3 ms·

No one is being forced to do anything. You are free to change jobs whenever you want. Or you can start a company of your own which embodies your ideals whenever

by w4 2y ago

No one is being forced to do anything. You are free to change jobs whenever you want. Or you can start a company of your own which embodies your ideals whenever you want. No one is stopping you. Furthermore, the fact that you are not free to act with impunity, and do not have the right to demand that others indulge your preferences and suppress their own, is not in of itself anti-democratic. In a free society other people also have the right to structure their affairs as they see fit. And you have the right to choose to engage with them, or not.

rileymat2 2y ago
Generally, I agree, but the word "forced" is a tricky one; because there are a string of consequences for making different choices. Which is generally a good thing. What you are doing is treating some of those consequences as "force" and others as not. For example, if you need money to pay your property tax, you need to earn that money somehow. Or face the consequence of losing your home. No one is forcing you to stay in that home, leave, but that's pretty brutal thing to not call "forced." But you can see paying property tax is optional as long as you accept the consequences.
- ndriscoll 2y ago
  No one in the software industry that works at Google is there because they otherwise couldn't find a job. They're there because they want to maximize money and don't have concerns about the ethics of mass surveillance.
  - rileymat2 2y ago
    That's fair, but my point is you are minimizing the consequences to them not maximizing their earning power. Whether that is forcing, is the issue with the word itself, and where that line comes.
    - ndriscoll 2y ago
      Besides going into software instead of academia, I haven't tried to maximize my earning power in any way, and I'm pretty well off. I own a median house with two kids who have a stay at home mom, and we never have to worry about money. I'm minimizing the consequences of not maximizing money because based on my experience and a cursory look at the stats, I don't think the are any for a software developer in the US. The median household income in the US is ~74k. BLS estimates the median software development job pays $132k, so almost 2x median household. The 10th percentile still pays more than median household. Someone who can pass a known-difficult interview like Google's should also have an easier time than average finding a job. So if you aim to have financial security with a median lifestyle, or even better (e.g. single income), that's easy to do in software. Chasing maximum money is a choice. It seems pretty out of touch when looking at any other job to use "well they need to pay the bills" to excuse behavior in this field.
      - FooBarBizBazz 2y ago
        You'll feel like you're forced to if you're staring down Bay Area house prices, and you (or your spouse) has been brainwashed to think that everywhere else is populated by cannibals.
- w4 2y ago
  Sure. Nature also forces me to eat. There are forcing functions everywhere, and if you ignore them, you will die. You have to participate in your own survival on some level. How you do so is up to you. If you want to start a commune, go for it. If you prefer to work at FAANG, that’s cool too. We are very lucky to find ourselves in a society where we have this choice, and we should be careful about the extent to which we impinge on others’ ability to choose as well As another poster correctly pointed out, no one is forcing you to specifically support your own survival at Google. People choose to work at Google because of greed and a desire for prestige, and because it is much easier to benefit from what already exists than it is to create something yourself. This is all perfectly rational, but framing the issue in lamentations about “force” and “democracy” is nothing but crocodile tears. Plus if property taxes and so forth really were the issue, there is already a democratic remedy for the problem. Taxes are instituted by our society democratically, and they can be removed democratically as well. But I suspect that this would not rectify the OP’s concern, because it’s not really about democracy or freedom. Instead it’s about greed and envy for what others have that they do not.
  - rileymat2 2y ago
    You choose to continue to live, many do not. People at the end of life often choose otherwise, and stop eating. Death is the consequence of the choice, it is forced because you do not accept the consequence. The truth is most people when they say "I am forced to do X" there is really an implicit unstated "So I can have a, b and c". The fact that you value a, b and c differently from the person does not mean it was not forced from their perspective.
    - w4 2y ago
      > The fact that you value a, b and c differently from the person does not mean it was not forced from their perspective. I basically agree with you about the phenomenon you’re pointing out, so please don’t take this as overly salty, but: Just because I believe that I can fly doesn’t make it so. So too is true of people believing that they are “forced” to work at Google, no matter what they might perceive.
- credit_guy 2y ago
  I hear your argument. Now, if you want this argument to be complete, you also need to specify what doesn't count as "forced" in your opinion. Otherwise you can pick any arbitrary human interaction and deem it as "forced" and you end up with some pretty weird consequences. In this particular case, you think a Google engineer was essentially doing forced labor. Google being Google and not McDonalds, it would follow that all or the vast majority of salaried employees are doing forced labor. Did I get this right? Where exactly do you draw the line?
  - rileymat2 2y ago
    My point is the word forced is insufficient. In fact some forcing is good! What you need judge two things, the validity of the consequences avoided and goals which is subjective and whether there are alternatives to the same goals that have acceptable consequences.
w0de0 2y ago
How strange to find so very many people working in soulless drudgery in this world where no one is forced to do anything.

by w4 2y ago

rileymat2 2y ago

Generally, I agree, but the word "forced" is a tricky one; because there are a string of consequences for making different choices. Which is generally a good thing. What you are doing is treating some of those consequences as "force" and others as not. For example, if you need money to pay your property tax, you need to earn that money somehow. Or face the consequence of losing your home. No one is forcing you to stay in that home, leave, but that's pretty brutal thing to not call "forced." But you can see paying property tax is optional as long as you accept the consequences.

ndriscoll 2y ago
No one in the software industry that works at Google is there because they otherwise couldn't find a job. They're there because they want to maximize money and don't have concerns about the ethics of mass surveillance.
- rileymat2 2y ago
  That's fair, but my point is you are minimizing the consequences to them not maximizing their earning power. Whether that is forcing, is the issue with the word itself, and where that line comes.
  - ndriscoll 2y ago
    Besides going into software instead of academia, I haven't tried to maximize my earning power in any way, and I'm pretty well off. I own a median house with two kids who have a stay at home mom, and we never have to worry about money. I'm minimizing the consequences of not maximizing money because based on my experience and a cursory look at the stats, I don't think the are any for a software developer in the US. The median household income in the US is ~74k. BLS estimates the median software development job pays $132k, so almost 2x median household. The 10th percentile still pays more than median household. Someone who can pass a known-difficult interview like Google's should also have an easier time than average finding a job. So if you aim to have financial security with a median lifestyle, or even better (e.g. single income), that's easy to do in software. Chasing maximum money is a choice. It seems pretty out of touch when looking at any other job to use "well they need to pay the bills" to excuse behavior in this field.
    - FooBarBizBazz 2y ago
      You'll feel like you're forced to if you're staring down Bay Area house prices, and you (or your spouse) has been brainwashed to think that everywhere else is populated by cannibals.
w4 2y ago
Sure. Nature also forces me to eat. There are forcing functions everywhere, and if you ignore them, you will die. You have to participate in your own survival on some level. How you do so is up to you. If you want to start a commune, go for it. If you prefer to work at FAANG, that’s cool too. We are very lucky to find ourselves in a society where we have this choice, and we should be careful about the extent to which we impinge on others’ ability to choose as well As another poster correctly pointed out, no one is forcing you to specifically support your own survival at Google. People choose to work at Google because of greed and a desire for prestige, and because it is much easier to benefit from what already exists than it is to create something yourself. This is all perfectly rational, but framing the issue in lamentations about “force” and “democracy” is nothing but crocodile tears. Plus if property taxes and so forth really were the issue, there is already a democratic remedy for the problem. Taxes are instituted by our society democratically, and they can be removed democratically as well. But I suspect that this would not rectify the OP’s concern, because it’s not really about democracy or freedom. Instead it’s about greed and envy for what others have that they do not.
- rileymat2 2y ago
  You choose to continue to live, many do not. People at the end of life often choose otherwise, and stop eating. Death is the consequence of the choice, it is forced because you do not accept the consequence. The truth is most people when they say "I am forced to do X" there is really an implicit unstated "So I can have a, b and c". The fact that you value a, b and c differently from the person does not mean it was not forced from their perspective.
  - w4 2y ago
    > The fact that you value a, b and c differently from the person does not mean it was not forced from their perspective. I basically agree with you about the phenomenon you’re pointing out, so please don’t take this as overly salty, but: Just because I believe that I can fly doesn’t make it so. So too is true of people believing that they are “forced” to work at Google, no matter what they might perceive.
credit_guy 2y ago
I hear your argument. Now, if you want this argument to be complete, you also need to specify what doesn't count as "forced" in your opinion. Otherwise you can pick any arbitrary human interaction and deem it as "forced" and you end up with some pretty weird consequences. In this particular case, you think a Google engineer was essentially doing forced labor. Google being Google and not McDonalds, it would follow that all or the vast majority of salaried employees are doing forced labor. Did I get this right? Where exactly do you draw the line?
- rileymat2 2y ago
  My point is the word forced is insufficient. In fact some forcing is good! What you need judge two things, the validity of the consequences avoided and goals which is subjective and whether there are alternatives to the same goals that have acceptable consequences.

w0de0 2y ago

How strange to find so very many people working in soulless drudgery in this world where no one is forced to do anything.