7 ms·

Supposedly the people working for these companies are "the brightest of the bright" but if they didn't even notice that this was what they were contributing to,

Supposedly the people working for these companies are "the brightest of the bright" but if they didn't even notice that this was what they were contributing to, what kind of intelligence is even that? Not everyone working there could possibly be so socially inept that they didn't realize what they helped building right? Or are we chalking it down to just missing morals? I feel like I'm missing something here to properly understand why people ended up working for these companies in the first place, even before it started making the news.

LiquidSky 9mo ago
> I feel like I'm missing something here to properly understand why people ended up working for these companies in the first place Money.
post-it 9mo ago
Because nobody is clocking in and willfully contributing to the addiction machine. They're completing an 8-point ticket to integrate a new scroll-tracking library, or a 5-point ticket to send an extra parameter to the logging system. When there's thousands of people working on a product, nobody feels like they're doing anything impactful.
- embedding-shape 9mo ago
  > Because nobody is clocking in and willfully contributing to the addiction machine. Are people really not aware of what the company's overall mission, product and impact is? I'm finding that hard to believe. If you accept employment at Facebook, regardless of what department you're in, you know exactly what kind of company you're contributing your time, energy and effort into.
  - elevatortrim 9mo ago
    The problem is, between producing cigarettes, weapons, disposable fashion, sugary food and drink, disposable vapes, extremely wasteful cars, addicting game mechanics, many of the financial "product"s, ad optimisation, ..., not everyone can avoid immoral but legal work whilst trying to exist in this economy.
    - blibble 9mo ago
      > not everyone can avoid immoral but legal work whilst trying to exist in this economy let's be honest everyone working as a software engineer at facebook is perfectly capable of finding employment elsewhere working there is a deliberate decision to prioritise comp over the stability of the world
      - elevatortrim 9mo ago
        agreed about this group in particular.
    - embedding-shape 9mo ago
      > not everyone can avoid immoral but legal work whilst trying to exist in this economy We're talking about software engineers here, not "cleaner taking up any job you can". Literally one of the most well paid jobs considering the amount of effort you put into it. People slave away on fields picking berries for less, with more impact on their life expectancy, if there is any career you can almost jump between jobs in just a few weeks, software engineering is one of them.
  - StilesCrisis 9mo ago
    I joined Google Analytics in 2018 and had no idea that Analytics really meant "Tracking and Remarketing" until about 3 weeks into the role. At that point, what're you going to do, quit? I knew it wasn't what I wanted to do, but it took two years to get out cleanly.
    - embedding-shape 9mo ago
      > At that point, what're you going to do, quit? Yes? Why not? If I'd join a company and figured out what I did actually harmed more than helped, I'd leave that place, absolutely. I'm a software engineer, even with the lowest possible position in a random company I'd earn better than most people in the country and live a better life, even just the bottom 30% of earners in software in the country (not counting outsourcing obviously). Especially at that time it was very easy to find new jobs.
      - StilesCrisis 9mo ago
        Good for you. I've got a family and no other source of income.
        embedding-shape 9mo ago
        You think Google is the single company out there who is willing to employ you? How come? Edit: Thinking about it, your comment actually made me more frustrated than I realized. I've been poor enough to having to be homeless at some points in my life, and yes, I've worked for immoral companies too, because I need food and shelter. But once you move up in life to the comfy jobs like software engineering, you don't have any excuse anymore that it's just about "feeding your family" when you literally have a sea of jobs available. It might be an excuse you tell yourself to justify your reasoning for getting paid more, but if you truly did care about it, you'd make a different choice, and still be able to feed your family, and I'm almost confident your family would be OK with you making that choice too, unless they also lack the empathy you seem to be missing.
        9mo ago
  - post-it 9mo ago
    Sure, but you could say that about anything. If you're American, then your labour is paying for concentration camps no matter where you work. In a company of 100k+ people, responsibility is diluted.
- codyb 9mo ago
  I think it's a fair point to say that many people do not feel as if they're the ones responsible even if they're direct contributors.
doron 9mo ago
in the words of Upton Sinclair "“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” This affects the brightest of the bright and the less talented alike.
ecshafer 9mo ago
Its basically impossible for them to not notice. I know someone who is a software engineer for lockheed. He told me that back in the 90s he wrote a bunch of software for a missile. He wasn't told that is what he was working on, it was all classified, and part of that is you only know what you need to know. But from the specifications and how the math worked, it was very clear to him that it was a surface to air missile. After the fact, it was confirmed that is what he was working on. Google and Meta are surely more open than a classified missile project. So it would really be beyond the pale for someone to not realize that what they are working on is an additive platform, sure I am willing to bet they didn't say "Addictive" and instead cleaned it up in tidy corporate product management lingo, "highly engaged users" or something like that. But its just impossible.
- shermantanktop 9mo ago
  It’s simpler than that. Engagement increases are the perpetual goal. The vector is constant. Relative motion is all that matters. Nobody would talk about whether the product is now “addictive” because that suggests crossing a finish line to completion, and we can’t ever be done.
Spooky23 9mo ago
People are motivated by money, and the aspects of the job that aren’t toxic.
komali2 9mo ago
> Or are we chalking it down to just missing morals? Surely it's this, right? I just had what I would consider an intelligent conversation with someone wherein we eventually settled on a core ideological difference between us is that I thought all humans have equal value (infinite and immeasurable), while he believed a human's value is only as much as said human can generate money within capitalism (basically, if their salary or net worth is low, they must not be very valuable people, and we shouldn't do things for them like give them healthcare). I think it's a bit of a dangerous fallacy to assume that intelligence naturally leads people to arriving at your own personal ideology. There were plenty of highly intelligent Nazis or Imperial Japanese. They either didn't care about the regimes they supported or leveraged their intelligence to rationalize it (requiring fallacy to do so of course - or perhaps not, if they really did just want their subgroup to dominate all others and believed it was possible to do so). For me it's not smarts alone to define my value system. It can't be purely rationality, since the premise of deciding good and bad is subjective and dependent on what you value. You can argue these things rationally and use logic to determine outcomes, but at the end of the day there's a messy human brain deciding good/bad, important/not important, relevant/not relevant.
jimnotgym 9mo ago
It is interesting that Software Engineering as it's practitioners like to call it, is unregulated. If you want to be an accountant, lawyer, surveyor et cetera, one has to learn about ethics, and violating ones professional institute's code of ethics may result in you being unable to practice in future.
- Forgeties79 9mo ago
  I am amazed that I’ve never considered this before
  - nickcw 9mo ago
    Have been surveying Computer Science courses at university with my son recently. All the ones we looked at had a compulsory ethics module which shows the direction things are headed at least.
    - embedding-shape 9mo ago
      I wonder how many programmers working today are coming through universities though? I'm self-taught, most of my programmers friends are as well, same with most of my colleagues back when I worked. I can remember maybe the name of 3-4 people in total, out of maybe ~30 or so, who went to university for computer science before they started working.
    - ang_cire 9mo ago
      In my experience CompSci ethics modules are about hacking or mishandling user data or code theft... i.e. things that companies don't want their employees doing. I've yet to see an ethics module that covers ethics from the perspective of ethics over profit.
      - jimnotgym 9mo ago
        Whereas an accountant is taught that they should resign rather than get involved in unethical practices, like profit manipulation for example. I interview people with ethics questions. I discussed them frequently when training. I refused the pressure to be unethical when I was pushed, even when I knew I would be fired (which I was). I was able to discuss it with old mentors, who made time to meet with me, even when I hadn't worked at their company for years. Lastly I disclosed why I was fired at interview for a new job (without the confidential details), and was hired partly on the strength of it by a person who had been through much the same. And I didn't learn it at University, I learnt it on my professional qualification, that was around 3 years long and was postgraduate level, although had non-degree based entry routes for technicians. It also required a wide range of supervised experience.
elevatortrim 9mo ago
Intelligent does not mean moral. Typically, intelligent people get so much joy out of being able to do something (such as addicting the masses), they do not stop to think whether that's a good idea. Especially when that's the very thing that's fuelling their extremely lavish lifestyle.
- codyb 9mo ago
  A lot of folk justify it to themselves. I've heard "well, you have to change things from the inside" before. And a lot of people have been there for a while, it wasn't always... quite as bad even if a lot of the warning signs were absolutely there. I was actually just thinking to myself this morning that I literally have no idea what these feeds look like at this point, but more and more people seem to be looking at me with envy when I say I don't have any lol. I'm kind of curious and might ask my friends if I can see what they're looking at day to day if they'll show me.
2OEH8eoCRo0 9mo ago
At the end of the day these brainiac innovators still just chase money and tail.
DHolzer 9mo ago
250k per year would make me reconfigure my internal right/wrong classifier real fast...
- embedding-shape 9mo ago
  Really, that little? Don't feel even slightly embarrassed about your morals being so cheap? You'd hurt your neighbors and acquaintances for 20K a month? Given you probably don't earn that today, say you got paid that now instead of whatever you earn, what would you spend that money on in reality?
  - baq 9mo ago
    if you're literally anywhere in the west other than bay area or NYC this is good to amazing money
    - embedding-shape 9mo ago
      Sure, but what about all the other aspects of your life, those contributing more to your happiness? Corrupted people have money as their top goal in life, everyone else is trying to live a good life once they have enough, but there seemingly is no "enough" for quite a large part of the population, and in some places of the world this obsession seems worse than in others.
      - baq 9mo ago
        Hate the game, not the players. Somebody is supposed to be regulating this stuff. If you're in a poor city or country having a shot at such compensation would be life changing for the whole family, not just you and game-theoretically someone else will take that job anyway, for similar reasons, too.
        embedding-shape 9mo ago
        > Hate the game, not the players. No, I'm sorry, but fuck that. I've been one of the players, and it's definitively possible to not play the game, especially when you see what's going on around you, and still live a perfectly fine life that is above the living standards of most others in your country, if you're working as a software engineer. And I'm saying this as someone who never came close to FAANG salaries yet was lucky enough to paid enough to live better than I thought I'd ever do, but initially had really shit living situation and have had to steal at one point to feed myself. I've had chances that could mean I'd live a life of luxury earlier than what it ended up being, but I couldn't live with myself if I did those things, when I had anything resembling of a choice. There is almost always a choice, and "hate the game not the player" is such a bullshit excuse for people to just participate because everyone else is. It's spineless and the answer of a chicken who doesn't want to consider the consequences of their actions. Hate the players and the game.
rbtbisrespected 9mo ago
[dead]
ang_cire 9mo ago
Many people get used to the paycheck before they really discover the extent of their predatory practices. A lot of people will choose their own comfort and stability over morality.
Imustaskforhelp 9mo ago
Hey emsh! So what I had written was quite long and I have been writing it since your comment was 6 minutes ago. https://writeforfun.mataroa.blog/blog/the-brightest-of-the-bright/ https://writeforfun.mataroa.blog/blog/the-brightest-of-the-b... Essentially a thought dump. Hope you can read it and we can discuss it. Have a nice day!
- embedding-shape 9mo ago
  While I appreciate the mention and the flattery, I'm just a person, my thought are not special and I'm starting to feel like you might be better off not focusing on what specifically I am saying :) Again, I do appreciate it, can't deny it feels nice initially, but don't treat me like I'm special, I'm not, I'm just sharing stray thoughts sent out the ether like everyone else.
  - Imustaskforhelp 9mo ago
    haha, Sorry but I didn't intend to flatter you (atleast this time although your work in oaoh is commendable) but I literally just wrote it as a (blog?) because I was already writing a comment and I didn't want a massive wall of text & also you can see from my other project that I wanted to write more as blog posts rather than HN comments when they get too big. I wrote the 6 minute mark to think of how long it took me to write the comment which was around ~50 minutes ish. And I mentioned you many times in the comment-ish because I had written something first and then wrote something on top of it & thus many initial mentions. Anyways I have now removed the mentions and honestly a lot of this is just transparency efforts. I literally just write whatever I am thinking :)
jerf 9mo ago
We have separate words for intelligence and wisdom for a reason. Intelligence is not particularly correlated to ethics or morality. Probably sounds obvious when I say it directly, but it is clearly something that you have banging around in the back of your mind. Bring it forward out of the morass of unexamined beliefs so you can see that it is clearly wrong, and update the rest of your beliefs that are implicitly based on the idea that intelligence somehow leads to some particular morality as appropriate.
anonymars 9mo ago
I believe the quote is, "it's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it"
foobar_______ 9mo ago
Fatten up that wallet with 500K a year and tech stock RSUs and people pretty quickly forget about their morals. Seriously, they tell themselves the same story: "ah this is just temporary. I can make big money for a couple years then get out." But 2 years turns to 5, then they buy a house in the Bay area and now they're stuck. Same thing for Seattle.
intended 9mo ago
Oh they absolutely know. I've had some tragi-comic interactions with trust and safety folk in tech. You aren't going to be very popular in the firm telling people their stuff is bad for users. Its easiest to think of tech firms as a tale of 2 different dichotomies. Internally, the firm is split between the people who are told to do best for their users and the people who are told to do best for the next quarterly earnings call. So you may have a bright and shiny idea, but its not really going to increase time on site. And if you don't increase ToS, then that other social platform which is nibbling at your lunch, will starve you into an early grave. The other strange juxtaposition is between tech firms trying to suggest actually better policy, while also sitting on data that they dont want to share because they are afraid it will get used against them. Which it absolutely will, because when people understand how the sausage is made, they are absolutely aghast. This leaves regulators mostly in the dark, and then they are forced to act. At which point lobbying comes into play once again. You wouldn't be alone in thinking this whole story sounds similar to Big Tobacco and Big Oil.
stronglikedan 9mo ago
Most people just want a steady paycheck, so it's not hard to find a bunch of very smart people that just want a paycheck. As for morals go, this topic is way too subjective to say whether it's wrong. People can make great cases for and against aspects of it. It'll be interesting to see what the jury says. It'll definitely be a precedent setting case.

LiquidSky 9mo ago

> I feel like I'm missing something here to properly understand why people ended up working for these companies in the first place Money.

post-it 9mo ago

Because nobody is clocking in and willfully contributing to the addiction machine. They're completing an 8-point ticket to integrate a new scroll-tracking library, or a 5-point ticket to send an extra parameter to the logging system. When there's thousands of people working on a product, nobody feels like they're doing anything impactful.

embedding-shape 9mo ago
> Because nobody is clocking in and willfully contributing to the addiction machine. Are people really not aware of what the company's overall mission, product and impact is? I'm finding that hard to believe. If you accept employment at Facebook, regardless of what department you're in, you know exactly what kind of company you're contributing your time, energy and effort into.
- elevatortrim 9mo ago
  The problem is, between producing cigarettes, weapons, disposable fashion, sugary food and drink, disposable vapes, extremely wasteful cars, addicting game mechanics, many of the financial "product"s, ad optimisation, ..., not everyone can avoid immoral but legal work whilst trying to exist in this economy.
  - blibble 9mo ago
    > not everyone can avoid immoral but legal work whilst trying to exist in this economy let's be honest everyone working as a software engineer at facebook is perfectly capable of finding employment elsewhere working there is a deliberate decision to prioritise comp over the stability of the world
    - elevatortrim 9mo ago
      agreed about this group in particular.
  - embedding-shape 9mo ago
    > not everyone can avoid immoral but legal work whilst trying to exist in this economy We're talking about software engineers here, not "cleaner taking up any job you can". Literally one of the most well paid jobs considering the amount of effort you put into it. People slave away on fields picking berries for less, with more impact on their life expectancy, if there is any career you can almost jump between jobs in just a few weeks, software engineering is one of them.
- StilesCrisis 9mo ago
  I joined Google Analytics in 2018 and had no idea that Analytics really meant "Tracking and Remarketing" until about 3 weeks into the role. At that point, what're you going to do, quit? I knew it wasn't what I wanted to do, but it took two years to get out cleanly.
  - embedding-shape 9mo ago
    > At that point, what're you going to do, quit? Yes? Why not? If I'd join a company and figured out what I did actually harmed more than helped, I'd leave that place, absolutely. I'm a software engineer, even with the lowest possible position in a random company I'd earn better than most people in the country and live a better life, even just the bottom 30% of earners in software in the country (not counting outsourcing obviously). Especially at that time it was very easy to find new jobs.
    - StilesCrisis 9mo ago
      Good for you. I've got a family and no other source of income.
      - embedding-shape 9mo ago
        You think Google is the single company out there who is willing to employ you? How come? Edit: Thinking about it, your comment actually made me more frustrated than I realized. I've been poor enough to having to be homeless at some points in my life, and yes, I've worked for immoral companies too, because I need food and shelter. But once you move up in life to the comfy jobs like software engineering, you don't have any excuse anymore that it's just about "feeding your family" when you literally have a sea of jobs available. It might be an excuse you tell yourself to justify your reasoning for getting paid more, but if you truly did care about it, you'd make a different choice, and still be able to feed your family, and I'm almost confident your family would be OK with you making that choice too, unless they also lack the empathy you seem to be missing.
        9mo ago
- post-it 9mo ago
  Sure, but you could say that about anything. If you're American, then your labour is paying for concentration camps no matter where you work. In a company of 100k+ people, responsibility is diluted.
codyb 9mo ago
I think it's a fair point to say that many people do not feel as if they're the ones responsible even if they're direct contributors.

doron 9mo ago

in the words of Upton Sinclair "“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” This affects the brightest of the bright and the less talented alike.

ecshafer 9mo ago

Its basically impossible for them to not notice. I know someone who is a software engineer for lockheed. He told me that back in the 90s he wrote a bunch of software for a missile. He wasn't told that is what he was working on, it was all classified, and part of that is you only know what you need to know. But from the specifications and how the math worked, it was very clear to him that it was a surface to air missile. After the fact, it was confirmed that is what he was working on. Google and Meta are surely more open than a classified missile project. So it would really be beyond the pale for someone to not realize that what they are working on is an additive platform, sure I am willing to bet they didn't say "Addictive" and instead cleaned it up in tidy corporate product management lingo, "highly engaged users" or something like that. But its just impossible.

shermantanktop 9mo ago
It’s simpler than that. Engagement increases are the perpetual goal. The vector is constant. Relative motion is all that matters. Nobody would talk about whether the product is now “addictive” because that suggests crossing a finish line to completion, and we can’t ever be done.

Spooky23 9mo ago

People are motivated by money, and the aspects of the job that aren’t toxic.

komali2 9mo ago

> Or are we chalking it down to just missing morals? Surely it's this, right? I just had what I would consider an intelligent conversation with someone wherein we eventually settled on a core ideological difference between us is that I thought all humans have equal value (infinite and immeasurable), while he believed a human's value is only as much as said human can generate money within capitalism (basically, if their salary or net worth is low, they must not be very valuable people, and we shouldn't do things for them like give them healthcare). I think it's a bit of a dangerous fallacy to assume that intelligence naturally leads people to arriving at your own personal ideology. There were plenty of highly intelligent Nazis or Imperial Japanese. They either didn't care about the regimes they supported or leveraged their intelligence to rationalize it (requiring fallacy to do so of course - or perhaps not, if they really did just want their subgroup to dominate all others and believed it was possible to do so). For me it's not smarts alone to define my value system. It can't be purely rationality, since the premise of deciding good and bad is subjective and dependent on what you value. You can argue these things rationally and use logic to determine outcomes, but at the end of the day there's a messy human brain deciding good/bad, important/not important, relevant/not relevant.

jimnotgym 9mo ago

It is interesting that Software Engineering as it's practitioners like to call it, is unregulated. If you want to be an accountant, lawyer, surveyor et cetera, one has to learn about ethics, and violating ones professional institute's code of ethics may result in you being unable to practice in future.

Forgeties79 9mo ago
I am amazed that I’ve never considered this before
- nickcw 9mo ago
  Have been surveying Computer Science courses at university with my son recently. All the ones we looked at had a compulsory ethics module which shows the direction things are headed at least.
  - embedding-shape 9mo ago
    I wonder how many programmers working today are coming through universities though? I'm self-taught, most of my programmers friends are as well, same with most of my colleagues back when I worked. I can remember maybe the name of 3-4 people in total, out of maybe ~30 or so, who went to university for computer science before they started working.
  - ang_cire 9mo ago
    In my experience CompSci ethics modules are about hacking or mishandling user data or code theft... i.e. things that companies don't want their employees doing. I've yet to see an ethics module that covers ethics from the perspective of ethics over profit.
    - jimnotgym 9mo ago
      Whereas an accountant is taught that they should resign rather than get involved in unethical practices, like profit manipulation for example. I interview people with ethics questions. I discussed them frequently when training. I refused the pressure to be unethical when I was pushed, even when I knew I would be fired (which I was). I was able to discuss it with old mentors, who made time to meet with me, even when I hadn't worked at their company for years. Lastly I disclosed why I was fired at interview for a new job (without the confidential details), and was hired partly on the strength of it by a person who had been through much the same. And I didn't learn it at University, I learnt it on my professional qualification, that was around 3 years long and was postgraduate level, although had non-degree based entry routes for technicians. It also required a wide range of supervised experience.

elevatortrim 9mo ago

Intelligent does not mean moral. Typically, intelligent people get so much joy out of being able to do something (such as addicting the masses), they do not stop to think whether that's a good idea. Especially when that's the very thing that's fuelling their extremely lavish lifestyle.

codyb 9mo ago
A lot of folk justify it to themselves. I've heard "well, you have to change things from the inside" before. And a lot of people have been there for a while, it wasn't always... quite as bad even if a lot of the warning signs were absolutely there. I was actually just thinking to myself this morning that I literally have no idea what these feeds look like at this point, but more and more people seem to be looking at me with envy when I say I don't have any lol. I'm kind of curious and might ask my friends if I can see what they're looking at day to day if they'll show me.

2OEH8eoCRo0 9mo ago

At the end of the day these brainiac innovators still just chase money and tail.

DHolzer 9mo ago

250k per year would make me reconfigure my internal right/wrong classifier real fast...

embedding-shape 9mo ago
Really, that little? Don't feel even slightly embarrassed about your morals being so cheap? You'd hurt your neighbors and acquaintances for 20K a month? Given you probably don't earn that today, say you got paid that now instead of whatever you earn, what would you spend that money on in reality?
- baq 9mo ago
  if you're literally anywhere in the west other than bay area or NYC this is good to amazing money
  - embedding-shape 9mo ago
    Sure, but what about all the other aspects of your life, those contributing more to your happiness? Corrupted people have money as their top goal in life, everyone else is trying to live a good life once they have enough, but there seemingly is no "enough" for quite a large part of the population, and in some places of the world this obsession seems worse than in others.
    - baq 9mo ago
      Hate the game, not the players. Somebody is supposed to be regulating this stuff. If you're in a poor city or country having a shot at such compensation would be life changing for the whole family, not just you and game-theoretically someone else will take that job anyway, for similar reasons, too.
      - embedding-shape 9mo ago
        > Hate the game, not the players. No, I'm sorry, but fuck that. I've been one of the players, and it's definitively possible to not play the game, especially when you see what's going on around you, and still live a perfectly fine life that is above the living standards of most others in your country, if you're working as a software engineer. And I'm saying this as someone who never came close to FAANG salaries yet was lucky enough to paid enough to live better than I thought I'd ever do, but initially had really shit living situation and have had to steal at one point to feed myself. I've had chances that could mean I'd live a life of luxury earlier than what it ended up being, but I couldn't live with myself if I did those things, when I had anything resembling of a choice. There is almost always a choice, and "hate the game not the player" is such a bullshit excuse for people to just participate because everyone else is. It's spineless and the answer of a chicken who doesn't want to consider the consequences of their actions. Hate the players and the game.

rbtbisrespected 9mo ago

[dead]

ang_cire 9mo ago

Many people get used to the paycheck before they really discover the extent of their predatory practices. A lot of people will choose their own comfort and stability over morality.

Imustaskforhelp 9mo ago

Hey emsh! So what I had written was quite long and I have been writing it since your comment was 6 minutes ago. https://writeforfun.mataroa.blog/blog/the-brightest-of-the-bright/ https://writeforfun.mataroa.blog/blog/the-brightest-of-the-b... Essentially a thought dump. Hope you can read it and we can discuss it. Have a nice day!

embedding-shape 9mo ago
While I appreciate the mention and the flattery, I'm just a person, my thought are not special and I'm starting to feel like you might be better off not focusing on what specifically I am saying :) Again, I do appreciate it, can't deny it feels nice initially, but don't treat me like I'm special, I'm not, I'm just sharing stray thoughts sent out the ether like everyone else.
- Imustaskforhelp 9mo ago
  haha, Sorry but I didn't intend to flatter you (atleast this time although your work in oaoh is commendable) but I literally just wrote it as a (blog?) because I was already writing a comment and I didn't want a massive wall of text & also you can see from my other project that I wanted to write more as blog posts rather than HN comments when they get too big. I wrote the 6 minute mark to think of how long it took me to write the comment which was around ~50 minutes ish. And I mentioned you many times in the comment-ish because I had written something first and then wrote something on top of it & thus many initial mentions. Anyways I have now removed the mentions and honestly a lot of this is just transparency efforts. I literally just write whatever I am thinking :)

jerf 9mo ago

We have separate words for intelligence and wisdom for a reason. Intelligence is not particularly correlated to ethics or morality. Probably sounds obvious when I say it directly, but it is clearly something that you have banging around in the back of your mind. Bring it forward out of the morass of unexamined beliefs so you can see that it is clearly wrong, and update the rest of your beliefs that are implicitly based on the idea that intelligence somehow leads to some particular morality as appropriate.

anonymars 9mo ago

I believe the quote is, "it's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it"

foobar_______ 9mo ago

Fatten up that wallet with 500K a year and tech stock RSUs and people pretty quickly forget about their morals. Seriously, they tell themselves the same story: "ah this is just temporary. I can make big money for a couple years then get out." But 2 years turns to 5, then they buy a house in the Bay area and now they're stuck. Same thing for Seattle.

intended 9mo ago

Oh they absolutely know. I've had some tragi-comic interactions with trust and safety folk in tech. You aren't going to be very popular in the firm telling people their stuff is bad for users. Its easiest to think of tech firms as a tale of 2 different dichotomies. Internally, the firm is split between the people who are told to do best for their users and the people who are told to do best for the next quarterly earnings call. So you may have a bright and shiny idea, but its not really going to increase time on site. And if you don't increase ToS, then that other social platform which is nibbling at your lunch, will starve you into an early grave. The other strange juxtaposition is between tech firms trying to suggest actually better policy, while also sitting on data that they dont want to share because they are afraid it will get used against them. Which it absolutely will, because when people understand how the sausage is made, they are absolutely aghast. This leaves regulators mostly in the dark, and then they are forced to act. At which point lobbying comes into play once again. You wouldn't be alone in thinking this whole story sounds similar to Big Tobacco and Big Oil.

stronglikedan 9mo ago

Most people just want a steady paycheck, so it's not hard to find a bunch of very smart people that just want a paycheck. As for morals go, this topic is way too subjective to say whether it's wrong. People can make great cases for and against aspects of it. It'll be interesting to see what the jury says. It'll definitely be a precedent setting case.