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That's an interesting zero sum game. The reality does not match, but it's a convenient excuse to never face a lack of moral character. You can quit and find a

That's an interesting zero sum game. The reality does not match, but it's a convenient excuse to never face a lack of moral character. You can quit and find a new job. Most would do it in a heartbeat for a tiny change in total comp, but struggle to make the decision when lives matter but might come at an economic cost? That seems problematic and extremely self serving. An interesting insight into the tech industry and its lack of 1. moral character 2. engineer accountability in general.

pietrovismara 6y ago
> You can quit and find a new job If by "you" you mean tech/white collar skilled worker, perhaps. But you're failing to consider the majority of low wage workers who don't really have this privilege. I also believe in personal responsibility, like you do, but the biggest issue is in the system, rather than in individual behaviour.
- watwut 6y ago
  Low wage workers do much less consequential decisions. The issue of making unethical decisions for career is very much issue of white collar people who often have choice.
jrochkind1 6y ago
The hard part is when you aren't at all confident you can "quit and find a new job." It takes courage to take actual risks and make actual sacrifices to do the right thing. You are right that it takes a lot less courage if you are sure you can just "quit and find a new job" and end up just fine. I'm sure most people would do the right thing when there is no cost to them at all of doing so and they are confident that is so, that's not the issue. Honestly your confidence that of course you would do the right thing always just makes me think you've never faced a hard decision, or have always convinced yourself that no decision that would involve a significant personal sacrifice or loss was ever the right thing. The latter is what lots of people do, it's not that they say "oh yeah I'm going to kill the astronauts because my career is more important", all those other people who overruled McDonald convinced themselves that it's not gonna kill the astronauts at all, so they didn't have to face the choice.
- jrochkind1 6y ago
  (It's also interesting that McDonald did NOT "quit and find a new job" -- he stayed there! Even though he thinks people treated him poorly and it harmed his career. Maybe it wasn't so easy for him to quit and find a new job either).
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
"That's an interesting zero sum game" But its not a zero sum game, its a game that ecourages corruption

pietrovismara 6y ago

> You can quit and find a new job If by "you" you mean tech/white collar skilled worker, perhaps. But you're failing to consider the majority of low wage workers who don't really have this privilege. I also believe in personal responsibility, like you do, but the biggest issue is in the system, rather than in individual behaviour.

watwut 6y ago
Low wage workers do much less consequential decisions. The issue of making unethical decisions for career is very much issue of white collar people who often have choice.

jrochkind1 6y ago

The hard part is when you aren't at all confident you can "quit and find a new job." It takes courage to take actual risks and make actual sacrifices to do the right thing. You are right that it takes a lot less courage if you are sure you can just "quit and find a new job" and end up just fine. I'm sure most people would do the right thing when there is no cost to them at all of doing so and they are confident that is so, that's not the issue. Honestly your confidence that of course you would do the right thing always just makes me think you've never faced a hard decision, or have always convinced yourself that no decision that would involve a significant personal sacrifice or loss was ever the right thing. The latter is what lots of people do, it's not that they say "oh yeah I'm going to kill the astronauts because my career is more important", all those other people who overruled McDonald convinced themselves that it's not gonna kill the astronauts at all, so they didn't have to face the choice.

jrochkind1 6y ago
(It's also interesting that McDonald did NOT "quit and find a new job" -- he stayed there! Even though he thinks people treated him poorly and it harmed his career. Maybe it wasn't so easy for him to quit and find a new job either).

ClumsyPilot 6y ago

"That's an interesting zero sum game" But its not a zero sum game, its a game that ecourages corruption