Amazon Rising

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

To be fair, DiapDealer's response was to someone who was actually kinda passing judgment:

Apparently, you didn't catch this distinction:

To be fair, you can't reduce his point to a self-cancelling circuit involving impossible standards of objectivity. This was his actual point. . . .

The key phrase is self-cancelling circuit.

In saying there's a lot of aggressive support for Amazon on MR, MattW was not suggesting he was magically above being biased. Right or wrong, he was saying he'd noticed a level of bias that seemed excessive.

To suggest he'd claimed to adhere to an impossible standard of objectivity because he mentioned bias at all is a straw man. Virtually any argument can be opposed in a fair way. No reason to stack the deck by inferring that opponents have painted themselves into corners when they haven't.

The go-to defense in children's arguments is "I know you are, but what am I?" In a harmless way, you used that defense by parroting the phrase "to be fair" to answer my post mockingly (since my post began the same way).

The more disheartening attack is the one we often see in partisan politics: The facile attempt to turn others' words around to suggest they're "hypocrites" or "liars," as if mere mechanical reversals were enough to prove character flaws.

When that's done in a debate, it cheapens the content because it substitutes primitive roadblocks for actual arguments and makes the tone less civil.

That's why the phrase self-cancelling circuit was applied to DiapDealer's characterization of MattW's response: because it was an inaccurate dismissal of the point of the post, not because MattW is or claimed to be bias-free.

[GoSharks]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

In saying there's a lot of aggressive support for Amazon on MR, MattW was not suggesting he was magically above being biased. Right or wrong, he was saying he'd noticed a level of bias that seemed excessive.
...snip...
That's why the phrase self-cancelling circuit was applied to DiapDealer's characterization of MattW's response: because it was an inaccurate dismissal of the point of the post, not because MattW is or claimed to be bias-free.

"...since brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief:..."
Shakespeare had it right!

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

My position isn't pro Amazon or even pro-indie so don't put words in my mouth.
My position is pro cheap books.

(And pro cheap devices. I'm no fan of the FireTV or the Fire Phone. And it was years before I bought a Kindle (for my mother). My primary reader is still a Sony T1.)

I'm against Agency and price fixing.
I'm against predatory contracts abusing and demoralizing authors.
I'm not against tradpub per-se, but the Manhattan mafia makes it hard to be anything but against them.

Don't like my positions?
Challenge them or ignore them, I don't care either way.

But don't think you know me or anything about me or pretend to project your perceptions on me.

Carry on.

Right on the money, outstanding post!

[barutanseijin]

12.50 per hour is not a particularly good wage. It's 26K/yr. Try raising a child on that. Even in Kentucky. If you're one of those "it's their own fault for reproducing" folks, well, where do you think future Amazon labourers are going to come from? Mars? Where people are demanding a livable minimum wage, they're asking for more.

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by barutanseijin

12.50 per hour is not a particularly good wage. It's 26K/yr. Try raising a child on that. Even in Kentucky. If you're one of those "it's their own fault for reproducing" folks, well, where do you think future Amazon labourers are going to come from? Mars? Where people are demanding a livable minimum wage, they're asking for more.

In Oregon $12.50/hour is a damn good wage for a warehouse job. Yeah, if you are trying to raise a family on it, it isn't fun but the current state of minimum wage belongs in Politics and Religion.

[TimW]

Originally Posted by barutanseijin

12.50 per hour is not a particularly good wage. It's 26K/yr. Try raising a child on that. Even in Kentucky. If you're one of those "it's their own fault for reproducing" folks, well, where do you think future Amazon labourers are going to come from? Mars? Where people are demanding a livable minimum wage, they're asking for more.

Actually being in Kentucky, I can tell you a $26k/yr. warehouse job would be fine with a lot of the folks here. They work for quite a lot less.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by TimW

Actually being in Kentucky, I can tell you a $26k/yr. warehouse job would be fine with a lot of the folks here. They work for quite a lot less.

It was that way it Eastern Tennessee too. The cost of living there is cheaper though than say here in Raleigh. Although sales tax and the price of food I would say was higher there. Rent, utilities and wages are lower.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

Target has to follow the laws of the States and Country it is in. Some States allow people to carry fire arms everywhere and in stores. Target has little that they can do when people are following the law. It is not Target's fault, or Starbucks a few years back, that some folks decided to shop for Oreos carrying semi-automatic rifles and hand guns.

I am not sure that protests with guns are a good thing. It sounds dangerous to me.

Which States say that a store has to allow automatic weapons in the store? I don't know of any that do.

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by barutanseijin

12.50 per hour is not a particularly good wage. It's 26K/yr. Try raising a child on that. Even in Kentucky. If you're one of those "it's their own fault for reproducing" folks, well, where do you think future Amazon labourers are going to come from? Mars? Where people are demanding a livable minimum wage, they're asking for more.

The future of the Amazon workers is robots. They are already coming off the assembly lines in Japan as we speak. Most automobile plants have replaced 80% of their former workers with robots.

Robots are far more effective at repetitive tasks than humans. They don't get tired and don't complain. Even for war mass armies of humans will be gone. Unmanned ground, air and sea vehicles will do the fighting.

In the future most low wage labor positions will have been robotized. Most humans won't work at all. Maybe the state will have to limit reproduction as China is now doing since large, unskilled populations will be a drag on the state.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

The future of the Amazon workers is robots. They are already coming off the assembly lines in Japan as we speak.

Amazon already owns a robot company and their warehouses are already automated to a large extent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KRjuuEVEZs

As soon as they develop robots that can reliably handle packing they'll step it up a notch. They likely will never go 100% robotic but there is room to automate more. Big savings in A/C that way.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

As soon as they develop robots that can reliably handle packing they'll step it up a notch. They likely will never go 100% robotic but there is room to automate more. Big savings in A/C that way.

I hope proper safeguards will be in place as they move forward

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Which States say that a store has to allow automatic weapons in the store? I don't know of any that do.

Fully automatic weapons are generally illegal in the US. However, semi-automatics that look like automatics, and have almost as high a rate of fire if your trigger finger is quick, are legal in many states.

As to whether guns that are legal in public can be banned on private property, after web search, this seems to actually be a complicated question. In some of the more gun friendly states, a "no guns" sign in a parking lot is illegal, but OK inside the store. In your Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I think that a "no guns" sign is legal in both places, but I can't locate a law that would be violated if someone disrespected the sign.

See:

Target to customers: No guns please

Also, and unlike its largest competitor, Target does not sell guns.

There are Americans who promote open (not concealed) carrying of guns, as can be found by googling "open carry." Those folks may go into a Target with a gun to make a political point about gun rights. Others may do so because having a visible weapon makes them feel safer.

You can see I'm trying to word all this in a politically neutral way

[SteveEisenberg]

Getting back to books:

Originally Posted by fjtorres

I'm against Agency and price fixing.

I accept that, but for some reason you post a lot more against agency-type arrangements when it comes to books than when it comes to retail price maintenance on ereading devices. I'm not saying it's a nefarious reason. More likely, this explains your emphasis:

Originally Posted by fjtorres

I'm against predatory contracts abusing and demoralizing authors. I'm not against tradpub per-se, but the Manhattan mafia makes it hard to be anything but against them.

If you mean this, I agree:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/201...-ebook-imprint

But Manhattan mafia seems a bit extreme (just as I think boycotting Amazon would be), especially if the alternative is a world without advances.

Also, while it is important that publishers share a substantial portion of their revenue with authors, I primarily judge publishers by the quality of their product. Admittedly, this is very hard to judge given that no one person can read more than the tiniest proportion of the output. But I'm still finding the great majority of what I want to read in major publishing house products.

Along those lines, I've finished The Silkworm, and it has even better characterizations than the first Cormoran Strike mystery. If you believe that fiction provides a window into reality, it's hard to imagine your Manhattan mafia matching the depravity of the described London publishing world.

But then, as soon as the story ends, Rowling/Galbraith throws in a nonfiction-style acknowledgments chapter praising her agent and editor and imprint to the sky. So what's a guy to believe?

[MattW]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

My stance was summarily dismissed as brand loyalty. It pissed me off, so I dismissed right back. *shrug*

I wasn't even talking to you or responding to one of your posts. How you can infer that "[your] stance was summarily dismissed as brand loyalty" is a beyond me. You seem to have somehow taken away a "every positive post about Amazon means the poster can't think for themselves" vibe from my post when I was actually saying something like "the sheer volume of pro-Amazon and lack of contra-Amazon sentiment here implies a pervasive bias".

I maintain that there is a very one-sided view of Amazon here and I strongly believe that this has in part to do with the fact that Amazon is great for its customers and we're reluctant to pass judgement on a company that we buy from. Ergo my "if Amazon is good for me, then Amazon's enemies must be wrong" line of reasoning.

And if you re-read my original post, you'll notice that I did not advocate boycotting Amazon and that I used "we" when talking about Amazon's customers. I am one of those, too, you know.

The only one doing any "summarily dismissing" to a specific person in this exchange was you. *shrug*

Matt

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by MattW

I wasn't even talking to you or responding to one of your posts. How you can infer that "[your] stance was summarily dismissed as brand loyalty" is a beyond me. You seem to have somehow taken away a "every positive post about Amazon means the poster can't think for themselves" vibe from my post when I was actually saying something like "the sheer volume of pro-Amazon and lack of contra-Amazon sentiment here implies a pervasive bias".

I maintain that there is a very one-sided view of Amazon here and I strongly believe that this has in part to do with the fact that Amazon is great for its customers and we're reluctant to pass judgement on a company that we buy from. Ergo my "if Amazon is good for me, then Amazon's enemies must be wrong" line of reasoning.

And if you re-read my original post, you'll notice that I did not advocate boycotting Amazon and that I used "we" when talking about Amazon's customers. I am one of those, too, you know.

The only one doing any "summarily dismissing" to a specific person in this exchange was you. *shrug*

Matt

You seriously don't think your opening and closing sentences came off as a bit judgmental/inflammatory? While you may not have been referring to me directly, I was one of the ones in this thread that you lumped together as a tribe of "back-patters" reassuring each other of Amazon's (and hence our own) "nobleness." The fact that you might include yourself in that "we" is irrelevant to the fact that I don't even consider myself a "fan" of Amazon, per se. I've been buying about 75% of my ebooks from other retailers for quite some time now.

I DO tend to come down on the side of Amazon when it comes to "them vs big publishers (RE agency-pricing)," or the "Inhuman Warehouse Conditions;" and since these things seem to be the only issues discussed here and everywhere, I'm sure it's easy to mistake me as being "pro-Amazon."

What you choose to attribute to "pervasive bias" here at MobileRead, could just as easily be attributed to a general public consensus that Amazon really isn't doing anything wrong, no? Not because we're dazzled and confused by the dangling, shiny "we love taking care of our customers" coin, but maybe because they're really not doing anything "wrong" ... or at the least "wrong-er."

Your bias affected your decision to attribute certain things to bias--when those things could just as easily be attributed to "there's really nothing to see here."

Even if one believes that Amazon doesn't NEED defending, that doesn't mean that those who choose to do so on certain topics, aren't doing so in a logical, clinically-detached manner. Certainly not bias-free, but at least not bias-driven.