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Does Amazon offer a significantly worse deal to its warehouse staff than Walmart? My impression is that it doesn't, so I don't think this is a problem with tech

Does Amazon offer a significantly worse deal to its warehouse staff than Walmart? My impression is that it doesn't, so I don't think this is a problem with tech companies specifically.

AlexandrB 9y ago
Probably not [1]. But shouldn't we reach for something better? Really, I'm just upset about my own disillusionment. As a little kid I thought Silicon Valley was going to usher in a new era of technology and plenty. Something like Star Trek's utopian ideal of a society where scarcity is a thing of the past. What I see instead is the same old corporate bullshit of maximum exploitation for maximum profit. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/walmart-warehouse-workers-fired_n_3787659 http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/walmart-warehouse-workers...
- ars 9y ago
  It did. Sort of. Even someone poor has a magic device in his pocket that can show almost any video ever, can talk to anyone, and give directions. People today have never been better off. A poor person today lives better than a king of old. Except that people always compare to each other. And that's never going to change.
  - Clubber 9y ago
    >A poor person today lives better than a king of old. That is an illusion to help people with their conscience. It does sound nice, but ... The poor maybe eat better and maybe have better shelter, and certainly access to cleaner water, but they have significantly less control over their destiny. Also, kings didn't have to work and they were (usually) extremely wealthy, had servants, and could do whatever they wanted to. Kings had people to help them raise their children. Kings also didn't die from an easily treatable but ultimately unaffordable medical condition. Kings usually didn't get evicted for not paying rent on time. Kings didn't get arrested for trivial things and have to spend time in jail because they couldn't afford a lawyer. I could go on and on.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
      > Kings also didn't die from an easily treatable but ultimately unaffordable medical condition. They certainly did die from what we would today call easily treatable conditions. Antibiotics? Vaccines? Appendicitis?
      - Clubber 9y ago
        I like how you retorted to only half of the sentence. >Kings also didn't die from an easily treatable but ultimately unaffordable medical condition. Kings died too, man!
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > Kings also didn't die from an easily treatable but ultimately unaffordable medical condition. Worse, they died from medical conditions which could be survived with no treatment, because treatments with negative utility based on lore with no scientific basis were applied which the common folk would not have access to.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - Clubber 9y ago
        I think George Washington was actually bled to death as a medical treatment.
  - titanomachy 9y ago
    > A poor person today lives better than a king of old. This is dangerous bullshit. A poor person who spends their life working long hours on menial work where they have no agency is not better off than medieval nobility just because they have cheap entertainment available. A lot of "poor people" stress about providing enough food for their families or losing their homes. Not something that nobility ever had to worry about. A lot of people today live better than medieval kings; you and I probably do. But our society does a shitty job of distributing the bounties of technological miracles, except in superficial ways.

Does Amazon offer a significantly worse deal to its warehouse staff than Walmart? My impression is that it doesn't, so I don't think this is a problem with tech companies specifically.

AlexandrB 9y ago

Probably not [1]. But shouldn't we reach for something better? Really, I'm just upset about my own disillusionment. As a little kid I thought Silicon Valley was going to usher in a new era of technology and plenty. Something like Star Trek's utopian ideal of a society where scarcity is a thing of the past. What I see instead is the same old corporate bullshit of maximum exploitation for maximum profit. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/walmart-warehouse-workers-fired_n_3787659 http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/walmart-warehouse-workers...

ars 9y ago
It did. Sort of. Even someone poor has a magic device in his pocket that can show almost any video ever, can talk to anyone, and give directions. People today have never been better off. A poor person today lives better than a king of old. Except that people always compare to each other. And that's never going to change.
- Clubber 9y ago
  >A poor person today lives better than a king of old. That is an illusion to help people with their conscience. It does sound nice, but ... The poor maybe eat better and maybe have better shelter, and certainly access to cleaner water, but they have significantly less control over their destiny. Also, kings didn't have to work and they were (usually) extremely wealthy, had servants, and could do whatever they wanted to. Kings had people to help them raise their children. Kings also didn't die from an easily treatable but ultimately unaffordable medical condition. Kings usually didn't get evicted for not paying rent on time. Kings didn't get arrested for trivial things and have to spend time in jail because they couldn't afford a lawyer. I could go on and on.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
    > Kings also didn't die from an easily treatable but ultimately unaffordable medical condition. They certainly did die from what we would today call easily treatable conditions. Antibiotics? Vaccines? Appendicitis?
    - Clubber 9y ago
      I like how you retorted to only half of the sentence. >Kings also didn't die from an easily treatable but ultimately unaffordable medical condition. Kings died too, man!
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Kings also didn't die from an easily treatable but ultimately unaffordable medical condition. Worse, they died from medical conditions which could be survived with no treatment, because treatments with negative utility based on lore with no scientific basis were applied which the common folk would not have access to.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - Clubber 9y ago
      I think George Washington was actually bled to death as a medical treatment.
- titanomachy 9y ago
  > A poor person today lives better than a king of old. This is dangerous bullshit. A poor person who spends their life working long hours on menial work where they have no agency is not better off than medieval nobility just because they have cheap entertainment available. A lot of "poor people" stress about providing enough food for their families or losing their homes. Not something that nobility ever had to worry about. A lot of people today live better than medieval kings; you and I probably do. But our society does a shitty job of distributing the bounties of technological miracles, except in superficial ways.