'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter • Hacker News Board

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#281

Post by vimacs2 » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 8:14 PM UTC

throwaway3699 wrote: post #203

vimacs2 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This rings so true and is seen in a lot of other industries as well. I believe the world of gaming is among the worst for this where hordes of customers ardently defend the clearly abusive practices of multinational companies that do not give the slightest shit about them except their influence on their bottom line. Gamers find it easier to be up in arms about journalists being bad at video games and women having too…

> Gamers find it easier to be up in arms about journalists being bad at video games and women having too many opinions on their hobby Why lump real concerns in with blatant sexism?

Probably because the actual influence of "official" video game journalists has waned significantly compared to individual critics on Youtube and other platforms.

Yes, it's pretty pathetic that somebody who's job involves playing video games got stuck on the tutorial of Cuphead but then again, who cares? I don't consider it a real concern simply because outlets like IGN are waning in influence anyway.

A far more insidious concern that bears barely no attention is the fact that publishers practice shady shit like deliberately withholding review copies to overly critical reviewers or how journalists are incentivised to prioritise officially mandated press releases over reports of abuse. Notice how the very recent case of the rampant sexual and racial abuse in Ubisoft has been nearly forgotten by video game journalism.

Movements like Gamergate failed because aside from the rampant sexism within their ranks, their focus was narrowly on individual bad actors in video game journalism when the real problem is more systematic than that.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#282

Post by QuixoticQuibit » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 8:15 PM UTC

merpnderp wrote: post #276

skrtskrt wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bezos has created nearly 200 billion dollars (!) of wealth for himself Bezos' employees have created nearly 200 billion dollars of wealth for Bezos

Your implication is that Bezos was inconsequential to the creation of all that brand new wealth. Surely you don't actually believe that and this is just your ideological rhetoric to further your politicized beliefs?

Your implication is that Bezos’ employees were inconsequential to the creation of all that brand new wealth. Surely you don't actually believe that and this is just your ideological rhetoric to further your politicized beliefs?

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#283

Post by vimacs2 » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 8:18 PM UTC

undefined1 wrote: post #219

vimacs2 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This rings so true and is seen in a lot of other industries as well. I believe the world of gaming is among the worst for this where hordes of customers ardently defend the clearly abusive practices of multinational companies that do not give the slightest shit about them except their influence on their bottom line. Gamers find it easier to be up in arms about journalists being bad at video games and women having too…

gamers are simultaneously angry with that Activision example AND the invasion of political activists into the hobby.

Sure but you are being disingenuous if you think that the outrage on Activision is even remotely comparable to the backlash against feminism in gaming.

There is also no actual objective problem that feminism has caused to gaming that gamers can point to and I would argue that the vehement backlash against it is as driven by the "invasion of political activists into the hobby" as Anita Sarkeesean and other feminist pundits.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#284

Post by auiya » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 8:21 PM UTC

marcod wrote: post #231

auiya wrote: post #115

Can any former Amazon employees confirm if Amazon is indeed a cult? Do we need an intervention? Blink once for yes, twice for no.

I don't think it's a cult. (I've been out for 5 years) But if you want to keep your job, you don't speak out publicly ( https://thetyee.ca/News/2020/05/18/Fired-Amazon-Designer-Pun... )

I guess this is why I'm being downvoted by current cult members.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#285

Post by darkerside » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 8:21 PM UTC

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #78

darkerside wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blockchain?

I don't know if this comment is sarcastic and I should up vote for it giving a good laugh, or my second realization that it might be serious and I just hold my head in my hands. I swear I'm one step away from asking for a chili recipe and someone responding 'blockchain?'. It's beyond parody at this point - I feel like I'm in some Kafkaesque reality.

A little bit of both in this case :)

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#286

Post by axguscbklp » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 8:26 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #37

blackearl wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be partially true but young people with no critical thinking skills fall for it just the same.

It's easy to knock people for 'lacking critical thinking' but the truth is we're all predisposed to believe what aligns with our personalities and worldviews. And people like to harp on the idea that we should be teaching critical thinking in schools, but we already do this and we have been teaching it for decades.

Also, the nature of most schooling goes against using it to teach critical thinking. Most schooling is forced on the students. It is difficult, though not impossible, for a system that coerces people to also teach those same people critical thinking. There is an inherent contradiction there.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#287

Post by Jedd » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 8:29 PM UTC

yaml-ops-guy wrote: post #269

mattmanser wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He does mention meaningful work, that's done by the clueless. But to the author it's a sidenote that he doesn't bother explaining. It's this bit where he briefly touched on it: the standard promotion/development path is primarily designed to maneuver the Clueless into position wherever they are needed

So a transmogrification of The Peter Principle but in more words?

If by transmogrify you mean changing the intent, along with every noun and verb in the original, then maybe.

However it feels like a profoundly different claim to Dr Peter's.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#288

Post by RandallBrown » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 8:29 PM UTC

skohan wrote: post #3

I feel like authenticity of online communication is an unsolved problem. The web was supposed to be a democratizing platform: all you need to communicate with the world is an ISP and a keyboard. But if there's no way to control for authenticity, online sentiment will just be an arms race for who can pay for the best astroturfing.

Neal Stephenson's latest novel deals with this a little bit.

The solution he found in the book basically involved signing everything with your own personal identifier and putting it into a blockchain so everyone could verify it.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#289

Post by merpnderp » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 8:31 PM UTC

QuixoticQuibit wrote: post #282

merpnderp wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your implication is that Bezos was inconsequential to the creation of all that brand new wealth. Surely you don't actually believe that and this is just your ideological rhetoric to further your politicized beliefs?

Your implication is that Bezos’ employees were inconsequential to the creation of all that brand new wealth. Surely you don't actually believe that and this is just your ideological rhetoric to further your politicized beliefs?

Ah-hah, you made a joke by making up something I never said. Funny, but could be improved. Next time try working in something I actually said.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#290

Post by Jasper_ » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 8:36 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #85

cecida wrote: post #43

Imagine being worth 185 billion dollars and still obsessing about your workers advocating for better pay and conditions? What a miserable existence that must be. Bezos has always struck me as a man who cares about nothing else only his own personal wealth and success. There is no joy in his life.

Equating every action of a million person company with their (soon to be former) CEO is disingenuous. Jeff Bezos isn't personally directly every action of every employee at Amazon. I know it's popular to hate Amazon, but we don't even have any evidence that this handful of Twitter accounts was created by Amazon employees in the first place, let alone personally directed by Jeff Bezos.

News articles have came out saying that Jeff Bezos was responsible for those actions. But, even if they weren't, you're saying the CEO should be rewarded with billions of dollars for the actions of the leaders under them, but carry none of the blame for those acts as well?

In corporate America, responsibility is on senior leadership, and the CEO is at the top of that chain. If they want to have the W's of that system, they get to take the L's too.