|
Top-level
 In hindsight "Stanford business professor says these things just happen and nobody is to blame" should have been an obvious red flag. Edit: I think this should be elevated to a general rule. Any economist or "professor of business" describing things in animal-behavior terms - instinct, herd, whatever - is prima-facie evidence a group of very rich people were up to some nefarious shit behind the scenes six months earlier. 21 comments
 @mhoye But that Blind post is really interesting and does seem to support what a lot of us were thinking at the time. @baldur I suppose that's true, but "layoffs are very bad and have awful human consequences" followed by "enh, y'know, sometimes these things just happen and they're nobody's fault", when they are in fact specifically the fault of some specific people for specific reasons is just giving those people intellectual and moral shelter and helping them escape accountability.  @jeff_abrahamson @baldur @mhoye I think the impact is probably similar here in Europe. Especially if you are in a niche market - where there are only a few companies who can really use your skills. @jeff_abrahamson @baldur @mhoye  You talk like it's a war waged on equal grounds by armies of like power and resolve... What if someone was tipped off in advance of the layoffs. Then what? How do you "defend" against this attack? Good point. I don't know how it works in the USA, but in Canada, unions in tech jobs are mostly non-existent. Lots of work to be done before it's an effective protection.  @axnxcamr@mstdn.ca @mhoye@mastodon.social @Geoffberner@zeroes.ca @baldur@toot.cafe USA has practically no unions because that's a communist idea and Americans generally prefer to just suffer tremendously than use an idea created by The Enemy.  @mhoye @axnxcamr @Geoffberner @baldur I would also take this opportunity to mention that unions are unnecessary if you work for a worker coop. It's like the union *is* the employer. It also reduces the wealth inequality problem, since the shareholders are the workers instead of wealthy rent-collectors. Imagine if our employers actually worked for us. @mhoye @axnxcamr @Geoffberner @baldur (But yes, if you can't work for a coop, unionization is the right choice.) @axnxcamr @baldur @mhoye that's kind of my point. The problem here is that many employees believe their company's purpose is to solve tech problems, when the actual animating purpose of those in charge is to lord it over people like them. The tech solutions were always a means to that end. You can't resist something that you won't first acknowledge as reality.   |
Gregory's Server
@mhoye I mean, what the Stanford professor said about lay-offs being a really bad idea that usually harms both the company and the laid off employees is still true
Everything he said about why it happened is bullshit, of course. Unless you mentally substitute "social contagion" with "greed-inspired idiocy" or something 🙂
(This is a recurring phenomenon in biz/economics studies. They can often demonstrate specific negative outcomes, but almost never positive outcomes or ultimate causes)