What world do you live in where this is unbelievable?
Is a $1 million arbitration win enough for you to believe them?[0] Or do you think that was also just based purely on hearsay?
Or maybe the lawsuit filed by the state of California is also propaganda?[1]
Surely, if this was all made up propaganda, Tesla would be the first to say so - and in front of an arbitrator or judge, no less. Their many well-compensated lawyers would find it out in discovery and tear the state to pieces, and win all of these cases.
That doesn't seem to be happening.
[0] https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2021-08-05...
[1] https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/e8/c4/932fafa44013b4e7a4b...
> What world do you live in where this is unbelievable?
A world where if this ever happened there would be dozens standing up and objecting these comments, making a scene, and stating this is unacceptable. A world where this is so outrageous no one would even think about making such comments nor any comments orders of magnitude less offensive. A world where people are so afraid of being perceived as racist that they could never conceive of saying something like this, and when heard if it ever happened couldn't believe they were hearing it.
> Is a $1 million arbitration win enough for you to believe them?[0] Or do you think that was also just based purely on hearsay?
Are you're aware this is the salary of highly paid software engineer? This is peanuts and a minimal prize to get rid of the issue.
> Surely, if this was all made up propaganda, Tesla would be the first to say so
Why? Do you know Tesla's strategy? This is a public trial as well and a difficult situation for Tesla. Is denying the issue going to make it go away faster? Is anyone going to believe Tesla were they to claim it's all lies?
I'm not saying that these allegations are false, but the apparent absence of any recordings of the alleged abuses seems hinky to me.
A world where the demand for racism far outstrips the supply leading to a deluge of fake accusations. Some of these are elaborate hoaxes - Jussie Smolett comes to mind - while others are simply unfounded claims which evaporate when proof is demanded.
This might seem unbelievable to us, most of whom work in comfy (home) offices where even the slightest hint of racism would be a fire-able offense, but blue collar work is different. People are much rougher around the edges. I'd like to believe this is false, or at least exaggerated, but I also don't have much trouble believing it's true. Human nature, left to itself, is not a pretty sight.
I don't understand why you think you have to hold the phone like you're interviewing the person to get a recording. You can just turn the recorder on and leave it in your pocket/bag.
Nevada is a one party consent state, but you would need to turn your phone on specifically for that conversation rather than just leaving it on all day.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...
I don't think providing the proof is trivial. California is an all-party-consent-to-recording state [1]. Recording your co-workers and then posting it to the LA times might expose you to being charged with a crime.
Actually, I'm kind of surprised the article has so many allegations made in public, including quotes from the lawyer. IANAL but I thought standard operating procedure was to not talk to the media, because they're an unpredictable source of hassle and work that's ultimately irrelevant to winning the case. Maybe they involved the media because this is a class action suit, and they're trying to get the word out? Maybe someone actually familiar with this kind of stuff could clarify the strategic side of things.
1: https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/blog/criminal-defense/is-it-ill...
https://ktla.com/news/local-news/its-illegal-to-secretly-rec...
I'm no aware of whether this applies in this circumstance (what is likely a civil case)
This is not a good argument. Video and audio evidence is the exception, not the rule. Why would we be hearing this "pure propaganda" only about this one firm and industry? My own bet is that the claims about a fucked-up environment in that auto factory are mostly real. It's the simplest explanation.
The simplest explanation was that everybody was ignoring this all the time? What percentage of people do you think would ignore this?
I don't think regarding the allegations as real is the simplest explanation when there are many other facts that are hard to reconcile with that hypothesis. There's an obviously simpler explanation.
If you're ruled by the criteria "my default hypothesis is the simplest explanation" in this case you should be defending the allegations are most probably unfounded.
If this was their engineering office I would agree.
White people are more circumspect with the magic word generally, it was the American-born children of immigrants who would really get wild with it, along with the black dudes who wanted to be or seem more street adjacent. Such an awkward way to phrase all of this.
Then we get pictures of the My Lai massacre, or Abu Ghraib, or video of Rodney King and George Floyd. Actually your fringe tends to argue nothing wrong happened with Rodney King or George Floyd, or they were asking for it, fueling fires of the inevitable upheavals that follow.
And most people said it was horrible.
What you're saying, to me, sounds like people were skeptical when there was no evidence but then evidence came out. Then you leave out that a lot of people's minds were changed with evidence.
He's responding to someone saying "I'm surprised there's not video/audio" and responds by saying "it won't change the fringe's mind"?
It will change a lot of people's minds, just like it did in all of those incidents he named.
Whereas you and I can watch the Rodney King footage and see the plain truth that the cops beat the shit out of King without cause, there will always be quislings spreading FUD.
But how is that relevant to this conversation? Some amount of proof is sufficient for most people. Where does convincing the "fringe" come in? Is he accusing his parent of being "fringe" for noting a lack of evidence in a context where it should be trivial to gather?
> It'd be cool if there was any evidence at all.
> You can't convince the fringe with evidence!
It's non-sequitur.
Especially these days with social media, so many outlandish stories turn out not to be true. Not having doubt creates incentives to lie more.
But I'd agree that you don't want to be extreme in disbelief either.
Just have your phone to be always recording?
You even say recording these abuses is “trivial” and should have been conducted. You have never been in an abusive environment, that much is clear.
Just because I don't believe a story in which people are abused using racial slurs, in which this is happening in public, in which this is happening repeatedly, in which there should be many witnesses, in one of the most racially conscious countries in the world, in a country where a big percentage of the population would never put up with this if this happened in front of them, in a very famous big company that everybody knows about, in the absence of evidence like coworkers coming forward and supporting this was happening the whole time, doesn't mean I'm not going to believe every other allegation of abuse. Details are important.
I find it very unlikely this evidence is going to appear, however if it does, I'll change my mind. But now, my default hypothesis is this is not true or terribly exaggerated.
So, if someone said they were verbally abused at their job but didn't provide recordings, would you default to calling it "so unbelievable" and "pure propaganda", as you have called this? And calling it that somehow doesn't amount to being negatively predisposed?
Color me skeptical.
This is a bad analogy because presumably if my coworkers were reporting the same stories as the workers in the article I'd would've witnessed the allegations first hand. If they were reporting not so overt aggressions as the one reported in the article in any case I'd still be able to better judge the situation other than purely by their word. So you'd have to give me more specifics.
I can guarantee you though if someone was calling my coworkers what the workers in the article were allegedly being called I would've spoken up on the spot and I'd be supporting them in that same article. How many of their coworkers are openly supporting them? Are all of them racist?
It's also a bad analogy because the likelihood of something being true changes if you hear it has happened to someone in millions and if you hear it has happened to someone you know.
So I do think you're skeptical although I don't see a rational basis for it.
As you add more conditions the probability tends to zero :). Once you say it was happening in front of more people who weren't reacting, and this was happening on a regular basis, and this was happening in one of the biggest car companies of a country, where a big percentage of the population would never tolerate anything remotely like this, then I'm going to ask for that evidence which you surely already have, since at the very least there must've been many witnesses.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-12/deadly-co...