5 ms·

If Facebook was only full of people without a functioning moral compass then none of this research would have been done in the first place.

gilrain 5y ago
“Not all of them are bad” isn’t a very strong argument against the general heuristic.
- cybernautique 5y ago
  I have one caveat: people whose immigration to the USA was conditioned on their employment in Silicon Valley. Aside from that, I think _every single person_ that works at Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. (the uncivil technology corps) is morally bankrupt. Every last one of them is fundamentally compromised by their work.
  - vlovich123 5y ago
    How many people with prior experience at these companies have you worked with or know on a personal level that you're drawing this conclusion from?
    - cybernautique 5y ago
      This is a good question! I've known only applicants to Google, never anyone that's worked at or meaningfully aspired to work at Facebook. I'm not making this judgment on a rational basis; my stance is based purely on my ethical values and ideological commitments. If you find this silly, or think that it invalidates my opinion then: power to you! I do not believe that my ethical values are universal statements, nor that my ethics must be shared by anyone. I simply don't care to qualify every one of my statements with "it seems," "in my opinion," etc. I genuinely wish to engage on this topic, so I welcome any further reply from you.
      - vlovich123 5y ago
        I happened to have worked at Apple, Facebook and Google. I’ve found all the people there to be generally pretty morale people who try to positively influence decisions. Sometimes it’s a losing battle and decisions get made that you disagree with. However that’s broadly true of any group of people so saying all members of a group are morally compromised seems unhelpful. You could say the same about anyone working on the government or any business or even generally associating with people. I disagree with the position taken that you can evaluate a person’s principles solely by their choice of employment or association. It’s only one factor and usually an unhelpfully reductive way to look at the world IMO.
  - tomrod 5y ago
    Weird. I know a lot of people who work in that space. None of them are morally corrupt. What kind of people are you seeking out?
    - cybernautique 5y ago
      "Seeking out" in which sense? As in, "who are the people that I seek to condemn?" Or, "who are the people that I seek out to speak with?" Or some other sense? I'm not asking this to be obtuse; I'm genuinely interested in engaging on this topic, so I want to be sure I'm not speaking past your meaning. "Who are the people I seek to condemn?" The information workers that find employment with massive, human-rights-violating corporations. I condemn these people for their willingness to dedicate such talent and intelligence towards actively making the world a more user-hostile place. "Who are the people I seek to speak with?" Generally, everyone and anyone, including you or any of your acquaintances that happen to be reading this thread. With respect, I think this speaks to a difference in our ethical values. I 100% believe that Facebook employees are fundamentally compromised by their employment. Don't get me twisted: I'm not accusing them of being Nazis, nor any such equivalence; these specific condemnations are very prevalent in our modern discourse. I'm not saying anything like this. I'm also not saying that such people are necessarily unpleasant, or that their company might not be enjoyable. However, at the end of the day, they are making the world worse for me, the people I associate with, and (in my opinion) the people of the world at large. For these reasons, owing to my ideological commitments, I remain firm in my position. Facebook employees are ethically compromised.
      - tomrod 5y ago
        > Facebook employees are ethically compromised. Again, I disagree heartily. I know FB employees who aren't ethically compromised, which serves as a counterexample to your claim. I can't think of any legal, large employer with whom people are ethically compromised simply by employment. Also, your original claim was that they are morally corrupt. How do you distinguish between these two? > they are making the world worse for me, the people I associate with As a gentle reminder, a single person isn't the world, and your life being assessed by you as worse (without mention of baseline) is not a huge price to pay for free connections, central marketplace, and not to mention the groups that have been extraordinarily helpful for the marginalized. I've been in that place (marginalized), and finding support through groups facilitated by FB's platform was essential to my well-being. So again, counterexample to the totalizing claim. Am I a fan of FB? No. But it's a really hard stretch to assume that everyone is compromised for being involved with them. Such claims aren't novel, but seem to be histrionics in most cases.
errantmind 5y ago
The people who work at companies that seem 'immoral' are able to justify it because they work on such a small part as to avoid any feeling of responsibility. The same could be said of soldiers in an army used for oppression. They don't feel responsible for the outcomes because they aren't the ones making the decisions, or they work 'behind the scenes'. I personally don't judge any of them but I can see how you could argue that simply by working for such a company or institution you are partly to blame for their immorality.
- TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
  Ah, the Nuremberg defence: "I was just following orders".[1] Whatever helps you sleep at night I guess. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders
- snuser 5y ago
  It feels off, before working at facebook I was unable to buy a house and wouldn't have been able to retire at 67 I've worked a for a lot of 'nicer' small companies and they pretty much threw me in the trash
  - errantmind 5y ago
    I'm not sure I understand. The companies were nice and threw you in the trash? Perhaps you mean they were 'moral' in mission but bad employers? Ultimately Google and Facebook are ad agencies (by profit). They need to pay a premium to attract workers because their mission is less attractive, although they dress it up by publicizing ancillary projects. If you go several steps farther, porn companies do the same.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > Ultimately Google and Facebook are ad agencies. T Now. They are a combination of advertising venues and ad placement agency. “Ad agencies” are the companies you hire to make ads. Though Google branching out into using AI to generate ads probably isn't too far off.

gilrain 5y ago

“Not all of them are bad” isn’t a very strong argument against the general heuristic.

cybernautique 5y ago
I have one caveat: people whose immigration to the USA was conditioned on their employment in Silicon Valley. Aside from that, I think _every single person_ that works at Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. (the uncivil technology corps) is morally bankrupt. Every last one of them is fundamentally compromised by their work.
- vlovich123 5y ago
  How many people with prior experience at these companies have you worked with or know on a personal level that you're drawing this conclusion from?
  - cybernautique 5y ago
    This is a good question! I've known only applicants to Google, never anyone that's worked at or meaningfully aspired to work at Facebook. I'm not making this judgment on a rational basis; my stance is based purely on my ethical values and ideological commitments. If you find this silly, or think that it invalidates my opinion then: power to you! I do not believe that my ethical values are universal statements, nor that my ethics must be shared by anyone. I simply don't care to qualify every one of my statements with "it seems," "in my opinion," etc. I genuinely wish to engage on this topic, so I welcome any further reply from you.
    - vlovich123 5y ago
      I happened to have worked at Apple, Facebook and Google. I’ve found all the people there to be generally pretty morale people who try to positively influence decisions. Sometimes it’s a losing battle and decisions get made that you disagree with. However that’s broadly true of any group of people so saying all members of a group are morally compromised seems unhelpful. You could say the same about anyone working on the government or any business or even generally associating with people. I disagree with the position taken that you can evaluate a person’s principles solely by their choice of employment or association. It’s only one factor and usually an unhelpfully reductive way to look at the world IMO.
- tomrod 5y ago
  Weird. I know a lot of people who work in that space. None of them are morally corrupt. What kind of people are you seeking out?
  - cybernautique 5y ago
    "Seeking out" in which sense? As in, "who are the people that I seek to condemn?" Or, "who are the people that I seek out to speak with?" Or some other sense? I'm not asking this to be obtuse; I'm genuinely interested in engaging on this topic, so I want to be sure I'm not speaking past your meaning. "Who are the people I seek to condemn?" The information workers that find employment with massive, human-rights-violating corporations. I condemn these people for their willingness to dedicate such talent and intelligence towards actively making the world a more user-hostile place. "Who are the people I seek to speak with?" Generally, everyone and anyone, including you or any of your acquaintances that happen to be reading this thread. With respect, I think this speaks to a difference in our ethical values. I 100% believe that Facebook employees are fundamentally compromised by their employment. Don't get me twisted: I'm not accusing them of being Nazis, nor any such equivalence; these specific condemnations are very prevalent in our modern discourse. I'm not saying anything like this. I'm also not saying that such people are necessarily unpleasant, or that their company might not be enjoyable. However, at the end of the day, they are making the world worse for me, the people I associate with, and (in my opinion) the people of the world at large. For these reasons, owing to my ideological commitments, I remain firm in my position. Facebook employees are ethically compromised.
    - tomrod 5y ago
      > Facebook employees are ethically compromised. Again, I disagree heartily. I know FB employees who aren't ethically compromised, which serves as a counterexample to your claim. I can't think of any legal, large employer with whom people are ethically compromised simply by employment. Also, your original claim was that they are morally corrupt. How do you distinguish between these two? > they are making the world worse for me, the people I associate with As a gentle reminder, a single person isn't the world, and your life being assessed by you as worse (without mention of baseline) is not a huge price to pay for free connections, central marketplace, and not to mention the groups that have been extraordinarily helpful for the marginalized. I've been in that place (marginalized), and finding support through groups facilitated by FB's platform was essential to my well-being. So again, counterexample to the totalizing claim. Am I a fan of FB? No. But it's a really hard stretch to assume that everyone is compromised for being involved with them. Such claims aren't novel, but seem to be histrionics in most cases.

errantmind 5y ago

The people who work at companies that seem 'immoral' are able to justify it because they work on such a small part as to avoid any feeling of responsibility. The same could be said of soldiers in an army used for oppression. They don't feel responsible for the outcomes because they aren't the ones making the decisions, or they work 'behind the scenes'. I personally don't judge any of them but I can see how you could argue that simply by working for such a company or institution you are partly to blame for their immorality.

TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
Ah, the Nuremberg defence: "I was just following orders".[1] Whatever helps you sleep at night I guess. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders
snuser 5y ago
It feels off, before working at facebook I was unable to buy a house and wouldn't have been able to retire at 67 I've worked a for a lot of 'nicer' small companies and they pretty much threw me in the trash
- errantmind 5y ago
  I'm not sure I understand. The companies were nice and threw you in the trash? Perhaps you mean they were 'moral' in mission but bad employers? Ultimately Google and Facebook are ad agencies (by profit). They need to pay a premium to attract workers because their mission is less attractive, although they dress it up by publicizing ancillary projects. If you go several steps farther, porn companies do the same.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Ultimately Google and Facebook are ad agencies. T Now. They are a combination of advertising venues and ad placement agency. “Ad agencies” are the companies you hire to make ads. Though Google branching out into using AI to generate ads probably isn't too far off.