[hananova]

Ethically, if you do not agree with the company you work at, the optimal course of action if you can stomach it is to stay and do a bad job rather than get replaced by someone who might do a good job.

I have been in such a situation before, and while I was not able to coast along until the company went under, the time delta between me getting fired and the company going under was measured in weeks.

In hindsight I'd probably not do it again, it was hugely mentally taxing, and knowingly performing work in such a way that it provides negative value to the company (remember, the goal is to make it go under) is in my experience actually harder than just doing a good job... Especially if being covert is a goal.

[jkubicek]

Have you read the CIA’s Simple Sabotage Field Manual?

https://www.cia.gov/static/5c875f3ec660e092cf893f60b4a288df/...

[MengerSponge]

I've seen it, but I think it's got some places that it would benefit from more clarity. Can we put together a committee to improve and protect our processes from it? We could call it a task force if that's easier to sell to management.

[kevin_thibedeau]

This demands a tiger team.

[malikolivier]

I did not know the existence of this manual. It was a very interesting read! Especially after page 28 (General Interference with Organizations and Production).

[jstummbillig]

> Ethically, if you do not agree with the company you work at, the optimal course of action if you can stomach it is to stay and do a bad job rather than get replaced by someone who might do a good job.

What...? In what way is it anything other than highly unethical to sabotage someone you have a contract with, because you disagree with them?

[47282847]

Plenty of historical examples of work environments where sabotage would have been the most ethical thing to do (and often you will only know in hindsight). But yeah in most circumstances a simple disagreement doesn’t warrant the psychological cost of such sabotage.

[tremon]

the psychological cost of such sabotage

Of course. One always needs to weigh it against the psychological cost of complying with unethical directions.

[jstummbillig]

What do you mean...? Plenty to do what?

Your opinion of the situation is not enough to justify this course of action in 99.99% of cases and the residual 0.01% should not be enough to fuel your ego to do anything other than quit decently, and look for an employer that is more aligned with whatever your ideals are.

I repeat the insane statement that we are arguing over here: "Ethically, if you do not agree with the company you work at, the optimal course of action if you can stomach it is to stay and do a bad job rather than get replaced by someone who might do a good job."

This says: ANY company you work for and disagree with over anything: Don't quit! Sabotage [maybe people are confused about what "do a bad job" means, and that this usually leads to other people getting hurt in some way, directly or indirectly, unless your job is entirely inconsequential]. And that's supposed to be ethically optimal.

What the fuck?

[berdario]

I think there's a bit of confusion between

> (Ethically, if you do not agree with the company you work at), the optimal course of action is..

And

> Ethically, (if you do not agree with the company you work at, the optimal course of action is...)

The former, should've probably been phrased "if you do not agree ethically with the company you work at, the optimal course of action is..."

First example that comes to mind, about a movie that portrays ethical sabotage is

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schindler%27s_List

I'm actually a bit unsure about what could be the motivations of someone who engages in sabotage *not* for ethical reasons

[andrewingram]

There's a _big_ continuum between disagreeing over something and an ethical hard line, it feels like a slippery slope to interpete a suggested approach for one end of that line as advocacy for applying that same approach to the other end.

[mcherm]

A specific example will help.

Imagine I am working for a company and I discover they are engaged in capturing and transporting human slaves. Furthermore, the government where they operate in fully aware and supportive of their actions so denouncing them publicly is unlikely to help. This is a real situation that has happened to real people at points in history in my own country.

I believe that one ethical response would be to violate my contract with the company by assisting slaves to escape and even providing them with passage to other places where slavery is illegal.

Now, if you agree with the ethics of the example I gave then you agree in principle that this can be ethical behavior and what remains to be debated is whether xAI's criminal behavior and support from the government rise to this same level. I know many who think that badly aligned AI could lead to the extinction of the human race, so the potential harm is certainly there (at least some believe it is), and I think the government support is strong enough that denouncing xAI for unethical behavior wouldn't cause the government to stop them.

[jstummbillig]

I have no clue why people are so confused here.

a) I understand the very few and specific examples, that would justify and require disobedience. In those cases just doing a "bad job" seems super lame and inconsequential. I would ask more of anyone, including myself.

b) all other examples, the category that parent opened so broadly, are simply completely silly, is what I take offensive with. If you think simply disagreeing with anyone you have entered a contract with is cause for sabotaging them, and painting that as ethically superior, then, I repeat: what the fuck?

c) If you suspect criminal behavior then alarm the authorities or the press. What are you going to do on the inside? What vigilante spy story are we telling ourselves here?

[47282847]

Some people in this thread seem to come from a place of morality where some “higher truth” exists outside of the sphere of the individual to guide one’s actions, and yet others even seem to weakly disguise their own ethics and beliefs behind a framework of alleged “rationality”, as if there was mathematical precision behind what is the “right” action and which is clearly wrong — and anybody that just doesn’t get it must be either an idiot or clinically insane. By which I completely dismiss not only opinion but also individual circumstances.

In reality, which actions a person considers ethical and in coherence with their own values is highly individual. I can be friends or colleague with somebody who has a different set of ethics and circumstances than me. If I were to turn this into a conflict that needs resolution each time it shows, I would set myself up for eternal (life long) war with my social environment. Some will certainly enjoy that, and get a sense of purpose and orientation from it! I prefer not to, and I can find totally valid and consistent arguments for each side. No need to agree to reach understanding, and respect our differences.

Typically, people value belonging over morality: they adapt to whatever morality guarantees their own survival. The need to belong is a fundamental need; we are social animals not made to survive on our own.

The moment I am puzzled about another persons reasoning I can ask and if they are willing they will teach me why their actions make sense to them. If I come from a place of curiosity and sincere interest, people will be happy to help me get over my confusion. If I approach that conversation from some higher ground, as some kind of missionary, I might succeed sometimes, but fail most times, as I would pose a threat to their coherence, which they will remove one way or another.

[Teever]

"Don't struggle only within the ground rules that the people you're struggling against have laid down." -- Malcolm X

"If you're unhappy with your job you don't strike. You just go in there every day, and do it really half-assed. That's the American way. -- Homer Simpson

"To steal from a brother or sister is evil. To not steal from the institutions that are the pillars of the Pig Empire is equally immoral." -- Abbie Hoffman

Some might consider it unethical but others might also consider it immoral to not do what you're describing.

I guess you're fortunate enough to have only worked at places where your moral framework matched up with their business practices and treatment of the staff.

That isn't the case for most people. Most people are put into situations at one time or another where the people they're working for don't value them as equals, where the people they work for casually violate reasonable laws like product safety or enivronmental standards laws and what's worse these people will suffer no consequences for doing so.

No White Knight in shining armour is going to come from the government to shut them down. No lightning from heaven will strike them down. No financial penalty to dissuade them from further defection from society and the common man in the game that is life.

So what do you do? Do you do nothing? Just put your nose to the grindstone and keep working for the man? Do you quit, only to end up penniless and jobless, with poor prospects of an alternative, and even if you found one maybe it's 'meet the new boss same as the old boss'?

Nah, you come into work every day and you subtly fuck it up. You subtly fuck it up and you take whatever value you can extract.

They'd do the same to you.

They are doing the same to you.

[swiftcoder]

> In what way is it anything other than highly unethical to sabotage someone

Ethics is more complicated than that. Is it unethical to sabotage your employer if your employed is themselves acting unethically?

[freeone3000]

Have we gotten so lost that “working against your enemies” is no longer something we aspire to do?

[cheschire]

You’ve seen Schindler’s List, right?

[ako]

Assume you work for e.g., a cigarette company. A company responsible for many deaths by unethically adding highly addictive substances. By sabotaging the company you are making this world a better place. Ethically it's the right thing to do.

Or, assume you're hired by the Nazi to work in concentration camps. Ethically it's the right thing to do to sabotage their gas chambers.

[LtWorf]

Let's say you work for elon musk and are a decent person…

[jstummbillig]

Why would you start to work for elon musk if you consider yourself a decent person, but him unworkable for? Have you not heard of elon musk beforehand...? Did you let yourself be employed with the specific goal of sabotaging the work, in what must be the least effective (but certainly very lucrative) coup possible?

What is it? Am I to believe this person is a chaotic mastermind? Or a selfish idiot? Or non-existant?

[ben_w]

His reputation did not start out in the current state; if it had, I suspect he would never have been able to hold the importance/monetary power that he currently holds.

Changing one's mind about him can take a while.

With the benefit of hindsight, it certainly took me longer than I am happy with to change my mind about him; to be specific, I should have more radically changed my opinion of his personality when he libelled that cave expert in response to being told a submarine wasn't going to help, I should have recognised that only someone with a very fragile ego would react that way, that it wasn't just a blip on his record but something deeper.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

> Why would you start to work for elon musk if you consider yourself a decent person, but him unworkable for?

Anyone working at Twitter at the time of its acquisition could have found themselves in such a position.

[AnimalMuppet]

Even ethically, this is only true if you think the ethics of the place are so bad that sabotage is warranted. That's not every place that you have ethical problems with.

To do that (and hide it), you have to become a dishonest person yourself. That is ethically destructive to you. So the threshold for doing this should be pretty high.

[super256]

I don't think sabotaging a company just because you don't want to work with a certain framework and deploy it on k8s is a good idea.

[lithocarpus]

Yeah, I could see this being true if there was really _nothing else_ I could possibly be doing with my time that is worthy. But there are a lot of worthy things I could be doing with my time.

[lesuorac]

Ethically perhaps but financially and mentally its surely better to start looking for a new role (at a different company) that is more in alignment with you, no?

[d0odk]

Ethically, if you extend this reasoning, are we not obligated to find a position in the most morally repulsive organization we are aware of, and then coast?

[_bent]

yes, this is called 'effective altruism'

[RobRivera]

I think there is an implied "given the company you joined turns out to be nonethically aligned"

[d0odk]

Yes, that's what I'm addressing with my comment above.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

One could find a position in the most morally attractive organization they are aware of, and then work really hard.

[metalcrow]

well not coast, the intent is sabotage

[LtWorf]

Coasting you're already using resources that could be used more effectively.

If you actively slow other people down as well it's even better though.

[Nevermark]

As they say, two uneth’s make a thical.

I really wouldn’t want to be in this position. But it feels very motivating. It would sooth some difficult memories.

I can see myself putting in a lot of hours.

The willingness to be fired, in both good and bad situations, can be mentally freeing and an operational/political advantage. Many of us fail to push as hard as we optimally could, when we have too much on the line.