Work is and has always been an economic bargain: Your time for their money. Morality is a luxury that only the independently wealthy can afford. Any business that allows it's employees to function according to their own morals becomes uncompetitive against its peers. That's why small companies by individual founders who want to stay true to their mission often stay small. They inevitably get bought out by one of the larger ones.
We are not talking about some destitute person hocking cigarettes on the street for minimum wage. We are talking about smart, educated people who are making 500k a year to build the torment nexus. There is no excuse for this. It’s pure greed and any other explanation is deflection.
It's always baffling to me to see people in tech, particularly in hackernews, talking about others earning salaries many times the median of the country and acting like these are people who just simply have no other choice.
They really, really do. In fact, those salaries being so high is probably also due to the fact that you will be doing work that's a net-worse for the world so they gotta compensate accordingly.
A lot of these firms are parasitic institutions at a society level. They do benefit themselves and their workers at the expense of everyone else. Personally, I find it hard to respect someone that takes that choice, but I also get it. A lot of people only care about their own and their immediate people's benefit.
On that note, I really recommend "No other choice" by Park Chan-wook or the book ("The Ax") it is based on.
"Morality is a luxury that only the independently wealthy can afford."
No? Why would you think this? Morality has been practiced by medieval peasants, by slaves, by soldiers sacrificing their lives, by people suffering from the plague, by gladiators. The rich are not known for their outstanding morality in any society I've ever heard of.
> Morality is a luxury that only the independently wealthy can afford.
No. At least as I understand the word, "morality" means something different than "do the right thing when it is easy". If only those who can afford it do it, it is not morality. Morality is choosing the right thing even when it costs you, even when it is hard.
Speaking as someone that has spent a large amount of time unemployed because I have a moral compass - let me know when you actually walk that talk.
For me I could only do it because I had "f*ck you" money gained through investments, other people are able to do it because of welfare systems, or even through friends and family.
Textbook ad hominem. If the implication is that nobody sacrifices things for a principle or ever makes hard choices, that is so obviously wrong. Read some history.
