[bubblegumcrisis]

How did you decide to work at Meta?

I'll be honest, just the idea of working there makes me feel like vomiting. For me, they are bizarrely evil. They're not evil like, "we're going to destroy our competition through anti competitive practices," (which they do), but "let's destroy a whole generation of minds."

And now with the glasses. I mean, jeeze. Can there be a stronger signal of not caring for others?

It's as if Meta sees people as cattle. Though I think a lot of techies see humans as cattle, truthfully.

What was your rationale?

I guess this question is out-of-the-blue, and I don't mean for you to justify your existence, but I've never understood why people choose to work for Meta.

[qweiopqweiop]

I feel the same - would I like a meta paycheck, sure, but I couldn't look at myself in the mirror knowing what the company I'm giving my work to does to people's brains (not just the young, though that is the most reprehensible).

[bobbane]

I told my son I would disown him if he worked for Facebook, for the reasons stated above.

Then he took a contracting gig for Meta. His rationalization was that the project was an ill-specified prototype that would never see the light of day - if they wanted to throw money at him for stuff like that, he would accept it.

That gig is finished, and he's now thoroughly disillusioned with working for big tech.

[m_ke]

Guess who is running product and other related functions at OpenAI and Anthropic now

[matthest]

From this angle, what's the difference between Meta and a junk food company?

Both sell things that are bad for you, but that the consumer has complete control over whether or not to consume.

And not all of what Meta is selling is bad. There's a lot of information exchanged on Facebook, Instagram, etc. that are good for society. Like health/nutrition advice, etc.

[rybosworld]

I've always attributed it to people being very good at convincing themselves they aren't one of the bad guys. A big paycheck makes it even easier to ignore to what you are a part of.

Where livelihood is concerned, rational individuals with strong morals can do irrational, and immoral things (e.g., work at the Palantir's of the world).

TLDR: incentives don't just shape perception, they form it