All this abuse and exploitation for a 11 minute amusement park ride into space | Hacker News Reader

All this abuse and exploitation for a 11 minute amusement park ride into space

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25 pointseevilspock14 comments

This is attention-grabbing posturing, in the style of most Twitter posts. Amazon is most definitely cruel to its employees, but that cruelty is not applied for the sake of launching Bezos into space. It's applied to make Amazon (and Amazon's investors) money.

Going into fits of stylish hysteria because the evil billionaires are launching rockets again misses the more important point: they would be just as evil if they WEREN'T launching rockets. Space exploration isn't the issue. The issue is that workers (and small businesses) are getting ground into a pulp to grease the gears of an increasingly cruel and dysfunctional society. What the ill-gotten gains are spent on is irrelevant. The point is they were ill-gotten in the first place.

And this matters, because the vast majority of nasty people running these society-crushing companies AREN'T operating private space programs. Walmart doesn't own any rockets. Nor does McDonalds. But they're still disassembling the foundation of a free, equitable society everyone can participate in, brick by brick, with their perverse economics.

You're right, except there is value in calling this out when billionaires are being held up as heroes if not worshipped* for these "feats". Even Musk, who has mistreated his employees, uses government subsidies, and did not even invent anything in the first place. He's just another Bezos/Bill Gates type capitalist.

>when billionaires are being held up as heroes if not worshipped

There is a huge difference between all the wanna-be billionaire astronauts and SpaceX.

I can be (and am) impressed by SpaceX without worshipping or even liking Musk. Or considering him mostly responsible for their results.

I wouldn't buy a Tesla even if I could afford one, and the number one reason is it's too associated with Musk's personality.

But conversely, people who hate Musk and think it's important that other people hate him too, might threaten SpaceX for no good reason (from my point of view).

I basically agree that everyone other than SpaceX is into pointless vanity projects. But I can't endorse the hostility of the pundits and commenters because I don't suppose they draw the line at SpaceX. It seems like genericized hostility to the wealthy, space travel, geek culture, American capitalism, etc.

The fact that Amazon exists means that Wal-Mart and Target and Barnes and Noble were displaced to a certain extent. To hate Amazon, I'd want to understand why the counterfactual where they didn't do that would be better beyond a reasonable doubt.

> It seems like genericized hostility to the wealthy, space travel, geek culture, American capitalism, etc.

What if the generalized hostility to wealth inequity and capitalism is legit? What if any generalized hostility to geek culture is based on the perception that it worships capitalism and is itself generally resistant if not hostile to social justice stands?

> To hate Amazon, I'd want to understand why the counterfactual where they didn't do that would be better beyond a reasonable doubt.

What if some people want none of them to exist?

I'm not up for arguing any of that stuff in general. The point is, assuming all of those are reasonable opinions, why Amazon? If the opinions are generic, then why don't they result in a broadly diverse set of observations about many different facets of our entire society?

Even if the context is limited to Wal-Mart, I feel (and this could be my particular bubble) like the hate for Wal-Mart has just faded away. I mean, you may affirm that you still think Wal-Mart is terrible, I'm just saying I haven't felt bombarded with that in quite a while. It feels coordinated in waves. Fake.

And this is where you say "shut up, whataboutism" as if I were an Amazon spokesperson.

you can peruse my comment history. if it isn’t as broad as you suggest, that’s more a function of HN. also, my broader comments invariably get downvoted to hell. not that my other comments don’t. not that i care. (i upvoted all of yours above)

there’s a unique reason to bring up Amazon. Nearly everyone shops there, so nearly everyone is complicit. Including liberals. Especially liberals. It’s the complicit that’s my true target. It’s our culture-wide moral failure. Bezos isn’t the real problem. It’s all of us. As Dostoevsky would say, we are all responsible.

>It’s our culture-wide moral failure

If Amazon vanished tomorrow, then there would no longer be a culture-wide moral failure?

If Amazon vanished tomorrow *as a result of* our culture changing, then yes -- it would mean a seismic cultural change rooted in a seismic morality change. At the *very* least we'd be on the path to a moral mend. With all due respect (as I said, I've upvoted all your comments), I don't think you're trying very hard to hear me.

If people can't extract themselves from their Amazon addiction (i.e. their addictions to convenience and materialism built on the exploitation of others as well as disregard for the planet's health), then we have no chance.

If liberals (i.e. those proudly flying the flag of social and environmental responsibility) can't own up to their own complicity *and* change their ways, then we have no chance.

If you grok what I'm saying, you'd understand why I, unlike most, shine my spotlight on (neo)liberals and the things liberals do/use/perpetuate, and not on conservatives/Trump supporters. Especially since liberals use Trump and conservatives as scapegoats, providing cover for their own moral failure. So yes, my spotlight is on Amazon over Walmart. The Democrat party of the GOP. Etc.

I think, given your apparent agreement that things are fucked up even if we don't agree on underlying cause, that your insistence on nitpicking because someone isn't attacking or highlighting problems the same way you would speaks to some other issue that only you can fathom. Not sure there is a point in continuing if you are unable to at least understand what I'm saying.

All this abuse and exploitation because people want to just buy, buy, buy 24/7, as cheap as possible and as fast as possible and because the religion of our time is ordering crap nobody needs. Bezos riding a rocket to space is just unequal distribution of the spoils, not the reason for the existence of Amazon.

Agreed. But the post is not meant to be taken literally... It's rhetorical and makes a point.

Mr. Bezos has declared ad hominem attacks the enemy[1]. Are his employees suffering because he decided that their complaints were ad hominem attacks as well?

1. https://news.yahoo.com/jeff-bezos-donated-100-million-154000...

Saying things that might damage the (apparently quite fragile) self-image of the wealthy and powerful is the real outrage, not workers attempting suicide on shift, pissing in bottles or being forced to take welfare and 2nd jobs while already working full-time. Questioning gross inequalities and imbalances of power is seen as a personal attack for the Bezos of the world.

I'm curious: does being showered with more wealth and power than humans have ever known automatically make you a narcissist, or is it more of a prerequisite to obtaining all that stuff?

I’m no fan of Bezos, but that “amusement park ride” is actually what some of us would call a “prototype”.

Wouldn't it be more accurate to call Project Mercury[1] the prototype? We sent a man on the exact same flight, except a little bit longer, in 1961[2].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Mercury

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-Redstone_3

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