[rrrrrrrrrrrryan]

> There's no Bond villain at the helm. It's good people rationalizing things.

I worked for a few years at a company that made software for casinos, and this was absolutely not the case there. Casinos absolutely have fully shameless villains at the helm.

[stickfigure]

Interesting. A year ago I joined one of the larger online sportsbook/casinos. In terms of talent, employees are all over the map (both good and bad). But I have yet to meet a villain. Everyone here is doing the best they can.

[shermantanktop]

Every villain wants to be the best villain they can be!

More seriously, everyone is the hero of their own story, no matter how obvious their failings are from the outside.

I’ve been burned by empathetically adopting someone’s worldview and only realizing later how messed up and self-serving it was.

[yoyohello13]

I’m sure people working for cigarette companies are doing the best they can too. People can be good individuals and also work toward evil ends.

[stickfigure]

I am of the opinion that the greatest evils come from the most self-righteous.

[TeMPOraL]

That may very well be the case. But I think this is a distinct category of evil; the second one, in which you'll find most of the cigarette and gambling businesses, is that of evil caused by indifference.

"Yes, I agree there are some downsides to our product and there are some people suffering because of that - but no one is forcing them to buy from us, they're people with agency and free will, they can act as adults and choose not to buy. Now what is this talk about feedback loops and systemic effects? It's confusing, go away."

This category is where you'll also find most of the advertising business.

The self-righteous may be the source of the greatest evil by magnitude, but day-to-day, the indifferents make it up in volume.

[rrrrrrrrrrrryan]

It's not indifference, it's much more comically evil. Like, they're using software to identify gambling addicts on fixed incomes, to figure out how big retirees' social security checks are, and to ensure they lose the entire thing at the casino each week. They bonus out their marketing team for doing this successfully. They're using software to make sure that when a casino host's patron runs out of money and kills themselves, the casino host is not penalized but rewarded for a job well done.

At 8am every morning, the executives walk across the casino floor on their way to the board room, past the depressed people who have been there gambling by themselves the entire night, seeing their faces, then they go into a boardroom to strategize ways to get them those people to gamble even harder. They brag about it. It's absolute pure villainy.

[stickfigure]

I wouldn't know if this is a fair characterization of other companies, but it certainly isn't anything like what I observe here. If you can't name names, I'm going to guess you just made this up.

[stickfigure]

Some people like to smoke. I find it disgusting myself, but as long as people want the experience I see no reason why someone else shouldn't be allowed to sell it to them. See also alcohol, drugs, porn, motorcycles, experimental aircraft, whatever.

We can have all sorts of interesting discussions about how to balance human independence with shared social costs, but it's not inherently "evil" to give consenting adults products and experiences they desire.

IMO, much more evil is caused by busybodies trying to tell other people what's good for them. See: The Drug War.

[ben_w]

I disagree. The health burden from smoking is approximately the same as death toll as the sum of all in the Holocaust, but smoking does it every nine months. And 1.3 million/year of those are non-smokers who are dying because they are exposed to second-hand smoke: https://ourworldindata.org/smoking

Even when the self-righteous are at their most dangerous, they have to be self-righteous and in power, e.g.:

  Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caedite_eos._Novit_enim_Dominu....

or:

  រក្សាន្នកគ្មានប្រយោជន៍ខាត។ បំផ្លាញអ្នកគ្មានការខាតបង់

- https://km.wikipedia.org/wiki/ប្រជាជនថ្មី

[cootsnuck]

I think y'all are agreeing.

[taneq]

Nah this is lawful evil (I Am Following The Rules Therefore I'm Doing The Right Thing) vs. neutral evil (I Just Work Here).

[stickfigure]

More like Chaotic Neutral. I like a world full of novel things, and I don't moralize about it.

[sanitycheck]

There are jobs in which one may find oneself where doing them poorly is better for the world than doing them well.

I think you and your colleagues should sit back and take it easy, maybe have a few beers every lunchtime, install some video games on the company PCs, anything you can get away with. Don't get fired (because then you'll be replaced by keen new hires), just do the minimum acceptable and feel good about that karma you're accumulating as a brake on evil.

[lucianbr]

> We are all very good and kind and not at all evil, trust us if we do say so ourselves

Do these people have even minimal self-awareness?

[darkmarmot]

VGT?