[dusted]

Reminder: This is my personal opinion, not an attempt to convince you of anything else. While my opinion might be unpopular, I don't believe it to be without any contributing value to the discussion, so please keep that in mind if you decide to read it (and before downvoting me for providing my opinion).

I don't really, if I'm not doing it, someone else will do it, so it will be done anyway.

My belief is in bettering the world through regulation rather than individual choice.

I drive a diesel, but I'd vote for legislation banning _ALL_ diesel cars in a heatbeat.

I travel by plane, but I'd be vote for implementing laws to reduce or eliminate air travel related pollution.

I'd vote to ban some of the things I've worked on, definitely, and I'd have been glad to vote to put myself out of that previous job.

I'm not an idealist on this point.

I'll not personally sacrifice anything when the effect of my personal, specific, individual sacrifice that has direct impact for me personally, has no globally measurable impact.

I'm very much for doing good things, but while I'll be glad to do them, I want everyone else to be forced to do them too, so that they work effectively, and not just be my personal little cross to bear.

I won't be the one making do without X when X is legally available, ban X if it's bad, we'll all do make do without and find alternatives.

[tailspin2019]

> if I'm not doing it, someone else will do it, so it will be done anyway.

I downvoted you for this. I considered not doing it but figured someone else would downvote you anyway.

[BenoitP]

But upvotes and downvotes are a form of regulation (global same enforcement for everyone), and not a form of market liquidity.

They'd be market-liquid if HN learned an embedding of who-upvotes-what and created a bubble for each user where each sees the comments they'd upvote.

In facebook/instagram/tiktok/linkedin your comment would work.

(On an unrelated not, I sort wish HN would do that for posts; as I'm not interested in 95% of what makes the HN frontpage. Please bring me back hardcore technical content, please let me ignore societal/self-development/CSS/drama/etc posts. No judgement but I just don't care about that content.)

[FartyMcFarter]

> I don't really, if I'm not doing it, someone else will do it, so it will be done anyway.

That is flawed logic though. If enough people refuse to do certain types of work, it will make it harder/more expensive to do that work, which could mean it doesn't get done at all. Simple supply and demand!

Principles matter both in theory and in practice. Just because someone else is OK with doing bad stuff doesn't mean it's OK for you to be.

[thunky]

> That is flawed logic though. If enough people refuse to do certain types of work,

Sure that would solve it, but the issue is that this will never happen.

People will never stop doing objectionable things for money.

You won't even be able to get enough people to agree that there is a problem that needs solving.

[FartyMcFarter]

> Sure that would solve it, but the issue is that this will never happen.

Not sure what you mean by that. Some bad things will keep happening, but:

a) that doesn't excuse working on bad things.

b) not all bad things will get worked on.

If you always use other people as an excuse to do bad things that you don't believe in, you really need to reevaluate your thought process.

[thunky]

> a) that doesn't excuse working on bad things.

Yes, as an individual you can (and should) choose to not do bad things. But the original point being made was that this individual choice is not going to make any difference as long as someone else comes along behind you to do it.

And my point is that it's unrealistic to think that people are collectively going to stop doing "bad" things for money. We can't even expect to agree on what "bad" is, let alone expect people to throw their career in the toilet for it.

Should everyone working at Nike quit because of their objectionble practices? You may believe so. All I'm saying is that it's just not going to happen.

[FartyMcFarter]

> But the original point being made was that this individual choice is not going to make any difference as long as someone else comes along behind you to do it.

I know. But the original point is wrong or at least it doesn't tell the whole story.

That is, not all bad things will get done, and some bad things will get harder/more expensive to do if lots of people refuse to do it. Seeing it as a binary thing is overly reductive and may lead people down the path they disagree with.

[LightHugger]

The "if I'm not doing it, someone else will do it, so it will be done anyway." Is a justification i've seen used by columbian kidnapper gangs so it seems to be the ultimate coping mechanism and is very effective regardless of whether you're right or wrong on a rational level.

Personal survival does come first. And removing oneself from a sense of responsibility via "someone else will do it" can be effective. But it's typically not actually true, tbh.

[Extended0088]

Thanks for sharing. I understand your hesistancy to post this, however, I feel that a lot of people share your position, so it's very useful to add it to the discussion. I certainly won't downvote you.

The reason I don't personally agree with this is that it's unrealistic at this point to expect legislation to help with the glaring issues in the world. Legislators are bought and paid for by the industries that are causing harm.

I also disagree with your assumption that if you're not doing it then someone else will. There are a lot of great people in our industry but the number is not infinite. If enough people individually say no to something then there's less chance it will happen.

I worry that your view point seems rational to many people and allows them to dodge any responsibility that they may have.

[friend_and_foe]

You create the world you live in whether you want to do it or not. Delegating that to someone on TV is an illusion. Being a person who will do whatever for a paycheck makes you part of the problem. Voting and calling it all good is about as much of an excuse as confessing on Sunday. Your vote has no measurable impact either, may as well stop doing that also and just accept who you are, you're a mercenary who doesn't care about your impact on the world.

[prmoustache]

Cons:

- regulation by legislation is super slow. For example, disposables vapes should have never entered the market in the first place. They are an environmental nightmare, don't have any half decent purpose. Yet it will take years if not decades to ban them.

- We already have too many laws. Legislations are like licences. The best ones are the simplest ones. Once you need lawyers and legal advisors and protection to do anything, it means we have already gone too far.

We are doomed as a specy anyway, unable to collectively learn from our past errors.

[KptMarchewa]

"too many laws" is an ideological view, not fact. 99% of laws govern specific situations. It's like complaining that Linux has too much lines of code, disregarding the fact that giant majority of it touches some drivers or architectures.

[thfuran]

You can't end up in jail for being unaware of one of the drivers you don't use.

[sshine]

> My belief is in bettering the world through regulation rather than individual choice.

If you can only choose between these, I agree.

But being an engineer who contributes to industry, you can better the world through massively adopted technology.

If you are a road worker and you fix a hole in the road, it might contribute to thousands of cases of vehicles needing repair later.

If you work on battery systems, auto-pilot, or logistics, you can reduce consumption on a massive scale.

[master-lincoln]

But you don't necessarily need to sacrifice anything. There is most probably ethical work paying similar salary to the non-ethical one. So in that case you volunteered without pressure to make the world a more shitty place. (the "without" pressure part is probably hyperbole as finding an unethical well-paying job is probably easier)

[KptMarchewa]

Agreed on a some level. I just would think of not gimping the whole country by banning bad things when our enemies don't do this. For example, Germany and shutting down nuclear power.

[master-lincoln]

So you want the enemies to do this first? How realistic is that. Sounds like you are ok with a stale mate

[KptMarchewa]

Either both, via some treaty for example, or no one.

Nuclear treaties were working up till some time.

Generally diplomacy works, but you need to have both the stick and the carrot. "West" has been using only carrots for way too long.

[master-lincoln]

I don't understand what your proposal is here. You talk about diplomacy but then using the "stick". So do you think enemies should be threatened with the stick if they don't shut down nuclear powers as well?