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Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

theintercept.com

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Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#291

Post by hef19898 »

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #290
krageon wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument is that people are not lazy or ethically incompetent, but rather just straight up evil. Is that a fair characterisation? If so, I don't find it compelling.

No not evil. My observation is that people are pragmatic (hence, machiavelli and the arguments of moral ethics). My observation is that why should we expect highly paid tech workers to conform to some higher ideal. They have more to lose.

I have to disagree that ehite collar folks at FAANG have more to loose. Blue Collar flks are employed at low salaries in economically weak regions, they loosr their job they risk loosing everything. Especially in the US with a non-existant social safety net. White Collar, especially tech employees, have the option to work for similar salaries somewhere else rather easily.

Other than that, full agreement.

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#292

Post by heavyset_go »

krageon wrote: post #279
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"How we live is so different from how we ought to live that he who studies what ought to be done rather than what is done will learn the way to his downfall rather than to his preservation." Machievelli Most people are selfish and act in their own self interest despite what virtue signaling on social media they may do. You really think people are willing to risk their 6 figure salaries for some anonymous warehouse wo…

Your argument is that people are not lazy or ethically incompetent, but rather just straight up evil. Is that a fair characterisation? If so, I don't find it compelling.

This is Hannah Arendt's thesis behind "the banality of evil"[1]:

> Arendt found Eichmann an ordinary, rather bland, bureaucrat, who in her words, was ‘neither perverted nor sadistic’, but ‘terrifyingly normal’. He acted without any motive other than to diligently advance his career. Eichmann was not an amoral monster, she concluded in her study of the case. Instead, he performed evil deeds without evil intentions, a fact connected to his ‘thoughtlessness’, a disengagement from the reality of his evil acts. Eichmann ‘never realised what he was doing’ due to an ‘inability… to think from the standpoint of somebody else’. Lacking this particular cognitive ability, he ‘commit[ted] crimes under circumstances that made it well-nigh impossible for him to know or to feel that he [was] doing wrong’.

> Arendt dubbed these collective characteristics of Eichmann ‘the banality of evil’: he was not inherently evil, but merely shallow and clueless, a ‘joiner’, in the words of one contemporary interpreter of Arendt’s thesis: he was a man who drifted, in search of purpose and direction, not out of deep ideological belief.

[1] https://www.britannica.com/story/what-did-hannah-arendt-real...

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#293

Post by 0des »

tgv wrote: post #284
dmje wrote: post #260

Insane 1984-ness. How the f did the world come to this

Unchecked greed, that's how.

Stop giving them money ostensibly by not using sites on their platforms, get your friends to do the same. Greed must be fed otherwise it is just idle hunger.

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#294

Post by sokoloff »

kennywinker wrote: post #241
Firmwarrior wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say that coders as an industry are destroying the road behind us, since there isn't really a road between "warehouse worker" and "software engineer", unless someone has the knack for coding (in which case there's a very clear and well-paved road within the company between those roles) I think the best solution is to empower workers via unions or whatever else. It should be impossible for workers to get gro…

A really great way to be able to quit your job and take a coding bootcamp is to make enough money that you’re not living paycheck to paycheck and can survive for a few months while you retrain. Poverty restricts your options and keeps you in survival mode. But the overall point is that unions rely on solidarity, and any coder adding filters to an amazon chat app or whatever dystopian crap amazon is pulling next is di…

If I was a junior dev who got such a ticket, I can see myself implementing it all the while laughing at the utter ridiculous pointlessness of it.

I can also see the ticket being written with examples of “disallow a dictionary of forbidden words”, with a sample dictionary of [“motherfucker”, “slut”, ] and then the dictionary function being used later to include “union” etc.

If I got a ticket to block the dictionary containing MF and racial epithets, I’d also think it was pointless, would point out it was easily able to be evaded, but would implement it and implementing it would not be obviously evil or showing a lack of solidarity.

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#295

Post by skrbjc »

heavyset_go wrote: post #292
krageon wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument is that people are not lazy or ethically incompetent, but rather just straight up evil. Is that a fair characterisation? If so, I don't find it compelling.

This is Hannah Arendt's thesis behind "the banality of evil"[1]: > Arendt found Eichmann an ordinary, rather bland, bureaucrat, who in her words, was ‘neither perverted nor sadistic’, but ‘terrifyingly normal’. He acted without any motive other than to diligently advance his career. Eichmann was not an amoral monster, she concluded in her study of the case. Instead, he performed evil deeds without evil intentions, a…

No post body was provided.

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#296

Post by ngc248 »

deltaonefour wrote: post #232
josephg wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Programming is really hard. The idea that anyone can "learn to code" is a work of fiction. Nobody says that anyone can learn to do surgery, become a fighter pilot or become a barrister. I couldn't do those jobs. And lots of people couldn't do my job. Telling people that effort is the only thing stopping them getting a 6 figure software engineering salary does real harm. Its notable that most people who say this…

Disagree. Not only can anyone program. But anyone can do surgery, become a fighter pilot and become a barrister. It's the same thing as how anyone can learn mathematics, algebra, biology and any of the typical subjects you learn at school. You struggle with deep learning only because it's a paradigm shift. It's too different from traditional programming so the initial learning curve makes it seem like you're incapabl…

aptitude is a real thing and interest is another thing. Then there are other externalities like access to resource etc.

Not everyone can do everything, maybe due to lack of aptitude or interest.

So in essence, "anyone can do anything" is just an empty feel good mantra

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#297

Post by kennywinker »

sokoloff wrote: post #294
kennywinker wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A really great way to be able to quit your job and take a coding bootcamp is to make enough money that you’re not living paycheck to paycheck and can survive for a few months while you retrain. Poverty restricts your options and keeps you in survival mode. But the overall point is that unions rely on solidarity, and any coder adding filters to an amazon chat app or whatever dystopian crap amazon is pulling next is di…

If I was a junior dev who got such a ticket, I can see myself implementing it all the while laughing at the utter ridiculous pointlessness of it. I can also see the ticket being written with examples of “disallow a dictionary of forbidden words”, with a sample dictionary of [“motherfucker”, “slut”, ] and then the dictionary function being used later to include “union” etc. If I got a ticket to block the dictionary co…

It’s not just jr devs that should be acting in solidarity with warehouse workers. Their team leads, IT, project managers, etc. I don’t care how much amazon stock you’re getting as part of your comp, until the capital gains on your stock outpaces your salary you’re closer to a warehouse worker than you are to an owner - and your allegiances should be with your coworkers, not jeff.

So yeah, this specific case might have flown under the radar - and got implemented unwittingly - but unless a top level exec got in there and edited the dictionary file themselves, there was opportunities in this being implemented to show solidarity and throw some clogs into the machinery

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#298

Post by sokoloff »

kennywinker wrote: post #297
sokoloff wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was a junior dev who got such a ticket, I can see myself implementing it all the while laughing at the utter ridiculous pointlessness of it. I can also see the ticket being written with examples of “disallow a dictionary of forbidden words”, with a sample dictionary of [“motherfucker”, “slut”, ] and then the dictionary function being used later to include “union” etc. If I got a ticket to block the dictionary co…

It’s not just jr devs that should be acting in solidarity with warehouse workers. Their team leads, IT, project managers, etc. I don’t care how much amazon stock you’re getting as part of your comp, until the capital gains on your stock outpaces your salary you’re closer to a warehouse worker than you are to an owner - and your allegiances should be with your coworkers, not jeff. So yeah, this specific case might hav…

Ok. Preventing a coworker from calling another a “slut”, “motherfucker”, “fag”, or “n####r” seems like a pretty reasonable feature for a workplace chat system. Lacking such a system might even constitute creating or contributing to a hostile workplace environment.

What’s the level of dev who should show allegiance to fellow coworkers by refusing to implement that?

Then some non-dev employee realizes you can block these other words…

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#299

Post by anonymousDan »

skrbjc wrote: post #295
heavyset_go wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is Hannah Arendt's thesis behind "the banality of evil"[1]: > Arendt found Eichmann an ordinary, rather bland, bureaucrat, who in her words, was ‘neither perverted nor sadistic’, but ‘terrifyingly normal’. He acted without any motive other than to diligently advance his career. Eichmann was not an amoral monster, she concluded in her study of the case. Instead, he performed evil deeds without evil intentions, a…

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