Ask HN: Are you in a morally or ethically compromised situation at work? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Are you in a morally or ethically compromised situation at work?

#11

Post by perilunar » Sun, Jun 14, 2020, 3:25 PM UTC

Twixes wrote: post #10

perilunar wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments doesn't have to make a profit, so they can undercut private business and distort markets. Governments should not intervene in the market except in cases of market failure (and they shouldn't be funding private corporations at all).

That depends on the market. There are valid reasons for states to get involved in business: * some markets can never be free due to their nature (their services are not negotiable): e.g. medical care, pharmaceuticals * some markets just create monopolies or else are horribly inefficient: e.g. metropolitan transportation, railways * sometimes it's better that the government-funded service doesn't need to make a profit…

Well I think that some of that falls generally under market 'failure', so I don't necessarily disagree. But when the market is working the government should butt out.

Re: Ask HN: Are you in a morally or ethically compromised situation at work?

#12

Post by o-o-o » Sun, Jun 14, 2020, 4:16 PM UTC

user_agent wrote: post #9

Yes. Basically this is why I went away from a very successful career in tech sales to Fortune 500 companies and became software dev. Being a dev enables me to work in a much broader group of companies, so I can at least abandon those I'm going to find not in line with my moral values. Look, buddy, this is a very serious problem. The more you're going to work on your personal philosophy, the more problems you're going…

Are the only options to opt out or ignore? Doesn’t this make this somebody else’s problem?

Re: Ask HN: Are you in a morally or ethically compromised situation at work?

#13

Post by user_agent » Sun, Jun 14, 2020, 4:52 PM UTC

o-o-o wrote: post #12

user_agent wrote: post #9

Yes. Basically this is why I went away from a very successful career in tech sales to Fortune 500 companies and became software dev. Being a dev enables me to work in a much broader group of companies, so I can at least abandon those I'm going to find not in line with my moral values. Look, buddy, this is a very serious problem. The more you're going to work on your personal philosophy, the more problems you're going…

Are the only options to opt out or ignore? Doesn’t this make this somebody else’s problem?

This is how I see it: the only reliable / stable model in which our civilization has a chance is the one in which everyone auto-regulates himself. In other words everyone must take responsibility over one's life.

You start with yourself. Make yourself resourceful, healthy, etc. Then you can have a solid chance to do something for others. The other way around - immersing oneself in helping others combined with sacrificing yourself is a big pathology. Ayn Rand has been writing about that her whole life. Besides, it's easy to do virtue signaling coming down to presenting oneself as an altruist. Building a life that works and has meaning is much harder. Don't go the easy route.

Whether you opt out or join doesn't matter. What matters is if at the end of your existence you can look at yourself with peace in mind. Start with small things. That's not a shame at all!

We're not in a complete control of reality, but every one of us with sufficient effort can master his own life. This is how we can produce something that's bigger than the sum of its parts. So, the starting point is very simple: contribute to stuff that matters, refuse to cooperate on harmful enterprises. Neither of them has the "ignore" part in it. Only ignore those things that don't matter.