Dystopia is an imagined state, whereas Amazon's doing is quite real and tangible.
Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon
41–50 of 277 posts
Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
You know that decades of anti-union propaganda is still in effect when individuals are convinced that working together with other individuals and pooling their resources to improve their working conditions is a bad thing. Of course when companies do it - through trade associations or lobbying - it's seen as natural and necessary for their survival.
I find that most propaganda comes from unions as they increasingly seek a political relationship with workers rather than the economic relationship that workers want. On any union site - there are terms like "solidarity" with images of fists raised rather than actual data about improvement of wages or working conditions. This is why unions get trounced in votes by real workers, things like Prop 22 pass with easy marg…
How do you disentangle politics and economics here? Or, are you just claiming that unions are focusing on the wrong side of the equation?
Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon
#43Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
You know that decades of anti-union propaganda is still in effect when individuals are convinced that working together with other individuals and pooling their resources to improve their working conditions is a bad thing. Of course when companies do it - through trade associations or lobbying - it's seen as natural and necessary for their survival.
I find that most propaganda comes from unions as they increasingly seek a political relationship with workers rather than the economic relationship that workers want. On any union site - there are terms like "solidarity" with images of fists raised rather than actual data about improvement of wages or working conditions. This is why unions get trounced in votes by real workers, things like Prop 22 pass with easy marg…
+1.The fact that most current tech unions are more about $POLITICAL_ISSUE_OF_THE_DAY (e.g. forcing the company to stop working with organization X) instead of just workers' rights and compensation is what turns me off of them. I believe they would be more successful if they split into goal-specific unions: most workers would have no issues joining the "real" union, and those who have specific opinions on political issues could join unions for related issues.
Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are several countries with strong unions and a tradition of unions taking part in company matters, a good example would be my place, Germany. I have never seen a union "screwing over" a company, but many times have I seen complains that the unions screwed the company over from people that directly or indirectly profit from weak or no unions.
My current workplace is one such case of union killing a theoretically profitable company so I really am speaking from experience - the only reason the workplace still exists today is because after it went bankrupt it was bought out by an outsider who discarded the union part. Ironically it turned out to be for the best for both the company as a whole and the actual workers. Just because you don't hear of it - or don…
Just because you saw it is no reason to state that unions will become bad actors.
Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon
#46Reading articles like this makes me appreciate living in the EU. It's not always great, but clearly it could be worse. Article 1 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights states "Human dignity is inviolable. It must be respected and protected." I feel like that would be broken were we to allow this behaviour towards workers.
The EU like Bezos didnt care about it much while their empires expanded. The "enlightenment" happened only after their arms race to colonize the planet ended in world wars. Learning takes time. Emporer Bezos is thankfully a tad smarter than the Kings and Queens of the EU and his road to "enlightenment" will be much shorter with less devastation and trauma. I just hope, after they learn their lessons, the Amazon corpo…
As much as I agree with you, this should only give us more reasons to not let this happen. And more importantly people like Bezos should not be made idols. People should vocally complain what is wrong with this like many colonial nations complain (and I wholeheartedly support that).
But I agree, learning takes time.
Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon
#47"The billionaire who built a corporate empire on the backs of workers."
Should read "The man who generated wealth and jobs".
Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon
#48Reading articles like this makes me appreciate living in the EU. It's not always great, but clearly it could be worse. Article 1 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights states "Human dignity is inviolable. It must be respected and protected." I feel like that would be broken were we to allow this behaviour towards workers.
Everything could be worse, but let's not be blind to the problems we face here in the EU.
First of which, if your rights are being infringed, then you have to wait for years and years to be able to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, only after all of your national appeals have been depleted. Which, when you know how national governments can destroy you trough legal proceedings (eg. Aaron Swartz, physical/psychological torture by police/prison, etc) is a HUGE problem.
The truth is there's no place for human dignity anywhere in the industrial capitalist civilization, because it's all about profits. Remember the Aquarius? European governments were competing in cruelty, refusing to welcome these refugees. At one point, a french-colonized island (Corsica) proposed to receive them... which the national government denied.
Or take a look at police abuse cases. How many people have to die or lose an eye before we acknowledge the police is a terrorist organization and needs to be treated as such? TRIGGER WARNING: this is just from the gilets jaunes protests, there's a lot more injuries/deaths due to "non-lethal weapons" -> http://lemurjaune.fr/
Lately, the French government has renewed its tradition to persecute anarchists (in the 19th century, anarchism became illegal and the ancestor of Interpol was founded to repress anarchism) and keeps on rounding up more people for "criminal organizations with a terrorist purpose" (association de malfaiteurs à caractère terroriste). This happened in anti-nuclear struggles in Bure as well as for spraypaint in Toulouse (though not with the terrorist label), in anti-GSM struggles in the plateau des Mille-Vaches, but also against activists who are not accused of anything beyond thought crimes (the 8th of december arrestees), one of which is being held in solitary confinement since early december as psychological torture in an attempt to break him down before trial.
No, human rights are never compatible with a Nation State. Because a Nation State is a construct based on violence and exploitation. In my humble opinion, we should burn all States and corporations if we want a tiny chance to live free. But since today is french national day, let's take a minute to remember that this day celebrates July 14th 1789 when armed peasants took the Bastille prison by force and liberating everyone, marking the start of the revolution. Kissing the arse of the french army's défilé is an insult to the french revolution. Admittedly, all of France is an insult to the french revolution and its ideals of freedom, equality and siblinghood. Nique la France! Feu aux prisons!
Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon
#49Isn't Amazon's fear of running out of people a sign of the market correcting this?
They're in no danger of running out of people to employ. Social safety nets are too weak and economic conditions for the poor are too precarious that there are plenty of people willing to endure abusive conditions for a paycheck. The high turnover rate only ensures that they end up employing the most desperate and vulnerable.
Amazon is worried about it.
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-warehouse-turnover-wo...
Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon
#50Reading this, I'm so glad that in all of the EU it is illegal to fire someone purely based on a software decision. There's a minimum level of humanity that we should extend to everyone. Letting a known faulty AI decide if someone will have money for food tomorrow is way across the line.
I'm not surprised that treating humans like cattle on their way to slaughter is hugely profitable. But I'm not sure we want to operate large companies like WW2 prisoner camps. Even if you truly don't care about the poor souls who have to work there, the people who turn insane from this treatment will still live in your country and maybe their kids will meet your kids in school and "educate" them on the cruelty of life.
It's best not to push anyone down the mental abyss in the first place. And yet, here we (software developers) are, developing new monitoring and automation systems and deciding to delete someone's entire online life (Google account) without any oversight (AI) in the name of "efficiency" (higher profits for shareholders that we never met and never will).