We are complicit in our employer’s deeds • Hacker News Board

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#91

Post by matchbok » Tue, May 05, 2020, 3:40 PM UTC

pimterry wrote: post #57

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/…

As a bigcorp programmer, you should absolutely have enough income to be secure from any real discomfort. You're right, you're not secure from all possible reductions in peak earnings. You may sacrifice some potential income and future wealth by switching jobs. There will always be richer neighbourhoods & schools, so that may mean risking a sacrifice in future lifestyle. But that's not the kind of risk that the articl…

Simply not true, at all. When supporting a family that comes first. Always.

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#92

Post by NotAnEconomist » Tue, May 05, 2020, 3:41 PM UTC

jp555 wrote: post #90

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…

"the true power in society is held by a relatively small number of people who hold a massive amount of capital" ... so they can direct collective actions (eg. a free enterprise). So why would your top-down collective action be any different?

Empirically, places that focus on "collective actions" and "society-level solutions" tend to be worse than places that allow that power to be bestowed in response to capital flows.

I'm hoping for a really good answer here.

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#93

Post by ddevault » Tue, May 05, 2020, 3:41 PM UTC

bcrosby95 wrote: post #70

ddevault wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do people that make the median household income in the USA feel secure? If they don't, your statistic is irrelevant. And in my experience they don't, especially if they live in higher cost of living areas where most of the tech jobs are.

No, you're not understanding my point. I'm contrasting this income with the one the OP says they want. The median household works hard for 60K, but the OP is suspending their ethical judgement until they have "a few hundred thousand in passive income". You don't need 6x the median income to feel secure.

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#94

Post by ddevault » Tue, May 05, 2020, 3:42 PM UTC

matchbok wrote: post #89

ddevault wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. I decline to extend my comments to H1B workers, I agree that they don't enjoy the same level of mobility as programmers who are US citizens. This is a problem in and of itself, but I don't hold H1B's accountable for their employer's deeds due to these extenuating circumstances. The point of my article is that you should be held accountable for things which are within your control, and for US citizens wor…

This is a very myopic view. Very few people have the luxury of quitting a job because they don't agree with 100% of things their company is doing. It's an extremely privileged view to have. Especially given that exactly 0 companies, anywhere, will do everything you agree with.

I think I have justified my argument that we do have the luxury of quitting in TFA, within the first two paragraphs.

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#95

Post by nogabebop23 » Tue, May 05, 2020, 3:42 PM UTC

mcny wrote: post #22

tensor wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> People making FAANG level salaries on this site routinely complain that they are "grossly" underpaid. I wouldn't say they are grossly underpaid as much as I'd say executives (not necessarily all management) is grossly overpaid. The market has failed us. People tell me to not look at someone else's plate to see how much more they have than I do but it doesn't make sense when so much wealth/power is concentrated at t…

>> I still believe there is a magic number like maybe 10, 50, or up to 100 which is a multiplier of the minimum wage above which the income tax must be 90%+

The fact that you refer to it as a magic number implies that this at best wishful thinking.

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#96

Post by watwut » Tue, May 05, 2020, 3:43 PM UTC

zokier wrote: post #54

I think there is one morally solid reason to stay at bad acting employer: if you are actively driving change of the behavior you consider bad. I pick this quote from Brays post: > I escalated through the proper channels and by the book. He only left after he felt he had exhausted his options of influence (This being my interpretation). Leaving just as a knee jerk reaction without making effort to change would be bad,…

Counterpoint is that if your boss is for example narcissist, you cant change the course from down. You can only more or less implicate yourself. The toxic and manipulative technique will rub on you too and will normalize what is going on.

The culture and actions are set from top. If it is possible to change things, then great go for it. But make sure you are not staying for illusion of "navigating office politics" that amounts to being naive enabler moving himself more and more in the direction of the employer, convincing himself that more and more is actually fine.

> But if you manage to flip even small corner of Google or whatever to not do evil (as they used to say) that probably has more influence to the wider society than you quitting.

That is unlikely. For the record, I do not think that being employed in Google is inherently wrong. But you are not doing the world some kind service for working there. Just like working in startup does not mean you are changing the world.

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#97

Post by nogabebop23 » Tue, May 05, 2020, 3:43 PM UTC

rtodea wrote: post #11

Morality isn't a binary thing. If we adopt consequentialism, how do we quantify all the good things amongst the bad ones? Please note that just because the bad ones are most vocal, doesn't mean they will outweigh the good ones.

>> Morality isn't a binary thing.

It is when you're young and know everything

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#98

Post by esotericn » Tue, May 05, 2020, 3:44 PM UTC

snarf21 wrote: post #73

ddevault wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Did Drew also change all his investments to divest from Amazon or Facebook or other company that is making the world worse? Yes. >Nestle is one of the most evil companies in the world. Are we all boycotting all their products and not investing in their companies? Yes. >Most of us have been very happy with 30% returns in our retirement even though we secretly know it is driven by the same companies we claim must be s…

I'm sorry if you took this as an attack. That is not my intention or point. I'm not being a "Good German". I'm not saying we can't fight all evil so don't fight any. I'm merely discussing that we too often we make a stand against one "evil" and not against others that are even easier. For a lot of people the line is what becomes inconvenient. People are posting comments that Amazon should treat people better while th…

He's not taking it as an attack, he's pointing out that you are assuming that everyone goes through life in this sort of 'morals-lite' way.

Many people actually do try as hard as possible, wherever practicable to do the right thing, and restrict themselves in the process.

The distinctions then become whether they agree on the set of 'bad things', not whether they do them or not.

If you think something is bad, like really bad, just stop doing it, you are not some poverty-level sharecropping farmer, you have that choice.

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#99

Post by austincheney » Tue, May 05, 2020, 3:44 PM UTC

harajuku wrote: post #84

austincheney wrote: post #41

Uggghhhh, the entitlement of well paid and under qualified developers is loathsome. To everybody else who doesn’t share that entitlement it looks like gross ethnocentricity. Look, if you want all your crying and personal opinions to actually mean something start someplace rational. Start by asking (demanding) for a uniform of code of ethics. Every other professional industry has this, but not software. https://en.m.w…

Didn't realize that all value judgements were ethnocentrism. Thanks for letting me know! Let's all just slave for the borg, after all, it's not my fault the money is so good. Or, y'know, you might not know what that word means at all.

> Didn't realize that all value judgements were ethnocentrism.

Probably because you never asked. It would be strange to alienate people in your profession with a protest action and then expect them to whisper loving notions in your ear, much less from people not in your profession who don't care about your silly little opinions.

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#100

Post by achenatx » Tue, May 05, 2020, 3:45 PM UTC

ddevault wrote: post #49

snarf21 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that we have a moral line we can decide to cross at work or not. We can step in and say "this isn't right". We all have our own limits. If a company passes our line, we can decide to stay and be a dissenting voice in a sea of "yes men" or we can move on. The one thing that bugs me about a post like this is where does our complicity end? Did Drew also change all his investments to divest from Amazon or Faceboo…

>Did Drew also change all his investments to divest from Amazon or Facebook or other company that is making the world worse? Yes. >Nestle is one of the most evil companies in the world. Are we all boycotting all their products and not investing in their companies? Yes. >Most of us have been very happy with 30% returns in our retirement even though we secretly know it is driven by the same companies we claim must be s…

everyone has a limit to how much they want to help. "The life you can save" makes a strong moral point that if you arent spending every penny to save the life of a child that would die from an easily preventable disease (5000 children die in africa every single day from easily preventable diseases), you have chosen to value their life at less than your fancy dinner, movie, or luxury electronics.

Everyone makes those choices, even you. Be happy with your decision, but while you judge other people as "good germans" recognize that you are a good german too.