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i had to read this twice to make sure i was reading it correctly: and it might actually be better to donate the diff between 300k and 175k vs working in a sl

i had to read this twice to make sure i was reading it correctly: and it might actually be better to donate the diff between 300k and 175k vs working in a slightly more ethical place for 175k this really triggered me. you basically say its ok to do shady things as long as you give something to the poor. sounds so much like "indulgence" in Christian churches where you could pay off your sins. sad. i'd say money is not a permission for you to do bad things, and it should not make you fell better about bad things you did (and continue to do) just by giving some of the money away. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence

franga2000 5y ago
This is a very specific situation. Someone WILL fill that position at Evil Corp. and they will also get the 300k. The amount of evil done stays the same regardless of whether you take the position or not. But, if you take it and donate 100k to charity each year (especially one that works to undo harm done by your employer), more good is being done as well. X harm + Y good > X harm + 0 good
- FartyMcFarter 5y ago
  You're missing several important factors there. - with fewer people interested in working at Evil Corp, salaries there will trend up and they may not be able to grow as much as a consequence. - if the most skilled people don't want to work at Evil Corp, that also makes it harder to do evil. I really hope people aren't using oversimplified analysis to justify working on evil stuff.
- dwaltrip 5y ago
  > Someone WILL fill that position at Evil Corp. and they will also get the 300k. That’s not actually how it works. Maybe it’s 90% true, but the 10% matters, even if it is difficult to evaluate. What is the impact of a position at Evil Corp staying open for 6 months longer than it would have otherwise if GP doesn’t take the job? I don’t know, that is a difficult question. But I know it isn’t zero impact. Our actions matter.
atq2119 5y ago
I agree with you, but consider the possibility of donating the difference to a political organisation whose aim it is to eliminate shady behaviour by companies. There's a broader spectrum to donation than just donating to the poor.
- throwfaang 5y ago
  You could argue any profit-seeking endeavor is unethical. I look at every FAANG company, and they all do pretty nefarious things. One might be in the news now for particular reasons, but the others are equally bad for other reasons. Imagine factories overseas pushing people to suicide, warehouse workers without bathroom breaks to collect extra billions for the boss, or equivalent advertising businesses morphing the minds of the masses, as examples.
- vincnetas 5y ago
  of course :) breaking system from within. I'm being sarcastic here. sure there are more charities than for the poor, but what triggered me is the reasoning that i can buy my self peace of mind for things i have done. and this is on paper. i suspect that when money are in hand, the question comes, "after all why should i not keep it" or "i already donated last year, this should be enough"
renewiltord 5y ago
The difference between the two options is saving 125 lives / year at GiveWell’s current estimate. In ten years, you will have saved more than Oskar Schindler did during the entire Holocaust. But of course you have taken one path to the Trolley problem and Schindler (who joined the Nazi party) has taken the other. Now it remains to be seen whether history remembers Oskar Schindler the Nazi Party member or user vincnetas who avoided FAANG as the more ethical.
- vincnetas 5y ago
  i doubt that Schindler was weighting his options of joining nazi to be saving jews. it was after he joined he saw whats happening and acted in good faith. so he was saving lives not because he joined nazi, but because he mostly could not be not saving them. this is tangential to slavery where slave owners where treating their slaves very well, but fundamentally they still were slavers.
  - renewiltord 5y ago
    Ultimately you don’t want to save the 125 kids a year. That’s fine. But that’s the active choice you’re making by choosing no FAANG over FAANG plus donate.
franciscop 5y ago
Oh sorry I didn't mean it at all like that; not condoning doing shady things at all! Slightly more ethical !== the other one doing shady/bad things. What I wanted to point out is that, people normally overestimate the impact they can have in a social cause and underestimate the impact some $ well situated can have. To put an example with Open Source, Amazon is pretty bad considered, while e.g. Red Hat is "one of the best". But I don't mean those extremes, I mean more mundane companies. Let's compare say Apple (neutral-ish?) and Stripe (neutral-to-slightly positive) (note: about Open Source!!). What do you think would have better impact in the OSS ecosystem, to work at Apple for $300k and donating $125k to open source projects, or to work at Stripe getting paid $175k and not donate anything?
gambiting 5y ago
It sounds pretty much on par for American approach to everything. It's ok to have shitty healthcare for the poor and pay less taxes, as long as you donate from time to time. Student loans? Medical loans? Shitty care for vets? No worries, Americans are the highest donating people on Earth by capita - so it's all fine. That last argument I keep hearing all the time - Americans are such good donators that they don't need a robust social net, after all if you are really in need then someone would have donated to you already /s.
- b112 5y ago
  You have to be careful with health care, otherwise socialism will creep in. Everyone knows that socially paid things are wrong, and that everything should be private. No one wants public fire departments, schools, legal systems, police, etc etc. Only socialist countries do this.
  - throwaway210222 5y ago
    Don't be so glib. Where I live, we have private fire departments because the government one's are not maintained and the ambulances are being used as taxis. Socialism + corruption (and that the only kind we get) is way worse than you can imagine. Especially for the poor.
    - aiisjustanif 5y ago
      > Socialism + corruption (and that the only kind we get) is way worse than you can imagine. Especially for the poor. Can imagine still don’t see it. Communism + corruption, sure.
- franciscop 5y ago
  Way off base, we (I?) are not talking about paying taxes vs donations. In fact as an European myself now living in Japan yeah, tax the shit out of everyone, and stop bombing/gunning everyone and instead pay for healthcare+university with that money :) Now since I'm not native I think I might have explained myself wrong; see sibling comment (to yours) I made clarifying what I meant.

franga2000 5y ago

This is a very specific situation. Someone WILL fill that position at Evil Corp. and they will also get the 300k. The amount of evil done stays the same regardless of whether you take the position or not. But, if you take it and donate 100k to charity each year (especially one that works to undo harm done by your employer), more good is being done as well. X harm + Y good > X harm + 0 good

FartyMcFarter 5y ago
You're missing several important factors there. - with fewer people interested in working at Evil Corp, salaries there will trend up and they may not be able to grow as much as a consequence. - if the most skilled people don't want to work at Evil Corp, that also makes it harder to do evil. I really hope people aren't using oversimplified analysis to justify working on evil stuff.
dwaltrip 5y ago
> Someone WILL fill that position at Evil Corp. and they will also get the 300k. That’s not actually how it works. Maybe it’s 90% true, but the 10% matters, even if it is difficult to evaluate. What is the impact of a position at Evil Corp staying open for 6 months longer than it would have otherwise if GP doesn’t take the job? I don’t know, that is a difficult question. But I know it isn’t zero impact. Our actions matter.

atq2119 5y ago

I agree with you, but consider the possibility of donating the difference to a political organisation whose aim it is to eliminate shady behaviour by companies. There's a broader spectrum to donation than just donating to the poor.

throwfaang 5y ago
You could argue any profit-seeking endeavor is unethical. I look at every FAANG company, and they all do pretty nefarious things. One might be in the news now for particular reasons, but the others are equally bad for other reasons. Imagine factories overseas pushing people to suicide, warehouse workers without bathroom breaks to collect extra billions for the boss, or equivalent advertising businesses morphing the minds of the masses, as examples.
vincnetas 5y ago
of course :) breaking system from within. I'm being sarcastic here. sure there are more charities than for the poor, but what triggered me is the reasoning that i can buy my self peace of mind for things i have done. and this is on paper. i suspect that when money are in hand, the question comes, "after all why should i not keep it" or "i already donated last year, this should be enough"

renewiltord 5y ago

The difference between the two options is saving 125 lives / year at GiveWell’s current estimate. In ten years, you will have saved more than Oskar Schindler did during the entire Holocaust. But of course you have taken one path to the Trolley problem and Schindler (who joined the Nazi party) has taken the other. Now it remains to be seen whether history remembers Oskar Schindler the Nazi Party member or user vincnetas who avoided FAANG as the more ethical.

vincnetas 5y ago
i doubt that Schindler was weighting his options of joining nazi to be saving jews. it was after he joined he saw whats happening and acted in good faith. so he was saving lives not because he joined nazi, but because he mostly could not be not saving them. this is tangential to slavery where slave owners where treating their slaves very well, but fundamentally they still were slavers.
- renewiltord 5y ago
  Ultimately you don’t want to save the 125 kids a year. That’s fine. But that’s the active choice you’re making by choosing no FAANG over FAANG plus donate.

franciscop 5y ago

Oh sorry I didn't mean it at all like that; not condoning doing shady things at all! Slightly more ethical !== the other one doing shady/bad things. What I wanted to point out is that, people normally overestimate the impact they can have in a social cause and underestimate the impact some $ well situated can have. To put an example with Open Source, Amazon is pretty bad considered, while e.g. Red Hat is "one of the best". But I don't mean those extremes, I mean more mundane companies. Let's compare say Apple (neutral-ish?) and Stripe (neutral-to-slightly positive) (note: about Open Source!!). What do you think would have better impact in the OSS ecosystem, to work at Apple for $300k and donating $125k to open source projects, or to work at Stripe getting paid $175k and not donate anything?

gambiting 5y ago

It sounds pretty much on par for American approach to everything. It's ok to have shitty healthcare for the poor and pay less taxes, as long as you donate from time to time. Student loans? Medical loans? Shitty care for vets? No worries, Americans are the highest donating people on Earth by capita - so it's all fine. That last argument I keep hearing all the time - Americans are such good donators that they don't need a robust social net, after all if you are really in need then someone would have donated to you already /s.

b112 5y ago
You have to be careful with health care, otherwise socialism will creep in. Everyone knows that socially paid things are wrong, and that everything should be private. No one wants public fire departments, schools, legal systems, police, etc etc. Only socialist countries do this.
- throwaway210222 5y ago
  Don't be so glib. Where I live, we have private fire departments because the government one's are not maintained and the ambulances are being used as taxis. Socialism + corruption (and that the only kind we get) is way worse than you can imagine. Especially for the poor.
  - aiisjustanif 5y ago
    > Socialism + corruption (and that the only kind we get) is way worse than you can imagine. Especially for the poor. Can imagine still don’t see it. Communism + corruption, sure.
franciscop 5y ago
Way off base, we (I?) are not talking about paying taxes vs donations. In fact as an European myself now living in Japan yeah, tax the shit out of everyone, and stop bombing/gunning everyone and instead pay for healthcare+university with that money :) Now since I'm not native I think I might have explained myself wrong; see sibling comment (to yours) I made clarifying what I meant.