Earlier quoted context omitted.
You might be voting, but you might not be voting for it.
That's a choice though.
If someone sticks a gun in my face and gives me a choice of wallet or hospital, do I really have a choice?
We are complicit in our employer’s deeds
181–190 of 192 posts
Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
> One of the real, hard, lessons of the coronavirus situation is that security is collective. You can hole up for a while, and avoid catching the virus yourself, but the economic effects will get everywhere. Hence the need for FU money because the collective decisions are/will be lousy. You do not want to be dependent on the collective for security.
Not where this conversation started, but surely where it's going: Your sentence really sounds like just an 'I got mine, so forget everyone else' sort of statement. Your FU money doesn't mean a damned thing if societal norms die due to a pandemic or disaster. If anything, they'll just make you a target for the actual collective when it gets bad. You can't help yourself, by yourself, if the whole world is crumbling. Yo…
> Your FU money doesn't mean a damned thing if societal norms die due to a pandemic or disaster. If anything, they'll just make you a target for the actual collective when it gets bad.
We aren't talking about a French revolution type event here. In anything from Katrina to the Great Depression to even this current pandemic, financial security was/is crucial for maintaining your own well being.
And in the modern world where you can travel, it needs to be a truly global collapse for couple hundred thousand saved to not offer a path to safety.
Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds
#183> Doublethink quickly steps in to protect your ego from the cognitive dissonance, and you take another little step towards becoming the person you once swore never to be.
Engineers in Canada are awarded an iron ring on graduation. It is worn on the writing hand's pinkey and meant to remind the engineer of their ethical obligations any time they sign a document.
I rarely wear mine because of exactly these kinds of mental gymnastics you describe. One never thinks they are being unethical because one changes their definition of ethical over time.
Instead of the ring, I kept the small slip of paper they give you at graduation. The symbol of the ring changes, but the words on that page never do. Here are a couple example sections: "my care I will not deny towards the honour, use, stability, and perfection of any works to which I may be called to set my hand." And "in the hour of my temptations, weakness, and weariness, the memory of this, my obligation".
Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you help a dubious firm progress, you further that dubious behaviour. Techies, and everyone else, included. Edit, re the enlightening discussion below: You are complicit in your employer’s behaviour, more-so if you are reasonably able to find another job, but decide against it.
The problem is you are a cog, and most likely no better than your replacement cog, so other than your own moral high ground you aren't accomplishing anything. Personally I won't work somewhere that I find goes against my values. However I don't picture myself as the next MLK either.
You accomplish a small thing, but a socially valuable thing.
You communicate that you do not approve of the behaviour and will not help. By staying, you accomplish the opposite.
It's a small voice. But a society valuable voice. Society is a number of small voices.
The reason MLKs need to exist is because fewer people raise their voice.
Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds
#185We 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…
There’s a tendency to take something like this as lecture on humility or delusion, but it’s also a bit of a warning.
How do con artists work? They let you think you have the upper hand while you are being taken to the cleaners. If you think of it this way it’s not just the sort of hubris that gets one into “trouble”, it’s the sort that gets one exploited.
Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds
#186Earlier 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/…
I talked about the dangers of value drift/cognitive dissonance upthread, and this is a prime example of what I'm talking about. It is very easy to say "I'll just work this job until I'm financially secure". But then you start hanging out with a bunch of highly paid people, and start to feel that you need "a few hundred thousand [dollars] in passive income" (which really means ~$7 million in assets, depending on what…
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Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Sure, but are you investigating your customers and terminating those that might be sufficiently inconsistent with your morals? If so, do your customers understand that they're subject to such examination? Is that sort of thing a requirement for initiating the trade with you or, only if you coincidentally learn of transgressions after the fact, possibly after they start depending on your business? While I don't know y…
I have a terms of service, for one, which governs some of this. I am also not above "firing the customer" if appropriate, but of course I wouldn't presume to do this so urgently and without warning as to leave anyone who depended on the platform out in the cold. I don't think my target audience is especially likely to fall afoul of my convictions on what kinds of activities I feel morally at peace with supporting on my platform.
Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds
#188More accurately your parents are complicit in your employer's deeds :) . If you were born rich you don't have to stick to any employer.
Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's really not a useful distinction though. If you drive or ride in any sort of vehicle that uses gasoline, then you're helping big oil get away with the deepwater horizon oil spill. ... Or even if you purchase any good or service that was transported by a vehicle that uses gasoline. By using gas you're normalizing a system that accepts oil extraction as necessary which furthers the dubious behavior of the people…
It’s not binary. There are degrees. Filling your car with petrol and choosing to stay with a dubious firm are at opposite ends. The difference, to me, is your ability to avoid the complicity. It’s hard, for most, not to drive in their petrol-based car. But for many techies, it’s not hard to choose a different tech firm.
> It’s hard, for most, not to drive in their petrol-based car.
It is hard and probably not possible for some. But you still have some agency: you can use a bicycle or public transit when possible, buy a more fuel efficient car, etc. You’ll still use gas but less overall. Not as drastic as not using a drop of oil anymore but still something.
Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds
#190Earlier 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.
Wow, as a fan of your web persona, I find your stance on this intriguingly Stallman-ish. All the more because you omit making the utilitarian fungibility-talent margin argument, which I'd expect you to be aware of.
I find refusing to "build the tools of oppression" more defensible on utilitarian grounds than denying to even use such tools (apart from practical considerations, that is e.g. vendor lockdown, privacy issues etc).
And yet you already claim to be boycotting evil corporations, which in my eyes amounts to pretty much that.
I suppose I can buy the "we shouldn't normalize morally wrong behaviour" as long as it remains defensible on utilitarian grounds i.e. working for megacorps. But I have a hard time seeing my use of e.g. google translate as morally wrong.