If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
It's a nice aphorism, but it's too defeatist to be of any use. Yes, you have acknowledged human nature. Now what?
The simple truth is that most people do not pursue evil as a goal, but are opportunistic: they take the easiest solution that won't harm them personally. If we're serious about building a better world, reducing opportunities to be evil is what we should be focusing on. Not raising our hands and acting like there's nothing to be done about it.
You provide incentives that make the good part win out, in proportion to the temptation and reproductions of being evil.
Is that so hard? We do it with pets, children, even ourselves, (ice cream after work). But writ large we just say "Nope, they're evil, let's <extreme action>"
When your business depends almost entirely on ads, you have to do anything you can to keep from losing revenue from ads and that results in screwing anyone and everyone and hoping your size makes it impossible to lose if it gets out.
Not long ago, a debate of two Mexican "influencers" [1] was doing the rounds in Mexican networks where one guy was debating another about how Marketing in itself is an evil/bad career: That people who go into the Marketing field basically learn how to deceive and lie to people for the sake of profit.
I agree with that that assertion. I think the current marketing trends are very exploitative and highly misused. Marketing tools like Google, Facebook and Twitter (marketing tools in that their main goal is to take Ads to certain demographics) give advertisers incentives for bad behavior .
business is marketing, not some separable element. if you work, you're working for a marketer. as with any facet of socioeconomic life, the problem isn't marketing so much as it is the perceived prevalence and acceptability of exploitation and dishonesty, and how that influences our individual and collective behaviors.
marketing, at its core, is bringing to market a useful product or service and exchanging it with others who find it more valuable than the cost. this core is net-positive, but on top of that is plenty of leeway to create net-negatives.
we have norms and shared ethics for a reason (to rein in negatives & benefit from positives).
If you go maximizing short term revenue at any cost, you will get evil. It doesn't matter what market you are on.
It's not because of the ads. Plenty of business relied on ads for very long times in the past without going evil. They are evil because they want the profits.
As has been noted elsewhere, if a group has to say "Don't be X" it is because they are X. By definition, a company whose slogan is "Don't be evil" is evil.
Imagine if their motto was "Don't cut the testicles off our male employees." Like, er, sure, obviously. Wait, what? Was that a possibility?
I've wondered this same thing. Were they always the same, but with more effort (as a ratio) towards PR and image, or did the Ruth Porat era signify a cultural shift? Maybe the influx of "tech as a high paying job" type people versus "tech as an inherent interest/tech to solve problems" crowd?
-- Alexander Solzhenitsyn