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I'm all for this and I love that there's a big push for thinking about ethics. What I want to know is how can people find ethical companies? Most advice ends up

I'm all for this and I love that there's a big push for thinking about ethics. What I want to know is how can people find ethical companies? Most advice ends up being "stay away from Amazon/Google/Palantir/Facebook/etc.", but how can people best find alternatives? One of the appeals of the big names is that you know they've got lots of interesting tech work and you know it'll be good for your career - the "brand" name cuts out on a lot of research you might otherwise have to do.

d1zzy 7y ago
While I agree there are plenty of examples for either of those companies which seems to clearly show a violation of basic ethics, does that happen simply because the scale/size of it or because of the people working there? Do those companies overall do more good than bad? Can your influence/work in those companies result in more positive impact than working for a small company? (simply because of more resources and reach of the bigger company) Here it may depend on your job level/influence in the company, obviously being 1 in 100k rank and file may not have any impact on company policy but as a more senior employee that get access to potentially more resources and larger impact decisions than working at a smaller but clearly more positively ethical company. I guess basic question is, what is the purpose that you are trying to achieve by being ethically aware in job selection and how is it best to achieve that goal? Don't get me wrong, I think it's great for people to consider ethics for deciding where to work but we should also try to not fool ourselves, in the end the reason to do this is to feel better about ourselves (and there's nothing wrong with that!) because an objective look at the potential positive impact we could have on the world at large may yield surprising answers about what the career choice should be.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
Well people here really love to talk about how great it is to start business, so why don't they start ethical businesses? Be the change you want to see in the world? My guess would be because it isn't actually very profitable, and even if they start out with the best of intentions they allow themselves to be acquired and trade ethics for money anyway. Maybe I'm just really cynical about people in tech, but I feel like all this talk about ethics only happens when you're on the wrong side of it and most people here would be plenty willing to sell out if given half a chance.
uoaei 7y ago
https://www.keyvalues.com/ https://www.keyvalues.com/

d1zzy 7y ago

While I agree there are plenty of examples for either of those companies which seems to clearly show a violation of basic ethics, does that happen simply because the scale/size of it or because of the people working there? Do those companies overall do more good than bad? Can your influence/work in those companies result in more positive impact than working for a small company? (simply because of more resources and reach of the bigger company) Here it may depend on your job level/influence in the company, obviously being 1 in 100k rank and file may not have any impact on company policy but as a more senior employee that get access to potentially more resources and larger impact decisions than working at a smaller but clearly more positively ethical company. I guess basic question is, what is the purpose that you are trying to achieve by being ethically aware in job selection and how is it best to achieve that goal? Don't get me wrong, I think it's great for people to consider ethics for deciding where to work but we should also try to not fool ourselves, in the end the reason to do this is to feel better about ourselves (and there's nothing wrong with that!) because an objective look at the potential positive impact we could have on the world at large may yield surprising answers about what the career choice should be.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago

Well people here really love to talk about how great it is to start business, so why don't they start ethical businesses? Be the change you want to see in the world? My guess would be because it isn't actually very profitable, and even if they start out with the best of intentions they allow themselves to be acquired and trade ethics for money anyway. Maybe I'm just really cynical about people in tech, but I feel like all this talk about ethics only happens when you're on the wrong side of it and most people here would be plenty willing to sell out if given half a chance.

uoaei 7y ago

https://www.keyvalues.com/ https://www.keyvalues.com/