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> "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair One of my favourite quotes too
by bem94 9y ago
> "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair
One of my favourite quotes too, but I refuse to accept it as law.
If people really do work at places like Google, Uber and Palantir to make the world a better place, then it suggests they would care if they are making the world a worse place inadvertantly, right? In which case it just takes education.
If, on the other hand, they don't want to look too deeply into the social consequences of what they work on, then that is more difficult to deal with.
All of these companies (especially Google) make some fantastic contributions. I just wish sometimes engineers looked up from the keyboard to see the bigger social picture.
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoI'm not saying that it's impossible to overcome, just very difficult. This is cognitive dissonance territory, and a lot of people would rather just deny what's presented to them then reevaluate what they've been doing for a number of years.
- mfringel 9y agoYou're missing the possibility that your definition of making the world a worse place is their definition of making the world a better place.