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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

#291

Post by em-bee »

isilofi wrote: post #288
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the market unfortunately favors the non-ethical ones "The market favors" is just an corporate speak for "The customers favor", i.e. in this case "The customers unfortunately favor the non-ethical ones".

Not in this case. Since the non-ethical market participants are non-ethical, they tend to use non-ethical means: like hiding from or like lying to their customers about where and how their products were produced. Therefore it is not really an informed decision of the customer that makes them successful. It rather is the lack of transparency of the market, due to the non-ethical sellers lying and regulation being too…

100% this.

i buy the cheaper of most products because i can't tell the difference. for all i know it could be the more expensive one that is lying to me. only if i actually know that the more expensive one is genuinely better, not fake and not based on exploited labor, then i'll buy that.

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

#292

Post by spencerflem »

rmbyrro wrote: post #279
spencerflem wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

So if it's not possible to boycott an American or Israeli business, there's nothing an activist could do to manifest his support to humanity when innocent people are slaughtered inside their houses by savages?

What support, specifically, would you like to see?

Directly after the attacks the government was overwhelmingly in support of Israel. People do not protest when what they want is already happening.

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

#293

Post by bawolff »

lots2learn wrote: post #278
bawolff wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What are the "other number of events"? Please be specific. Regarding what happened in various Arab countries in the 40s and 50s (which by the way is after the nakba so the tit-for-tat theory doesn't hold up) what does this have to do with Palestinians being ethnically cleansed? Are you justifying one for the other? It's no different than saying because of the European Holocaust or European antisemitism, the Palestini…

> What are the "other number of events"? Please be specific.

Why? Its not relavent to my argument and a full history of the conflict wouldn't fit in a hn comment. I'm sure wikipedia has a big timeline of events of this conflict.

I'm claiming your narrative of events could fit either side. Your narrative only mentioned ethnic cleansing once so i only need a single event to make it fit. There are sadly a number of events that probably fit the bill of ethnic cleansing so i picked the most famous one in the region. It doesnt matter how many so long as its at least one.

> (which by the way is after the nakba so the tit-for-tat theory doesn't hold up)

I did not claim that it was. I only claimed that both events fit your narrative of events.

> what does this have to do with Palestinians being ethnically cleansed?

Nothing? I didn't claim that it had anything to do with that.

> Are you justifying one for the other?

No. Obviously two wrongs don't make a right.

----

My claim is that your view of the conflict as "simple" makes no sense as a way to cast judgement on which side is right as the things you mention arguably happened to both sides. So if you think that justifies one side, than logically you should say the same thing about the other.

Unless you want to say both sides are wrong, which i suppose would be logically consistent.

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

#294

Post by ryloric »

financltravsty wrote: post #191
ryloric wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish HN gave me the ability to gild comments like reddit does.

I visited Reddit yesterday for the first time in a long time. I saw an interesting meme and wanted to write a long form piece of content in the comments. After I was done: I received two low-effort replies that revealed to me I have less-than-great communication skills or the readers put zero focus in active reading skills; and one reply with an axe to grind that focused on attacking me and making all sorts of assump…

What are you on about? What relevance does any of this have?

I like the parent comment because it made me laugh, so I was expressing my wish that it would be nice to able to appreciate them for it in some way. I used reddit's gilding feature as a shortcut to convey that wish because most people know of it and it's an easy to understand shortcut.

Because reddit is a cesspit, any feature that was associated with reddit at any point of time is not worth using to convey information? How about text quoting and reply buttons, should we stop using them too? What an absurd way to look at things.

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

#295

Post by shiroiuma »

blitzar wrote: post #57
avidiax wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would guess that Bezos has never read this letter. An underling of his would never present this letter to him unless Bezos has specifically asked to be presented such letters, and the fallout from this letter will never be sufficient to warrant his attention. It's unfortunate that American and European voters don't realize that allowing our companies to do business with places famous for worker's rights abuses and…

I would guess that Bezos read this letter, shruged and said something along the lines of "sucks to be him" while ordering a solid gold toilet for his yacht, because the platinum one was "too flashy"

This is unlikely. Solid gold is extremely dense, and would cause weight and balance problems on a yacht, even a large one. I have a family member who used to work at a luxury yacht-building company; they avoided even putting granite countertops and other surfaces on those craft because of the weight, even though the owners could certainly afford it. Instead, they had faux stonework painted by artists.

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

#296

Post by s1artibartfast »

throw4847285 wrote: post #257
bradley13 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Do you have any ideas on how to end it? Neither party has been willing to make an agreement to move on in the last 80 years.

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

#297

Post by s1artibartfast »

lots2learn wrote: post #278
bawolff wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What are the "other number of events"? Please be specific. Regarding what happened in various Arab countries in the 40s and 50s (which by the way is after the nakba so the tit-for-tat theory doesn't hold up) what does this have to do with Palestinians being ethnically cleansed? Are you justifying one for the other? It's no different than saying because of the European Holocaust or European antisemitism, the Palestini…

the reality is that past injustices can not be fixed. nothing would undo them, from an ethical or practical perspective. people need to agree on a path to move forward, taking into account the reality of the situation, and if they can, they have to accept the alternative.

Palestinians have some moral high ground with respect to the nekba, as it was a disproportionate escalation. Israel has the highground with respect to de facto power.

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

#298

Post by [deleted] »

fuzzfactor wrote: post #284
stjohnswarts wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pe…

When you do the math it's really the vestigial remnants shared with inhuman primates, which have not been completely overcome by the process of civilization so far, that underlie the need for so many laws that would be completely un-necessary if everyone was fully steeped in extreme true humanity and behaved that way all the time. Too bad we are not evolved enough to have left all of this inhumanity behind along with…

[deleted]

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

#299

Post by oska »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #220
bambax wrote: 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…

> I don't think it's specific to "the west" or "corrupt societies". It's human nature. The west is unique because it has created a very believable façade of cleanliness, majority of the population believes that whistleblowing works and often allegations of corruption are treated like conspiracy theory. In, let's say, Russia, everyone knows that things are corrupt, at least they are realists. > fight an uphill battle…

> In, let's say, Russia, everyone knows that things are corrupt

My guess would be that things are less corrupt in Russia in 2023 than in most 'Western' countries now.

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

#300

Post by pandacake »

gorbachev wrote: post #33
docflabby wrote: post #11

In a world run by sociopaths - whistleblowing is a trap to catch the people who could if instead of reporting the issues, they organised together and then could stop you... I've yet to see any whistleblowing case not end badly.

https://constantinecannon.com/whistleblower/top-ten-whistleb... https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-89 https://nymag.com/vindicated/2016/11/sherry-hunt-took-on-one... Some (many?) of those folks did suffer discrimination and even outright persecution from their employers, and horrible financial strain before the eventual payout, but their cases eventually ended up quite well for them.

The odds are not in favor of whistleblowers. We need better protections against malicious companies such as Amazon.
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