My experience of whistleblowing even here in the west is that usually it goes very very badly. The only real thing open to you is to refuse to do anything unethical, quit and walk away. Many people can't afford to do that. Things ought to be different but we live in corrupt societies where the law is different for the rich and powerful than for everyone else.
Slavery is de-facto legal in China and their justice system is rotten to the core. Is this really news to anyone?
I would be surprised if this had ended differently.
The slavery and working conditions in China no longer really surprises me, what I do struggle to understand is that Western companies apparently DO NOT CARE.
I can sort of accept, reluctantly, that the Chinese have a different way to thinking than I do and that I can't necessarily apply my moral code to China. What I cannot accept or understand is that the owners and managers of Western companies, who supposedly share my moral ideals, continues to do business with China, solely to increase profit. It's absolutely disgusting. The mental gymnastics these people have to do to justify or just ignore the problems is beyond what I can even imagine.
What I cannot accept or understand is that the owners and managers of Western companies, who supposedly share my moral ideals
Are you really sure that these people share your own moral ideals? ;-)
Western companies which cared, went a bit bankrupt sadly. We have negative selection here.
Patagonia? Chick-Fil-A?
I think when you go full B2B, you are destined to be a soulless corporate automaton.
Patagonia? Chick-Fil-A?
There is certainly a niche catering to the handful of customers who do care, have the money to care, have enough information to care and get the opportunity to show they care by selecting the right vendor. But very often I think the consumer is just unable to care because of lacking money, lacking information or outright deception by the vendors and lacking offers from ethical vendors.
And the market unfortunately favors the non-ethical ones. Which doesn't make ethical ones impossible or non-existent, just less likely to succeed and therefore rare.
the market unfortunately favors the non-ethical ones
"The market favors" is just an corporate speak for "The customers favor", i.e. in this case "The customers unfortunately favor the non-ethical ones".
Not in this case. Since the non-ethical market participants are non-ethical, they tend to use non-ethical means: like hiding from or like lying to their customers about where and how their products were produced.
Therefore it is not really an informed decision of the customer that makes them successful. It rather is the lack of transparency of the market, due to the non-ethical sellers lying and regulation being too lax.
100% this.
i buy the cheaper of most products because i can't tell the difference. for all i know it could be the more expensive one that is lying to me. only if i actually know that the more expensive one is genuinely better, not fake and not based on exploited labor, then i'll buy that.
Arguably the customer doesn't have clarity on this situation here. Customers vote with their dollars and the reason they vote for these companies is because their products are relatively speaking the cheapest for some particular level of quality.
The resolution should be on the western governments to tax or fine the ever-loving crap out of companies and their products that utilize systems like this. Then the products' end prices will reflect the true cost to the consumer because any ethically-produced product of equivalent quality should be cheaper.
Chick Fil A? Is just another fast food chain, but it has associations with evangelical Christians and funding anti-gay positions.
That's your example of a company with a conscience?
Just because the conscience may be aligned in a direction you find morally objectionable doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Of course, a conscience, in and of itself, is only as good as what is aligned to.
Yes, a system called "capitalism" that works perfectly only in theory, and where bending rules creates winning conditions, and corruption is on always upward trend lines.
That's why the word "supposedly" is there
Western companies can't afford to care, as their consumers are buying based on price. Bad working conditions usually mean lower prices, and more success for the company using this.
You can't expect companies to fix this, this needs to come through politics and government. Unfortunately, these days governments who try to address it will be considered enemies of capitalism, considered leftish or communist. As prices will have to rise and consumers won't allow for that.
this needs to come through politics and government.
There's nothing western politicians can do to fix working conditions in China.
Embargo them? The working conditions in China won't get any better, and you'll simply put a lot of Chinese out of work by doing that.
Higher tariffs? That's just a tax on importing goods for China. While it helps the domestic manufacturing sector, it still does nothing to fix the working conditions in China.
Consumers suddenly start caring? The same as the "higher tariffs" scenario.
Any other ideas?
Rules on products sold in the west. Most manufacturing companies already need to trace the origin of their components, so you could specify what products are and aren't allowed to be sold in the west.
And how would that help the working conditions in China?
You’d just shift the manufacturing to a less hostile environment, where the government doesn’t intentionally make it hard to do auditing on modern slavery. Like India.
I just don’t see how it would help the Chinese labour situation at all.
If china wants to deliver to the west they'll need to improve working conditions. Chinese companies will deliver at spec for lowest cost, if you up the spec, they'll adjust and increase cost adjustingly.
Yeah, until people just buy things on Temu which get shipped from outside the US and they don't even pay tariff, that sounds like a good idea.
There is something western politicians can and should do to help working conditions outside the first world and it is exactly that: nothing.
I'd hope most people are familiar with the fact that the west, and specifically the CIA, later the NED and many different gov-backed orgs have been hard at work making sure the working conditions of those countries are either kept as exploitative as they are, or if possible made worse. Of course China is a fairly specific case, and while there obviously have been numerous cases of interventionism (like in the Tian'anmen square riots or Taiwan as a whole) stopping the endless anti-Chinese propaganda couldn't hurt (which I'm not accusing this article of being). It's absolutely obvious to everyone that the US and allies would jump at the first opportunity to meaningfully destabilize China's economy so, no, I certainly don't expect anything positive to be done for Chinese workers by western countries, and especially not by a country like the US that should very much look inwards when it comes to working conditions.
continues to do business with China ... It's absolutely disgusting.
I want to inject some nuance here. Competition in the labor market, which drives business to low- or middle-income countries like China, is really really good for the typical low-middle income person in China. If wealthy countries pulled out entirely, then China's GDP per capita will probably drop from $12,000 back to sub-$5,000 and you will be causing more suffering for the people you're concerned about. By all means, advocate for better pay and conditions and regulations, but don't advocate for pulling out of poor or middle income countries with lax labor protections entirely. It wasn't clear to me which avenue you're arguing for but I feel it's an important point worth stressing.
No fuck that argument people use to whitewash bad/harsch working conditions. "A low income is better than no income". "Better be employed as a slave than unemployed" is basically what they say. Inless its not a close relative or your own kids working there. You would immediately change your opinion if thats the case. That fucked western hypocritical way of thinking needs to stop. Its really bad. Better everyone being a poor rice farmer than working in shit factory.
Better everyone being a poor rice farmer than working in shit factory.
Why do the poor rice farmers line up to apply for factory jobs?
Except this has nothing to do with the west. The west is not responsible for working conditions in China in any way, shape or form. It's strictly a Chinese problem.
FYI China needs to import food. The alternative is famine for hundreds of millions of people, not bucolic rice farming.
I said that X is bad but Y is worse. It seems you're not even trying to challenge that claim, instead you're saying X is a "fucked western hypocritical way of thinking" and "you would change your opinion from X to Y if you had family in that situation". Then your concluding sentence is "Y is actually better than X" but you didn't even make the case for that in the first place. Unconvincing. I am honestly disgusted at the virtue signalling and moral grandstanding. You would condemn people to the worst depths of poverty because ... well it's not entirely clear to me what moral depravity would cause someone to adopt that position.
Western companies apparently DO NOT CARE.
Western Consumers don't care either
I’m a western consumer and I care.
Thank you and 5 other people in the western hemisphere. Shein shoppers definitely will take notice.
If that were true, western companies would spend billions to hide their complicity in slave labour
they care about profit. they have to. At least in the US:
This argument always felt like a cop-out to me.
"Amazon is squeezing employees for maximum profit!" "Yes, they have to maximize profit by law" right, but there are also laws against union-busting, about workplace safety, etc, etc however _for some reason_ these other laws are second tier to a corporation's legal profit mandate.
Do you have a source for "they have to maximize profit by law"?
That one literally states it's uncertain if it is the case that corporations that are public have to maximize profits in the interest of the shareholders.
The people would be like: "If our company does not benefit from chinese slaves, someone else will and steal our profits!". Which is kinda sadly true, because Amazon does not care were the stock items come from. You can produce in countries with strong work laws, but it is just too expensive.
(same with countries where we get energy resources from - they don't have ideal reputation for human rights, but they are cheap).
It is kinda simple: you can buy a tshirt from Italy produced in Italy and having price tag 3 times more. Or you can buy from China... Now think you are a company with thin margins and have to do the same... And your items are after getting sold on Amazon, which algorithms would force you to sell as cheap as possible, otherwise your item would not be seen in the search results.
It is kinda simple: you can buy a tshirt from Italy produced in Italy and having price tag 3 times more.
And it will still have been made by a slave.
what I do struggle to understand is that Western companies apparently DO NOT CARE.
Here's what it is: in law corporations are essentially given a weird kind of personhood. It's that way so corporations can get things done.
Unfortunately, corporations aren't people: they don't care, they don't have ethics, they don't have morals, they don't have values, they don't have family, they don't have a conscience.
It's not an original observation, but due to this, the type of person a company most resembles is one of posessing profound psychopathological traits.
they don't have ethics, they don't have morals, they don't have values, they don't have family, they don't have a conscience.
Corporations aren't people but they are run and managed by people. I'd like to think that they have ethics, morals and a conscience.
Western companies apparently DO NOT CARE
They do, they hired killers to murder Union leaders in Columbia
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/jul/24/marketingandpr...
*Colombia (Columbia is a clothing company). At least in American spelling.
The companies respond mostly to what the public is willing to do about something. If the only thing people do is complaining on social networks then companies will not address the issue. If people will avoid a certain company based on their behavior then they will change it.
Western companies apparently DO NOT CARE
They do care about profit margins, which is why they outsource slavery.
Another huge problem is that most of the time there's really no other choice than to buy "Made in China". Even if you have the money and willing to spend more.
The west is built on the back of slavery, and this has never changed. It has just been moved to where we don't need to see it.
Nobody in power in industry and almost nobody from the consumer side cares about working conditions in any typical outsourcing country. Quite the opposite, "less regulation", "lower cost" and things like that are directly caused by ignoring worker rights and human rights (as well as a few other things).
China is not alone in this, just more present in the HN-relevant IT/tech sector. But clothing in southeast asia, mining in africa and south america, logistics/trucking in eastern europe are relevant examples from other regions and industries.
I don't intend to disperse responsibility here or distract, quite the opposite: One of the main reasons the aforementioned abuses can continue is that "the civilized west" systematically ignores those problems on all levels. There are some EU regulations coming up to improve this situation, but we'll have to wait and see on those...
talk about mental gymnastics - you just said
"I can sort of accept, reluctantly, that the Chinese have a different way to thinking than I do and that I can't necessarily apply my moral code to China."
so, give them a pass with what they are doing and then criticize others that are giving them the same pass, and also choose to profit from it.
What about people who buy stuff made in China? do they get a pass too? So the only party at fault is the middle-man? slave owners get a pass, consumers that enable the slave owners get a pass and the only party at fault is the evil middle-man corporations?
If its wrong, its wrong for all parties, if its OK, its OK for all parties.
Does it even matter? Lots of products on Amazon are produced by non-Western companies which very likely have questionable labor practice. Oh, these days people buy thing on Temu and Shein and things are shipped from outside the US. Consumers always look for the cheapest products, and nothing will change as long as that is true.
...the owners and managers of Western companies, who supposedly share my moral ideals, continues to do business...
SUPPOSEDLY - just like Big Tobacco has always wanted everyone to know the scientific truth about the health effects of smoking tobacco, right?
Capitalism optimizes for profit. If some profits need to be foregone or spent on pretending to share the moral ideals of the consumers - that also gets optimized, to minimize performative idealism and its costs.
I can sort of accept, reluctantly, that the Chinese have a different way to thinking than I do and that I can't necessarily apply my moral code to China.
Do you really believe that Chinese are different from US in this regard? I.e. that most Chinese people believe that it's perfectly ok to exploit people to the bone, because they have alternatives? No, they, just like us, believe it's a rotten thing to do, and agree to it only because well, they have no alternatives. No different than the extremely exploited workers in hellish factories in XIX century US or England.
As our report describes in detail, the labor conditions of incarcerated workers in many U.S. prisons violate the most fundamental human rights to life and dignity,” said Clinical Prof. Claudia Flores, the director of the Global Human Rights Clinic. “In any other workplace, these conditions would be shocking and plainly unlawful
https://news.uchicago.edu/story/us-prison-labor-programs-vio...
Whataboutism and you're comparing a factory to a prison.
A prison that builds things is a factory. It's insight into the fact that in fact the norms are no different in the US.
I would assume the people working in the Chinese factory have _some_ time off to go outside said factory? Or have the ability to turn in their notice and leave for a different job?
Agreed on the fact that both seem like a corporate hellhole one way or the other.
The US constitution actually allows slavery/involuntary servitude as a punishment for a crime, as per the 13th amendment:
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
So it makes little sense to compare prison labour programs to "any other workplace".
makes little sense to compare prison labour programs to "any other workplace"
Either it's force labour, or it's not. You can't get away with things just by slapping a different label on them.
The US constitution actually allows slavery
If a Chinese person posted here "actually all the human rights abuses in China are perfectly legal and in accordance with Chinese law" you would not be impressed.
We wouldn't be like "alright, nothing to see here". In fact, we would probably be horrified that the inhumane system was codified officially, and is here to stay, as opposed to being a temporary result of oversight and corruption.
So forgive the international reader like myself for being extremely unimpressed with this state of affairs.
You can't get away with things just by slapping a different label on them.
This is almost precisely what a legal system is, and does.
this is news to me. although i understand they have different systems im not sure ive ever heard it called slavery... do they? (i guess you could say some of the systems in western countries are a little like slavery but lets not get into that)
One of these days I'm going to make the Internet prove to ME that IT's not a robot and see how it likes it
This website doesn’t ever work as a paywall bypass anymore. Just captchas for days.
No, that’s just them blocking your DNS provider. You’re using cloudflare, quad9, or similar. Google “cloudflare archive.is” for details.
nope. archive.is has their cloudflare configuration set to "i am under attack mode"[1], which makes the cloudflare captcha come up every time a tor / vpn / "bad" IP address visits it. its been like this since 2015. if you aren't familiar, cloudflare just serves tor / vpn / "bad" IP captchas for every domain you visit. the captchas themselves are broken half the time. in 2018 cloudflare then added deep packet inspection to see if you're using tor browser and then let you not solve the captcha [2]. but if you're in "i am under attack mode" or some other non default cloudflare configuration, your users will get the captcha
1. or something similar, been a while since i went through cloudflare's configuration options
2. this is also why you will never be able to browse the internet with links / lynx / w3m or use curl / wget ever again without using your bare IP
archive.is doesn't use Cloudflare. The captcha is reCAPTCHA.
they literally have used cloudflare since 2015 or earlier, for every minute that service existed. if you tried to open it with tor from then until now, you get:
" One more step Please complete the security check to access "
"Why do I have to complete a CAPTCHA? Completing the CAPTCHA proves you are a human and gives you temporary access to the web property."
which is cloudflare's classic tor blocking page
The captcha has reCAPTCHA written on it and the Tor Browser does like 15 requests to google.com domains. None of the archive.is|li|ph|today domains use Cloudflare name servers and resolving archive.is from all over the world returns not a single Cloudflare IP.
I'm pretty sure they don't use Cloudflare.
It's pretty well documented that archive's owner doesn't like the way Cloudflare reports EDNS for 1.1.1.1, and causes problems for people who come via that dns:
and its pretty undocumented that cloudflare has blocked all tor users plus any other major shared IP since 2010 and only in 2018 added the condition i mentioned above, and you still get blocked from all cloudflare sites if you do anything special like change your user agent or the Accept header
Then why do I get a captcha loop if I use 1.1.1.1 or 9.9.9.9 as my resolver ... but if I use 8.8.8.8, I don't?
I can switch back and forth and reproduce it perfectly each time.
ah okay well both are true: if you use tor / vpn (regardless of what DNS server is used) you are blocked from archive.is. if you use bare IP but 1.1.1.1 as your DNS, then i guess you get blocked too
that's weird, never an issue from me. Might try switching temporarily to quad 9 dns or something just as a quick test.
Try Bypass Paywalls Clean on Firefox. It works perfectly for me on most news sites.
cloudflare captchas really are a grade a pest at the moment, i already switched my DNS once because i always got stuck, now it happens again
IIRC it's not a cloudflare capture but a problem with DNS not providing certain informations.
It's not even a Cloudflare captcha in this case: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38174302
huh? i definitely was served cloudflare captchas
I know this doesn't really solve the underlying problem, but I find that if I use Cloudflare's WARP (https://1.1.1.1/), Cloudflare is able to recognize the traffic is coming from itself and I can get past these captchas
that’s weird, 1.1.1.1 gave me issues in the first place
It’s stuck an an infinite loop for me.
Click the pictures, get the green tick, click the button, a brand new captcha
yup, that’s what i mean. try switching to a different domain name server
I wish HN gave me the ability to gild comments like reddit does.
I visited Reddit yesterday for the first time in a long time. I saw an interesting meme and wanted to write a long form piece of content in the comments. After I was done: I received two low-effort replies that revealed to me I have less-than-great communication skills or the readers put zero focus in active reading skills; and one reply with an axe to grind that focused on attacking me and making all sorts of assumptions on who I was as a person, while assuring me I was the person who couldn’t take someone challenging his ideas, and that I was the problem.
Reddit is a cesspit.
What are you on about? What relevance does any of this have?
I like the parent comment because it made me laugh, so I was expressing my wish that it would be nice to able to appreciate them for it in some way. I used reddit's gilding feature as a shortcut to convey that wish because most people know of it and it's an easy to understand shortcut.
Because reddit is a cesspit, any feature that was associated with reddit at any point of time is not worth using to convey information? How about text quoting and reply buttons, should we stop using them too? What an absurd way to look at things.
Clearly, I am horrible at communication or Redditors are horrible at reading something at face value.
I shared a recent anecdote about Reddit, because I was reminded of it from your comment. There was no point, I was just sharing what I felt the same way you did when you wrote about wishing HN to have a gild feature.
But if we want to go down the combative discourse route: you're hyperbolizing. Reddit became the mess it was due to a mixture of many things. One of those was its site design/UI; notably public display of post and comment scores that leads to a "dog-pile" effect, rather than natural voting patterns. Being able to gild just intensifies the effects, and leads to posts being interacted with not because the content of their message is informative or interesting, but because it has countless flashing symbols violating your focus, screaming "look at me! look at me!"
Given Reddit's history with fake accounts, I'm not sure that many posts aren't just fever-dreamed LLMs on corporately created bulk accounts.
Reddit has burned a lot of credibility with the power user and creator types. I know plenty who've moved to Mastodon, Blue Sky, Threads, etc. And by doing so, leaves bottom feeders there. And how else do you get engagement? You fake it, naturally.
this archive.is website (and its other domains) has been misconfigured in "I am under attack mode" since 2015 or so. which makes cloudflare's nonsense captcha come up every time you visit it (and / or just the javascript bot check script).
Source?
That has never happened to me, and I use archive.is/archive.ph/whatever other domain they indicate I should use very regularly.
sorry i forget to state i'm talking about if you have a "bad" IP address. for random people with their home IP it normally doesn't happen
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38554322.
After reading both the article and his letter, I can't help but feel so, so sad. There's no glory for this guy. In the States, you'd be able to parlay something like this into a speaking/podcast tour, a book deal, and some consultancy gigs.
This guy's life is ruined, his extended family's social credit sullied and, in addition to serving time, he's become the one of the abused workers he tried to protect.
If I was the owner of a company and I had read that letter, I wouldn't be able to live with myself without first trying to do something about it. Maybe that's why I'm not the CEO of Amazon. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised. I know a guy who went mentally ill after his tenure there. Took him ten years to get back into another job. We're talking about the guy who thought a Vogue Cover with Lauren Sanchez was a good idea.
I'm not anti capitalism, anti manufacturing in china, or anti billionaire. I only wish that a human would deliver that letter to Jeff.
I would guess that Bezos has never read this letter. An underling of his would never present this letter to him unless Bezos has specifically asked to be presented such letters, and the fallout from this letter will never be sufficient to warrant his attention.
It's unfortunate that American and European voters don't realize that allowing our companies to do business with places famous for worker's rights abuses and lack of environmental controls affects them, too.
I would guess that Bezos has never read this letter.
I would guess someone might have informed him of this letter or he might even as well have read it already. What I would not guess about is whether he would give two fucks about it. Because no he would not. Yes, he and his company has proven this.
Business and profit over all else. That is not just really a Chinese problem.
It surprises me how people still love to try to think that “Oh, this is such a horror! If only the Western corporate overlords had the time in their busy schedules to know of these, this would most likely go away”.
Nope, those cheap contracts were signed with this expectation to begin with it.
It surprises me how people still love to try to think that “oh this is such a horrors!
It's not nihilism. It is only nihilistic if you don't judge the corporate overlords to be morally inferiors to the average human.
I would guess that Bezos read this letter, shruged and said something along the lines of "sucks to be him" while ordering a solid gold toilet for his yacht, because the platinum one was "too flashy"
This is unlikely. Solid gold is extremely dense, and would cause weight and balance problems on a yacht, even a large one. I have a family member who used to work at a luxury yacht-building company; they avoided even putting granite countertops and other surfaces on those craft because of the weight, even though the owners could certainly afford it. Instead, they had faux stonework painted by artists.
In addition to removing the bling factor of solid platium there is also a weight saving with the solid gold toilet being 11% lighter than the platinum equivalent.
Nevertheless, weight and balance can be an issue this is why you need to have a yacht extension to increase length (and occasionally girth - you have to use the swedish pumps for that one). In addition you need to buy multiple solid gold toilets for all the bathrooms, plus a couple extra to use as balast to get the correct balance.
Isn't US using prisoners for (effectively) forced labor ?
US and EU are abusing (often illegal) immigrants and turning a blind eye to their terrible working conditions (eg. the slaughter house scandals in the EU that broke out during COVID).
Plenty of shit on our doorstep and people don't seem to be bothered that much stepping over it. Why would we be upset about a larger pile of shit a continent away ? We are so isolated from Chinese culture, I know very very little about China compared to NA and EU.
Also the west is happy to trade with way worse systems (by "our" standards) than China, middle east being the first to come to mind.
Not justifying China, just confused where these moral standard expectations are coming from.
(eg. the slaughter house scandals in the EU that broke out during COVID)
And got forgotten about shortly after. At least that was my impression here in Germany, but I hope I’m wrong.
Why would you think Jeff would care?
In a world run by sociopaths - whistleblowing is a trap to catch the people who could if instead of reporting the issues, they organised together and then could stop you...
I've yet to see any whistleblowing case not end badly.
Not to dismiss your statement entirely, but Frances Haugen is doing fine:
By her own admission she is supporting herself financially from “having bought crypto at the right time.” I’m guessing the vast majority of whistleblowers have that kind of financial cushion to risk it all like this. Source: https://www.coindesk.com/business/2021/10/25/facebook-whistl...
https://constantinecannon.com/whistleblower/top-ten-whistleb...
https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-89
https://nymag.com/vindicated/2016/11/sherry-hunt-took-on-one...
Some (many?) of those folks did suffer discrimination and even outright persecution from their employers, and horrible financial strain before the eventual payout, but their cases eventually ended up quite well for them.
The odds are not in favor of whistleblowers. We need better protections against malicious companies such as Amazon.
one case that consoles me is that harry markopolous, the quant who blew the whistle on madoff and his feeder funds-of-funds, despite rigorously not being listened to and almost being railroaded by an SEC coverup, at least got some sort of payout for his pain and suffering that went on for years. I cannot recommend his book enough.
Man, the SEC covers itself in glory so frequently.
Here's the mentioned letter: [PDF] https://chinalaborwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Engli...
This was horrific ! Foxconn acted like a thug with connections to the local politicians and police to bully the whistleblower. I knew there were shady things going on in corporate China, but this was revealing.
This would definitely not be as bad in other countries like India where Foxconn is also trying to setup production.
The story is so juicy. Taiwanese exploitation of the common worker just shows you how in bed the Taiwanese and Chinese Elites are, and also why production will never move to India. Apple loves that productivity
Thank you for linking that. It is worth reading.
I'm always amazed how cheap and well China can manufacture a wide variety of devices. There is ofc a lot of expertise and economies of scale at work, but the letter is a sad reminder that at least some part comes from exploitation.
That was completely mind blowing.
Didn't the US have a whistleblower bounty with the IRS? I heard it was one of the most successful programs they ever ran. Whistleblow on your company's tax evasion and you get paid a pretty good chunk of money from the IRS. IRS collects its due and you get paid proportional to the amount of tax revenue evaded (I remember a few cases where the whistleblower got tens of millions of dollars).
It is kind of bizarre, but the incentives are perfectly aligned, if the tax evasion sum is low you get paid less therefor it is not worth whistleblowing. The IRS doesn't want to catch the small fries, to some extent tax evasion is desired for smaller companies.
The IRS doesn't want to catch the small fries, to some extent tax evasion is desired for smaller companies.
What?
That does come across weirdly but the IRS is a perennial favorite defund target so they don't have the resources to go after everyone, they should only choose juicier cases in that respect.
There are some good points in this article (the optimal amount of fraud is non-zero) that can be extrapolated to other parts of the financial world. The highest level point is that sometimes, a little slippage is needed for business to get done, and getting business done is the main goal of the economy.
https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fra...
Not having the means to catch every fraudster is very different from wanting them to commit the fraud. I think the only sense in which the IRS wants tax fraud is that some portion of its bureaucracy is dedicated to handling fraud and many of the people so employed would prefer continued employment to magically eliminating all fraud.
You got to the root of what I was saying, making sure mom and pop store at the corner street is paying all due taxes it not worth chasing and might in fact be net-negative to the economy
What is a whistleblower to some, is a mudslinger to others.
Again, someone using far too kind a word.
Where "others" = "total fucking sociopaths who know nothing but greed and should not be participants in society".
In that case, yes, I agree.
"Under Chinese competition law, the complainant has to show proof that their business operations were hurt by the theft of trade secrets. Foxconn said that, as a result of Tang’s disclosures, it had incurred costs of Rmb1.4mn (about £150,000) in August from having to raise its salaries."
I don't think this would even fly in the US.
I guess the distinction would come from whether salary levels are considered "trade secrets". In the US it definitely wouldn't fly, salary discussions are specifically allowed and retaliation against people discussing their salaries is illegal. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen under some other pretext, but it definitely won't be as blatant.
What a shame that companies in question don't even address that a human's right had been violated and do what is right. At least Foxconn could have done the some thing for Tang Mingfang if it wasn't Amazon, if it adressed the issues they had.
Would there be a way to contact him and organize some fundraising for him?
Whitsle blowing is fine. Just don't do it against government or corporations that control 70% of your country's capital
I've never worked for any major tech corporation. I've had opportunities to apply to Amazon and Facebook but never followed through with any of them. It's partly for moral reasons but also partly out of fear because I'm worried about what that would look like on my record in 10 or 20 years' time if the world returns to sanity. We've seen what happens to members of distrusted groups during periods of social upheaval. I just cannot bring myself to bet on never-ending insanity. I cannot imagine such world. I'm already worried about my background in tech causing problems.
Admittedly, I couldn't imagine the world we have today 10 years ago and I can't imagine the world in 10 years time if it continues down that path. I just don't see the point. I don't want to be rich in such a hypothetical hell hole so my mind doesn't see the point going there.
As a regular reader of Matt Levine this sounds like an opportunity for a securities fraud suit. Surely Amazon has said that its factories follow local labor laws, that whistleblowers are protected etc. That seems like a fairly standard thing for a large corporation to claim.
Article link without paywall: http://archive.today/UAYFP
It's naive and foolish to upset the money gravy train.
The reality is most countries are corrupted to varying degrees by economic concerns, and it doesn't matter if the country claims to be communist or not.
There is no reward except misery, exile, indefinite imprisonment, and/or assassination for pie-eyed, meat-headed idealists.
Of course, but I don't think it's specific to "the west" or "corrupt societies". It's human nature. If you're part of a group and you speak against the group, esp. to another group, the group will move to destroy you.
It doesn't matter if you're right; it doesn't matter if the group is doing bad things; it doesn't matter if speaking up will help save lives.
The function of the group is to survive as a group; it will do whatever it takes to achieve that.
Laws that go against human nature fight an uphill battle; it doesn't mean we should not try, but it does mean we should be aware of the difficulty.
So many laws go against human nature; those might be the most important laws.
I don't expect the greedy and powerful to change, but as a society we should do more to protect whistleblowers, the same way we protect threatened witnesses.
Also, more solidarity between workers, although not always possible, would go a long way. So many Google employees can definitely afford to quit in solidarity, or strike. Not saying it's easy, I recognize it isn't.
You might even say that ALL laws go against human nature. If it was in our nature to follow a certain law we probably wouldn't need it codified.
Laws are for thee, not for me.
They are a control mechanism for the masses, nothing to do with right or wrong, which is written in our hearts. But, if you want to disempower the individual, take his money (tax), use that money against him (police, tax inspectors) you need some authorised hymnsheet for the feeble minded to get behind. And that is law.
It's just quite unfortunate we're all reading from different heart books.
I don't think we are reading different heart books at all - we are taught that we are but we are pretty much exactly the same when it comes to matters of the heart
[Looks at the DSM-5]
No, no we are not.
The dsm is hardly the authority of the heart.
It might be the authority of the pharmaceutical industry with regards to what treatments can be provided more psychiatric conditions.
And even then you have to wonder about their criteria - a doubling of diseases with every edition, all those 'chemical imbalances' and not one physical test!
Really? Or is it that you've never looked, and take the poor imitation instead?
Funny, btw. But, not all truth has to be found in a book.. Arguably, no truth is.
Other than basic needs is there "human nature" ? Some people will give you the last bite of food, others will lie to you to add to their hoard. I think laws are to make sure we all are on an even playing field (as much as possible) and to deter from the worst aspects of -some- humans who tend to be bad actors. Obviously that's ideally. A lot of times laws enacted by dictators/oppressive religions are there to keep people miserable and afraid and power for the elite (whether communists, capitalists, religiofascists, etc)
When you do the math it's really the vestigial remnants shared with inhuman primates, which have not been completely overcome by the process of civilization so far, that underlie the need for so many laws that would be completely un-necessary if everyone was fully steeped in extreme true humanity and behaved that way all the time.
Too bad we are not evolved enough to have left all of this inhumanity behind along with the extinct hominids, but you have to play the hand you are dealt.
When you think about it though, what most people usually call "human nature" is actually really inhuman nature which has not been fully surpassed.
They wouldn't say it if it wasn't false ;)
Also widely regarded as an excuse to begin with even if not fully recognized as such.
It's always been plain to see the world would be a better place the more inhumanity has been eradicated, but there have always been those who favor more inhumanity not less anyway.
Maybe some people have always been concentrating on their limitations rather than their possibilities, and that's been the limit of their horizon historically since the dawn of man. Others, not so much.
Full "human nature" would be the complete absence of inhumanity in thought & deed.
> Laws that go against human nature fight an uphill battle
I'm reluctant to name it "human nature", but let it be.
Most laws are needed to restrict "human nature". Moral codes exist to restrict "human nature". So it is the fate of a law.
> The function of the group is to survive as a group; it will do whatever it takes to achieve that.
It is an oversimplification I believe. Groups have very different goals, and sometimes money is more important then group existence. Groups can accept additional existential risks to increase profits, in such cases it means money has more importance for a group than its existence.
I strongly disagree with that. Laws (and moral codes) exist to codify the general, agreed-upon human nature. They therefore "restrict," as you say, a subset of people whose internal moral compass is broken.
To pick the most extreme example: most people don't need a law, or even a moral code, to not kill other people. We all (for some large and growing, but not 100%) agreed that killing is wrong, and most of us do not need the threat of a murder trial to talk us out of killing someone who cuts in front of us at the fast food line. To be clear, not 100% of us, but more than 50%, and I hope in many places, much more than 50% of us.
For other, less extreme crimes, the percent of people in consensus might be lower. But even for something like speeding on the highway I think human nature is, on average, a limiting factor more than laws or moral codes, rather than being an uncontrolled source of chaos reined in by law.
People (on average) drive maybe 60-80 mph on the highway (depending on the highway -- looking at you, Montana). If there were no speed limit at all, that wouldn't jump that much: the average speed on the autobahn is apparently 125kph, or 78mph.
Everyone's human nature is, on average, reasonably aligned, and laws tend to reflect that average.
So the issue with laws is they are many types. Criminal, civil, statutory. Defining how the power grid works, what frequency it runs, what devices can be plugged into it so they don't explode is a set of codes/laws. If you violate those there are other sets of civil/criminal codes that can be used to remediate the situation.
And that's just one facet of our lives. In a low complexity society, especially ones with smaller populations there are typically fewer laws. As society grows, and especially as the populations begin to specialize formalized laws are a natural outcome. The farmer, the taylor, and the brickmaker all need common set of rules for expectation in things like trade and debt that get very hard to coordinate as population size grows.
Sure, I'm not arguing that laws aren't needed, just that they're generally more descriptive than prescriptive. I think the same applies even in cases where there is a clear tension between two direct parties, e.g. trade and debt as you describe: laws are a recognition of what most people (for some value of "most") think is fair and reasonable.
In short, laws are not (generally) handed down by some authority, against the will of the majority of the people -- at least not in non-dictatorships.
It is the reason I do not like the term "human nature". Is it a human nature to kill other humans? Are moral considerations a part of a human nature?
> To pick the most extreme example: most people don't need a law, or even a moral code, to not kill other people.
How it may be a "nature" if it is artificial? Some cultures routinely eat other people, we do not, how it can be a human nature, if different people coalesce at different "natures"?
There is a famous debate "nature vs. nurture", and I believe it is unwise to call something to be a nature thing, if it is really a nurture thing. It just bring a lot of confusion.
> Everyone's human nature is, on average, reasonably aligned, and laws tend to reflect that average.
Eww... averages... I believe it is impossible to have a meaningful definition of an "average person". There was a story of average pilot[1], and later of a search for average american woman (can't find a link). You cannot have meaningful averages in highly multi-dimensional spaces.
But if we rephrase it referring to a social norms, it could make sense, but then comes a question what is the difference between human nature and social norms?
[1] https://worldwarwings.com/no-such-thing-as-an-average-pilot-...
i very strongly agree. human nature is often used as an excuse for bad behavior. even stuff as seemingly benign as "boys will be boys". pretty much every behavior can be changed with proper training and good role models.
every human has the potential to be a great person. and only education is needed to enable that greatness and allow humanity to benefit from it.
I don’t think it’s normal human nature to assault / murder / psychologically torture / ruin the life of / etc someone who points out what your group is doing wrong. It may happen from time to time, enough that it should be a potential expected response. But just like psychopathy and schizophrenia are abnormal, so is murdering or ruining the life of a whistleblower.
1-2% of the population may be a sociopath / psychopath — but its still considered “abnormal psychology”.
If someone had proof that a device I made was hurting people, I wouldn’t try to destroy their life or kill them.
A lot of this whistleblowing doesnt even have jailtime as a consequence to those who failed their duty of care - often it just means they’ll make a few million less dollars but still be plenty comfortable.
We shouldn’t feel its “normal” to murder / torture / assault or ruin the lives of these whistleblowers any more than we think sociopaths are “normal”.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/06/ebay-execs-sent-... <- this is not just normal “human nature”. It’s the result of abnormal psychology.
You don't think violence is part of human nature? I don't even know what to respond to that, except that it's not just socio- or psycho- or some other label of -paths. Everyone is capable of violence when threatened. Threatening the group is often perceived as worse than threatening a given individual, and will therefore induce a stronger reaction.
I still dont think its normal to resort to violence just because someone will only make $400,000 this year instead of $4 million as a result of whistleblowing. Or even no change to their income but their company will make less profit as a result of whistleblowing. Or they’ll “be embarassed” as in the case of eBay.
That’s not a “threat” - they’re in no danger.
well stated! i would add that the solution is to find a path of action that does not actually go against human nature but rather embraces it. My favorite historical example is religion, e.g. Moses and the 10 Commandments.
I stand by the 10 Commandments, but people don't even agree what human nature is. I believe it's a reflection of a loving creator and others believe it's an evolutionary fluke while yet others believe it's a piece of a quasi-conscious universe discovering itself. If we can't agree what human nature even is, we're not going to agree what is most in line with it.
we don’t need to agree, it just needs to be metastable, and “thou shalt not kill” is a successful example of solving a tragedy of the commons by coordinating values over a group at scale, and in a way that navigates from one less desirable equilibrium to another more desirable equilibrium through a transition path that is itself stable (otherwise cheaters collapse the transition path)
citation:
Learning from Schelling's Strategy of Conflict Roger B. Myerson JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC LITERATURE VOL. 47, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2009 (pp. 1109-25) https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jel.47.4.1109
This. Its an uphill battle, and given the risks and rewards ratio definitely the smartest thing is to quietly walk away and report to regulators anonymously if possible.
The amount of cases where C-suites or owners take it very personally and go on vengeance streak are many... you don't want to fight bunch of very well-connected rich sociopaths hell-bent on destroying you or worse, and from position of a 'nice guy'.
There's an odd angle in there that would make an interesting movie where, if the whistleblower was not, in fact, a 'nice guy', and was actually a sociopath who hadn't yet reached the level where they're the ones directing the bad behaviour.
It would be their opportunity to reach said level. Blackmail their way up the corporate ladder.
Is that how they get there?
Yeah, in the end it all comes down to game theory.
do you want to bet on that?
You pretty much nailed it. Its only a whistleblower to outsides, its a mudslinger to insiders.
mudslinger to the people who are profiting from the bad behaviour that they want to protect for no reason other than greed?
A more appropriate term than 'insiders' would be 'cunts'.
OP has written: > even here in the west
No indeed it's not specific to the west, but the emphasis was worth it: many western people have such an high opinion of their country that they believe it could only happen in Iran, Russia, North Korea and the likes
There definitely is a difference. For example, he is alive - in countries around me there are similar cases which didn't end that well.
The west is unique because it has created a very believable façade of cleanliness, majority of the population believes that whistleblowing works and often allegations of corruption are treated like conspiracy theory.
In, let's say, Russia, everyone knows that things are corrupt, at least they are realists.
For some reason our ideology talks about entrepreneurs as wealth creators and completely forgets about wealth creators that our society doesn't reward or punishes, like whistle-blowers.
My guess would be that things are less corrupt in Russia in 2023 than in most 'Western' countries now.
If you’re a good guy you’re “a member of the public”. If you’re a bad guy you’re “an individual”.
You'd do good to expect a threatened group (or individual) to lash out, but that's precisely why we have anti-retaliation laws. Think of them not as telling people they shouldn't try to destroy opponents, but that the society around them will punish them if they do, since it's beneficial for that society.
After all, laws in a rule-of-law country are better thought of as restrictions on the state, not the individual. Without criminal law, what's stopping a police officer for killing you if they think it's appropriate? Laws protecting whistleblowers can then be seen as a promise by society to individuals: "If you come forward, we have the power to protect you."
Not all "groups" are created equal though. I think a big factor in this is how much people make the group a part of their personal identity. If they feel like they are the group (ie "I am American"), then they feel like an attack on the group is an attack on them (is "Americans are dumb" means I am dumb).
Not all groups latch on to their members sense of identity like that, and in that case an attack on the group is much more acceptable to members of the group.
Not surprising that it will go badly. Most of us have some secrets to hide, so the individuals that make up society have an incentive to exclude such people from their lives.
I couldn’t trust a whistleblower. While grateful for a lot of the work they do, I never want to be their target and would never risk getting close to them.
No, most of us don't have that kind of secrets.
I have secrets, but if someone were to leak them nobody would seriously employ the term "whisteblower".
Implying that because someone doesn't want to stay quiet when he sees unethical/unlawful things they can't be trusted on a personal level is a dehumanizing thing to say.
I might be breaking a rule here, but this comment could probably be found verbatim in some company's playbook to discourage whiteblowing.
Imagine someone blows the whistle on you liking K-Pop. By the way, I don't like it at all. But just imagine if you were to like it and someone was to blow the whistle. I seriously haven't listened to K-Pop at all, I know it's just an embarrassing thing people do.
That's not whistleblowing, that's being a jackass. Whistleblowing is reporting illegal or unethical behavior that is causing real harm to people.
Imagine hanging out with Snowden, you both have done a few rounds of pints. Suddenly you slip up about your music preferences. Next thing you know, tomorrow you see a tweet on Snowden's Twitter account and thousands of comments laughing at you.
That's not whistleblowing[1]. Whistleblowing is a legal term, not a "slipped up and told my mate's secret" event.
1. https://www.dni.gov/ICIG-Whistleblower/what-is.html
I was trying to be satirical, but maybe out of place.
Out of place and a senseless insistence on being wrong.
While I disagree with your opinion, I appreciate a lot that you've stated it. That's a very honest thing to say.
Is it that you morally disagree (I agree that it is a poor reward for doing me a service) or you have a disagreement about why society punishes whistleblowers?
Possibly a fundamentally different outlook? I would trust a whistleblower, but I would have difficulty trusting a person who would cover up serious crimes for an employer. Most employers, by the way, actually do not want it covered up when one of their departments is Doing Crime.
(In particular if you're in, say, finance, or a safety-critical industry, you are not going to want to hire someone who has a known track record of failing to report crimes. I mean, unless you're, like, FTX or someone.)
I disagree with equating whistleblowering and snitching. We all have dirty secrets, but let's loosely say that the scale matters.
It is a different story when coworker tells "boss" who is lazying around, and a different story when someone reports a serious misconduct towards other people. I'm not sure how to phrase it clearly, but generally I would not associate myself with former people, but I wouldn't mind the latter. Maybe one day they'd prevent me from doing something really terrible (given I wouldn't know better).
Well, from an anonymous account, it means jack. Bull, even.
People often lie not only to others, but also to themselves. Also I don't see a problem with somewhat controversial takes from anonymous accounts; given today's internet opposite would be brave/stupid.
And I couldn't trust someone who couldn't trust a whistleblower. Like what the hell did you do that you really don't want others to find out..?
It doesn't matter. This still applies even if you haven't done anything yet.
Nobody wants to be friends with the kid who narcs on everyone. Show me the man and I'll show you the crime he's committed. Why subject yourself to that?
secrets aren't crimes. to work with a criminal is much more riskier
You see, it makes sence, consider that guy over there - corporate drone, climbing the ladder, would sell his own mother - totally trustworthy, you know what he is gonna do.
But this guy, who values his abstract principles and integrity above any social contract? Can you tell when he has had enough? Do you even know what his values are? What if, one day, he decides that the place is so miserable, so corrupt, so complicit in suffering, that he just burns it all to the ground?
It's a bit reductionist to consider the things that get whistleblown about as just "everyone has their secrets". Alice is illegally spying on all of society, well, everyone has their secrets. Billy has a porno magazine hidden in his closet, well, everyone has their secrets. Charlie is stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from taxpayers, well, everyone has their secrets. Daryl is running a child trafficking ring, well, everyone has their secrets. Not all secrets are the same.
So, you make it a little more likely that whistleblowers will have a hard time, and a little more likely that whistleblowers will be discouraged from ever whistleblowing in the first place. The end result is that you are a little more likely to be affected by the corruption that might have been stopped by whistleblowers.
Everyone has their definition about what a "good person" is. Let me offer my definition. A "good person" is someone who is more likely to benefit than to be harmed by widespread wistleblowing. Good people should want whistleblowers to be protected and commonplace.
There is truth on this. People love treason but they hate the traitor. In the US you can get a lot of money for whistle-blowing. You will need it. Don't expect to ever find a decent job afterwards.
I encourage anyone interested in the consequences of whistleblowing to watch The Insider. A truly excellent film about a whistleblower at a tobacco company and the terrible things they did to try and stop him. Russell Crowe, Al Pacino, Bruce McGill, Christopher Plummer, many others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Wigand
Trailer: https://youtu.be/MGOb29aePyc
The best scene: https://youtu.be/gNKmmA6_oTQ
A similar film is Silkwood, which is about the life of Karen Silkwood, who reported concerns about corporate practices related to health and safety in a nuclear facility where she worked. She was severely harassed by her employer and then died in a suspicious car accident.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Silkwood
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/silkwood
Anybody who becomes the target of large orgs is going to have a bad time. Just think about the guy who was falsely accused of being the pipe bomber at the Atlanta Olympics after he saved people.
His name was Richard Jewel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_jewel
Thanks. Couldn't think of the name.
Thats the movie that prominently features "Amazing Grace", right? I still remember having watched it on public television in the late 80s. But all I really remember from the movie was amazing grace being played after the car crash scene.
Surely there's better sources to read/watch than a fictional dramatization?
Sure, you can read the article it’s based on:
https://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/1996/05/wigand199605
But the film is really, really good and I think the gravity of the situation is more apparent than in the article.
So many good scenes. Personal favorite, grappling with the role of journalism: "What are you?! Are you a businessman or are you a newsman?" Such a powerful question.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe2vBnfKCC4
A Michael Mann film, no less! An all-around great piece of cinema.
Unless you're Bradley Birkenfield [1]
TBH that's the only circumstance in which I think it would make sense to whistle blow.
"In 2012, as a consequence of his whistleblower status, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) awarded him $104 million, 26% of the total $400 million in taxes returned. It was the 4th reward paid to date since the IRS Whistleblower Program went into effect in 2006."
He did 40 months in prison as well but stil...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Birkenfeld
I would almost be okay with 40 months in white-collar prison for $104 million. It is a pretty long time, though.
I reckon I could do it if I knew I had $104m waiting for me. Think of it as $31m/year to live somewhere equivalent to a moon base or the ISS or something.
It's equally-lucrative in Defense. You won't work anywhere ever again, but the DoD pays out enough to make it worth your while.
People love treason but they hate the traitor :-)
Forget about whistle-blowing in Europe, it will likely blow up in your face. Best thing is, if you are in a company with unethical behavior, to pack your stuff and leave ASAP and hope that you don't get anything of the fallout.
Can you elaborate?
"Forget about whistle-blowing in Europe, it will likely blow up in your face."
In most European countries, in fact not any that I am aware of, will you get a reward for blowing the whistle. If you do, best case, you don't get any legal problems. Don't expect anyone to hire you in the future. Nobody blew the whistle with the "VW/Audi emissions scandal". They would have gotten a big reward in the US. In the trial the big boss claimed as long that he had nothing to do with it, that it was the sole decision of his engineers, until the court offered him a probation sentence. You blow the whistle? Expect that your boss will claim that it was only your responsibility and he knew nothing about it. Emails on the company server? Expect them to be gone.
"Best thing is, if you are in a company with unethical behavior, to pack your stuff and leave ASAP and hope that you don't get anything of the fallout."
When I was a young engineer in a terrible place, the big boss told me to do something. Disregarding all good practices, risking the health of the employees with this action etc. If I had followed his oral command, it would have been at the same time a reason to be fired on the spot. I could have lived with that, but they could have also claimed millions in damages from the circumstances. There were other issues (IP that I developed). I called in sick for two weeks and then submitted my resignation. Best decision ever. I read about this guy many years later in a major newspaper when he screwed another employee totally off. (Do you read hear H.L.?).
Bottom line: If shit hits the fan, people will lie. They will try to throw you under the bus.
I actually emailed my old boss when I saw the newspaper article, put a link to the article and wrote: "I'm glad to hear that you stayed true to your character." He did not reply.
Yes, he got trouble from the Newspaper article, but they guy he screwed over, he screwed over deeply.
For sure walk away if the company asks you to something ilegal. Not worth the jail time even if you cant afford having no job.
One of the reasons I like the SEC solution so much: It is annonymous, you can provide info through am attorny and the payouts for whistleblowers are high enough that people can, theoretically, stop working and retire.
idk the SEC whistleblower payout seems to be working for some.
I think part of the problem is there aren’t really any “good guys” in most cases.
With regulatory capture and the revolving door between .com and .gov, those who run the corporations and those who are supposed to respond to the whistle are often hanging out in the same back rooms.
The general response seems to be a slap on the wrist and a hardy “Don’t get caught doing that again!”
Oh yeah… a country where most safety features… seat belts (for example or lead poisoning) are results of whistleblowers, yet the path is paved with retaliatory actions , hr taking it like a personal jihad to prove the conversation wrong …. I can personally relate to what it feels to take punches
If the person has pre existing medical condition like diabetes, doing good will literally cost one’s life . Living the experience, for voicing discrimination at employment situation
Have interviewed 176 attorneys over 2 year period with only 5 confirming that the discrimination is illegal , but they had signed agreements to not represent employees.
Found out that one can buyout judges, apparently a judge can punish a legal practice if they don’t want a whistleblower case be presented
Being rich definitely allows one to be ignorant all these ongoing friction in life