Irony as Meta staff unhappy about running surveillance software on work PCs
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Re: Irony as Meta staff unhappy about running surveillance software on work PCs
#2Full title prefixed "Magnificent"
Re: Irony as Meta staff unhappy about running surveillance software on work PCs
#3I really don't like the conflation of all meta staff with the strategy of the massive multinational corpo-monster that is meta itself. Its very easy to suggest that someone should leave their job on ideological grounds when its someone else you've never met. I don't work at meta, I work at a large non-tech company.
I've been seeing it more and more these days. People do it for programmers as a whole too, or scientists. Concerns about job market layoffs due to ai dismissed with "Programmers surprised as leopards eat their own face" as though dave who does the database at your local high school is responsible in even some small sense for the effects of AI in society.
There are actual people responsible for these problems. People who are not programmers. Who have far less in common with you or me than we both do with some random backend engineer at meta.
Re: Irony as Meta staff unhappy about running surveillance software on work PCs
#4I really don't like the conflation of all meta staff with the strategy of the massive multinational corpo-monster that is meta itself. Its very easy to suggest that someone should leave their job on ideological grounds when its someone else you've never met. I don't work at meta, I work at a large non-tech company. I've been seeing it more and more these days. People do it for programmers as a whole too, or scientist…
Dave working at meta is indeed in part responsible for meta doings. Yes leaving has a cost. That’s the whole point. Meta actions also have associated costs, it is just externalized and doesn’t impact Dave directly
Re: Irony as Meta staff unhappy about running surveillance software on work PCs
#5Surveillance for thee, not for me
Re: Irony as Meta staff unhappy about running surveillance software on work PCs
#6I don't see what can be trained with that, but it would be a nightmare to be always recorded like that
Re: Irony as Meta staff unhappy about running surveillance software on work PCs
#7Man, I sure wonder if those engineers building Palantir's, Flock's, and other surveillance SW right now (hello if you're reading this), will have this 20/20 hindsight "oh shit" epiphany moment, when the product they helped build is gonna be used against them or their kids in the future. Kind of like when Dr. Frankenstein finds his end at the hands of his creation.
Those SW devs probably think that doing a deal with the devil in exchange for a higher than average income now, will allow them to build an upper class lifestyle where they'll be safe from the government's jackboots, but news flash, NO you won't, unless you're part of the insider-trading presidential Epstein Island elite pedo-class, you're also on the menu.
Zuckerberg, Gates, Karp, Thiel, all have self sustaining doomsday bunkers on private islands, to escape the societal fallout of their actions. Do you?
Re: Irony as Meta staff unhappy about running surveillance software on work PCs
#8I really don't like the conflation of all meta staff with the strategy of the massive multinational corpo-monster that is meta itself. Its very easy to suggest that someone should leave their job on ideological grounds when its someone else you've never met. I don't work at meta, I work at a large non-tech company. I've been seeing it more and more these days. People do it for programmers as a whole too, or scientist…
Dave working at meta is indeed in part responsible for meta doings. Yes leaving has a cost. That’s the whole point. Meta actions also have associated costs, it is just externalized and doesn’t impact Dave directly
As I said before. Its very easy to suggest that someone should leave their job on ideological grounds when its someone else you've never met.
You have to understand, this hypothetical guy has never met zuck. He's quite possibly never met anyone who has never met zuck. He may well not live in america.
The job market for programmers is not good right now. Estimates put average time in unemployment at 12+ months. Would you inflict this on your family? Because a different part of the giant company you work at did bad stuff? people you've never met, working on a product you've never worked on, did bad stuff? as opposed to all the other extremely moral giant companies you could be working for?
This is, of course, oversimplified. Dave was probably laid off months ago anyway. Was he in some sense responsible for his own redundancy?
I understand the feeling that we have to be able to pin some portion of blame or responsibility on companies. They are often able to launder responsibility through their sheer size, and their byzantine processes. But there are real people responsible for setting strategy! the people at the bottom do sometimes resign out of protest at immoral actions! but it has to be pretty naked to come to that. There are literally management strategy books about how to build departments to avoid workers realizing the purpose of their work so you can get them to do things they disagree with.
Re: Irony as Meta staff unhappy about running surveillance software on work PCs
#9I really don't like the conflation of all meta staff with the strategy of the massive multinational corpo-monster that is meta itself. Its very easy to suggest that someone should leave their job on ideological grounds when its someone else you've never met. I don't work at meta, I work at a large non-tech company. I've been seeing it more and more these days. People do it for programmers as a whole too, or scientist…
> Who have far less in common with you or me than we both do with some random backend engineer at meta
Half the people on HN want to be the billionaires who are chummy with Zuck, Musk, etc
Temporarily embarrassed millionaires are one thing, but the last 15 years has shown that many American tech workers can get a small slice of the enourmous wealth.
When you've got $10m in assets, even if they return just 1% you are still getting more money than the average worker, at $100k a year.
However someone with $10b in assets is so far beyond you it's crazy. At 1% they are growing at $270k a day.
Actual growth is more like 10% than 1%. The wealthy make millions a day, and still want more. You can't spend that much no matter how much your gluttonous lifestyle is, not without significantly trampling on others.
Millionaires aren't like that, they're just free from financial concerns.
Re: Irony as Meta staff unhappy about running surveillance software on work PCs
#10I really don't like the conflation of all meta staff with the strategy of the massive multinational corpo-monster that is meta itself. Its very easy to suggest that someone should leave their job on ideological grounds when its someone else you've never met. I don't work at meta, I work at a large non-tech company. I've been seeing it more and more these days. People do it for programmers as a whole too, or scientist…
Dave working at meta is indeed in part responsible for meta doings. Yes leaving has a cost. That’s the whole point. Meta actions also have associated costs, it is just externalized and doesn’t impact Dave directly
We should focus on effective means for change. Focusing external influence on low-level individuals with no decision making power might feel good but it has accomplished a sum total of nothing in the past. Why would we think it will make the situation better this time? They swap people in and out of projects all the time and it's really not disruptive at all. The only ways these tech behemoths have made any meaningful positive changes is through sustained governmental pressure either through oversight or regulation.