3 ms·

> If your margins are razor thin. You have to be ruthless. That has nothing to do with sexual harassment. And to imply that the two must be linked is false.

kamaal 9y ago
Neither did I mention that. Why did you associate those two things? Does 'highly demanding environment' == 'Harassment' to you? If yes then you have far bigger problems. Any demanding mission ever might be out of reach to you per your value system. Work conditions, overall demands of productivity et al will be brutal. And that ultimately gets to cause all sorts of other problems. People who just can't catch up with all the rush ultimately feel discriminated.
- sethrin 9y ago
  > People who just can't catch up with all the rush ultimately feel discriminated. Non sequitur. You're also generally espousing some pretty reprehensible ideas. We as a society do not take the view that business success overrides all soft concerns, especially with regard to their employees. If ruthlessness and discrimination is the grist that your mill requires, find another mill. Also please avoid working in management.
  - kamaal 9y ago
    >>We as a society do not take the view that business success overrides all soft concerns, especially with regard to their employees. This is obviously wrong. Have you ever bought a iPhone? Or any other Apple product. Have you ever ordered anything from Amazon. How do you think Walmarts and Targets of the world can sell you things for so cheap? Behind all this there is some guy being sent through some real hard ships. As a consumer you have already made that choice.
    - sethrin 9y ago
      Third world labor conditions suck, whether or not Apple or Amazon is involved. We were talking about working conditions in this country, however. The reader will note that this is a classic example of the 'tu quoque' fallacy[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  If I can reach back to your earlier comment, it seems that your premise is that when margins are razor-thin, 'Work conditions, overall demands of productivity et al will be brutal.' My answer to that is then there is something fundamentally wrong with your business model. Basically, what is the point in running a business under which such conditions are the norm? Any demanding mission ever might be out of reach to you per your value system. This is fallacious. Of course there are times when struggle is necessary. A rewarding life (however you define reward) certainly requires an investment of effort, and at time that effort will be very difficult. Sometimes we are faced with very trying circumstances such as natural disaster or war or serious economic insecurity, and we have to work very ahrd to survive. But a key word here is sometimes. If you deliberately construct such an environment where survival and advancement are only possible through 'brutal' work conditions and demands of productivity, then you are actively making the world a worse place, because you are establishing such brutal conditions as a norm and implicitly telling people that their life choices boil down to slavery or death. Why would any sane person want to create the conditions of slavery? Slavery is a condition of life that people rationally wish to escape. There seems to be this attitude that if people are not constantly driven by necessity then they'll get too comfortable and lazy and never do anything. This is not borne out by the evidence. Some people would, not least because they're constantly bombarded with messages to consume, consume, consume whenever they can as a relief from their economic anxiety. But few people are fundamentally motivated by gluttony. Given the opportunity most people opt to develop their capabilities and contribute or create rather than merely consume. Choosing to promulgate brutal working conditions is essentially promoting brutality as your preferred model of social organization. That's basically a displacement of sadistic and/or masochistic impulses into the economic sphere. You may very well feel that nothing of value happens except under harsh compulsion, but that seems to both ignore all the evidence to the contrary (an irrational bias) and abdicate responsibility for the consequences (since brutality is well-understood to result in wholly avoidable injuries). It seems to me that your value system rests on some rather extreme assumptions that are not justified by the available evidence, and insofar as it imposes compulsion on others rather than being used to motivate yourself, it's intolerable. Put another way, if you only feel alive and productive under conditions of harsh necessity, that's your business. But as soon as you insist that this is the way of the world and that others must get with it or be cast aside, you're infringing upon the freedom of others. And at a social level, through regulatory process, experience of litigation and so on, we've agreed that the creation of such conditions is not an acceptable means to pursue arbitrary ends.
- s73ver 9y ago
  It apparently did mean that to Uber, which is the topic at hand.

kamaal 9y ago

Neither did I mention that. Why did you associate those two things? Does 'highly demanding environment' == 'Harassment' to you? If yes then you have far bigger problems. Any demanding mission ever might be out of reach to you per your value system. Work conditions, overall demands of productivity et al will be brutal. And that ultimately gets to cause all sorts of other problems. People who just can't catch up with all the rush ultimately feel discriminated.

sethrin 9y ago
> People who just can't catch up with all the rush ultimately feel discriminated. Non sequitur. You're also generally espousing some pretty reprehensible ideas. We as a society do not take the view that business success overrides all soft concerns, especially with regard to their employees. If ruthlessness and discrimination is the grist that your mill requires, find another mill. Also please avoid working in management.
- kamaal 9y ago
  >>We as a society do not take the view that business success overrides all soft concerns, especially with regard to their employees. This is obviously wrong. Have you ever bought a iPhone? Or any other Apple product. Have you ever ordered anything from Amazon. How do you think Walmarts and Targets of the world can sell you things for so cheap? Behind all this there is some guy being sent through some real hard ships. As a consumer you have already made that choice.
  - sethrin 9y ago
    Third world labor conditions suck, whether or not Apple or Amazon is involved. We were talking about working conditions in this country, however. The reader will note that this is a classic example of the 'tu quoque' fallacy[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
anigbrowl 9y ago
If I can reach back to your earlier comment, it seems that your premise is that when margins are razor-thin, 'Work conditions, overall demands of productivity et al will be brutal.' My answer to that is then there is something fundamentally wrong with your business model. Basically, what is the point in running a business under which such conditions are the norm? Any demanding mission ever might be out of reach to you per your value system. This is fallacious. Of course there are times when struggle is necessary. A rewarding life (however you define reward) certainly requires an investment of effort, and at time that effort will be very difficult. Sometimes we are faced with very trying circumstances such as natural disaster or war or serious economic insecurity, and we have to work very ahrd to survive. But a key word here is sometimes. If you deliberately construct such an environment where survival and advancement are only possible through 'brutal' work conditions and demands of productivity, then you are actively making the world a worse place, because you are establishing such brutal conditions as a norm and implicitly telling people that their life choices boil down to slavery or death. Why would any sane person want to create the conditions of slavery? Slavery is a condition of life that people rationally wish to escape. There seems to be this attitude that if people are not constantly driven by necessity then they'll get too comfortable and lazy and never do anything. This is not borne out by the evidence. Some people would, not least because they're constantly bombarded with messages to consume, consume, consume whenever they can as a relief from their economic anxiety. But few people are fundamentally motivated by gluttony. Given the opportunity most people opt to develop their capabilities and contribute or create rather than merely consume. Choosing to promulgate brutal working conditions is essentially promoting brutality as your preferred model of social organization. That's basically a displacement of sadistic and/or masochistic impulses into the economic sphere. You may very well feel that nothing of value happens except under harsh compulsion, but that seems to both ignore all the evidence to the contrary (an irrational bias) and abdicate responsibility for the consequences (since brutality is well-understood to result in wholly avoidable injuries). It seems to me that your value system rests on some rather extreme assumptions that are not justified by the available evidence, and insofar as it imposes compulsion on others rather than being used to motivate yourself, it's intolerable. Put another way, if you only feel alive and productive under conditions of harsh necessity, that's your business. But as soon as you insist that this is the way of the world and that others must get with it or be cast aside, you're infringing upon the freedom of others. And at a social level, through regulatory process, experience of litigation and so on, we've agreed that the creation of such conditions is not an acceptable means to pursue arbitrary ends.
s73ver 9y ago
It apparently did mean that to Uber, which is the topic at hand.