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"job loss" is purposefully passive to remove culpability from the entity (Amazon) that is making the active choice to terminate these people's jobs. It's the s

"job loss" is purposefully passive to remove culpability from the entity (Amazon) that is making the active choice to terminate these people's jobs. It's the same as language like "officer involved shooting" to avoid saying "an officer shot a person" or calling a "murder" a "loss of life".

andsoitis 1y ago
> purposefully passive to remove culpability from the entity (Amazon) that is making the active choice to terminate these people's jobs. Opening line in the article: "Amazon has confirmed it plans to cut thousands of jobs, saying it needs to be "organised more leanly" to seize the opportunity provided by artificial intelligence (AI)." And the statement from Amazon uses the phrase "we are reducing..."
- rco8786 1y ago
  Yes we’re discussing the headline
  - andsoitis 1y ago
    > Yes we’re discussing the headline Ah I see, your beef is with the BBC, not Amazon.
    - johnnyanmac 1y ago
      It can be both. In this case it is. BBC for the sanewhashing of insanity, and Amazon for continuing to inflate this giant AI bubble.
- ruszki 1y ago
  There is enough people who don’t read articles just headlines whose world view can be changed with this. In Hungary, where I’m originally from, one of my friends sent me an article, which was about immigration in 2015, because she thought that the local district government wanted to move “migrants” (dog whistle for non white people over there) into her district. The headline said that, the body said the exact opposite… and it worked. Also there are a ton of comments here, on Reddit, and really everywhere, that makes it quite obvious that a lot of people don’t read just headlines.
- John23832 1y ago
  Right and that is different that passive wording of "job loss" used above?
bluGill 1y ago
The more important thing it does though is remove culpability from the employee who doesn't have a job anymore. That person will be looking for a job (we assume, perhaps a few will just retire or something else). The companies they apply at will want to know why they no longer work at Amazon - there is a big difference between "I was sexually harassing my coworkers" (pick a crime, sexual harassment seems to be the big one these days), and "Amazon decided they didn't need my job done any more".
- rco8786 1y ago
  That's why "layoff" is the right word to use. It makes it clear that it was Amazon's decision and not through any direct fault of the employee.
  - pinnochio 1y ago
    Yes. Job loss is what the employee experiences, not the employer.
    - _DeadFred_ 1y ago
      The owner of the employer company just experienced a vacation in space, renting an entire European country for a wedding, etc. Some employees are going to experience losing their housing. Losing their health benefits while sick. Children will be moved from their friends/schools. Some will lose their careers as they won't find new related work quick enough and will have to take whatever they can get for their next job. While the owner vacations in space for fun.
      - Jensson 1y ago
        Those are unrelated, the same would happen regardless if it was owned by millions via their pension plans or a few billionaires, both are equally greedy and immediately move their investments for 1% higher returns, the CEO's at these companies are servants to that inhuman level of greed that comes from dissociated masses of people being owners.
madamelic 1y ago
It's also a total gut-punch to employees. "We had a great quarter!... not a good enough though, so GTFO" I can only imagine what this will do to morale. If even positive quarters means job cuts, why even try to have a positive quarter.
- Temporary_31337 1y ago
  I dunno, I got used to the weekly beatings. You could arque that if you understand what brings the most business value and deliver that repeatedly, you're pretty safe from being fired and arguably you'd know how to run your own business if needed. If someone, say did a great job of updating API documentation that can be fully automated now, that's not good enough nowadays. I realise that's not exactly fair because the capitalists / shareholders 'only' have to have to have money in order to receive compensation, and you as a labourer face increasing demands. If you don't like the balance of power you find a niche / leverage as a laborer or you switch to being a capitalist eventually.
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
    >You could arque that if you understand what brings the most business value and deliver that repeatedly, you're pretty safe from being fired and arguably you'd know how to run your own business if needed. It's not the 2010's anymore. You're not fired because you did a bad job or even because you weren't productive enough. You're fired in a larger cultural wave to try and remove American labor from the American economy as they push everything overseas and pretend it's about "efficiency with AI". Nothing is hiring outside of hospitality right now. >you switch to being a capitalist eventually. Hope you have generational wealth. Otherwise that "capitalist" position is you delivering doordash just to survive.
  - ulfw 1y ago
    What a cute naive thinking of life. If you truly believe the best people are not layed off from corporations, you must be extremely young and just starting out. Corporations are a lot less rational than you imply
- gruez 1y ago
SoftTalker 1y ago
"culpability" is also purposefully loaded. It's not wrong for a company to decide that certain jobs are no longer needed. How they handle that could be more or less considerate of the human impact, but there's really no way to do it that won't cause some some upset to the terminated employee.
Gud 1y ago
If a person fails to understand they are essentially working for a feudal lord when they sign up to work for Amazon, the educational system has failed. In the modern capitalist world, entire industries are shipped over seas or simply vanish. Question. Why is it the shareholders of AMZNs responsibility to keep people employed?

andsoitis 1y ago

> purposefully passive to remove culpability from the entity (Amazon) that is making the active choice to terminate these people's jobs. Opening line in the article: "Amazon has confirmed it plans to cut thousands of jobs, saying it needs to be "organised more leanly" to seize the opportunity provided by artificial intelligence (AI)." And the statement from Amazon uses the phrase "we are reducing..."

rco8786 1y ago
Yes we’re discussing the headline
- andsoitis 1y ago
  > Yes we’re discussing the headline Ah I see, your beef is with the BBC, not Amazon.
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
    It can be both. In this case it is. BBC for the sanewhashing of insanity, and Amazon for continuing to inflate this giant AI bubble.
ruszki 1y ago
There is enough people who don’t read articles just headlines whose world view can be changed with this. In Hungary, where I’m originally from, one of my friends sent me an article, which was about immigration in 2015, because she thought that the local district government wanted to move “migrants” (dog whistle for non white people over there) into her district. The headline said that, the body said the exact opposite… and it worked. Also there are a ton of comments here, on Reddit, and really everywhere, that makes it quite obvious that a lot of people don’t read just headlines.
John23832 1y ago
Right and that is different that passive wording of "job loss" used above?

bluGill 1y ago

The more important thing it does though is remove culpability from the employee who doesn't have a job anymore. That person will be looking for a job (we assume, perhaps a few will just retire or something else). The companies they apply at will want to know why they no longer work at Amazon - there is a big difference between "I was sexually harassing my coworkers" (pick a crime, sexual harassment seems to be the big one these days), and "Amazon decided they didn't need my job done any more".

rco8786 1y ago
That's why "layoff" is the right word to use. It makes it clear that it was Amazon's decision and not through any direct fault of the employee.
- pinnochio 1y ago
  Yes. Job loss is what the employee experiences, not the employer.
  - _DeadFred_ 1y ago
    The owner of the employer company just experienced a vacation in space, renting an entire European country for a wedding, etc. Some employees are going to experience losing their housing. Losing their health benefits while sick. Children will be moved from their friends/schools. Some will lose their careers as they won't find new related work quick enough and will have to take whatever they can get for their next job. While the owner vacations in space for fun.
    - Jensson 1y ago
      Those are unrelated, the same would happen regardless if it was owned by millions via their pension plans or a few billionaires, both are equally greedy and immediately move their investments for 1% higher returns, the CEO's at these companies are servants to that inhuman level of greed that comes from dissociated masses of people being owners.

madamelic 1y ago

It's also a total gut-punch to employees. "We had a great quarter!... not a good enough though, so GTFO" I can only imagine what this will do to morale. If even positive quarters means job cuts, why even try to have a positive quarter.

Temporary_31337 1y ago
I dunno, I got used to the weekly beatings. You could arque that if you understand what brings the most business value and deliver that repeatedly, you're pretty safe from being fired and arguably you'd know how to run your own business if needed. If someone, say did a great job of updating API documentation that can be fully automated now, that's not good enough nowadays. I realise that's not exactly fair because the capitalists / shareholders 'only' have to have to have money in order to receive compensation, and you as a labourer face increasing demands. If you don't like the balance of power you find a niche / leverage as a laborer or you switch to being a capitalist eventually.
- johnnyanmac 1y ago
  >You could arque that if you understand what brings the most business value and deliver that repeatedly, you're pretty safe from being fired and arguably you'd know how to run your own business if needed. It's not the 2010's anymore. You're not fired because you did a bad job or even because you weren't productive enough. You're fired in a larger cultural wave to try and remove American labor from the American economy as they push everything overseas and pretend it's about "efficiency with AI". Nothing is hiring outside of hospitality right now. >you switch to being a capitalist eventually. Hope you have generational wealth. Otherwise that "capitalist" position is you delivering doordash just to survive.
- ulfw 1y ago
  What a cute naive thinking of life. If you truly believe the best people are not layed off from corporations, you must be extremely young and just starting out. Corporations are a lot less rational than you imply
gruez 1y ago

SoftTalker 1y ago

"culpability" is also purposefully loaded. It's not wrong for a company to decide that certain jobs are no longer needed. How they handle that could be more or less considerate of the human impact, but there's really no way to do it that won't cause some some upset to the terminated employee.

Gud 1y ago

If a person fails to understand they are essentially working for a feudal lord when they sign up to work for Amazon, the educational system has failed. In the modern capitalist world, entire industries are shipped over seas or simply vanish. Question. Why is it the shareholders of AMZNs responsibility to keep people employed?