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That last part makes me a bit nervous. It's dangerously close to the EA belief that it's actually OK to be a ruthless exec for a tobacco company, because you ca

That last part makes me a bit nervous. It's dangerously close to the EA belief that it's actually OK to be a ruthless exec for a tobacco company, because you can do good things with your money that you wouldn't be able to do if you quit the job. I don't think that's the point you're making, but it's good to be careful with that. You can do good after hours, but it doesn't absolve you from what you're doing 9-to-5. As to your first point: yes, but it's all relative. Most tech workers are "trying to get by" in their minds. Just look at the SFBA rents and the PG&E bills! And wait until you hear about their college loans... most people in the top 1% don't think about themselves as the top 1%. In the end, making good decisions often requires sacrifice, pretty much no matter how much you make. And we often find ways to rationalize why it's not the right time for that.

adamtaylor_13 2y ago
But if you won’t be the big tabacco exec, someone else will. So I actually agree with the notion that being the big tabacco exec and doing good things with your money, plus helping steer things from the inside is a better proposition than becoming a baker and letting someone who has NO moral qualms with tabacco run the ship. It’s rarely as effective to push change from the outside as it is the inside.
- Ar-Curunir 2y ago
  “If I don’t work with the Nazis, someone else will, so I should be a good Nazi”
  - marky1991 2y ago
    What would be the alternative in this hypothetical be? I'm not clear what the argument here really is.
    - kelseyfrog 2y ago
      Are there any social norms that allows immoral CEOs to exist? What incubates an immoral CEO?
      - labster 2y ago
        Honestly a better question would be if there are any social norms that allow for a moral CEO to exist? Pretty much all of our norms are tilted towards producing immoral executives.
  - lotsofpulp 2y ago
    Unless you are suggesting selling tobacco is as unethical as torturing and murdering people of different tribes for the sake of them being in different tribes, I do not see what your point could be. Should people simply never be able to sell or consume tobacco? Even if one’s consumption of tobacco does not negatively affect anyone else?
  - rNULLED 2y ago
    Nazis were political leaders. So yes, you should try to be a good political leader to prevent the growth in power of bad ones.
  - davidgay 2y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Canaris https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Canaris
  - adamtaylor_13 2y ago
    “If I don’t work for the Nazi’s they will kill my family, so I will work for the Nazi’s” There, I fixed your uninspired and incorrect anecdote. Big tobacco execs are quite literally killing absolutely no one. Last I checked they aren’t sticking cigarettes in anyone’s mouth. Personal responsibility for your own actions is unfortunately lacking in many discussions surrounding things like this.
    - saagarjha 2y ago
      That's because we have a society have generally decided that personal responsibility is not actually the appropriate lens with which to judge the sale of addictive products.
- WD-42 2y ago
  I think the idea is that if all good people refuse to become a tobacco exec the pool of people willing to take the job will be small and full of bad people, eventually they will run the business into the ground and the problem solves itself. How well this works in practice is debatable.
- moolcool 2y ago
  > But if you won’t be the big tabacco exec, someone else will. In the public discourse, you'll often see CEOs and founders lauded as incredibly brilliant and rare. As soon as you start to talk about ethics though, they're suddenly fungible. "Someone else would run the orphan crushing factory if not for me"
gruez 2y ago
>It's dangerously close to the EA belief that it's actually OK to be a ruthless exec for a tobacco company, because you can do good things with your money that you wouldn't be able to do if you quit the job. You're saying this as if it's a given, but why wouldn't this work?
- Hasu 2y ago
  For the same reason people don't think it's OK to rob a bank and donate the money to charity.
  - gruez 2y ago
    That analogy fails because robbing a bank is straightforwardly illegal and norm-breaking (by the majority of the population), whereas being a tobacco executive isn't.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - layer8 2y ago
      Unethical behavior not being treated as norm-breaking unless its illegal is part of what’s being criticized here, I think.
    - ClumsyPilot 2y ago
      Not if you ask the younger generation
  - worik 2y ago
    > For the same reason people don't think it's OK to rob a bank and donate the money to charity. I have a problem with violence...
- Avicebron 2y ago
Avicebron 2y ago
> But if you're one or two levels up Maslow's Pyramid, it's right to weigh your personal needs against the impact of your work. You'll also be better off for it, knowing that <b>the world would be worse off if you decided to switch gears</b> and become a carpenter/baker/bartender/choose your adventure. To highlight this part of the original in support of this comment. This comes of as somewhat arrogant and is a pretty big red flag...
- dvdkon 2y ago
  If you've changed your career to support some goal, here the public good, isn't it natural to be strongly convinced that your work is advancing that goal?
ajkjk 2y ago
What confuses me is how many people are evidently in the job of "ruthless exec" and then they do it amorally. I can't think of any time in my life that I've seen an exec say: no, we could do that, but we shouldn't because it's wrong. No doubt because anyone who acts that way gets naturally-selected out of the job. But also there seems to be a pervasive belief, which if anything feels way strong than it was when I was younger (maybe because the moral-majority christian-nation vibes have fully disappeared, in the US at least? sure, it was always fairly hollow, but at least it was a thing at all), that a business leader is not supposed to do moral things, because it's not their job description; their job truly is "increase shareholder value on a 6-12 month timescale", and if they try to do something different they are judged negatively! So maybe there is in theory good to be done by being an exec and being more moral than average (maybe not a tobacco exec, but, say, in tech?). But the system is basically designed to prevent you from doing it? It almost seems as though modern model of shareholder capitalism is almost designed to keep things this way: to eliminate the idea at any point that a person should feel bad if they just do the "efficient", shareholder-value-maximizing thing. Nobody has any agency in the big machine, which means no one is accountable for what it does. Perfect, just how we like it? Whereas at least a private enterprise which is beholden to the principles of its leader could in principle do something besides the most cynical possible play at every turn.
- navane 2y ago
  There seems to be a new system in place which takes these amoral CEOs and does make them accountable.
  - Earw0rm 2y ago
    Exec., meet exec.?
  - hackable_sand 2y ago
    It's the truth, and we've had these systems since the dawn of civilization. Idk why people are acting surprised now when we've been doing this for thousands of years. If people in power don't provide and protect a democratic process to removing poor leadership then they do not get to complain when people make those decisions on their own.
jefftk 2y ago
> It's dangerously close to the EA belief that it's actually OK to be a ruthless exec for a tobacco company, because you can do good things with your money that you wouldn't be able to do if you quit the job. That's not an EA belief. While EAs have made arguments somewhat in this direction, being a tobacco exec is just incredibly harmful and no one should do it: https://80000hours.org/2016/01/just-how-bad-is-being-a-ceo-in-big-tobacco/ https://80000hours.org/2016/01/just-how-bad-is-being-a-ceo-i... (80000 Hours is the primary EA career advising organization)
- wat10000 2y ago
  The obvious answer is to be a tobacco exec, sabotage the organization from within, and donate to charity.
- light_hue_1 2y ago
  Yeah, it's definitely an EA belief! If you look at the end of the article they show you a link to a response on the EA forum. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/4N5BsDkcWjr5MRSQy/being-a-tobacco-ceo-is-not-quite-as-bad-as-it-might-seem https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/4N5BsDkcWjr5MRSQy/... EA is one of the most evil ideologies out there.
  - jefftk 2y ago
    The post you're linking to is not arguing that you should become a tobacco exec, it's arguing that 80k has not sufficiently made the case that a tobacco exec who donated all their income thoughtfully would still be causing net harm. Reading both articles, I think it depends a lot what strategy the exec employs. If they optimize for getting people to become addicted to smoking or increase how much they smoke (growing the market) then I think it's really unlikely they could donate enough to make up for that enormous harm. On the other hand, if they optimize for increasing profitability by increasing prices and advocating for regulation that acts as barriers to new entrants, and especially if the person who would otherwise have the role would be optimizing for growing the market, then it's likely their work is positive on it's own, regardless of donating.

adamtaylor_13 2y ago

But if you won’t be the big tabacco exec, someone else will. So I actually agree with the notion that being the big tabacco exec and doing good things with your money, plus helping steer things from the inside is a better proposition than becoming a baker and letting someone who has NO moral qualms with tabacco run the ship. It’s rarely as effective to push change from the outside as it is the inside.

Ar-Curunir 2y ago
“If I don’t work with the Nazis, someone else will, so I should be a good Nazi”
- marky1991 2y ago
  What would be the alternative in this hypothetical be? I'm not clear what the argument here really is.
  - kelseyfrog 2y ago
    Are there any social norms that allows immoral CEOs to exist? What incubates an immoral CEO?
    - labster 2y ago
      Honestly a better question would be if there are any social norms that allow for a moral CEO to exist? Pretty much all of our norms are tilted towards producing immoral executives.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  Unless you are suggesting selling tobacco is as unethical as torturing and murdering people of different tribes for the sake of them being in different tribes, I do not see what your point could be. Should people simply never be able to sell or consume tobacco? Even if one’s consumption of tobacco does not negatively affect anyone else?
- rNULLED 2y ago
  Nazis were political leaders. So yes, you should try to be a good political leader to prevent the growth in power of bad ones.
- davidgay 2y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Canaris https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Canaris
- adamtaylor_13 2y ago
  “If I don’t work for the Nazi’s they will kill my family, so I will work for the Nazi’s” There, I fixed your uninspired and incorrect anecdote. Big tobacco execs are quite literally killing absolutely no one. Last I checked they aren’t sticking cigarettes in anyone’s mouth. Personal responsibility for your own actions is unfortunately lacking in many discussions surrounding things like this.
  - saagarjha 2y ago
    That's because we have a society have generally decided that personal responsibility is not actually the appropriate lens with which to judge the sale of addictive products.
WD-42 2y ago
I think the idea is that if all good people refuse to become a tobacco exec the pool of people willing to take the job will be small and full of bad people, eventually they will run the business into the ground and the problem solves itself. How well this works in practice is debatable.
moolcool 2y ago
> But if you won’t be the big tabacco exec, someone else will. In the public discourse, you'll often see CEOs and founders lauded as incredibly brilliant and rare. As soon as you start to talk about ethics though, they're suddenly fungible. "Someone else would run the orphan crushing factory if not for me"

gruez 2y ago

Hasu 2y ago
For the same reason people don't think it's OK to rob a bank and donate the money to charity.
- gruez 2y ago
  That analogy fails because robbing a bank is straightforwardly illegal and norm-breaking (by the majority of the population), whereas being a tobacco executive isn't.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - layer8 2y ago
    Unethical behavior not being treated as norm-breaking unless its illegal is part of what’s being criticized here, I think.
  - ClumsyPilot 2y ago
    Not if you ask the younger generation
- worik 2y ago
  > For the same reason people don't think it's OK to rob a bank and donate the money to charity. I have a problem with violence...
Avicebron 2y ago

Avicebron 2y ago

> But if you're one or two levels up Maslow's Pyramid, it's right to weigh your personal needs against the impact of your work. You'll also be better off for it, knowing that <b>the world would be worse off if you decided to switch gears</b> and become a carpenter/baker/bartender/choose your adventure. To highlight this part of the original in support of this comment. This comes of as somewhat arrogant and is a pretty big red flag...

dvdkon 2y ago
If you've changed your career to support some goal, here the public good, isn't it natural to be strongly convinced that your work is advancing that goal?

ajkjk 2y ago

What confuses me is how many people are evidently in the job of "ruthless exec" and then they do it amorally. I can't think of any time in my life that I've seen an exec say: no, we could do that, but we shouldn't because it's wrong. No doubt because anyone who acts that way gets naturally-selected out of the job. But also there seems to be a pervasive belief, which if anything feels way strong than it was when I was younger (maybe because the moral-majority christian-nation vibes have fully disappeared, in the US at least? sure, it was always fairly hollow, but at least it was a thing at all), that a business leader is not supposed to do moral things, because it's not their job description; their job truly is "increase shareholder value on a 6-12 month timescale", and if they try to do something different they are judged negatively! So maybe there is in theory good to be done by being an exec and being more moral than average (maybe not a tobacco exec, but, say, in tech?). But the system is basically designed to prevent you from doing it? It almost seems as though modern model of shareholder capitalism is almost designed to keep things this way: to eliminate the idea at any point that a person should feel bad if they just do the "efficient", shareholder-value-maximizing thing. Nobody has any agency in the big machine, which means no one is accountable for what it does. Perfect, just how we like it? Whereas at least a private enterprise which is beholden to the principles of its leader could in principle do something besides the most cynical possible play at every turn.

navane 2y ago
There seems to be a new system in place which takes these amoral CEOs and does make them accountable.
- Earw0rm 2y ago
  Exec., meet exec.?
- hackable_sand 2y ago
  It's the truth, and we've had these systems since the dawn of civilization. Idk why people are acting surprised now when we've been doing this for thousands of years. If people in power don't provide and protect a democratic process to removing poor leadership then they do not get to complain when people make those decisions on their own.

jefftk 2y ago

> It's dangerously close to the EA belief that it's actually OK to be a ruthless exec for a tobacco company, because you can do good things with your money that you wouldn't be able to do if you quit the job. That's not an EA belief. While EAs have made arguments somewhat in this direction, being a tobacco exec is just incredibly harmful and no one should do it: https://80000hours.org/2016/01/just-how-bad-is-being-a-ceo-in-big-tobacco/ https://80000hours.org/2016/01/just-how-bad-is-being-a-ceo-i... (80000 Hours is the primary EA career advising organization)

wat10000 2y ago
The obvious answer is to be a tobacco exec, sabotage the organization from within, and donate to charity.
light_hue_1 2y ago
Yeah, it's definitely an EA belief! If you look at the end of the article they show you a link to a response on the EA forum. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/4N5BsDkcWjr5MRSQy/being-a-tobacco-ceo-is-not-quite-as-bad-as-it-might-seem https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/4N5BsDkcWjr5MRSQy/... EA is one of the most evil ideologies out there.
- jefftk 2y ago
  The post you're linking to is not arguing that you should become a tobacco exec, it's arguing that 80k has not sufficiently made the case that a tobacco exec who donated all their income thoughtfully would still be causing net harm. Reading both articles, I think it depends a lot what strategy the exec employs. If they optimize for getting people to become addicted to smoking or increase how much they smoke (growing the market) then I think it's really unlikely they could donate enough to make up for that enormous harm. On the other hand, if they optimize for increasing profitability by increasing prices and advocating for regulation that acts as barriers to new entrants, and especially if the person who would otherwise have the role would be optimizing for growing the market, then it's likely their work is positive on it's own, regardless of donating.