[HN Gopher] At Taser maker Axon, ex-staffers say loyalty meant b...
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At Taser maker Axon, ex-staffers say loyalty meant being tased or
tattooed
Author : striking
Score : 62 points
Date : 2023-08-30 20:42 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| MilStdJunkie wrote:
| Do you mean the inventors of "Excited Delirium" who paid a bunch
| of doctors to make up a disease that justifies the use of their
| product might not be on the up-and-up? [[ tsu *_* ]]tsu
|
| Ah crap, my HN filters are slipping. What I meant was, "oh gosh,
| bad apples, the truth is in the middle, etc".
| ryanwhitney wrote:
| I'm not sure why this is at the bottom. There's sarcasm and
| exaggeration, but it's a very legitimate point.
|
| Read through the wikipedia page[0] on how it's not recognized
| by most medical associations.
|
| > a specialist in investigating deaths in custody, describes
| excited delirium as "a boutique kind of diagnosis created,
| unfortunately, by many of my forensic pathology colleagues
| specifically for persons dying when being restrained by law
| enforcement."
|
| Or a deeper Reuters investigation[1] on how closely the
| diagnosis and acceptance of the "condition" is tied to police
| and taser manufacturers, Axon specifically. Cmd+F'ing "Mash"
| will jump you to the parts where they're paying the medical
| examiner who also happens to diagnose these deaths as exited
| delirium.
|
| 0:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excited_delirium#Lack_of_accep...
|
| 1: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-
| tase...
| metaphor wrote:
| Sigma Chi...unsurprising[1].
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigma_Chi#Controversies_and_me...
| hooverd wrote:
| An /unrecognized/ Sigmachi chapter, so all the nasty parts
| without the threat of nationals coming down on your ass.
| ryanwhitney wrote:
| > "Most of our board and many of our most senior executives have
| chosen not to experience Taser devices."
|
| I can understand younger employees--or maybe those who give a
| shit about what they're inflicting on others--being curious about
| "experiencing Taser devices".
|
| Making it a cult camaraderie ceremony seems ill-advised.
| talldatethrow wrote:
| Employees of a taser company getting tased doesn't seem that
| extreme, as long as you COULD opt out.
|
| My old employer asked men in the office to take a photo wearing
| red high heels as a photo of solidarity to idk.. #metoo or
| feminism or who knows. I imagine the men in that office felt more
| pressure to be in that photo than people felt pressure to get
| tased. And if it was up to me, I'd rather get tased than have a
| photo of me in high heels. Luckily I was gone by then. But I've
| seen the photo.
| woodruffw wrote:
| The point of the story is the pressure. "Opting out" is not an
| option if the company's culture made it clear that everyone was
| _expected_ to do it.
|
| The comparison to being asked to wear high heels (which is
| stupid) is distasteful: tasers kill people, and Axon is well
| aware that their product, in particular, has deaths
| attributable to it[1]. You might feel stupid in high heels, but
| they won't kill you.
|
| [1]: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-
| tase...
| vorpalhex wrote:
| High heels kill people, usually by being the cause for a
| fall.
|
| Though if your argument is that your less-than-lethal product
| is safe.. testing it on yourself seems pretty on point.
|
| The alternatives to tazing someone are pepper spray (has it's
| own deaths caused by it) or 9mm which is quite a bit more
| fatal.
| woodruffw wrote:
| I don't think the GP was at significant risk of dying from
| a fall in stationary heels; this is a distraction.
|
| > The alternatives to tazing someone are pepper spray (has
| it's own deaths caused by it) or 9mm which is quite a bit
| more fatal.
|
| The alternative is none of the above. American police use
| "less-lethal" weaponry to a far greater extent (and with
| far more ease) than comparable countries.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| I think there is a difference between getting shocked by the
| police, and willingly in a controlled environment.
|
| The police doesn't know or doesn't care about the conditions
| of their victims, who are often on drugs. In the article, the
| victim was "really, really, really bad" and wanted to go to
| the hospital before getting tased.
|
| Here, hopefully, the employees are most likely asked for
| medical conditions and they are not on drugs. They are shot
| from the back (probably safer than on the front), there are
| people next to them to cover their fall and they are wearing
| safety goggles. They are also not shocked repeatedly. These
| are ideal conditions that almost never happen in real life,
| and I guess that although there is a risk, it is very safe.
|
| And high heels have definitely caused (often minor) injuries
| to the wearer, like from falls. And maybe a death or two, who
| knows.
|
| I am no saying that getting tased is good, just that in these
| controlled conditions, you most likely won't die. It fact, it
| may be less dangerous than alcohol fueled "after work"
| parties, which is also the kind of thing where "opting out"
| may be difficult in some companies (which may also include
| Axon).
| JohnFen wrote:
| I find that the demand for "loyalty" is even more problematic
| than the tasing or tattooing, to be honest. When anyone stresses
| "loyalty", especially to such a degree, that's an indication that
| something is very, very wrong with that person or group of
| people.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| These are cults that provide a paycheck. Don't work for cults.
| Report them when they break the law (or seek counsel when it's
| a civil/contractual infraction).
| _a_a_a_ wrote:
| Or country! That is the US, and US corporate culture can be
| very different (read: far more predatory) than the european.
| flangola7 wrote:
| Loyalty is a 2 way street. Otherwise it's just slavery.
| vasco wrote:
| It's not slavery, it's just insecurity from who demands the
| loyalty. Employees are free to leave.
| woodruffw wrote:
| I tend to agree; explicit demands for "loyalty" is usually a
| strong proxy for a mobster mentality.
|
| That being said, I know more than a few companies that
| "encourage" (or at least explicitly approve of) employees
| getting tattoos, and it's always struck me as a significant red
| flag. It's usually tied to some kind of expression of loyalty.
| clumsysmurf wrote:
| "Less well-known is the all-in corporate culture at Axon, which
| has tested employees' commitment and fealty in unusual ways
|
| Shawn Gorman, a lawyer who worked at Axon until 2019, said the
| company had a high-pressure culture of loyalty, unlike anything
| he has seen in nearly two decades of practice. "It was truly
| toxic," he said."
|
| Axon wants to expand their Arizona campus with residential
| housing for their employees ... after reading this it sounds like
| a recipe for disaster.
|
| https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/scottsdale/2023/0...
| _a_a_a_ wrote:
| The tattoo thing really shocked me but I've seen people with Nike
| logo tattoos, of their own free will, choosing (unpaid!) for
| their body to be an advertisment for a company. So I guess so
| what, if you're sufficiently stupid or ovine.
| Fnoord wrote:
| I suppose it wasn't the 9/11 WTC Nike "Just Do It" logo I saw
| back end 2001 which was used to protest War in Afghanistan (and
| later Iraq) back in the days. That logo as tattoo would surely
| lead to conflicts back then.
|
| Every tattoo is going to lead to regret at some point. Or
| situations where your tattoo is inappropriate (nevermind the
| hypothetical example above, think about wearing wrong brand in
| areas of LA). There's probably even a name for these
| phenomenons.
|
| The crown though is sportsmen. Sportsmen with an abundance of
| tattoos. While tattoos make you more warm, requiring more sweat
| elsewhere, bottom line leading to higher body temperatures.
| I've seen it in football (which Americans call soccer), I think
| it was David Beckham who set the trend here (regarding the full
| body tattoos).
| tremon wrote:
| _it wasn 't the 9/11 WTC Nike "Just Do It" logo I saw_
|
| I've never heard of this before. Isn't it a bit... tasteless,
| at the least, to get a tattoo of a wing in relation to 9/11?
| _a_a_a_ wrote:
| > I suppose it wasn't the 9/11 WTC Nike "Just Do It" logo I
| saw back end 2001 which was used to protest War in
| Afghanistan (and later Iraq) back in the days. That logo as
| tattoo would surely lead to conflicts back then.
|
| I have no knowledge of this, can you give me a few pointers
| please?
|
| > Every tattoo is going to lead to regret at some point
|
| wat the ever utter fuck? 100% crap.
|
| > While tattoos make you more warm, requiring more sweat
| elsewhere, bottom line leading to higher body temperatures
|
| Are you a smallish neural network or markov chain or
| something? No offence, just checking.
| coolspot wrote:
| Watching many DonutOperator videos, I know that the taser doesn't
| work most of the time anyway.
| klabb3 wrote:
| > James defended Axon's culture, describing it as "a
| collaborative environment of mission-driven individuals who join
| forces to deliver an extraordinarily profound impact on society."
|
| Meta: ChatGPT is excellent at generating blanket corp speech.
| It's quite fun to prompt for passive aggressive statements in
| that style.
| pierat wrote:
| Lol, my "loyalty" is that I show up and expect agreed upon money
| and benefits.
|
| Real loyalty is saved for family and friends.
| phillipcarter wrote:
| Axon hosted an AI meeting in Seattle recently. Their office was a
| bit...much. There were these weird spaceship-looking doors that
| opened to the office itself and the theme was very much "you are
| in a scifi space ship". I didn't get any vibes that this would be
| a place wherein you'd have to be tased, though. Bad if true.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| I've been to the Seattle office you described for interviews
| and to the Scottsdale HQ, which is a normal very modern but not
| bespoke office building; it's in Scottsdale where they had the
| display of tasers and the offer to be tased if you wanted to
| see how it was.
|
| (I was just interviewing, and the people seemed quite normal,
| but i hadn't worked on what i was being interviewed for, and
| screwed up a puzzle, so never joined.)
| arcticbull wrote:
| So Axon isn't my cup of tea for a lot of reasons but if I
| were building tasers, I'd definitely want to know what I was
| doing to my er customers. I'd absolutely get myself tased
| during the interview.
| treis wrote:
| I'm mildly ok with this. The cops seem to use these pretty willy
| nilly for how painful and dangerous they seem. There's a kind of
| karmic balance in executives suffering the same ordeal that they
| unleashed into the world. Appeals to my sense of balance.
| Stevvo wrote:
| Part of the training for any cop that is issued a taser is
| getting tazed.
| rx_tx wrote:
| I think the issue is less execs getting tased, but more peer
| pressuring any and all employees to "ride the lightning" and
| get tased, lest they be shunned as not being "all in". (similar
| for getting company logo tattoos as the article mentions.)
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(page generated 2023-08-30 23:00 UTC)