear tension between two direct parties, e.g. trade and debt as you describe: laws are a recognition of what most people (for some value of "most") think is fair and reasonable.

In short, laws are not (generally) handed down by some authority, against the will of the majority of the people -- at least not in non-dictatorships.

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

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well stated! i would add that the solution is to find a path of action that does not actually go against human nature but rather embraces it. My favorite historical example is religion, e.g. Moses and the 10 Commandments.

I stand by the 10 Commandments, but people don't even agree what human nature is. I believe it's a reflection of a loving creator and others believe it's an evolutionary fluke while yet others believe it's a piece of a quasi-conscious universe discovering itself. If we can't agree what human nature even is, we're not going to agree what is most in line with it.

we don’t need to agree, it just needs to be metastable, and “thou shalt not kill” is a successful example of solving a tragedy of the commons by coordinating values over a group at scale, and in a way that navigates from one less desirable equilibrium to another more desirable equilibrium through a transition path that is itself stable (otherwise cheaters collapse the transition path)

citation:

Learning from Schelling's Strategy of Conflict Roger B. Myerson JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC LITERATURE VOL. 47, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2009 (pp. 1109-25) https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jel.47.4.1109

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

#253

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

This website doesn’t ever work as a paywall bypass anymore. Just captchas for days.

that's weird, never an issue from me. Might try switching temporarily to quad 9 dns or something just as a quick test.

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

#254
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Other than basic needs is there "human nature" ? Some people will give you the last bite of food, others will lie to you to add to their hoard. I think laws are to make sure we all are on an even playing field (as much as possible) and to deter from the worst aspects of -some- humans who tend to be bad actors. Obviously that's ideally. A lot of times laws enacted by dictators/oppressive religions are there to keep people miserable and afraid and power for the elite (whether communists, capitalists, religiofascists, etc)

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

#255
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…

Yeah, in the end it all comes down to game theory.

do you want to bet on that?

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

#256
post #62

[flagged]

I'm not quite sure what your objection is? Are you generally against companies providing services related to warfare? Or are you specifically against providing services for the Israel/Gaza conflict? If the former - if you are generally protesting commercial services for the military - then there are a lot of companies you need to boycott, before you get around to Amazon. Amazon is a small fish in the sea. If the latt…

> Hamas definitely started this particular fist-fight.

A few months before the Hamas attack, the Israeli minister of finances, Bezalel Smotrich (who also is tasked with the responsibility for administrating the occupied West Bank) said: "There is no such thing as the Palestinian people":

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-minister-s...

I am horrified by the Hamas attack, shocked and sad, but not surprised.

https://twitter.com/mabintou/status/1717987416252817891

Did you know, that the British, during WWII, bombarded German settlements, holding mostly women, children and elderly, on purpose ("Area bombing directive")? In Germany they still call it: "Bombenterror gegen die Zivilbevölkerung", or, "Bombing terror against the civilian population". Here is the Wikipedia article on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_bombing_directive

I do not take any side in this conflict. I think, both sides are monsters. But feeling this way, I can not tolerate one sided commenting, that paints one side as "reasonable" while not accepting what the other side has to endure.

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

#257
post #62

[flagged]

I'm not quite sure what your objection is? Are you generally against companies providing services related to warfare? Or are you specifically against providing services for the Israel/Gaza conflict? If the former - if you are generally protesting commercial services for the military - then there are a lot of companies you need to boycott, before you get around to Amazon. Amazon is a small fish in the sea. If the latt…

> Hamas definitely started this particular fist-fight.

Do you often punch more than 6000 children to death when you have a fist-fight?

I'm being glib, but only in response to your glibness. You're using the classic argument: "It's complicated, and nobody is totally ethical, so I would suggest not taking any action. Ultimately, this benefits my side, but I'm trying to obscure the fact that I'm taking sides so I have the illusion of objectivity."

If you actually cared about human life over choosing sides, you would not be talking about "who started it." You would be talking about how we can end it.

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

#258

Here's the mentioned letter: [PDF] https://chinalaborwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Engli...

This was horrific ! Foxconn acted like a thug with connections to the local politicians and police to bully the whistleblower. I knew there were shady things going on in corporate China, but this was revealing.

This would definitely not be as bad in other countries like India where Foxconn is also trying to setup production.

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

#259
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 gro…

It is the reason I do not like the term "human nature". Is it a human nature to kill other humans? Are moral considerations a part of a human nature?

> To pick the most extreme example: most people don't need a law, or even a moral code, to not kill other people.

How it may be a "nature" if it is artificial? Some cultures routinely eat other people, we do not, how it can be a human nature, if different people coalesce at different "natures"?

There is a famous debate "nature vs. nurture", and I believe it is unwise to call something to be a nature thing, if it is really a nurture thing. It just bring a lot of confusion.

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

Eww... averages... I believe it is impossible to have a meaningful definition of an "average person". There was a story of average pilot[1], and later of a search for average american woman (can't find a link). You cannot have meaningful averages in highly multi-dimensional spaces.

But if we rephrase it referring to a social norms, it could make sense, but then comes a question what is the difference between human nature and social norms?

[1] https://worldwarwings.com/no-such-thing-as-an-average-pilot-...

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

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nope. archive.is has their cloudflare configuration set to "i am under attack mode"[1], which makes the cloudflare captcha come up every time a tor / vpn / "bad" IP address visits it. its been like this since 2015. if you aren't familiar, cloudflare just serves tor / vpn / "bad" IP captchas for every domain you visit. the captchas themselves are broken half the time. in 2018 cloudflare then added deep packet inspecti…

archive.is doesn't use Cloudflare. The captcha is reCAPTCHA.

they literally have used cloudflare since 2015 or earlier, for every minute that service existed. if you tried to open it with tor from then until now, you get:

" One more step Please complete the security check to access "

"Why do I have to complete a CAPTCHA? Completing the CAPTCHA proves you are a human and gives you temporary access to the web property."

which is cloudflare's classic tor blocking page

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