Comment by mikkupikku
18 days ago
It seems like a new version of this story, "[Big tech] workers protest their employer taking [federal agency] contracts" shows up at least once a year. I guess the steel man of this is that people think they can take jobs at these corps and push reform from within, but this seems powerfully naive to me. Fact of the matter is that a large portion of the compensation these companies provide is for buying off your better judgement. You're taking a deal with the devil when you sign on. There are a lot of better, smaller, companies you could be working for, but you chose the evil ones because it pays better.
>There are a lot of better, smaller, companies you could be working for, but you chose the evil ones because it pays better.
Amen.
I have a buddy who has very strong attitude about how "companies / your employer are not your friends" and I understand that to an extent. At the same time he also thinks that most companies are there to just extract what they can from you and discard you. Some sure, and at a high level yeah feels that way.
His approach is to behave similarly. He is there to extract every $ he can from his employer, and he does make a lot of money.
But the result is that he ends up working for those same companies he hates, they pay a lot so they expect a lot and the method of getting more is to do more and ... it seems more like a cycle where he gets the whole dynamic that he thinks is everywhere.
Personally I'm sure I could (well in the past) have made a lot more money, but I like working for places that give me flexibility, care if I'm happy there, and have good people around me. They're smaller places, but the lifestyle is better.
Is it such a stretch to assert that maybe the default for a large business shouldn't be "start doing evil shit"? Like, if all money is is aa social lubricant on doing sketchy shit, then there definitely is virtue to structuring things such that financial engineering can no longer work.
> You're taking a deal with the devil when you sign on
Yes, for sure.
However, the evil keeps escalating. We've passed some pretty scary rubicons already.