6 ms·

Because a long time ago I understood that the value of my salary has to come from somewhere. If that somewhere is ads, tracking, or other types of surveillance

Because a long time ago I understood that the value of my salary has to come from somewhere. If that somewhere is ads, tracking, or other types of surveillance capitalism, then I'm not interested. All of the biggest companies in the world are complicit. Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc. They should all be burnt to the ground. If you work at one of these companies and enjoy a fat paycheck, you should take a long look in the mirror and ask yourself whether you are ok with the price that society as a whole pays for you to be able to make bank.

_8j50 4y ago
Are you kidding me? People should feel guilty about getting paid? What a marvelous perspective, long live the oligarchy? Instead of making 600k and using that to fund whatever political causes or charities I should work for less and allow that nicer company to lobby politicians on my behalf? And then you wonder why corporations control democracies so easily. For everyone else reading: if your work is honest and legal and you don't have to violate your conscious to perform the duties assigned to you the make as much as you can. Fulfill your responsibility to your family and community firsr and the worry about the world. Use your own money to influence politics instead of using employment activism, investor activism, social media cancelling,etc... to lobby for causes. Talk to and convince your peers. This is how you fight for democracy and democracy is dying because people are allowing proxies like their employers to speak for them. Companies have no place at all in democratic discourse. It is "we the people" not "we the corporations". This is why shit like your healthcare being tied to your employer is a thing!
- ramijames 4y ago
  Not kidding, no. "Take care of me and mine" is a fine way to burn the world down to cinders. Can you honestly tell me that how surveillance capitalism has unfolded over the past twenty years has been a net positive for democracy or for world stability? I say no, and those well paid cogs in those machines are complicit. They don't need to feel shame. They need to accept the scope of what they are doing and be mindful of its impact. Honest and legal doesn't necessarily mean "right". Those that work in the fossil fuel industry are for the most part doing what is honest and right. They are also (as are we all) complicit in catastrophic climate change.
  - nske 4y ago
    I don't think things are as simple as that. Maybe for example there are some technological or scientific breakthroughs with cross-domain application that come as a result of work that at present is practical only with the resources of giant companies like Google/Facebook/Microsoft. I think it's fair that engineers and scientists get to work for whatever employer they choose, doing what they do best and advances their expertise, without being judged negatively. I think the acquired experience and knowledge itself will leak, one way or the other, in applications that bring a net positive, even if the activities of the specific employer are not directly positive. Morally-wise, I think the onus shouldn't be on the workers any more than it should be on the consumers, so someone working in the fossil industry shouldn't be considered more responsible to the climate change than someone consuming fossil fuel.
    - ramijames 4y ago
      So the ends justify the means? Do soldiers not carry responsibility for their actions while in an active army? What's the difference?
      - nske 4y ago
        hm soldiers are only expected to follow orders that to the best of their knowledge are lawful, and are held accountable for following unlawful ones. The law actually covers a lot of the cases that are very clearly wrong (i.e. torture or execute prisoners). That leaves ambiguous situations where for example there is an order saying "get satellite data from that location". In this case, if the data end up used for something unlawful, I think the responsibility doesn't lie with the soldiers at the bottom of the chain, no. Now for the case that best serves your comparison, generally serving in an army that very clearly wages a war of aggression. In this case yes I think soldiers carry the responsibility to not help in any way (which realistically would mean stop being soldiers). The difference in this case is that we can't compare an army waging an aggressive war, which is as clear an evil as we can imagine and is in fact considered a crime internationally, with a company that analyses data collected by consent, where the question is whether the mechanism for obtaining consent is good enough or not.
- em-bee 4y ago
  if your work is honest if you work for advertising then your work isn't honest. it's like saying being a janitor for a crime syndicate is honest work. either way, your salary is coming from a dishonest source.
  - ramijames 4y ago
    Exactly. If you're a cook for an army who is pillaging and destroying, you are still contributing to destruction while making soup.
    - _8j50 4y ago
      No you're not. You got paid to feed people. Only those make decisions with intent are responsible for the outcome of those decisions. If the army is doing something wrong then you must actively stop them, not quietly say you won't cook for them lol. If it was that clear that which war rarely is. The strawman you and others are using is crime ot war or something but the subject here is a legitimate corporate entity. Make the activity you disagree with illegal first before comparing advertisers to a pillaging army. My point is, don't work for a company you don't like but don't you dare take this high and mighty morally superior attitude when others work at those legitimate companies so they can make a living. You cancel and judge instead of vote and convince others.
      - em-bee 4y ago
        if as individuals we want to make this world a better place then we need to take responsibility for our lives and the influence we have that goes beyond earning a paycheck. if your moral attitude is so low that you don't care what your employer does, as long as it is legal, then you are not making a positive contribution to this world. i won't cancel you, but it's also unlikely that we would be friends.
        _8j50 4y ago
        I agree we can't be friends because you would sacrifice your friends and family for a cause. You do not understand your basic moral obligations as a human, that a world better off by sacrificing those who need you or even yourself is a world built by unneccesary sacrifice. You would introduce more suffering into the world when you have tools like democracy and free speech that were paid for by ages of suffering and anguish that have made that unnecesary. You will cause yourself and others to suffer all while not solving the actual problem or making the world better one iota. You would alienate anyone that you need to convince to make change happen so you can feel morally superior. You do not understand that the many rights and betternments you enjoy now was built by people working at places they did not approve of, using their position and power to make change happen. You do not undersrand your contribution into the social divide today that is making the world much worse in every way you can imagine. Not just I but many others are also not your friends and cannot even begin to have discourse with you to have our opinions changed because you have erected barriers of moral outrage and socio-economical activism that forces others to be with or against you. It could be adverising, fossil fuels, finance, insurance, military and this is just for employement we are talking about lol. A house divided is what you have contributed. Witness the not standing part.
- ofer2 4y ago
  >Instead of making 600k and using that to fund whatever political causes or charities I should work for less and allow that nicer company to lobby politicians on my behalf? What % of your money do you spend on political causes and charities, badrabbit?

_8j50 4y ago

Are you kidding me? People should feel guilty about getting paid? What a marvelous perspective, long live the oligarchy? Instead of making 600k and using that to fund whatever political causes or charities I should work for less and allow that nicer company to lobby politicians on my behalf? And then you wonder why corporations control democracies so easily. For everyone else reading: if your work is honest and legal and you don't have to violate your conscious to perform the duties assigned to you the make as much as you can. Fulfill your responsibility to your family and community firsr and the worry about the world. Use your own money to influence politics instead of using employment activism, investor activism, social media cancelling,etc... to lobby for causes. Talk to and convince your peers. This is how you fight for democracy and democracy is dying because people are allowing proxies like their employers to speak for them. Companies have no place at all in democratic discourse. It is "we the people" not "we the corporations". This is why shit like your healthcare being tied to your employer is a thing!

ramijames 4y ago
Not kidding, no. "Take care of me and mine" is a fine way to burn the world down to cinders. Can you honestly tell me that how surveillance capitalism has unfolded over the past twenty years has been a net positive for democracy or for world stability? I say no, and those well paid cogs in those machines are complicit. They don't need to feel shame. They need to accept the scope of what they are doing and be mindful of its impact. Honest and legal doesn't necessarily mean "right". Those that work in the fossil fuel industry are for the most part doing what is honest and right. They are also (as are we all) complicit in catastrophic climate change.
- nske 4y ago
  I don't think things are as simple as that. Maybe for example there are some technological or scientific breakthroughs with cross-domain application that come as a result of work that at present is practical only with the resources of giant companies like Google/Facebook/Microsoft. I think it's fair that engineers and scientists get to work for whatever employer they choose, doing what they do best and advances their expertise, without being judged negatively. I think the acquired experience and knowledge itself will leak, one way or the other, in applications that bring a net positive, even if the activities of the specific employer are not directly positive. Morally-wise, I think the onus shouldn't be on the workers any more than it should be on the consumers, so someone working in the fossil industry shouldn't be considered more responsible to the climate change than someone consuming fossil fuel.
  - ramijames 4y ago
    So the ends justify the means? Do soldiers not carry responsibility for their actions while in an active army? What's the difference?
    - nske 4y ago
      hm soldiers are only expected to follow orders that to the best of their knowledge are lawful, and are held accountable for following unlawful ones. The law actually covers a lot of the cases that are very clearly wrong (i.e. torture or execute prisoners). That leaves ambiguous situations where for example there is an order saying "get satellite data from that location". In this case, if the data end up used for something unlawful, I think the responsibility doesn't lie with the soldiers at the bottom of the chain, no. Now for the case that best serves your comparison, generally serving in an army that very clearly wages a war of aggression. In this case yes I think soldiers carry the responsibility to not help in any way (which realistically would mean stop being soldiers). The difference in this case is that we can't compare an army waging an aggressive war, which is as clear an evil as we can imagine and is in fact considered a crime internationally, with a company that analyses data collected by consent, where the question is whether the mechanism for obtaining consent is good enough or not.
em-bee 4y ago
if your work is honest if you work for advertising then your work isn't honest. it's like saying being a janitor for a crime syndicate is honest work. either way, your salary is coming from a dishonest source.
- ramijames 4y ago
  Exactly. If you're a cook for an army who is pillaging and destroying, you are still contributing to destruction while making soup.
  - _8j50 4y ago
    No you're not. You got paid to feed people. Only those make decisions with intent are responsible for the outcome of those decisions. If the army is doing something wrong then you must actively stop them, not quietly say you won't cook for them lol. If it was that clear that which war rarely is. The strawman you and others are using is crime ot war or something but the subject here is a legitimate corporate entity. Make the activity you disagree with illegal first before comparing advertisers to a pillaging army. My point is, don't work for a company you don't like but don't you dare take this high and mighty morally superior attitude when others work at those legitimate companies so they can make a living. You cancel and judge instead of vote and convince others.
    - em-bee 4y ago
      if as individuals we want to make this world a better place then we need to take responsibility for our lives and the influence we have that goes beyond earning a paycheck. if your moral attitude is so low that you don't care what your employer does, as long as it is legal, then you are not making a positive contribution to this world. i won't cancel you, but it's also unlikely that we would be friends.
      - _8j50 4y ago
        I agree we can't be friends because you would sacrifice your friends and family for a cause. You do not understand your basic moral obligations as a human, that a world better off by sacrificing those who need you or even yourself is a world built by unneccesary sacrifice. You would introduce more suffering into the world when you have tools like democracy and free speech that were paid for by ages of suffering and anguish that have made that unnecesary. You will cause yourself and others to suffer all while not solving the actual problem or making the world better one iota. You would alienate anyone that you need to convince to make change happen so you can feel morally superior. You do not understand that the many rights and betternments you enjoy now was built by people working at places they did not approve of, using their position and power to make change happen. You do not undersrand your contribution into the social divide today that is making the world much worse in every way you can imagine. Not just I but many others are also not your friends and cannot even begin to have discourse with you to have our opinions changed because you have erected barriers of moral outrage and socio-economical activism that forces others to be with or against you. It could be adverising, fossil fuels, finance, insurance, military and this is just for employement we are talking about lol. A house divided is what you have contributed. Witness the not standing part.
ofer2 4y ago
>Instead of making 600k and using that to fund whatever political causes or charities I should work for less and allow that nicer company to lobby politicians on my behalf? What % of your money do you spend on political causes and charities, badrabbit?