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Seeing the amount of people still using Amazon I'd say as a society we are more than OK with it. Some life destroyed is worth the price of having my toilet pape

Seeing the amount of people still using Amazon I'd say as a society we are more than OK with it. Some life destroyed is worth the price of having my toilet paper sent to my home diligently.

Clubber 5y ago
There are other ways of inducing reform than boycotting the company. Maybe we can pressure our politicians for better workers rights rather than worse like we've gotten over the last 4 decades.
- pjerem 5y ago
  I agree with that. While I don’t morally agree with Amazon policies, we must understand that companies will always optimize to win the capitalism’s game whatever the human cost. However, as a society, our role is not to ask Amazon (or whatever misbehaving company) to stop being bad guys, but to change the rules of the game so that immoral behavior ceases to be a competitive advantage.
  - FredPret 5y ago
    Publicly-traded companies are owned by a subset of society. Sure we can tell them to stop being bad guys. Ever hear of activist shareholders?
    - Clubber 5y ago
      The only activist shareholders I'm aware of, like Carl Icahn are activists for themselves. Plus, you really have to have 50% + 1 to make a difference, and then there are still mechanisms against you. You just need to come up with half of $1.74 trillion as of today, and of course enough people who want to sell. No, I think there are more effective strategies than that.
      - FredPret 5y ago
        It's only ineffective because it hasn't been tried at scale. If you can co-ordinate enough voters to move an election, you can co-ordinate enough money to influence corporate governance. A lot of AGMs are simply rubber-stamping exercises (look at how many directors are voted in again and again with 80-95% of the vote?!) It does not have to be this way. You don't have to literally own Amazon to change their ways - in theory you can buy one share and ask some pointed questions at the AGM. If the other shareholders see that change is in their best interest, they will vote accordingly. Sadly, most are asleep at the wheel.
        is_dang_erect6 5y ago
        Welp, american “capitalism” has officially jumped the shark. Jk it jumped a long time ago. But this is great stuff.
        pjerem 5y ago
        I think you missed my point. If this misbehaving is a competitive advantage, you will have a hard time convincing shareholders that they must stop.
    - wvenable 5y ago
      You going to do that with every company?
  - zouhair 5y ago
    The problem is that companies like Amazon are so big and so rich they are functionally running the country.
- pope_meat 5y ago
  Is it because no one is trying? Or has there been no progress on labor rights in politics for other reasons? (My money is it's other reasons, and thus the idea of "we must pressure our political leaders! is just a feel good thing we tell ourselves because the truth is very unpleasant to acknowledge)
  - Clubber 5y ago
    It's because politicians are bought and paid for by the very companies we're talking about. The only way to bring about change is to vote out the incumbent every time for 20 years I'm afraid. That's about the only pressure that will actually work. They are voting the way they do for self preservation via campaign contributions. The only way we can counter that is threaten their self preservation by voting them out every time. Between Andrew Jackson to U.S. Grant, there were no 2 term presidents. Maybe they knew something we didn't.
  - zouhair 5y ago
    There is no way for labor rights to get better without workers uniting and striking. Otherwise they have no leverage.
FredPret 5y ago
I don't know about that. A lot of people don't know how awful they are yet. Personally I've been a very enthusiastic Amazon shopper until I started seeing the recent surge of Amazon job reviews.
- 29083011397778 5y ago
  It was never a big thing until a package showed up two-days after it was ordered, on a Sunday. From then on Amazon has been the Rube Goldberg-esque machine that runs on human suffering between my girlfriend and I. While it had been mentioned in the past, it was the delivery on a Sunday that really helped drive the point home, somehow.
- zouhair 5y ago
  I didn't buy a thing from Amazon since 2005/6 and I am still alive. Doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things but matters to me.
npteljes 5y ago
I doubt people have the capacity to care like that. I mean, humans as species. What's able to salvage this is good regulation.

Seeing the amount of people still using Amazon I'd say as a society we are more than OK with it. Some life destroyed is worth the price of having my toilet paper sent to my home diligently.

Clubber 5y ago

There are other ways of inducing reform than boycotting the company. Maybe we can pressure our politicians for better workers rights rather than worse like we've gotten over the last 4 decades.

pjerem 5y ago
I agree with that. While I don’t morally agree with Amazon policies, we must understand that companies will always optimize to win the capitalism’s game whatever the human cost. However, as a society, our role is not to ask Amazon (or whatever misbehaving company) to stop being bad guys, but to change the rules of the game so that immoral behavior ceases to be a competitive advantage.
- FredPret 5y ago
  Publicly-traded companies are owned by a subset of society. Sure we can tell them to stop being bad guys. Ever hear of activist shareholders?
  - Clubber 5y ago
    The only activist shareholders I'm aware of, like Carl Icahn are activists for themselves. Plus, you really have to have 50% + 1 to make a difference, and then there are still mechanisms against you. You just need to come up with half of $1.74 trillion as of today, and of course enough people who want to sell. No, I think there are more effective strategies than that.
    - FredPret 5y ago
      It's only ineffective because it hasn't been tried at scale. If you can co-ordinate enough voters to move an election, you can co-ordinate enough money to influence corporate governance. A lot of AGMs are simply rubber-stamping exercises (look at how many directors are voted in again and again with 80-95% of the vote?!) It does not have to be this way. You don't have to literally own Amazon to change their ways - in theory you can buy one share and ask some pointed questions at the AGM. If the other shareholders see that change is in their best interest, they will vote accordingly. Sadly, most are asleep at the wheel.
      - is_dang_erect6 5y ago
        Welp, american “capitalism” has officially jumped the shark. Jk it jumped a long time ago. But this is great stuff.
      - pjerem 5y ago
        I think you missed my point. If this misbehaving is a competitive advantage, you will have a hard time convincing shareholders that they must stop.
  - wvenable 5y ago
    You going to do that with every company?
- zouhair 5y ago
  The problem is that companies like Amazon are so big and so rich they are functionally running the country.
pope_meat 5y ago
Is it because no one is trying? Or has there been no progress on labor rights in politics for other reasons? (My money is it's other reasons, and thus the idea of "we must pressure our political leaders! is just a feel good thing we tell ourselves because the truth is very unpleasant to acknowledge)
- Clubber 5y ago
  It's because politicians are bought and paid for by the very companies we're talking about. The only way to bring about change is to vote out the incumbent every time for 20 years I'm afraid. That's about the only pressure that will actually work. They are voting the way they do for self preservation via campaign contributions. The only way we can counter that is threaten their self preservation by voting them out every time. Between Andrew Jackson to U.S. Grant, there were no 2 term presidents. Maybe they knew something we didn't.
- zouhair 5y ago
  There is no way for labor rights to get better without workers uniting and striking. Otherwise they have no leverage.

FredPret 5y ago

I don't know about that. A lot of people don't know how awful they are yet. Personally I've been a very enthusiastic Amazon shopper until I started seeing the recent surge of Amazon job reviews.

29083011397778 5y ago
It was never a big thing until a package showed up two-days after it was ordered, on a Sunday. From then on Amazon has been the Rube Goldberg-esque machine that runs on human suffering between my girlfriend and I. While it had been mentioned in the past, it was the delivery on a Sunday that really helped drive the point home, somehow.
zouhair 5y ago
I didn't buy a thing from Amazon since 2005/6 and I am still alive. Doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things but matters to me.

npteljes 5y ago

I doubt people have the capacity to care like that. I mean, humans as species. What's able to salvage this is good regulation.