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Comment by mshake2 | Hacker News Reader

Seems like a small price to pay to assemble the most innovative animation studio that would bring joy to millions of people for decades.

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Whether it's "a small price to pay" depends on each and every individual that paid the price.

I don't think it makes any sense for 1 single person to decide if the price paid was small, simply because they don't know what actual price was paid (in terms of suffering).

Also, it sounds to me that's you're assuming that's a necessitated price to pay, which I don't believe is true (but I don't have any examples either).

If the two options are "Pixar exists, but some employees were treated unfairly" or "Pixar never exists", I will choose the first. Whether or not there are other options is not a hypothetical I care about, I am interested in thinking about the morality of ends vs means of this scenario.

You're suggesting an unreal scenario, so the thought experiment isn't going to do much good, IMO. Each employee gets to make that call themselves, "do I want to be treated badly?"

Fresh graduates may not realise they are being treated badly, lacking a frame of reference. Immigrants may be on a visa where they have no choice but to put up with it or leave the country.

Locals who've been around a bit, who know their discipline, the proven (local) best of the best? They don't stay on teams led by bullies.

It's not an unreal scenario at all. It's entirely plausible that a company falls apart when lacking the specific motivators and pressures that Jobs brought, and therefore never really exists in the first place. What's unreal about that?

The unreal part is there being only two options. Most dichotomies are false.

I addressed why the hypothetical is limited to two options, and taking a subset of plausible scenarios does not reduce the plausibility of the selected scenarios.

P(a) = 0.1, P(b) = 0.1, P(c) = 0.8, "Oh, let's only look at cases a and b".

Yes, because a and b represent a specific combination I said I was interested in exploring. What you've shown doesn't lower the plausibility of those scenarios. Are you being intentionally contrarian or is there a reason why you are trying to muddy a simple thought experiment?

That makes it unreal. It changed the environment too much to exclude it. Ignoring it breaks stuff. I'm not saying thought experiments are bad — do them often myself — I'm saying my response to get thought experiment itself is: it can't work like that (riffing of an unrelated but recent comment from yesterday where I'm the one doing the thought experiment as an existence proof, it's a "spherical cow in a vacuum" model).

It's not a nonsensical "spherical cow in vacuum" thought experiment to say "Pixar exists but some employees are treated bad" vs "Pixar doesn't exist". If you think that it becomes impossible for a rational mind to weigh those two choices, then there's no point in me continuing this discussion with you.

If Pixar didn't exist, the same people would do the same (or close enough) work under a different brand. Quite possibly with each other. That's as distinct as two identical dice placed in no specific order, i.e. not. Ergo, not a realistic scenario.

No, not at all. Environment and the group of people they’re working with plays an enormous role in the work people do.

Are you claiming that only new grads and immigrants fearful of deportation worked at Pixar?

Depends on how much of Jobs' current reputation is accurate vs. mythologising.

Jobs was a well-known sociopath but also people of the highest talent level fought to work for him because he was a great executive

It is easy to choose for others, isn’t it?

"Steve took a chance on us and believed in our crazy dream of making computer-animated films; the one thing he always said was to simply 'make it great.' He is why Pixar turned out the way we did and his strength, integrity, and love of life has made us all better people. He will forever be a part of Pixar's DNA."

You're quoting the top two Pixar executives, and from immediately after Jobs' death as well. How about someone who isn't a millionaire?

aren't credible because they became so successful that they're now millionaire executives

Yes that's what I'm saying. The statement of two men who stood at the top of the ladder about the man who put them there immediately after that man has died is absolutely not credible in regards to judging how that man treated regular workers. At all.

A legendary animator and director, both who helped found Pixar with Jobs, aren't credible because they became so successful that they're now millionaire executives?

Jobs didn’t found Pixar; it spun out of George Lucas’ world and works and Jobs bought into it when it was several years old, even several years with the name Pixar. The Wikipedia article is self contradictory as its first paragraphs talk as of hee were a as founder, but hee was a much later major investor.

So far I haven't seen a counter experience from you about how Jobs treated the "regular workers" at Pixar, so as I see it, it's a quote from people who were close to what happened versus the absence of a counter experience.

Oh please. Googling "steve jobs bully pixar" reveals at least one story of horrible behavior directed toward regular staff members.

Jobs could be a bully, it's well documented. Pixar wasn't somehow immune to this behavior.

You've painted a utilitarian, partisan viewpoint: that the cultural and technological significance of Pixar outweighs any negative experiences of staff. The two are not easily comparable. How do you quantify them, what's the denominator? Jobs didn't have a crystal ball, he couldn't know Pixar would succeed. What was his calculus? How did he determine the trade-offs between success and bullying? Finally, cultural/tech significance is most certainly possible without putting staff through negative experiences.

The thought experiment doesn't depend on Jobs knowing or not.

The employees made that choice for themselves when they chose to start working for Pixar.

They make that choice everyday they chose to keep working for it.

The problem is abusing employees isn't a mean. It seemingly made it more difficult to reach that end.

I don't understand how this dichotomy can be useful to you. Even for "ends vs means" the answer isn't always white-or-black.

I see what you're saying, I just don't understand how it promotes a healthy discussion here.

You're saying serfdom and bullying is justified by .. art?

Why did you substitute "art" for "bringing joy to millions of people for decades"?

Why does it matter? Is pixar selling drugs now? Or do you not place cartoons in art, alongside Salvador dali who worked with Walt Disney?

It matters because whether or not I take your question in good faith is dependent on how much you distort my words in the asking of it.

Your words speak for themselves. No distortion needed. The question stands.

If the question is "Is the limited bullying and serfdom of 40 people (the original Pixar team size) justified by bringing joy to billions of people (more accurate than millions) for decades (and likely a lot longer)?" Then I answer yes. I think that's a small price to pay.

I think you overestimate net joy brought by Pixar. Some people watched a movie and were entertained for the duration of the movie, some were moved by it and it lead to a couple of hours worth of joy more. Some did not understand the message in the movie and just liked colorful pictures. Yes, there were a couple of movies, but not like tens or hundreds. In the end those movies would not have the success they enjoyed without powerful marketing and distribution machine. Those movies were also used as a vehicle to sell overpriced toys.

I prefer not to mythologize (very good) products of billion dollar companies too much, even if they could stand on their own.

Would "very good art" suffice then?

Isn't that worse ? "We exploit the few for amusement of many, where option of just making them work less and pay CEOs less and remains unexplored"?

It worked with Daffy Duck: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Yeggs

In the cartoon, a gun was pointed at Daffy's head - and he managed to lay a golden egg.

Can a miracle be justified?

We're talking about life limitating life, not life imitating art. The thing about daffy is.. he wasn't real

The joke was that under extreme duress, and individual (or a team) might produce a miracle.

The ethical question is: if it's a genuine miracle (say, a discovery or invention that breaks new ground or was previously thought to be impossible), can the duress be justified?

I’ve noticed that a lot of HN comments tend to be utilitarian, in an “ends justify the means” sort of way. This can lead to all sorts of ethical quandaries but it seems prevalent in business.

”Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make."

That's Dreamworks, not Pixar, but nice reference

It being worth it does not determine whether he was an asshole, just whether you are glad he was.

Why wouldn't I be glad for something that I thought was worth it? Not really sure what you're trying to say.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.

Unless you are the one of course.

Are you healthy? Lets harvest your organs to save so many more people for the small cost of one life.

I am not, lets harvest someone elses organs to make me healthy.

I mean, I could be healthier and I'm a high income individual. Let's harvest the organs of someone else who's unproven to make me healthy.

You + me the many ... some poor schmuck that few.

Amen brother. He was not a "bully". He was a coach. A tough coach. Anyone could have walked away. No one was being forced to work at a top .1% company in the world. If you were there it's because you wanted to be do your best work and be part of the best. You wanted to make the world a better place. You believed in the power of these devices to do good, and to fight evil.

Jobs wasn't out there hurting civilians on the streets. You want to see a real bully, go to Ukraine and see what Putin is doing to civilians.

You talk as if Jobs brought us innovation that never would have arrived without him. In reality, he was able to get it to us a year or two earlier and maybe with a little more style.

Being slightly earlier to market and with a little more style is what made him a business juggernaut. But I don't think being first really means all that much when it comes to an ends justifying the means conversation.

Given the choice, I'll take the product not made under duress, even if I have to wait a bit longer.

> You talk as if Jobs brought us innovation that never would have arrived without him. In reality, he was able to get it to us a year or two earlier and maybe with a little more style.

I think this is a reasonable perspective, and you could be right, but you could be wrong too. We don't get to run an experiment on this one. There are obviously huge things Jobs did that I take issue with (I hate the copyright and DRM crap in Apple Music, for example, and the whole patent war with Samsung was terrible), but at the same time, he grew up decades before me and I got the privilege of living in a world he helped created. Who knows where the world would be without him pushing it.

> Given the choice, I'll take the product not made under duress, even if I have to wait a bit longer.

I think we may be able to get to a world where we can have that, but not in today's world, IMO. There's still far too much evil and not enough infra for truth, that if the good people don't push much harder than the bad and indifferent, we may never get there. Of course, not something we can test, just have to discuss and place our bets.

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