It's probably different if you have a family, but I have quit jobs over moral implications no problem. Most people have pretty flimsy morals and will do anything to keep the money rolling in.
It's probably different if you have a family, but I have quit jobs over moral implications no problem. Most people have pretty flimsy morals and will do anything to keep the money rolling in.
How do you know how many people would quit? Even if 99% of the US would refuse to work for the NSA, the last 1% would be plenty for the job.
Stopping the action is not the only reason to quit a job you deeply disapprove of. There's a related anecdote in the book Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. From my memory: a man working for the US embassy in Japan was unhappy and doing psychotherapy. The therapist was trying to see if his issues with his boss had something to do with his relationship to authority, digging into his relationship to his father, etc. Turns out, he was just in deep disagreement with the policies he had to enforce, and quitting solved the issue.
Quitting a job you think is harmful (or even maybe meaningless) can be good for yourself, in addition to the morality question.
Most people have no safety net and if the money stops rolling in their life is effectively ruined for several years
Most people in the world? Potentially, though I doubt the "life ruined for years" part holds for >50%.
Most people on HN? Definite no. Most people on HN who work in roles where they're exposed to such mass surveillance or other evil at scale (like Meta)? Absolutely not.
You'd be amazed at the number of people that live pay check to pay check. Even on here, I'd guess the number is higher than you'd expect. There are plenty of people in tech that do not live in SV or work for a FAANG. You're failing victim to the echo chamber if you think everyone here is a well paid bit banger
> You'd be amazed at the number of people that live pay check to pay check. Even on here, I'd guess the number is higher than you'd expect.
Well you don't have to live anywhere near paycheck to paycheck to be intimidated. If you're stonewalled from employment, you're in trouble unless you are so fabulously wealthy that you can afford to never work again.
- There are people with $1M+ salaries who live pay check to pay check. This is a choice. A lot of HNers fall under this category.
- A lot of people who are actually poor and live pay check to pay check aren't ruined for years if they lose their job. Because the nature of their work and lack of career usually means they're unstable and replaceable "commodity" jobs in the first place.
- Almost everyone who is in a position to be exposed to evil at scale as a tech worker, is among the top 5% earners in the world. I'm being very conservative there, it's likely top 1%.
Top 5% earnings only buffer you against job loss if you don't have top 5% expenditures. The hedonic treadmill is real.
I've seen [alleged] homeless people post on here before. Do you really need more than an interest in tech (and an internet connection) to read/post here?
I always keep coming back to the Nixon years when basic income was first approved in the senate by the republicans and stopped in the house by democrats.
What a different world we'd be living in, if the (back then, at least supposedly) greatest democracy would have shown the way to a universal safety net.
How fucking sad that we ended in a world where the finders of flaws or zerodays are being suppressed and prosecuted, instead of allowing them to make the world a better place.
A handful of narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths now hold almost all power with these structures.
At least now the pretense of democracy is dropped.
> It's probably different if you have a family
It truly is. I can’t emphasize this enough.