• DandomRude@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    I don’t understand what you’re getting at. Of course tech companies have a lot of employees if you count all the “mechanical turks”. That’s simply misleading.

    None of that has much to do with what my original comment was about.

    You’re saying that it’s impossible for powerful, completely degenerate people to be capable of playing their power games.

    My take on this is that a look at the history books proves you wrong. LinkedIn-style fairy tales about leadership and all that bogus doesn’t change much about that.

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      None of that has much to do with what my original comment was about.

      The whole headcount thing was your point, not mine. I could never tell where you were going with it.

      You’re saying that it’s impossible for powerful, completely degenerate people to be capable of playing their power games.

      No, I never said its impossible. I said the closer you get to seeing those in power, the less likely it appears to happen for a number of reasons, but mostly because they are simply not as smart or capable as we generally give them credit for. Wealth and power does not equal intelligence.

      I don’t understand what you’re getting at. Of course tech companies have a lot of employees if you count all the “mechanical turks”. That’s simply misleading.

      Are you seriously dismissively calling tech workers from outside the West “mechanical turks” like they’re throwaway people? I’ll say this as nicely as possible: Fuck that racist bullshit!

      These are people like you and me. No different. They contribute high tech and high quality work to multi million and billion dollar programs. They may make a fraction of the wage we do here in the West, but that isn’t because they are any less smart, skilled, ambitious, or honest. That is only the product of history and geopolitics. I’ve personally gone to India and seen first hand the work they do, and worked alongside them. They work as hard as we do for a better life for themselves and their families. Fuck you for thinking less of them.

      This post of mine can probably get me banned, but if it goes that way I’ll take that if the alternative is accepting open racism.

        • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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          23 hours ago

          I’m familiar with the history of it. It was a person in the box. Mechanical Turk is also a 21st century reference to people that do brainless work born from the AWS service. In either reading I’m only seeing you’re saying they don’t count as workers, or they’re workers that don’t count because their work is trivial.

          I see from your post history that English may not be your first language. I’m really hoping you’re just miscommunication. Please explain the non-racist/non-dismissing meaning I’m hoping you’re trying to get across.

          • DandomRude@lemmy.world
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            20 hours ago

            What I meant by that was that many tech companies hire people, who frequently perform these tasks on a project basis for only short periods of time, and pay them a pittance for their work. Their numbers are likely to fluctuate greatly.

            I was by no means trying to emphasise the fact that these people mostly live in countries where wages are particularly low and where there are virtually no labor protections; I was simply pointing out that they are usually hired on a short-term basis.

            This exploitative practice, as well as other “gig-work” arrangements, is unfortunately quite widespread, especially in the tech industry, and serves to increase corporate profitability. Many tech companies use this approach to reduce the number of permanent employees—a practice that, of course, isn’t unique to the tech industry—but using these practices there are many tech companies that generate astronomical revenues with a comparatively small workforce.