Hacker News Reader

Comment by ivraatiems | Hacker News Reader

> This is so unbelievable it can't be anything else than pure propaganda, especially when proof is absent and providing proof was trivial.

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...

View on HN

Overall this is an interesting response, but you missed the main point of my comment. Why is there no hard evidence of the claims made in the article?

> 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?

$1M is a trivial amount of money for Tesla. They could easily have decided that it was better to yield to blackmail at that price than risk a PR disaster because, apparently, people can be quite credulous about these things.

I'm not saying that these allegations are false, but the apparent absence of any recordings of the alleged abuses seems hinky to me.

But that still requires you to believe that the arbitrator was either fooled or corrupt, which seems like it would also require some pretty clear evidence to be believable, no? Especially since these arbitrators are typically biased in favor of the company who wrote them into the employment agreement, if anyone. And Tesla would then have a history of these judgments - you go to arbitration to avoid legal precedent, sure, but in the court of public opinion that's an awful thing to have.

> What world do you live in where this is unbelievable?

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com