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Maybe you're on H1B and if you get let go you have to go back to Sri Lanka, whose government collapsed 2 years ago and left the country in political disarray.

Maybe you're on H1B and if you get let go you have to go back to Sri Lanka, whose government collapsed 2 years ago and left the country in political disarray. Some people have better choices than others. Like I wouldn't work on this project, but I have US citizenship. In college I slept over at some of my Indian friends' apartments and often they had like 8-12 guys sleeping in one bedroom, it was just a bunch of mattresses all laid together with no specific sleeping arrangement. Generally they made a giant pot of stew/daal/whatever once a week and ate the same thing for every meal all week, some even long after graduating with PhD's and getting low-tier visa-mill jobs. This was not a T10 school, our international students rarely came from wealthy families. One of my Saudi classmates came from a poor family in a remote village near the Iraq border and brushed his teeth with a twig from the Salvadora persica tree. I couldn't really blame them if they didn't have another good option readily available.

roenxi 2y ago
I can't resist annotating the Sri Lanka comment, it was responsible for some of the most absurd headlines I've ever read; completely beyond parody. Typical example: - Fertiliser ban decimates Sri Lankan crops as government popularity ebbs > https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/fertiliser-ban-decimates-sri-lankan-crops-government-popularity-ebbs-2022-03-03/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/fertiliser-ban-d...
ignoramous 2y ago
> Why do people work on such projects? >> Maybe you're on H1B and if you get let go you have to go back to Sri Lanka... I mean that's there too, but in this case, the guy who ran this spyware op was a former IDF turned chief of Facebook in Israel, later promoted to CISO for all of Meta.
- reaperman 2y ago
  Yes, I generally blame management. But sometimes I blame the engineers when its obvious they had other good options.
  - spencerflem 2y ago
    I think its fair to blame both, usually. Got enough hate left in my heart for it
  - ignoramous 2y ago
    > I blame the engineers when its obvious they had other good options Their manager was promoted to c-suite for running a covert worldwide spyware op (that also informed the company's M&A strategy). I'd reserve most of my blame on corporate culture that incentivized & rewarded such orgs and its management.
- racional 2y ago
  It's important to note that the "Guy" was not just with the IDF, but with Unit 8200. Otherwise you'd be essentially saying "Hey look out, the guy who ran this op was an Israeli" (because nearly every male Israeli serves in the IDF).
  - ignoramous 2y ago
    > important to note ... "Guy" [was] with Unit 8200 Good thing they're less Fascist and more upstanding & liberal, yeah? https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/12/world/middleeast/13Israeldoc.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/12/world/middlee... > every male Israeli serves in the IDF Shame on them if they continue to be associated with an institution found guilty by the International courts of occupation, torture, sexual assault, dispossession, crimes against humanity. https://x.com/wattheactualfuq/status/1818340892651975052 https://x.com/wattheactualfuq/status/1818340892651975052 / https://ghostarchive.org/archive/sx6lC https://ghostarchive.org/archive/sx6lC The burden is not mine or anyone else's.
redserk 2y ago
Or you have a nice bucket of RSUs that have been jumping in value and figure it’s just another project to pass time.
- reaperman 2y ago
  If you have other good options, thats just greed. Sure its painful to turn down $200k in RSU’s but if you can jump ship and still get paid a respectable $160k I don’t have much sympathy for your choice to fuck over millions of people just so you can buy a house two years sooner.
  - spencerflem 2y ago
    I don't either. It seems to me that a lot of CS people don't have the same values as we do unfortunately. A sad mix of computers seeming apolitical - 'I just wanna hack' and as a well paid industry, the same money maximizers that would in previous years been business majors.
_proofs 2y ago
holy fuck can we please stop letting circumstances be the excuse we continuously fall back on, when enabling and reinforcing behavior with long-term impact and consequences. imagine all of the times in history where this type of enabling of behavior reached an extreme, and now ask yourself where do you draw the line. are you really asking me to enjoy the growing consequences of corporate overreach in the name of data, and all the sketchy ass, unethical, and invasive work all these foreign engineers are getting paid ridiculous salaries to propogate, and feel good about being held hostage because said engineers.. don't have a home. so we are supposed to enable them to wreck mine (ours)?
- reaperman 2y ago
  > so we are supposed to enable them to wreck mine (ours)? No, we’re supposed to attack it from a different direction. Whether these people are H1B or outsourced overseas, U.S. corporations will always be able to find people in desperate enough situations (civil war-torn country with a literal famine going on). We can absolutely blame and shame the engineers who have other options for sustenance and medicine for their families, but if you want to solve this problem, it can only be solved through the legislative and executive branches.
protastus 2y ago
Your scenario describes real people, but Facebook was not built by vulnerable visa holders. Facebook hired and retained engineers over its entire company history by offering enormous amounts of stock. They successfully demonstrated there are a lot of engineers willing to build unethical products when offered 2-3x their previous salary.

roenxi 2y ago

I can't resist annotating the Sri Lanka comment, it was responsible for some of the most absurd headlines I've ever read; completely beyond parody. Typical example: - Fertiliser ban decimates Sri Lankan crops as government popularity ebbs > https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/fertiliser-ban-decimates-sri-lankan-crops-government-popularity-ebbs-2022-03-03/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/fertiliser-ban-d...

ignoramous 2y ago

> Why do people work on such projects? >> Maybe you're on H1B and if you get let go you have to go back to Sri Lanka... I mean that's there too, but in this case, the guy who ran this spyware op was a former IDF turned chief of Facebook in Israel, later promoted to CISO for all of Meta.

reaperman 2y ago
Yes, I generally blame management. But sometimes I blame the engineers when its obvious they had other good options.
- spencerflem 2y ago
  I think its fair to blame both, usually. Got enough hate left in my heart for it
- ignoramous 2y ago
  > I blame the engineers when its obvious they had other good options Their manager was promoted to c-suite for running a covert worldwide spyware op (that also informed the company's M&A strategy). I'd reserve most of my blame on corporate culture that incentivized & rewarded such orgs and its management.
racional 2y ago
It's important to note that the "Guy" was not just with the IDF, but with Unit 8200. Otherwise you'd be essentially saying "Hey look out, the guy who ran this op was an Israeli" (because nearly every male Israeli serves in the IDF).
- ignoramous 2y ago
  > important to note ... "Guy" [was] with Unit 8200 Good thing they're less Fascist and more upstanding & liberal, yeah? https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/12/world/middleeast/13Israeldoc.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/12/world/middlee... > every male Israeli serves in the IDF Shame on them if they continue to be associated with an institution found guilty by the International courts of occupation, torture, sexual assault, dispossession, crimes against humanity. https://x.com/wattheactualfuq/status/1818340892651975052 https://x.com/wattheactualfuq/status/1818340892651975052 / https://ghostarchive.org/archive/sx6lC https://ghostarchive.org/archive/sx6lC The burden is not mine or anyone else's.

redserk 2y ago

Or you have a nice bucket of RSUs that have been jumping in value and figure it’s just another project to pass time.

reaperman 2y ago
If you have other good options, thats just greed. Sure its painful to turn down $200k in RSU’s but if you can jump ship and still get paid a respectable $160k I don’t have much sympathy for your choice to fuck over millions of people just so you can buy a house two years sooner.
- spencerflem 2y ago
  I don't either. It seems to me that a lot of CS people don't have the same values as we do unfortunately. A sad mix of computers seeming apolitical - 'I just wanna hack' and as a well paid industry, the same money maximizers that would in previous years been business majors.

_proofs 2y ago

holy fuck can we please stop letting circumstances be the excuse we continuously fall back on, when enabling and reinforcing behavior with long-term impact and consequences. imagine all of the times in history where this type of enabling of behavior reached an extreme, and now ask yourself where do you draw the line. are you really asking me to enjoy the growing consequences of corporate overreach in the name of data, and all the sketchy ass, unethical, and invasive work all these foreign engineers are getting paid ridiculous salaries to propogate, and feel good about being held hostage because said engineers.. don't have a home. so we are supposed to enable them to wreck mine (ours)?

reaperman 2y ago
> so we are supposed to enable them to wreck mine (ours)? No, we’re supposed to attack it from a different direction. Whether these people are H1B or outsourced overseas, U.S. corporations will always be able to find people in desperate enough situations (civil war-torn country with a literal famine going on). We can absolutely blame and shame the engineers who have other options for sustenance and medicine for their families, but if you want to solve this problem, it can only be solved through the legislative and executive branches.

protastus 2y ago

Your scenario describes real people, but Facebook was not built by vulnerable visa holders. Facebook hired and retained engineers over its entire company history by offering enormous amounts of stock. They successfully demonstrated there are a lot of engineers willing to build unethical products when offered 2-3x their previous salary.