[jlcoff]

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.

[cormacrelf]

(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.

[jlcoff]

> you have come to the conclusion that the business you're engaging in is fraudulent [...] then you don't deserve any work in tech

I do believe the whole tech industry is nothing but a giant scam, selling snake oil at a premium. You are as much the problem as I am.

We very much live in a world where you are either the sheep or the wolf, and I ain't gonna be a sheep. I won't back down to bullies of your kind.

> I for one would never hire you.

At least, I don't pretend I'm gonna save the world from itself.

[wtf_throwaway]

I'm with you brother.

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.

If it's not illegal it's fine.

[jlcoff]

> If it's not illegal it's fine.

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.

[cormacrelf]

> you will soon find that there are very little companies that you would allow yourself to work for.

That’s literally the idea. People doing bad things should find hiring minions difficult.

[jlcoff]

"bad things" is a subjective concept. A former roommate was building a website in the mid 2000 for a dildo company. You probably don't care, but a religious zealot might consider it "bad".

We're gonna make a deal, I'll let you work in ad-tech, and you let me build tool which allow people to shoot themselves in the foot.

[deanCommie]

Taking a fully relativist perspective on morality is just an excuse to justify taking no ethical stance on anything at all. It's certainly your choice to exist in society this way, but you can't be surprised if people correctly criticize it as selfish, self-serving, and morally bankrupt. At least embrace it.

[cormacrelf]

I work in academia. I will never work in ad-tech either.

[lowkey]

But how far are you as an individual willing to go?

- Apple uses exploitative labor practices to manufacture iPhones [0]

- Google is increasingly being recognized as a surveillance and manipulation platform. They have even been caught manipulating elections [1]

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/12/29/lens-te...

[1] https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/download/epstein-testimony

[jlcoff]

Big tech get a free pass because, in the western world at least, they offer their regular sacrifice to the dogmatic left God.

[jlcoff]

> (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.

Remind me of ESR writing... http://www.catb.org/~esr/guns/gun-ethics.html

Do you even realize your own mentality ?

[piva00]

> 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.

What the actual fuck...

[cormacrelf]

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.

[jlcoff]

If you think it's an horror show, you're pretty frail... Toughen up, cupcake.

[piva00]

Ad hominems are frowned upon around here, just so you know...

[jlcoff]

> ...humanity is not there yet.

Especially with the dogmatic left at the helm.

[piva00]

What does this even mean?

Catchphrases don't foster discussion, don't be on the thought-terminating camp, pretty idiotic reply to be honest.

[jlcoff]

The current mainstream [radical] left Gospel meets the definition of dogma, as in, they are just as bad as the darkest religion they themselves condemn. Not very difficult to understand.

[googlerx]

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.

[jlcoff]

NO, it's not the job of the government to save people from shooting themselves.

[atq2119]

Mis-labeling a product is literally fraud.

Looked at from first principles, the market cannot work efficiently if people are allowed to lie. Lies create an enormous amount of waste through direct and indirect effects.

Government as the monopoly on power (and locking people up) has an important role to play in policing this.

[jlcoff]

> Mis-labeling a product is literally fraud

Such as Tesla FSD ?

[googlerx]

I never said or implied that it was.

But (in the US at least), it actually is the government's job to keep the economy stable in order to "insure domestic Tranquility [... and...] promote the general Welfare"

[dragonwriter]

> 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.

[gazzer1]

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.

[chx]

Any time you bring up ESR as a positive figure , you lose. Something to consider. Even OSI banned him from their mailing lists, although way too late.