What is a whistleblower to some, is a mudslinger to others.
He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price
81–90 of 325 posts
Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price
#82One 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
I wish HN gave me the ability to gild comments like reddit does.
Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price
#83Slavery is de-facto legal in China and their justice system is rotten to the core. Is this really news to anyone? I would be surprised if this had ended differently.
The slavery and working conditions in China no longer really surprises me, what I do struggle to understand is that Western companies apparently DO NOT CARE. I can sort of accept, reluctantly, that the Chinese have a different way to thinking than I do and that I can't necessarily apply my moral code to China. What I cannot accept or understand is that the owners and managers of Western companies, who supposedly shar…
Nobody in power in industry and almost nobody from the consumer side cares about working conditions in any typical outsourcing country. Quite the opposite, "less regulation", "lower cost" and things like that are directly caused by ignoring worker rights and human rights (as well as a few other things).
China is not alone in this, just more present in the HN-relevant IT/tech sector. But clothing in southeast asia, mining in africa and south america, logistics/trucking in eastern europe are relevant examples from other regions and industries.
I don't intend to disperse responsibility here or distract, quite the opposite: One of the main reasons the aforementioned abuses can continue is that "the civilized west" systematically ignores those problems on all levels. There are some EU regulations coming up to improve this situation, but we'll have to wait and see on those...
Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price
#84My experience of whistleblowing even here in the west is that usually it goes very very badly. The only real thing open to you is to refuse to do anything unethical, quit and walk away. Many people can't afford to do that. Things ought to be different but we live in corrupt societies where the law is different for the rich and powerful than for everyone else.
I encourage anyone interested in the consequences of whistleblowing to watch The Insider. A truly excellent film about a whistleblower at a tobacco company and the terrible things they did to try and stop him. Russell Crowe, Al Pacino, Bruce McGill, Christopher Plummer, many others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Wigand Trailer: https://youtu.be/MGOb29aePyc The best scene: https://youtu.be/gNKmmA6_oTQ
A similar film is Silkwood, which is about the life of Karen Silkwood, who reported concerns about corporate practices related to health and safety in a nuclear facility where she worked. She was severely harassed by her employer and then died in a suspicious car accident.
Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price
#85My experience of whistleblowing even here in the west is that usually it goes very very badly. The only real thing open to you is to refuse to do anything unethical, quit and walk away. Many people can't afford to do that. Things ought to be different but we live in corrupt societies where the law is different for the rich and powerful than for everyone else.
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 do whatever it takes to achieve that.
Laws that go against human nature fight an uphill battle; it doesn't mean we should not try, but it does mean we should be aware of the difficulty.
Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price
#86[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…
> to protest the Israeli attack on Hamas
Usually the critique is that civilians are targeted.
Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whataboutism and you're comparing a factory to a prison.
A prison that builds things is a factory. It's insight into the fact that in fact the norms are no different in the US.
I would assume the people working in the Chinese factory have _some_ time off to go outside said factory? Or have the ability to turn in their notice and leave for a different job?
Agreed on the fact that both seem like a corporate hellhole one way or the other.
Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price
#88One 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
cloudflare captchas really are a grade a pest at the moment, i already switched my DNS once because i always got stuck, now it happens again
I know this doesn't really solve the underlying problem, but I find that if I use Cloudflare's WARP (https://1.1.1.1/), Cloudflare is able to recognize the traffic is coming from itself and I can get past these captchas
Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price
#89[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…
> then there are a lot of companies you need to boycott, before you get around to Amazon
Help us out?
Re: He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price
#90[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…
Whataboutery. And your statement of Hamas "starting" this fight ignores both the historical Israeli agression, oppression, landtheft, and apartheid suffered by Palestinians, or in the particular, the "administrative detention" used by Israel to incarcerate many without trial (or certainly, fair trial), which can be seen as a form of hostage taking for which Hamas' action would be tit-for-tat, directly antecedent to this Likudnik war.