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Nobody is perfect. Gandhi was apparently racist and John Lennon was an egomaniac, I admire them both still for their efforts to make the world better than what

by rblion 8y ago

Nobody is perfect. Gandhi was apparently racist and John Lennon was an egomaniac, I admire them both still for their efforts to make the world better than what it was before. Bezos still a human being like me and like you, whether you love him or hate him. I didn't say he cured cancer but last I checked, he puts ONE BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR into Blue Origin to help our species keep evolving towards a spacefaring civilization. How many other people are doing that? I am aware of the grey-area Amazon operates in but it's still better than the oligarchs before Big Tech. I'll give my money to Amazon before Wal-Mart, I know that. Amazon invests billions of dollars in retraining warehouse employees who are getting replaced by automation for high-demand jobs. Amazon didn't have to do that, but they made a decision to and I'm sure Bezos signed off on it. If you disagree with Amazon and AWS that much, build something better.

3pt14159 8y ago
Grey area? They mixed inventory and forced Apple to sue them to stop counterfeit goods from poising the public consciousness. They routinely fuck over small businesses by copying their products or allowing false inventory to compete with them. Show me some real proof that Amazon is retraining warehouse employees with skills into high-demand jobs. It will be the first I'll hear of it. As for building something better, doing nothing would suffice. They're a net-negative on the world. I'm not so negative on any other tech company. Most have redeemable qualities, but AZ doesn't. They're a brutally bad company and their founder is central to the problem. They're 10–100x worse than Facebook.
- rblion 8y ago
  Capitalism isn't perfect but I'll take this over the other options that I've seen. https://blog.aboutamazon.com/working-at-amazon/our-pledge-to-amazons-workers https://blog.aboutamazon.com/working-at-amazon/our-pledge-to... That's a subjective opinion. Amazon started out as a book store and I love books, so I naturally stuck with them from the late 90's til now. It's an incredible story to go from next to dead to where they are today. Only bigger 'comeback' is probably Apple, another company you probably hate. Right? Facebook is the next AOL or Yahoo, just a matter of time now. People are loyal until they aren't, then they'll leave in droves. The reverse 'early adopter' stage is already happening...
rtpg 8y ago
Nobody is perfect, but when the person's "main thing" is objectionable then it seems pretty normal to be critical of that person! It's the difference between "My teacher committed adultry" and "this loan shark's entire reason to exist is to scam people out of their money" You see Blue Origin as "moving towards a spacefaring civilization", I see it as "rich person plays with money gotten by aggressively underpaying everyone involved in his enterprise" It's like Bill Gates giving to charity. Sure, it's better for him to give than not to. But we can also just take the money and improve society no matter what the whims of a single person. Why do we give billionaires the choice to hoard away their money at all? What purpose does it serve? For every Gates there's a hundred Elisions, who decide that the money should go towards buying Hawaii and mega yachts instead of curing malaria.
- rblion 8y ago
  Does Amazon do more good for society or bad? Serious question. I wonder this a lot. Can they be blamed for wanting to create something better than Wal-Mart? Can they be blamed for the fact that shareholders expect growth and customers expect lower prices all the time? Is this not a bigger problem than just blaming the billionaires for all of society's woes? Aren't all of us complicit for buying and supporting Big Tech in our day-to-day lives? Fair points. I don't have the answers. I'm curious to find out like the rest of us though. What are people expecting? The billionaires give up their money, redistribute it into the 'common good' and all our problems will go away? Yeah, I'm sorry but I think this situation is more complicated than that.
  - dahfizz 8y ago
    If we made a pro con list, what would you say are Amazon's greatest negatives to society? It saves people time and money, and AWS has enabled many start ups and small businesses. I can't think of any big negatives other than the general hate that people have towards big companies.
    - rblion 8y ago
      The only negative I can think of is 'monopolistic tendency'. Yet, this is almost inevitable for any prolifically innovative company like Apple or Alphabet. I happen to like Peter Thiel a lot and agree with most of his perspectives. I'm not sure if punishing an extremely forward-thinking organization is the way forward for our society. I don't know. I'm hungry to find out though. What are your thoughts on this?

by rblion 8y ago

3pt14159 8y ago

Grey area? They mixed inventory and forced Apple to sue them to stop counterfeit goods from poising the public consciousness. They routinely fuck over small businesses by copying their products or allowing false inventory to compete with them. Show me some real proof that Amazon is retraining warehouse employees with skills into high-demand jobs. It will be the first I'll hear of it. As for building something better, doing nothing would suffice. They're a net-negative on the world. I'm not so negative on any other tech company. Most have redeemable qualities, but AZ doesn't. They're a brutally bad company and their founder is central to the problem. They're 10–100x worse than Facebook.

rblion 8y ago
Capitalism isn't perfect but I'll take this over the other options that I've seen. https://blog.aboutamazon.com/working-at-amazon/our-pledge-to-amazons-workers https://blog.aboutamazon.com/working-at-amazon/our-pledge-to... That's a subjective opinion. Amazon started out as a book store and I love books, so I naturally stuck with them from the late 90's til now. It's an incredible story to go from next to dead to where they are today. Only bigger 'comeback' is probably Apple, another company you probably hate. Right? Facebook is the next AOL or Yahoo, just a matter of time now. People are loyal until they aren't, then they'll leave in droves. The reverse 'early adopter' stage is already happening...

rtpg 8y ago

Nobody is perfect, but when the person's "main thing" is objectionable then it seems pretty normal to be critical of that person! It's the difference between "My teacher committed adultry" and "this loan shark's entire reason to exist is to scam people out of their money" You see Blue Origin as "moving towards a spacefaring civilization", I see it as "rich person plays with money gotten by aggressively underpaying everyone involved in his enterprise" It's like Bill Gates giving to charity. Sure, it's better for him to give than not to. But we can also just take the money and improve society no matter what the whims of a single person. Why do we give billionaires the choice to hoard away their money at all? What purpose does it serve? For every Gates there's a hundred Elisions, who decide that the money should go towards buying Hawaii and mega yachts instead of curing malaria.

rblion 8y ago
Does Amazon do more good for society or bad? Serious question. I wonder this a lot. Can they be blamed for wanting to create something better than Wal-Mart? Can they be blamed for the fact that shareholders expect growth and customers expect lower prices all the time? Is this not a bigger problem than just blaming the billionaires for all of society's woes? Aren't all of us complicit for buying and supporting Big Tech in our day-to-day lives? Fair points. I don't have the answers. I'm curious to find out like the rest of us though. What are people expecting? The billionaires give up their money, redistribute it into the 'common good' and all our problems will go away? Yeah, I'm sorry but I think this situation is more complicated than that.
- dahfizz 8y ago
  If we made a pro con list, what would you say are Amazon's greatest negatives to society? It saves people time and money, and AWS has enabled many start ups and small businesses. I can't think of any big negatives other than the general hate that people have towards big companies.
  - rblion 8y ago
    The only negative I can think of is 'monopolistic tendency'. Yet, this is almost inevitable for any prolifically innovative company like Apple or Alphabet. I happen to like Peter Thiel a lot and agree with most of his perspectives. I'm not sure if punishing an extremely forward-thinking organization is the way forward for our society. I don't know. I'm hungry to find out though. What are your thoughts on this?