[arthur_pryor]

how wasteful would your work have to be before the personal satisfaction wasn't enough to outweigh the drain on society as a whole?

i'm genuinely asking, because i'm genuinely curious. i'm lucky enough to get paid decently to work at a job that i believe in, and that's been true of the vast majority of my employment history. but i can think of an e-commerce gig i took that i did not particularly believe in (though i certainly didn't find it immoral), and what was essentially a classed up spam generation gig that i turned down a long time ago (more for the fact that i had a bit of trouble trusting the founder when i pressed him on what equity and future compensation might look like, though i was also rather hesitant to become a spammer, er, direct marketer).

[Raz2]

To be honest I almost didn't care. I worked there until my growth as a developer started to slow down. It is all about egoism.

[nextlevelwizard]

> how wasteful would your work have to be before the personal satisfaction wasn't enough to outweigh the drain on society as a whole?

That's noble thought, but if the pay is high enough, you'd be plain dumb not to do it. Especially when there is someone else willing to ponce on the opportunity if you turn it down.

[arthur_pryor]

sorry, this is not how morality works in my worldview. "someone else willing to do it" is nowhere near sufficient to imply "morally acceptable for me to do it".

"someone's gonna get paid, might as well be me" isn't, IMO, a reasonable way to make decisions. sometimes the morally correct thing to do is to pass up a payday, because you don't think the thing being done is the right thing for the world.

[nextlevelwizard]

If it is question about being paid well or not at all. Then I rather get paid well. The world isn't going to get better just because I refuse the work. In fact it might just get worse, since at least I can try to influence the product or at least half ass it in some way.