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We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

drewdevault.com

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Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#31

Post by polishdude20 »

codesections wrote: post #10

I agree with this, but also think that working for an employer that is "making a negative impact on the world" might _sometimes_ be the right choice. Specifically, it could be justified for two reasons: First: you might have more impact on the organization from the inside than from the outside (this is most relevant to people joining at a high/senior level). For example, Google seems to be making privacy far, far wor…

About double think, what is the difference between cognitive dissonance and your mind actually changing about a certain company or role because you now are more informed about it and choose to see it in a better light? People swear to never do things all the time until they do them. Does that mean they're evil people? Or does that mean their views have changed? And if their views have changed, who are we to tell them what's wrong and right?

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#32

Post by linuxftw »

Politicians, and by extension, the people that voted for them, have been creating this environment for decades. Only mega corporations can survive. The reasons are many, and they include low tariffs, high domestic regulation (ever try to start a business and deal with tax law, incorporating, etc), exploitative visa programs, binding arbitration employment agreements, free unlimited capital to the banking class (Discount Window access, NIRP and ZIRP, outright monetizing private debt by the central banks), most importantly, patents and copyrights enforced by the state.

I mean, the list is endless. Every facet of our society is built to protect the largest businesses, creating an environment that smaller, ethical companies simply can't compete in.

Every election cycle it's the same thing. They divide people across their little pet issues, keep the two party system in place through ballot access, overturning ranked choice, while waging wars in foreign lands and extracting all the wealth they can.

Stop voting for the same stuff. Get over yourself and your fickle positions. Vote for real change.

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#33

Post by linuxftw »

smitty1e wrote: post #9

If BIGCORP is acting outside of labor laws, then there should be legal action. If the law doesn't explicitly outlaw BIGCORP's actions (yet), and we all kinda know that it should, then opposing BIGCORP is the correct thing to do. If Amazon is acting legally, yet in an ugly way, to suppress workers organizing, it seems hard to complain. Now, if Amazon workers exercise the right of free association in their spare time t…

> If BIGCORP is acting outside of labor laws, then there should be legal action.

Similar to how the FAA regulates the airline industry and let Boeing murder two plane loads of people?

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#34

Post by ddevault »

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote: post #28

> This is why I hold my peers accountable for working at companies which are making a negative impact on the world around them. Oh these are the rules now? Judging other people is easy. You can look at almost anyone and find something you don’t like about them: sweatshop sneakers, ignorance of their history, consumer waste, eating meat from commercial farms... don’t you know people around the world are starving and y…

There's a pretty damn big difference between throwing out $5 of food while someone across the Earth starves, and in directly making the software which opresses millions of people, raising millions of dollars for the people responsible, and pocketing huge salaries for yourself.

>As a general rule, it costs a business your salary × 1.5 to employ you, given the overhead of benefits, HR, training, and so on. When you’re making a cool half-million annual salary from $bigcorp, it’s because they expect to make at least ¾ of a million that they wouldn’t be making without you. It does not make economic sense for them to hire you if this weren’t the case.

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#36

Post by zajd »

ddevault wrote: post #25
lotsofpulp wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were to ask my circle of friends and family, even bigcorp programmer money isn’t sufficient to feel secure due to future economic volatility. Especially if your goal is to make sure your kids get to live in the richer neighborhoods and go to the richer schools, and so on and so forth. And it’s not just a perceived fear. The data shows that if you’re not in the portion of people increasing their rate of income/…

The level of hubris shown here is obscene. The median household income in the United States was $63,179 in 2018. Richer neighborhoods? Richer schools? Give me a break. This is wanton greed on plain display, and blatant disregard for the systemmic suppression of the poor that you are directly enabling by working at bigcorp.

Welcome to HN

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#37

Post by ddevault »

linuxftw wrote: post #35
GoToRO wrote: post #20

We need more developers start companies and not sell out.

That requires access to capital, which is vested in the banking class thanks to a centuries of organized crime people affectionately refer to as 'the government.'

I am a year and a half into owning a profitable business which has not taken any venture capital. It is entirely possible, and in my opinion, entirely necessary.

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#38

Post by Jasper_ »

tensor wrote: post #8
ddevault wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. I addressed this upfront in TFA. Especially if you're working at for FAANG level salaries, there's no excuse for trying.

People making FAANG level salaries on this site routinely complain that they are "grossly" underpaid.

Engineers who think they deserve more than anybody else because computer typing creates infinite value will always complain. While I can't speak to everyone's financial situation (cost of living differ from person to person), I do not imagine anybody working as an engineer at FAANG is living paycheck to paycheck, or is behind on their bills.

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#39

Post by spaced-out »

ashtonkem wrote: post #27
spaced-out wrote: post #18

We technologists like to pretend we're powerful, that we could bring these giant megacorps to their knees because those fancy suits need us, right? No. They need an engineer, not any one specific engineer. Companies like Amazon reject many candidates that could probably do the job they applied for, but were rejected because they can afford to be picky. If anything changes at Amazon it not be because of the loss of th…

> “Graveyards are full of indispensable men”. — Charles de Gaulle.

Wow, that's an awesome quote. I Googled it out of interest, and it wasn't coined by Charles de Gaulle though:

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/11/21/graveyards-full/

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#40

Post by ForHackernews »

spaced-out wrote: post #18

We technologists like to pretend we're powerful, that we could bring these giant megacorps to their knees because those fancy suits need us, right? No. They need an engineer, not any one specific engineer. Companies like Amazon reject many candidates that could probably do the job they applied for, but were rejected because they can afford to be picky. If anything changes at Amazon it not be because of the loss of th…

This is why unions exist: to enable collective action by workers.

Maybe if we call it a "guild" (like the screen actors guild) it'll be more palatable to software developers who fancy themselves beyond the need for something as blue-collar as a union.

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