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Comment by duxup | Hacker News Reader

>Very clearly, the point is performance.

Yeah from my understanding from former Amazon folks it is hyper performance oriented. The outcome (as far as treating people) might suck, but the motivation seems to genuinely be performance.

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It's a distinction without a difference.

I think motivation and the intent of the policy is relevant.

The Purpose Of A System Is What It Does[1]. It doesn't really matter what the motivation or intent was. If the outcome is cruelty, then it is a cruel policy. If the people who make the policy don't intend for the outcome to be cruel, it is within their power to change it.

EDIT: If the outcome is also a high performing workforce, then the policy can be both cruel and performance enhancing. I'm just arguing that a policy that ends up being $X is an $X policy, regardless of whether the policy makers intended it to be $X, for whatever value of X you choose.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...

If the outcome is performance?

What absolute nonsense. You could just as easily say "since Amazon performs well, the purpose of Amazon is performance".

Anyway, intent and motivation are clearly relevant when we think about moral issues (such as cruelty). To suggest otherwise is absurd.

Intent and motivation are describing human thought process. We can apply this metaphorically to corporations to illustrate a point, but corporations can't literally have motivations. Systems theory (and thus the above heuristic) describes entities like Amazon.

So corporations can't literally have intent or motivation but they can be cruel. Or maybe we're talking about metaphorical cruelty?

Cruelty is an outcome. It can be the result of an intent or motivation, but doesn't have to.

Cruelty is a moral justment.

Made by an observer, or the victim(s).

So if a person walks under a cliff and a rock falls on them, would an observer be right to deduce that the rock/cliff is cruel, or perhaps that the entire Earth is cruel to its inhabitants?

You should think about the phrase "the way to hell is paved with good intentions" a little sometime.

Intents and motivations are irrelevant when you look at their effect (which cruelty is). Heck even the worst dictator in known history had wanted to make the world a "better place" in his own, twisted way. Some things just aren't worth their price.

Wow I didn't expect a reductio ad hitlerum in this thread.

What is the "effect of Amazon" anyway? Surely Amazon has done a lot of good. It has created jobs, it has changed how people buy things. It has also done a lot of bad. It has made it harder for small indepdendent businesses, it has engaged in anticompetitive practices. How am I supposed to "sum up" Amazon's "overall effect"?

Truthfully, I have no idea if Amazon is "good" or "bad" or "cruel" and neither does anyone else. The people making these claims confidently are posers.

So you believe that performance and cruelty are not different?

If performance is subjective (# of tickets, "impact", cut of your jib, etc) and at times applied arbitrarily by a manager, would applying such a flawed assessment to the detriment of someone's career, livelihood, and personal happiness, not also be cruel?

If you honestly believe these rating systems are objective, consistent, and applied fairly, sure performance measurements are not cruel. But I argue most of the time they are at the discretion of management - and will reflect the worst qualities of that manager.

>If performance is subjective (# of tickets, "impact", cut of your jib, etc) and at times applied arbitrarily by a manager, would applying such a flawed assessment to the detriment of someone's career, livelihood, and personal happiness, not also be cruel?

Through this lens, everything in life is cruel.

My statement was not that abstract. Those who have the power to inflict punitive damage on others should be really careful about when they apply that power. The premise of my argument is that tech org management is sometimes so careless with the way that they hire and fire that sometimes it is cruel.

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