[SubuSS]

It is a very tricky philosophical question you’re asking: should you consider the broadest impact of what you’re doing OR should you ensure you’re doing good work and leave the ramifications to higher up decision makers?

The former approach means you can’t do anything with clear conscience: do you take that vacation or donate the money? Do you punish yourself if your work on databases eventually was used for a scam?

I find it paralyzing to operate in the former way: so I take the traditional stem person approach. I just ensure what I do is good (obviously for the highest bidder). I won’t work for an explicitly criminal organization - but as long as the government approves, am in. I am going to let them do the policy making and governing because frankly I am tired and probably incompetent at that since I don’t sink much time thinking about it.

[scarface74]

> It is a very tricky philosophical question you’re asking:

There is nothing tricky about it. No one works at Meta thinking they are feeding starving children.

It’s also “difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it”

I’m not making any moral stand either way.

[SubuSS]

It’s a very narrow viewpoint to take.

Engineers in Meta have advanced technology in so many ways (buck / react / so many contributions to distributed software / leveldb …). I think it is very reductionist to discount all that work.

There’s nothing about salary depending on it here: there’s a ton about your work contributing to the global good irrespective of who’s funding it (and whatever ways they end up utilizing it).

[scarface74]

And that software was also written to further the concerns and profits of an adTech company. Facebook may have allowed open sourcing non critical parts of its software - every major tech company does.

[LegNeato]

You work at Amazon where advertising brings in more profit than AWS... https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2023/3/6/ways-to-thi...

[scarface74]

Yes, and if you check my posting history, I never tried to justify my doing so was for any other reason than “trading labor for money to support my addiction to food and shelter”.

I’m not judging anyone for making an outsized salary for working at Facebook. Just be honest that you’re there for the money and not some high minded ideals.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35035560

[geodel]

Exactly right. I mean unless long term means 6 months or such, no one looking for job would really care in an year that Meta had layoffs in 2023.