[fphhotchips]

So then, by this logic, once you've worked for NSO Group or the like, there's no way back for you. How then, can someone reform or "see the light"? Is someone once tainted, always tainted? Or do they have to do 10 years in the NFP space before we see them as worthy?

The problem is that by walling off developers who participate in these activities, we essentially force them to continue these activities. I'm not sure that's net positive.

[acdha]

It’s not like we don’t accept that people change, but stigma is useful for both discouraging starting there or staying. If your first job out of college or the military is a defense contractor, oil company, Palantir, etc. a lot of people will sympathize with needing to make rent. If you’re still there a decade later, they’ll assume you’re okay with what they do.

[yard2010]

Don't hate the player hate the game. At the end of the day it's the policy makers that choose to look the other way

[acdha]

That’s a personal ethics shirk. For example, policy makers haven’t outright banned tobacco companies but a large number of people would not spend their time trying to make such companies successful.

[black_puppydog]

social norms are part of "the game" and letting people feel in very practical terms that it's not okay to Be Evil(TM) is changing the rules.