20 ms·

I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

• barry-cotter 5y ago
  > It’s been healthy for me, a fair-haired Anglo-Saxon with a Roman numeral in my name (John Austin Murphy III) This is what assimilation looks like. Someone with an Irish name calling themselves Anglo-Saxon. It’s like a Hispanic person calling themselves Latinx, proof that they have lost all organic connection to the culture of their ancestors.
  • isomorph 5y ago
    Please can you explain more? I’m interested
    • cafard 5y ago
      An Irishman of the hundred years centered on 1900 would have responded with amusement or indignation at being called "Anglo-Saxon", a term referring originally to the peoples of Great Britain east of Wales and south of Scotland. The Irish regarded themselves rather as Celts, and ones that I had received bad treatment at Anglo-Saxon hands.
      • 8fGTBjZxBcHq 5y ago
        And as we all know, ethnic identity is fully static and never changes over time, you are morally obligated to identity in a way that would be accepted by your ancestors. lmao.
    • ghaff 5y ago
      Assuming they are relatively pure-blooded Irish, they'd more accurately describe themselves as Celtic. In theory, Anglo-Saxon has a somewhat specific meaning (descended from the Angle and Saxon tribes). In practice, the term is often generically used for descended from northern European white people (as in WASP).
      • deleted 5y ago
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    • Grimm1 5y ago
      Generally speaking, Irish people would be of Celtic or Norman (Which I'll still probably get some pushback for saying.) ancestry. Anglo-Saxons settled the rest of the area and ever since there's been some type of issue between the groups. An Irish person describing themselves as Anglo-Saxon is entirely divorced from the roots of where many Irish people are descended, there has always been a lot of trying to erase and assimilate that history and culture. This is a somewhat tenuous topic too because there's a whole lot of history and bad blood after the times I'm speaking of and there's a different but similar issue currently brewing over there as well.
      • barry-cotter 5y ago
        Note that no one callled them Normans before the 1800s. They called themselves English when they conquered Ireland. The Irish (Gaels) called them Saxons (Sassenach) or foreigners (Gall). After the conversion of the English to Protestantism there was a yawning chasm between the Old English (Catholic) and the New, but no one ever used Norman contemporaneously.
        • rm445 5y ago
          That can't be right. The Normans as a people played a major part in European history from at least the year 911 through the Hundred Years War (1337-1453). I've never seen the faintest indication that they weren't still called Normans after leaving Normandy, by themselves and others, e.g when invading England and Italy. I guess you meant more that the term fell out of use in England at some point, and Norman-descended people in England called themselves English. But even so, Norman is still a recognisable ethnicity - norse people who settled in France, spread by conquest into England, Malta etc. It could be a useful contemporary or historical label even if those people at a given time called themselves something else.
          • barry-cotter 5y ago
            The people who invaded England and Italy were called Normans. The people who invaded Ireland called themselves English, and were called English by the Irish.
    • deleted 5y ago
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    • Symbiote 5y ago
      The Anglo-Saxons inhabited England, not the rest of the British isles. The term more-or-less corresponds to racially English, or culturally English. The people in Wales, Scotland and Ireland were the Celts, with some subdivisions (Picts etc). But it looks like both terms are more loaded in the USA [1], so I don't want to speculate on the intent of the comment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxons#Legacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxons#Legacy
      • barry-cotter 5y ago
        > The Anglo-Saxons inhabited England, not the rest of the British isles. The term more-or-less corresponds to racially English, or culturally English. This isn’t true. The Lowland Scots are no less culturally Anglo-Saxon than the English. They were slightly less successful than the English at extirpating all traces of Celtic culture from their homeland but it wasn’t for want of trying.
    • deviantfero 5y ago
      On the hispanic comment, Spanish is a naturally gendered language, you cannot form a sentence without giving gender to at least the subject, for example "la doctora toma el café por la mañana" would translate to "the (female) doctor drinks (male) coffee by the (female) morning" because English is a mostly gender neutral language you would loose all gender information by literally translating that sentence. Now if we take the gender out of every word in that sentence it would look something like "lx doctorx toma (we loose el, here) café por lx mañana", el wasn't necessary in the sentence to beging with, so that's fine, but the rest of the sentence becomes pretty hard to read to anyone that speaks Spanish, there's no practical way of pronouncing that unless you use the English pronunciation of the letter x. To add more depth to this, in spanish to give a gender neutral statement, you default to the male version of the noun, for example, for a group that has boys and girls, you would just refer to them as "los niños", people feel this could be dismissive of girls, if there is at least one boy in a group of girls you'd say "los niños" and depending of the context it is implied that the group has both girls and boys, so in some latin american governments they are required by etiquette to form sentences like "las niñas y los niños" instead of just "los niños" this is called around here "inclusive language" but even then most Spanish speaking people think that is impractical and unnecessary. That said, the latinx movement is kind of relevant in Argentina IIRC, but in most other latin american countries the idea will be met with a lot of resistance and rejection.
      • umanwizard 5y ago
        This is all true but I don’t think it was the main point GP was making. Most “Latino” people are of at least part Native American or African ancestry; whereas “Latin” refers originally to speakers of Romance languages. Thus most (of course not all) “Latinos” who call themselves that are identifying with the subset of their ancestors who enslaved and conquered the others.
        • xhkkffbf 5y ago
          The Native Americans were also well-known enslavers. Look up who the Cherokee took with them on their trail of tears. Please don't deny their agency.
    • barry-cotter 5y ago
      Murphy is the Anglicized form of an Irish name, Ó Murchú. One of the author’s paternal line ancestors came from Ireland, a land conquered and colonized by the English, i.e. the Anglo-Saxons. It would be one thing to say he had a honky ass white name, a cracker name, that would be in the American says American thing, who cares category. But to identify as Anglo-Saxon, an ethnic category!?! Not terribly surprising given the use of that most American of making customs, the numeral[1], but still. In much the same way as someone with Irish ancestry calling themselves Anglo fucking Saxon tells you something about their attachment to any Irish ancestry you learn something about anyone with ancestors who spoke Spanish if they self-identify as Latinx. You learn that they don’t care about the Spanish language, at all. And you learn that they use an ephitet invented by Anglos, for use by people who speak English > only 23% of U.S. adults who self-identify as Hispanic or Latino have heard of the term Latinx, and just 3% say they use it to describe themselves, according to a nationally representative, bilingual survey of U.S. Hispanic adults conducted in December 2019 by Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/11/about-one-in-four-u-s-hispanics-have-heard-of-latinx-but-just-3-use-it/ https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/11/about-one-in... [1] If you are not a monarch giving yourself a numeral is pretentious.
      • tweetle_beetle 5y ago
        I feel you shouldn't punish people for the name they were given by their parents. Changing your name is a big existential act, which I don't think it's reasonable to expect. If you've had it drummed into you from birth that you are III then it's hard to escape. That person's views about what their name represents are their own though and can be challenged.
        • barry-cotter 5y ago
          Americans do their American thing. That’s cool. I do my Irish thing and point out that a Murphy calling himself an Anglo-Saxon is utterly assimilated. Also cool. Americans pointing out that Irish and British people drink way more than Americans, and imbibe other narcotics at rates not normally seen outside Cuban-American locales. That’s cool. We can all notice that other people are different and get along, or not.
  • the_lonely_road 5y ago
    Are not all white people Anglo Saxon? I don’t bother to call myself anything other than white, Anglo Saxon, European, Caucasian. It wouldn’t make sense otherwise. I have Irish, English, Italian, and post world war 2 immigrated Polish direct ancestors. I don’t know what else to call myself nor do I particularly care. I don’t have a strong personal sense of identity tied up with any of those things. They are just words I assume apply to me when people use them.
    • klodolph 5y ago
      Anglo-Saxon is a somewhat outdated term that refers to the Germanic people that inhabit England and Wales. Easy way to remember is if you take "Anglo" + "Land" you get "Anglo-land", which morphs into the term "England". Modern historians don't use the term Anglo-Saxon much these days, so it's not especially important.
      • cbozeman 5y ago
        > Modern historians don't use the term Anglo-Saxon much these days, so it's not especially important. To you. And to a bunch of people who have to live in fear of being canceled - a.k.a., fired for - in the case of historians - reminding the world of uncomfortable truths.
        • klodolph 5y ago
          Historians don't use the term because it's a bit imprecise and outdated. If you were talking about the "Anglo-Saxon language", you would probably say "Old English" instead. If you were talking about the people, you would probably want to make it clear whether you were talking about the Germanic tribes who migrated to England starting in the 5th century, or whether you were talking about the English people in the 5th-11th century, which also included the indigenous British population. Just as an illustration of why the term "Anglo-Saxon" muddles things, we have the person in the article who seems to think that Murphy is an Anglo-Saxon surname, when it is clearly Celtic in origin. I'm not doubting that the author is Anglo-Saxon... just pointing out that his suname, itself, is not. I'm not a historian, so I'm just relating the parts of the issue that I understand. There are articles online by historians that go into greater depth explaining why historians tend to avoid the term "Anglo-Saxon" these days, and why the term became so popular in the 18th and 19th century. Not sure what "uncomfortable truth" you are referring to. If you have something to say, spit it out. I also don't understand why someone would "fear being canceled" just because they used a somewhat obsolete term.
  • randompwd 5y ago
    1 man => 8 great grandparents, 16 great great grandparents. He could just be 1/16 Irish and 15/16 English.
  • asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
    I'm majority Anglo (like, actually from England), but I have a Spanish last name from one of my grandparents, who in turn is a patrilineal native American whose family adopted Spanish naming some time in the distant unremembered past. The author's terminology could easily be correct in reference to himself, irrespective of his name. That said, I question the relevancy of this comment to the story.
    • 8fGTBjZxBcHq 5y ago
      Someone trying to well-actually a writer's self-proclaimed ethnic identity is hackernews af though you have to admit.
      • fortran77 5y ago
        That's why there's /r/LOLHackerNews on reddit!
        • edoceo 5y ago
          and the top on that sub is pointing to this thread - they're mad at Murph cause the name is Irish but he's an Anglo-Saxon? what even is that?
        • deleted 5y ago
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      • deadite 5y ago
        Even the tech stuff posted on HN has a political or some sort of a ranty slant to it that it's gotten so damn tiresome. I wish we had a proper HN without any of the political, fiscal, housing, nutrition/dietary, etc bullshit. Just post solid articles on tech and startups. Preferably actionable ones so it's not just a comment minefield of circlejerking from people who have an opinion but have zero idea what they are talking about. Take that shit elsewhere.
    • jcranmer 5y ago
      > native American whose family adopted Spanish naming some time in the distant unremembered past I'm curious: what kind of Native Americans were they that would willingly adopt Spanish names as indigenous, and not mestizo, peoples, especially given that Spanish contact was pretty violent across most of North America?
  • xwdv 5y ago
    The damning thing about Latinx though is how forcefully it was hoisted onto Hispanics by whites who knew little to nothing about their cultures. They simply saw an opportunity to make latinos conform to their world views and now identifying yourself as latinx signals that you are one of those fully assimilated hispanics that has bought into white culture, and who can be expected to be agreeable on certain topics without embarrassing yourself or other whites. So pervasive this has become, that merely identifying yourself as Latino or Latina instead of Latinx can be seen as a sort of statement that can send out the “wrong vibes”.
    • bob33212 5y ago
      I don't blame them. If you are offered an executive role at a successful company because you can help with PR, it may be good for your career. I don't see how that is any different than someone with an climate science degree joining a company to help them "go green". Obviously the role exists partially for PR, but there may still be positive things you can do.
      • xwdv 5y ago
        Nothing good comes from a culture that perpetuates whitewashing other cultures just to please whites and their visions of an ideal minority.
        • cbozeman 5y ago
          You're being downvoted, but I completely agree. The whole "woke" / "political correctness" movement is mostly bored white people. This is the result of a group of people with no real major battles left to fight. You make up an enemy to give your life purpose.
          • Ekaros 5y ago
            Or to make money, when you don't have anything real to offer. And in some cases it has clearly reached level of blackmail.
        • 5y ago
  • geofft 5y ago
    Well... the culture of your ancestors can't do anything for (or against) you in the present day. The so-called Anglo-Saxons were sometimes Anglo, sometimes Saxons, and in many cases neither - e.g., the Normans were a separate culture and a separate people until they invaded and essentially reverse-assimilated. That whole process is very much organic; preserving an identity to specific ancestors long dead, when the culture that defines you has changed, would not be.
  • WhompingWindows 5y ago
    How do you "lose all organic connection to the culture of your ancestors" simply by calling yourself Latinx? You're surely not suggesting they abandon the traditions, holidays, food, music, clothing, dancing, and all of the rest of their cultural connection, simply because of one label? I am an Irish-American who plays the music, hates the food, but if I wanted to call myself of "European" ancestry, that wouldn't abandon all of my musical culture, it may just be a trendy label in the zeitgeist.
    • barry-cotter 5y ago
      He didn’t call himself European, or white, utterly anodyne words. He called his name Anglo-Saxon. That you didn’t immediately understand the difference shows that you don’t get it. Which is fine. If you’re not Irish and don’t claim to be that’s cool. You do you. Americans do their American thing, Irish people do their Irish thing and we all happily exchange cultures and products and talk shit about each other as humans are wont to do.
      • hackeraccount 5y ago
        Knowingly or not it's not hard to take the point which is that "Anglo-Saxon" has lost any meaning beyond fair skinned at this point for the vast majority of people. Anyone reading the source knew what the author meant even those who were knew and were annoyed by the incorrectness. The comparison to "latinx" is apt though - I should see it as a flag but instead it's like nails on a chalkboard because it's everything I don't like about language policing.
        • username90 5y ago
          > "Anglo-Saxon" has lost any meaning beyond fair skinned at this point for the vast majority of people. Maybe in USA, I don't know anyone who uses it like that.
          • hackeraccount 5y ago
            Definitely in the USA. Ever since the first mongrel landed on this fair shore they've been trying to drum in an appreciation for History. It has not taken. People here must on some level understand that there is a past but they cannot keep any of it straight.
  • deleted 5y ago
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  • staticman2 5y ago
    You know people typically only inheret names from male ancestors, right, and 50% of ancestors are female?
  • tootie 5y ago
    Who cares though. I was raised Jewish but don't practice anymore. Theoretically there's a line if ancestors going back 3000 years to pass down beliefs and practices to me. But they aren't actually valuable so I don't want them. Sunk cost. My wife's ancestors are likely genetically pure going back many centuries from the other side of the world. Her mother's family were nobility before they came to America. Our kids are a thing that probably didn't exist at all prior to the 20th century and they're fantastic. And they know their culture to be New Yorkers.
  • nborwankar 5y ago
    This is so on-brand for HN - the article is about a writer now working as a delivery driver which is a juicy topic in itself, but most of the discussion is down the rabbit hole on an entirely tangential matter.
    • xyzzyz 5y ago
      If it is so tangential, why did the author of the piece insist to mention it, and the editor decided to keep it? Looks to me like they wanted to start a conversation, and you are making the environment here not inclusive by shutting down unrepresented voices.
• seibelj 5y ago
  > Lurching west in stop-and-go traffic on I-80 that morning, bound for Berkeley and a day of delivering in the rain, I had a low moment, dwelling on how far I’d come down in the world. Then I snapped out of it. I haven’t come down in the world. What’s come down in the world is the business model that sustained Time Inc. for decades. I’m pretty much the same writer, the same guy. I haven’t gone anywhere. My feet are the same. When I’m in a rhythm, and my system’s working, and I slide open the side door and the parcel I’m looking for practically jumps into my hand, and the delivery takes 35 seconds and I’m on to the next one, I enjoy this gig. I like that it’s challenging, mentally and physically. As with the athletic contests I covered for my old employer, there’s a resolution, every day. I get to the end of my route, or I don’t. I deliver all the packages, or I don’t. Delivering packages is a fine job doing honest labor. Amazon pays well. He has a good attitude. He is doing something the modern world needs. No shame in that. If I was down on my luck I would have no problem doing whatever job exists. I have washed dishes, and I enjoyed that job. I think a lot of people think some types of work are beneath them but I respect all people who are productive members of society - and the flip-side is that I despise people who say these jobs are so “terrible” they need to be outlawed or whatever.
  • fossuser 5y ago
    Yeah - I liked that part of his essay too, I also just generally liked his writing. There’s something satisfying in this kind of work with clear explicit goals and getting through the list everyday. I think a lot of society issues seem to stem from how he briefly felt, that this kind of thing was a sign of failure or that he was embarrassed to tell friends at the holiday party. The irony to me is that this kind of work is probably more valuable to society than sports illustrated and day to day almost certainly so. If there was more cultural respect for these kinds of jobs, people would feel better about themselves while doing them. I think there should be. I was glad he felt good about it at the end.
    • pydry 5y ago
      There would probably be more respect even if nothing else changed except they paid more.
• ksm1717 5y ago
  This is a great parody of the WASPy romanticization of a hard days work. Plainly stating the classic implication that shitty jobs are actually humbling learning experiences when white. Even more comical because I don’t think it’s satire.
  • msrenee 5y ago
    It sounds like this person is in California making $17/hr. How do you make ends meet like that?
    • mgkimsal 5y ago
      you have a spouse who earns more.
  • throwaway894345 5y ago
    > Plainly stating the classic implication that shitty jobs are actually humbling learning experiences when white I'm familiar with the implication that hard work can be a humbling and rewarding experience, but I'm not aware of any such "when white" qualifiers. FWIW, I grew up on a farm and did a bit of construction before embarking on a career as a software engineer, and I can absolutely affirm that hard, physical work is rewarding. Though white, I didn't find it especially "humbling" because my family was solidly working class and frankly it never occurred to me to feel ashamed of hard work as though it makes me lesser than those from more delicate stations in life. That said, I don't know that working as a delivery person for Amazon is comparable to farm work or construction with respect to satisfaction.
    • ksm1717 5y ago
      Fair point - switch white for upper middle class, my bad. I wasn’t making a point against them being humbling and learning experiences, but rather against the idea you can dip your toes in for a minute and be washed of your pretension (while writing an Atlantic article).
      • 5y ago
• ghaff 5y ago
  Journalism has become such a tough field. I know a number of people who do OK in it. But I know a whole lot more who do writing-related stuff for companies that sell products.
  • tracer4201 5y ago
    How can we fix that? Many of my family members and friends have little to no interest in reading or learning, although they do have strong opinions on just about every topic. In my mind, demand for journalism and quality journalism is going to be difficult when folks don’t want or don’t care to read. They have enough things trying to grab their attention that provide an instant gratification — whereas journalism or reading some well researched or written article requires mental effort and investment and almost an appreciation. I personally didn’t appreciate good journalism or writers until I tried writing (mostly technical documents). I learned two things quickly. Not only did I need to know the subject matter but I needed to convey it in some form that made sense, didn’t just lead to unrelated questions that derail what I’m trying to achieve, and didn’t put the reader to sleep. This is a hard problem, in my opinion.
    • ghaff 5y ago
      >How can we fix that? There are a great many people who would like to know the answer to that question but, for the most part, almost no one has. (Almost because there are a few global brands, especially those that provide financial reporting, that are doing OK but most aren't. There are a lot of reasons, not least of all that the Internet broke the newspaper bundle that forced people advertising in the classifieds for roommates or the local car dealership advertising a sale to effectively subsidize the paper's prestige foreign bureaus and investigative journalism because where else were they going to advertise? Plus, you don't need a subscription to SI any longer to keep up with whatever is going on in the world of sports.
    • pmoriarty 5y ago
      "How can we fix that? ... demand for journalism and quality journalism is going to be difficult when folks don’t want or don’t care to read." The education system needs to be radically reformed to teach kids to value reading, knowledge, and learning for its own sake and not just to pass tests and get in to schools that will get them high paying jobs. Critical reading and thinking skills also need to be taught more effectively. Unfortunately, such reform is difficult to undertake in a society which mostly doesn't value any of that, and when politicians consider critical thinking among their voters to be detrimental to their own interests.
• fortran77 5y ago
  I know that many of us here don't like what labor unions have become in the 21st century. But they do need some labor representation that can ensure the trucks used by drivers have working lights, mirrors, and safe tires, and that the company negotiates use of restrooms around the city. Maybe just a "safety only" union that only deals with safety issues?
  • ganafagol 5y ago
    A forum mostly frequented by us overpaid workers doing little-more-than-if-any work that society actually needs is not the right place to discuss unions. Of course people in our industry, no matter devs or ops or founders or "founders", despise unions as they get in their way with demands of some basic workers rights. But there are industries where unions are desperately needed to keep workers sane, safe and overall dignified. With little first hand experience it's just too easy to dismiss that.
    • elite_hackers3 5y ago
      Speak for yourself. I write java scripts for Facebook. I’m EXTREMELY valuable to society and deserve every penny I get.
    • deleted 5y ago
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  • tomnipotent 5y ago
    Union shops like UPS have the exact same issues as Amazon or FedEx (including urine bottles).
  • missedthecue 5y ago
    UPS is union and their employees urinate in bottles. I don't think unions are the magic wand that a lot of people assume they are
    • mindslight 5y ago
      While "urinating in bottles" sounds like some sort of standard by which to indict, if you tried it you would find it's quite convenient. I'd guess that it's far down on the list of drivers' actual concerns. What are you proposing should replace this? Trips back to the depot would be terribly inefficient. Portapotties in trucks would be just fancier bottles. And time to visit public restrooms would be better spent taking an actual break and then still using the bottle.
• gkoberger 5y ago
  For anyone curious, it seems he now has a full-time job as a journalist at the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. Happy he's being paid for his words again. https://twitter.com/ausmurph88/status/1096838031804227584 https://twitter.com/ausmurph88/status/1096838031804227584
  • capableweb 5y ago
    Article linked from the submission was from December 25, 2018, and the tweet from Feb 16, 2019. Seems likely that writing this article (and first having the experience of delivering for Amazon) got him hired. Good for him!
    • dkarras 5y ago
      Exactly, good for him. Some people just know how to write. I rarely read more than a couple paragraphs in pieces like this, but he grabbed me until the end.
  • aaron5 5y ago
    Really glad to hear that! And writing that piece for The Atlantic is a fine accomplishment, too. I read somewhere (or internalized) something like: great mythologies are full of good humor. I love how his opening paragraph is of angst so relatable (social group) and so laughable (here's my consulting partner, Rabbit).
• AcerbicZero 5y ago
  The world has more than enough journalists and exceptionally few reporters.
  • lr4444lr 5y ago
    Can't upvote this enough.
  • syshum 5y ago
    The world has more than enough activists, opinion writers, and propagandists that call themselves "journalists" but exceptionally few actual journalists. Lets not degrade the word Journalists like Apple has degraded the word Genius....
  • afavour 5y ago
    Some exacerbated by every recent trend, it seems. Every “I’m starting a Substack!” story seems to be for someone that’s going to post endless reams of their opinions and not do an ounce of actual original reporting. I know Glenn Greenwald won a Pulitzer but it wasn’t for the kind of writing he posts now.
  • femiagbabiaka 5y ago
    Completely wrong. Actually, there’s an iceberg effect at play here. There are many more reporters than journalists, delivering pure news every day, doing in-depth reporting. And it makes sense logically: the number of people who have large enough audiences to generate an income by simply being controversial is rather small in the large scheme of things.
    • reaperducer 5y ago
      people who have large enough audiences to generate an income by simply being controversial That is neither journalism, nor reporting. That is editorial.
      • femiagbabiaka 5y ago
        It can be all three at the same time. Glenn Greenwald and Bari Weiss are two figures on opposite sides of the political spectrum who have both mastered this.
• kovacs 5y ago
  Exceptionally well written with more than one Big Lebowski reference but one minor correction... "Since then, as Jeff Lebowski explains to Maude between hits on a postcoital roach, “my career has slowed down a little bit.”" s/Jeff Lebowski/The Dude I believe The Dude made that distinction very clear in the movie :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be7Og9Gc_KY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be7Og9Gc_KY Joking aside I truly admire this man's outlook and ability to take a pretty big setback and make a positive out of it.
• bane 5y ago
  I listen to a lot of retrogaming and retrocomputing podcasts, ANTIC and Retronauts are my favorites. It turns out ANTIC interviews quite a few people from the old computer magazine and book industry, and retronauts is mostly made up of struggling video game journalists who cycle between the same magazines and being jobless or freelance. A few of them, especially the more senior folks basically have thrown in the towel and now work for other companies entirely within the video games industry. What's really interesting about the ANTIC interviews is how close those folks were to the thing that basically displaced them (computers and ubiquitous networking), and yet none of them seems to have predicted it happening. To them the publishing and periodical industries had always been there and always will be. Their own employer going out of business was more due to local market forces affecting them or mergers between companies. For the record, it didn't occur to me either. In the mid 90s I was sitting next to an incoming T-1 line at a startup ISP sending off physical envelopes with job applications to gaming and computer magazines I enjoyed hoping to become a journalist myself. One of the magazines that did reply (by mail btw) went out of business itself about 6 years later.
  • refulgentis 5y ago
    Someone close to me has worked at Macy's their entire career, through college, after college, through grad school, after grad school. Nearly 15 years now. Much as you mentioned these folks not seeing the closure as a result of the Internet, but rather local competition dynamics, no matter how many stores close or odd situations happen, they believe the precise details of each narrative are what matter (i.e. the alcoholic manager) rather than the continual pattern of the store they're working at closing, every 2-3 years like clockwork
    • MomoXenosaga 5y ago
      Lots of fashion stores with 50+ years of history have gone bankrupt. I guess we'll see if the likes of Primark or Zalando will still be around in 2050.
    • crocsarecool 5y ago
      I guess it’s hard to see when you go to work every day. It’s there. It’s physical. You’re working.
• ggm 5y ago
  Maybe we should pay Amazon drivers better. Maybe we should build public toilets. Maybe a union...
  • taeric 5y ago
    I have the oddball anti union stance of, "maybe we should have a better society that doesn't require folks to stay in a job for benefits and pay..." That is, I'm not anti union. I wish they were completely superfluous, though.
  • downrightmike 5y ago
    Amazon is clearly a monopoly, but consumer prices are "low", so they get to keep at it. A lot of the early anti-trust cases in history were pretty petty, and anything has precedent for not being a monopoly. But when you can literally under cut competition until they go out of business, then raise prices afterward, you're a monopoly. Example Diapers dot com, the undercutting did lower prices for consumers.
• deleted 5y ago
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