It seems to me as well -- we are in a witch hunt run amok. You do not need truth, you do not need actual witches, just keep raising fear. Once the fear is high

It seems to me as well -- we are in a witch hunt run amok. You do not need truth, you do not need actual witches, just keep raising fear. Once the fear is high enough, even those who do not support such causeless insta-firings would vote for it out of fear that if they do not participate in a witch hunt they may end up on a target list. Personally, I work in a great place (large R&D lab), enjoy a lot of respect and an almost complete technical freedom to pursue interesting projects, good salary (not FAANG-level, but plenty for a comfortable life), etc. and I am seriously considering bugging out, at least for a year or two, exactly because of witch hunts. Our management is sane, but should I end up in a wrong bucket (and I will not participate in a witch hunt and will speak for a friend if he is attacked, so it is possible) no one would be able to save my ass. A couple of friends that work in small companies (20 ppl or less) generally report a much saner environment, with no company-level witch hunts. I wonder if this is true overall -- smaller companies focus less on external politics and more on technical tasks, allowing employees to participate in politics, or not, in their free time.