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Reading judgmental comments like this also upsets me. It’s not selling your soul. It’s called being disillusioned with your impact on the world, a feeling that

Reading judgmental comments like this also upsets me. It’s not selling your soul. It’s called being disillusioned with your impact on the world, a feeling that more and more people are feeling. Long gone are the days where you believed an individual could make a difference. At big corp, you are a small cog in the big machine. You are replaceable. I’ve volunteered on political campaigns. I’ve volunteered for non profits as a developer. I’ve worked at startups that align closely with my moral views. Guess what? It’s all rotten. Nothing of meaning ever gets done, and the pay is pennies to boot. In the case of my volunteerism, pay equates to the pay of my full time colleagues that worked for those organizations. So when faced with the choice of doing nothing on something you believe in for very little versus doing nothing on something you don’t for a lot, the choice is extremely easy. The choice is even easier if you factor in the level of privilege it takes to turn down generational money for someone else’s moral compass. I’ve tried my best not to pass judgment onto you, but ask yourself — what kind of privilege affords you to think that the twenty year old second generation immigrants of today with no family wealth or financial lifeboat should give up their chance of securing generational (not even multigenerational) wealth in the richest country in the world just to achieve the same impact but feel better about themselves?

djcapelis 4y ago
Because not everyone is a twenty year old second generation immigrant with no family wealth who needs a lifeboat. Are you under the impression the blog post author is? Look if people need money I don’t think many of us are passing judgement on that. But if you’re privileged and your sole criteria for a new job is accruing capital, you bet I pass judgement on it. And honestly once you get over 200k a year I think the immigrant straw person everyone points out whether they are one or not can probably start getting picky too. (If you wanna wait until after 300k/yr I’m cool with that too. But at some point you’re accruing enough capital that you can start thinking about what you spend your time on in your day job, and have a moral obligation to do so. When this kicks in is totally relative to a person’s situation.)
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  The author elaborates on their motivations here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30963856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30963856
- refurb 4y ago
  "But if you’re privileged and your sole criteria for a new job is accruing capital, you bet I pass judgement on it." That's fine, but you realize your judgement is no more valid than anyone else's right? And to think otherwise is quite arrogant?
- wayne-li2 4y ago
  I didn’t try to assume anything about the blog post author. But it’s irrelevant — I was commenting on the comment calling people in general soulless for maximizing compensation. I agree there’s a point which that moral inflection point occurs, but I think the number is complex to come up to. I’ll give an example. I make a pretty obscene salary that falls within your definition of “needing to care”. But I live in a VHCOL city. I would love to move and work remote, but my partner has a career that’s in tech, but much less remote friendly. I’m into personal finance, so here’s my projection. Assuming I want to own a home and have kids in this VHCOL region, I will need to work about 20-30 years to achieve this goal. And it’s 1 poorly timed recession from derailing. You know what I really wanted to do in life? Teach high school chemistry and own a cafe. Am I better off than many many people? Yes. Do I have enough to take 30% pay cut to work at <arbitrary good place>? Are we saying I don’t deserve to live in the region I grew up in, and I should have to move to the Midwest, for the good of society? Force my partner to give up their dream career? Should I give up my dreams of an early retirement from tech into a field that “does good”? My parents have nothing saved up. 2008 made sure of that. Should I sacrifice the planned war chest I want to build for my parents’ eventual long term care? And finally, if I do all of this, how much does the world improve by me doing this? Will <evil corp> collapse because I’m not there? Will my wage be distributed to the service workers or Will they go to the next eager applicant? Will my CEO pay more taxes or lose money because I’m not there?
  - citizenkeen 4y ago
jseban 4y ago
> It’s not selling your soul. It’s called being disillusioned with your impact on the world, a feeling that more and more people are feeling. Not even this, it's just seeing a job exactly and only for what it is. As opposed to having some pompous judgemental false self-image of "helping the world" when in reality you are way too lazy and selfish to actually do that, like most other people. It's a common leftist agenda to push and impose this culture of covering up mediocracy with virtue signalling pretending that it's actually a conscious choice and really better to make less money, not just being mediocre. The fight against rationalism and meritocracy, lazy intellectual leftists grasping at straws now starting to sound religious about how your soul will go to hell if you work for google. Give me a break
- WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  I don’t see the link between thinking it’s a bit sad that money seems to be the only driver of a growing part of the population and the left-right political divide. I don’t personally think it’s a very new phenomena however. My main takeaway from it is that in the USA software jobs have started replacing or at least being seen as as attractive as finance and consulting as a career of choice for people who are mostly interested in money which to me partially explain why we now see so little valuable and interesting innovation and new products coming out of the big tech companies.
  - jseban 4y ago
    > I don’t see the link between thinking it’s a bit sad that money seems to be the only driver of a growing part of the population Because it's not the only driver, it's the most important driver of the money making part of your life. Which is turn is just a means to another end, and that end is your family, hobbies, self actualisation, experiencing the world etc.
- philosopher1234 4y ago
  The most fantastic teacher in the world will make less money than most software developers. This they’re mediocre? Your logic is gross, and idiotic.
asdff 4y ago
IMO like the OP choosing jobs on compensation, you were going for them on morality and winding up dissapointed. Best to forget about high compensation or high morals or whatever other metric the faceless company should have, and more about the faces and whether or not you actually click with the people you would be working with day to day. Looking back on it, the best jobs I've ever had always were the ones where I really liked working with my coworkers; to a point it made me not even care what exactly I did since I got to work with such decent people.
- jseban 4y ago
  I also did this, but it's so hard to find lasting stable relationships, within 6-12 months it's always a different team somehow. In that case you feel double screwed if you compromised on salary and then the awesome team disbanded and you're left with a shitty team and a low salary. Better to go for the high salary which you know will be stable, and will always "work" in the sense of giving benefit to your life. And take any awesome colleagues as a random happy accident and a pure bonus.
  - asdff 4y ago
    It seems in my experience smaller companies can avoid these issues. No chance of your team being shuffled around because there's just one team. Usually you will find some employees at smaller orgs have been there working with the boss, who is probably the sole founder/owner of this tiny shop, for like a decade or more, you watch peoples kids grow up and such, etc. Sometimes people leave just to become freelancers, but because of how tight the relationship is sometimes almost nothing changes day to day and they are still very involved with certain projects. I wouldn't feel that comfortable at a big org where labor is just a unit to be moved around either. You won't be maximizing your compensation working like this, but I find maybe the reduction in stress hormones might be its own sort of compensation. Find a family, basically.
ForHackernews 4y ago
> think that the twenty year old second generation immigrants of today with no family wealth or financial lifeboat should give up their chance of securing generational wealth If anyone wonders where the stereotype of the soulless immigrant IT drone comes from, it's from places like this board perpetuating it. You do not need 'generational wealth' to live a decent life: nobody is forcing you to help Facebook earn ad revenue on genocide[0] - you are making that choice yourself. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-sue-facebook-myanmar-genocide-us-uk-legal-action-social-media-violence https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-...

djcapelis 4y ago

Because not everyone is a twenty year old second generation immigrant with no family wealth who needs a lifeboat. Are you under the impression the blog post author is? Look if people need money I don’t think many of us are passing judgement on that. But if you’re privileged and your sole criteria for a new job is accruing capital, you bet I pass judgement on it. And honestly once you get over 200k a year I think the immigrant straw person everyone points out whether they are one or not can probably start getting picky too. (If you wanna wait until after 300k/yr I’m cool with that too. But at some point you’re accruing enough capital that you can start thinking about what you spend your time on in your day job, and have a moral obligation to do so. When this kicks in is totally relative to a person’s situation.)

Apocryphon 4y ago
The author elaborates on their motivations here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30963856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30963856
refurb 4y ago
"But if you’re privileged and your sole criteria for a new job is accruing capital, you bet I pass judgement on it." That's fine, but you realize your judgement is no more valid than anyone else's right? And to think otherwise is quite arrogant?
wayne-li2 4y ago
I didn’t try to assume anything about the blog post author. But it’s irrelevant — I was commenting on the comment calling people in general soulless for maximizing compensation. I agree there’s a point which that moral inflection point occurs, but I think the number is complex to come up to. I’ll give an example. I make a pretty obscene salary that falls within your definition of “needing to care”. But I live in a VHCOL city. I would love to move and work remote, but my partner has a career that’s in tech, but much less remote friendly. I’m into personal finance, so here’s my projection. Assuming I want to own a home and have kids in this VHCOL region, I will need to work about 20-30 years to achieve this goal. And it’s 1 poorly timed recession from derailing. You know what I really wanted to do in life? Teach high school chemistry and own a cafe. Am I better off than many many people? Yes. Do I have enough to take 30% pay cut to work at <arbitrary good place>? Are we saying I don’t deserve to live in the region I grew up in, and I should have to move to the Midwest, for the good of society? Force my partner to give up their dream career? Should I give up my dreams of an early retirement from tech into a field that “does good”? My parents have nothing saved up. 2008 made sure of that. Should I sacrifice the planned war chest I want to build for my parents’ eventual long term care? And finally, if I do all of this, how much does the world improve by me doing this? Will <evil corp> collapse because I’m not there? Will my wage be distributed to the service workers or Will they go to the next eager applicant? Will my CEO pay more taxes or lose money because I’m not there?
- citizenkeen 4y ago

jseban 4y ago

> It’s not selling your soul. It’s called being disillusioned with your impact on the world, a feeling that more and more people are feeling. Not even this, it's just seeing a job exactly and only for what it is. As opposed to having some pompous judgemental false self-image of "helping the world" when in reality you are way too lazy and selfish to actually do that, like most other people. It's a common leftist agenda to push and impose this culture of covering up mediocracy with virtue signalling pretending that it's actually a conscious choice and really better to make less money, not just being mediocre. The fight against rationalism and meritocracy, lazy intellectual leftists grasping at straws now starting to sound religious about how your soul will go to hell if you work for google. Give me a break

WastingMyTime89 4y ago
I don’t see the link between thinking it’s a bit sad that money seems to be the only driver of a growing part of the population and the left-right political divide. I don’t personally think it’s a very new phenomena however. My main takeaway from it is that in the USA software jobs have started replacing or at least being seen as as attractive as finance and consulting as a career of choice for people who are mostly interested in money which to me partially explain why we now see so little valuable and interesting innovation and new products coming out of the big tech companies.
- jseban 4y ago
  > I don’t see the link between thinking it’s a bit sad that money seems to be the only driver of a growing part of the population Because it's not the only driver, it's the most important driver of the money making part of your life. Which is turn is just a means to another end, and that end is your family, hobbies, self actualisation, experiencing the world etc.
philosopher1234 4y ago
The most fantastic teacher in the world will make less money than most software developers. This they’re mediocre? Your logic is gross, and idiotic.

asdff 4y ago

IMO like the OP choosing jobs on compensation, you were going for them on morality and winding up dissapointed. Best to forget about high compensation or high morals or whatever other metric the faceless company should have, and more about the faces and whether or not you actually click with the people you would be working with day to day. Looking back on it, the best jobs I've ever had always were the ones where I really liked working with my coworkers; to a point it made me not even care what exactly I did since I got to work with such decent people.

jseban 4y ago
I also did this, but it's so hard to find lasting stable relationships, within 6-12 months it's always a different team somehow. In that case you feel double screwed if you compromised on salary and then the awesome team disbanded and you're left with a shitty team and a low salary. Better to go for the high salary which you know will be stable, and will always "work" in the sense of giving benefit to your life. And take any awesome colleagues as a random happy accident and a pure bonus.
- asdff 4y ago
  It seems in my experience smaller companies can avoid these issues. No chance of your team being shuffled around because there's just one team. Usually you will find some employees at smaller orgs have been there working with the boss, who is probably the sole founder/owner of this tiny shop, for like a decade or more, you watch peoples kids grow up and such, etc. Sometimes people leave just to become freelancers, but because of how tight the relationship is sometimes almost nothing changes day to day and they are still very involved with certain projects. I wouldn't feel that comfortable at a big org where labor is just a unit to be moved around either. You won't be maximizing your compensation working like this, but I find maybe the reduction in stress hormones might be its own sort of compensation. Find a family, basically.

ForHackernews 4y ago

> think that the twenty year old second generation immigrants of today with no family wealth or financial lifeboat should give up their chance of securing generational wealth If anyone wonders where the stereotype of the soulless immigrant IT drone comes from, it's from places like this board perpetuating it. You do not need 'generational wealth' to live a decent life: nobody is forcing you to help Facebook earn ad revenue on genocide[0] - you are making that choice yourself. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-sue-facebook-myanmar-genocide-us-uk-legal-action-social-media-violence https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-...