Comment by ryandrake

Comment by ryandrake 3 days ago

31 replies

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Personal integrity should not ever be in play when you’re talking about amoral objects like Amazon.

When I command my computer to remove a file, I don’t think about the morality of destroying things. I issue the command and it does it. And I know my computer doesn’t care about personal integrity as it churns through its instructions. Amazon works the same way.

These companies are all lawn mowers, just like Oracle. A lawn mower just cuts grass and does not deserve or respond to things like integrity and personal honor.

LVB 3 days ago

While it may be comforting to think you're just sticking it to "Amazon", if you look at almost anything you're doing, you're going to see other people who are really at the other end of this apathy. Whether it's co-workers you're blocking or giving half-effort to, customers being ignored, or the new engineer that is neglected.

Is there some purely "amoral object like Amazon" stuff that's part of it too? Sure. But at least in my experience, folks who are just phoning it in cause real stress for coworkers and others, and that definitely relates to personal integrity.

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  • okwhateverdude 3 days ago

    Man, all of that sounds awful for those coworkers and customers. But it isn't GPs problem. It isn't their company. He doesn't employ them. He isn't responsible for their experience. Put the blame on their poor experience squarely where it belongs: management. Why is shitty management letting some underperformer ruin things? Super convenient to claim personal integrity and shift the blame to the underperformer when management is clearly not demonstrating personal integrity and protecting their team and customers.

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    • keikobadthebad 3 days ago

      That's a good point: demotivating people and making them leave, having all those side effects on bystanders... it's all coming from the management decision.

      And this is Amazon, they are normally so careful about mental suffering of coworkers... ...

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    • kiratp 3 days ago

      It is the GP’s problem when this coworkers don’t want to work with them again.

      The tech hubs (SF, Seattle, NYC are pretty small communities.

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      • oblio 3 days ago

        Any place that has hundreds of thousands of tech workers isn't small.

        In a town of 50k people you'll die not knowing probably 80% of them.

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      • beacon294 3 days ago

        They are small in a sense and vast in a sense. You may know some people personally but never interact with them at work even though in theory your systems are adjacent.

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    • tarsinge 3 days ago

      A company doesn’t physically exist, the reality is people interacting with each others. People are not responsible for others whole experience, but certainly for their actions. You can’t hide behind non-existent things, you are having a real interaction in the real world and impacting real people. Otherwise it leads to systemic evil.

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      • voltaireodactyl 3 days ago

        I think the prior commenter’s point might be more clearly stated as “why hold rank and file employees responsible for overall conditions within the company, rather than those actually responsible for overall conditions within the company [management].”

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      • cameldrv 3 days ago

        A person doesn’t physically exist. It’s just a bunch of cells interacting with each other. Likewise a cell doesn’t really exist, it’s just a bunch of proteins and lipids, but likewise those are just a bunch of atoms, which are just a bunch of subatomic particles!

        Anyhow, corporations exist just as much as any other collective entity and have their own behavioral norms.

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      • oblio 3 days ago

        What if the system is evil by design? You are already at the "systemic evil" step, from the start.

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bigstrat2003 3 days ago

> Personal integrity should not ever be in play when you’re talking about amoral objects like Amazon.

Personal integrity must always be in play, or else it means nothing.

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  • immibis 3 days ago

    Do you feel bad about the file you're deleting?

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nullc 3 days ago

Integrity is as much about the kind of person you want to be as it is about the beneficiary of your treatment.

Don't sell yourself short.

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  • immibis 3 days ago

    Be a person who treats others a little better than they treat you.

    Be a person who isn't fooled into thinking corporations are people.

    Reply View 3 replies
    • mplewis 3 days ago

      Corporations are not people. They do not have feelings. You do not need to be nice to them.

      Reply View 2 replies
      • nullc 2 days ago

        A persons conduct says more about their character in situations when they don't need to be nice, when there won't even be any consequence for not being nice.

        One could prompt their local LLM with some psychopathic verbal abuse-- "Do it or I drill a hole in your skull!!!" -- you don't need to be nice to the LLM, it doesn't have feelings or memory, etc. The LLM doesn't deserve your kindness or benefit from it. But if you do this often can you really be sure that it will have no effect on how you treat people, or how you think of yourself?

        And corporations are a lot more human than some LLM-- they're made of people, they pay people, they buy from people, they're owned by people. Abusing them can harm people, though, sure it doesn't always. You can't always tell when it will harm people, and your reasoning may not be the most unbiased when your own personal benefit is on the other side of the equation.

        But even if it didn't matter, that no humans would be hurt. Do you want to push yourself towards the kind of person who will behave in an exploitive way when they can get away with it? Or do you want to be the kind of person who is confident enough in their own merit that they can play life on a slightly harder mode and walk past 'opportunities' that are less obviously upstanding?

        People constantly set goals for themselves that go above and beyond what is required of them because it helps develop their skill, their character, or because their wiliness to face the challenge forms part of their identity.

        In any case, I'm not judging anyone here-- just offering a different perspective.

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  • tivert 3 days ago

    There's not much integrity in being a sucker.

    Reply View 3 replies
    • denkmoon 3 days ago

      However it's not a boolean choice, since OP has a third option: change workplace. Which is exactly what they are seeking to do and demonstrates their integrity.

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    • SavageBeast 3 days ago

      When theres money on the table you don't have any friends.

      Reply View 1 reply
      • tivert 3 days ago

        > When theres money on the table you don't have any friends.

        That's taking it way too far.

        I think the important factor is the kind of relationship involved, specifically how does a modern corporation like Amazon view its relationship with you. I'd argue that it's fundamentally sociopathic and exploitative, so it doesn't deserve anything better than what it gives.

        Individuals and different kinds of organizations can be deserving of your integrity.

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  • threatofrain 3 days ago

    Integrity is about moral vision. Either your moral vision will become moral reality or it will become moral wishfulness. Reality is how you hold your morality accountable as something more than a story you tell yourself.

    So on the moral realities of Amazon...

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  • matsemann 3 days ago

    One could argue that the integrity was already lost when they accepted money in exchange for work for a company like Amazon.

    Reply View 1 reply
    • immibis 3 days ago

      As long as the money is worth more than the work, draining Amazon of its savings is arguably a moral good.

      Reply View 0 replies
mikhailfranco 3 days ago

Reference:

   "What you think of Oracle, is even truer than you think it is. There has been no entity in human history with less complexity or nuance to it than Oracle. And I gotta say, as someone who has seen that complexity for my entire life, it's very hard to get used to that idea. It's like, 'surely this is more complicated!' but it's like: Wow, this is really simple! This company is very straightforward, in its defense.

   This company is about one man, his alter-ego, and what he wants to inflict upon humanity -- that's it! ...Ship mediocrity, inflict misery, lie our asses off, screw our customers, and make a whole shitload of money.

   Yeah... you talk to Oracle, it's like, 'no, we don't fucking make dreams happen -- we make money!'

   ...You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think 'oh, the lawnmower hates me' -- lawnmower doesn't give a shit about you, lawnmower can't hate you. Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don't fall into that trap about Oracle."
Bryan Cantrill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=33m

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toadi 3 days ago

That is a bit how the Germans did all the nice things during WW2. Just remove personal integrity and go along with the flow.

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  • oblio 3 days ago

    OP is more like Schindler, who was part of the system but didn't actually produce shells. Schindler was a net negative for the system and most likely a net positive for humanity.

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tarsinge 3 days ago

Your computer physically exists, just as your lawn mower. Amazon and Oracle on the other end just exist in our minds. Physically it’s just people interacting with each other. So for me personal integrity depends on each specific interaction.

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  • immibis 3 days ago

    My hard drive is just magnetic domains, but I still interact with files. Constructs can be interacted with. I can also bang my head on the car door, even though both are actually just atoms.

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