I don't get how you can work with something that you perceive as a scam? So when you tell your friends or your parents you say "yeah, I rip people off for a living. Haha"?
I build tools other people are free to use. I have historically refused to implement tools to be used for censorship purpose. Here, you're free to invest/yolo.. or not.
You're free to invest sure, but I assume it doesn't say that the guy who programmed it thinks it's a scam in big fat red letters?
I assume you think it's morally wrong to censor and that's why you don't want to build these tools. But how does it differ from thinking it's morally wrong to scam people? Is there some level of degree difference here?
Having n way to answer "why shouldn't I..." for yourself is no small thing. Don't take it lightly. Many people are incapable of defending themselves. Why shouldn't you...?
Leaving out the pretty extreme lack of morality going on here, one reason that may resonate in this community of rich programmers and capitalists is that we shouldn't do it because fraud is inefficient. It is a huge drain on your economy. It is not a good use of capital or time. If for instance it is all a scam and everything collapses to nothing, that's ten years of completely wasted human effort. If you built it and profited from it, you are to blame.
Don't give me that China bullshit, the poors have been explored tough morality and honesty forever by the various churches, nobility, ruling classes/party, INCLUDING in China.
I've already been called Nazi, mysogynist, racist, baby killer, pure evil here (on other now-banned accounts). Do you think "sociopath" is gonna affect me the least ?
For anything it actually strengthen my no-fuck-given stance.
I'm not biting the whole "thrive on what you like" SV mentra. The money is good, I dug my hole, and I'm fine. Just like with 2008, the problem wasn't CDO dogshit, but people with subprime credit rating buying large house with variable mortgage rate.
(1) You having money and being fine means you have the power to leave.
(2) You cannot explain away 2008 as being the fault of the people who couldn't pay their mortgage. WTAF dude.
What I'm getting from this is that you have wrapped yourself up in a nice blanket of ignorance and a nice comfy salary, and while you have come to the conclusion that the business you're engaging in is fraudulent, you've convinced yourself that anybody but you is responsible. Participating makes you responsible. If you don't have the scruples to leave something like that and have no financial pressure to stay, then you don't deserve any work in tech when the dust settles. I for one would never hire you.
If you start to question the morality of who pays your salary, you will soon find that there are very little companies that you would allow yourself to work for. I can think of renewable energies, and not much else.
In truth, I already work for an evil company. All companies I worked for in my long career were morally bankrupt one way or another. I never had any trouble sleeping at night.
A lot of today unicorns started illegally. Uber, Spotify, Airbnb. Yet, nobody comment about those because their goal was supposedly "noble". That's the problem with the variable geometry morality of the left.
"If it's moral from our point of view, but illegal, the laws are the problem. If what's you're doing is immoral from our point of view, but legal, then you should be ashamed of yourself and repent (or die)."
In other words, it's nothing but dogma and proselytism.
> (2) You cannot explain away 2008 as being the fault of the people who couldn't pay their mortgage. WTAF dude.
When you are subprime rated, you would have to be a complete moron to take a variable loan on you life. But sure, poor them, it's not their fault, it's the mean evil banker who gave them a tool to shoot themselves with ...
That the difference between you and me. I'm gonna give people the freedom to shoot themselves. You, well, you know better how each and every of them shall live there lives.
> When you are subprime rated, you would have to be a complete moron to take a variable loan on you life.
And loads of people were that moronic, do they really deserve to have suffered because some other people wanted to profit as much as possible from their stupidity? It's not like these morons had the tools to really assess what the fuck they were doing. Not excluding the fact that many of these loans were basically predatory, using the naivety/stupidity of these people against themselves to cash in.
Does all the world deserve to suffer through a major economic crisis because some morons are totally free to be predated upon by forces much more educated and sophisticated about the financial markets (and by extension doing that knowingly, pretty fucking evil)?
Libertarian ideology doesn't really hold much to reality, full freedom to do whatever is only achievable when the population is educated enough, humanity is not there yet.
This thread is a horror show that is pretty hard to watch, and I knew it would be, but I think it’s worth it. But if you we’re wondering what the rich asshole tree vandals were doing earlier in life, this is it.
You might have a point if the only negative outcome of 2008 was that a lot of people lost homes they could never afford.
It was the banks' and regulators' responsibility to not allow bad loans to be issued and resold as mis-labeled AAA investment vehicles. That is the part that broke the global economy.
> it's the mean evil banker who gave them a tool to shoot themselves with
Well, since that tool was largely fraud from which the bankers expected to profit (and did, in the short-term, until they got taken down by the rest of the industry doing the same thing) by externalizing risk, yeah, it is.
I don't recall anyone getting prosecuted for fraud even though the democrats would have dearly loved to have done so.
The bankers packaged mortgages and made a profit just like they always did. The difference was, local banks were pressured to loan to people with dreadful credit, and the guarantees by FNMA and the optimistic ratings by S&P made it easier to package and sell the mortgage backed securities.
In the end, the homeowners got to default on their mortgages but the bankers lost their livelihood.
You're putting the blame in the wrong place. I'd start by looking at FNMA. Don't take my word - read up on it.