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> Do you dislike people from entire countries because of things their governments did too? When their governments are democratically elected, sometimes, ya. I

> Do you dislike people from entire countries because of things their governments did too? When their governments are democratically elected, sometimes, ya. I don't want to give you any spoilers, but there's maybe a reason the average American is looked at least favourably as of late. There are also cultural beefs that have existed for longer than I've been alive that are not even all that rational, but continue to persist. Whole cultures hating each other. > Do you seriously blame the death star technicians? The cooks at the death star canteen? I think someone from Aldereen might have a hard time grabbing a beer with a death star technician. Most people probably understand that blame is not equally shared, but that those technicians were on the wrong side of history. Exceptions might include people forcefully enslaved to work on the death star - and, from a distance, an external observer still would not know the difference at first glance between forceful participation, passive participation, and active participation. It often takes time/generations to heal from the pain of their parents choices - whether those choices were active or passive. Sins of the father and all that (though I think it's unfair to put parental misdeeds onto their kids, it also historically happens a lot).

RugnirViking 6mo ago
> there's maybe a reason the average American is looked at least favourably as of late I understand THAT its happening, but do you think that's right? moral? would you be happy about it if you were a random american? one who had voted against whatever is happening there? What about one who couldn't vote at all?
- hgoel 6mo ago
  Were Meta employees forced to work for Meta? Not that I agree with the idea of blaming all Meta employees (e.g. janitors, drivers etc don't deserve the blame), but I do think the ones doing the computer work deserve some blame.
  - RugnirViking 6mo ago
    Do all of the hundred thousand meta employees have a say in what happens? Do they even have as much say as citizens in a democracy? I can agree that the teams working on the specific features have quite a lot of blame. Those asked to implement immoral ads/algorithm stuff. But how many are those people as a proportion of the entire staff?
    - troupo 6mo ago
      > Do all of the hundred thousand meta employees have a say in what happens? They all chose to work at Meta. And for the vast majority of them (especially programmers) there were other choices.
      - RugnirViking 6mo ago
        How many companies on the SNP 500 are moral, do you think? are you sure?
        troupo 6mo ago
        Ah yes. Only companies that are in SNP 500 matter. Also, the existence of those other companies fully absolves any people working at Facebook.
        RugnirViking 6mo ago
        im using those as a proxy for the largest employers. If we think the people working in those companies are all bad people, that means most people full stop are bad people. If people are supposed to stop working at meta if they want to keep being a "good person" then they go work somewhere else. Can they work at any of the largest employers? can they be sure?
        troupo 6mo ago
        You keep diluting the arguments with sweeping generalizing statements and non-working analogies like "but think of people in other countries". When it's actually pretty easy: The people worked and kept working at Facebook after these huge and small issues - after Myanmar genocide - after paying teenagers to spy on them through VPN - after falsifying its ad metrics that ended up negatively affecting and outright destroying multiple publishers and creators - after billions in dollars of fines paid over multiple breaches of user privacy, and misleading users about their privacy And that's just off the top of my head. - and (irony is dead) after Facebook unconditionally opted every single user, and their data, and their content on their platform into AI training So don't give me the righteous indignant spiel about innocent workers who are just doing their jobs and are really really good at heart. Most of them chose to work for Meta despite all these things (and despite significantly more NDA things discussed inside the company that we don't know about). Many of those also chose to work on and contribute to ads, tracking, AI, surveillance etc. and all the infrastructure for it and have no moral qualms doing so. Spare me the sanctimoniousness. Yes, many companies are morally gray. But, again, especially developers have their pick of companies they can go to. Including companies that are less morally gray. They chose Facebook.
- SecretDreams 6mo ago
  1) As others have said, there's a big difference between a country you're born in without choice and a company you've actively chosen to have a career at, so I don't want to get too off topic. 1a) Life's not fair sometimes and talking about the morality of life not being fair isn't going to change how people perceive you when you vote a certain way or happen to live in a country where the majority of the country voted a certain way. Once your country is shitting on other countries, y'all end up being painted by the same broad strokes. Reputational damage does not discriminate and the long term consequences of such damage won't, either. Not all that different than how when bombs are launched during war, the bombs are not checking the voting records of the civilians in their paths. If people don't like this reality and they did not vote for it, they should actively try harder to fix that reality - even if this is a hard thing to ask. 2) I'll repeat - once you're working on the death star, no matter why, people and history are not going to look at you favourably. At some later point in time, this might even become a shame you try to hide from the world.

RugnirViking 6mo ago

> there's maybe a reason the average American is looked at least favourably as of late I understand THAT its happening, but do you think that's right? moral? would you be happy about it if you were a random american? one who had voted against whatever is happening there? What about one who couldn't vote at all?

hgoel 6mo ago
Were Meta employees forced to work for Meta? Not that I agree with the idea of blaming all Meta employees (e.g. janitors, drivers etc don't deserve the blame), but I do think the ones doing the computer work deserve some blame.
- RugnirViking 6mo ago
  Do all of the hundred thousand meta employees have a say in what happens? Do they even have as much say as citizens in a democracy? I can agree that the teams working on the specific features have quite a lot of blame. Those asked to implement immoral ads/algorithm stuff. But how many are those people as a proportion of the entire staff?
  - troupo 6mo ago
    > Do all of the hundred thousand meta employees have a say in what happens? They all chose to work at Meta. And for the vast majority of them (especially programmers) there were other choices.
    - RugnirViking 6mo ago
      How many companies on the SNP 500 are moral, do you think? are you sure?
      - troupo 6mo ago
        Ah yes. Only companies that are in SNP 500 matter. Also, the existence of those other companies fully absolves any people working at Facebook.
        RugnirViking 6mo ago
        im using those as a proxy for the largest employers. If we think the people working in those companies are all bad people, that means most people full stop are bad people. If people are supposed to stop working at meta if they want to keep being a "good person" then they go work somewhere else. Can they work at any of the largest employers? can they be sure?
        troupo 6mo ago
        You keep diluting the arguments with sweeping generalizing statements and non-working analogies like "but think of people in other countries". When it's actually pretty easy: The people worked and kept working at Facebook after these huge and small issues - after Myanmar genocide - after paying teenagers to spy on them through VPN - after falsifying its ad metrics that ended up negatively affecting and outright destroying multiple publishers and creators - after billions in dollars of fines paid over multiple breaches of user privacy, and misleading users about their privacy And that's just off the top of my head. - and (irony is dead) after Facebook unconditionally opted every single user, and their data, and their content on their platform into AI training So don't give me the righteous indignant spiel about innocent workers who are just doing their jobs and are really really good at heart. Most of them chose to work for Meta despite all these things (and despite significantly more NDA things discussed inside the company that we don't know about). Many of those also chose to work on and contribute to ads, tracking, AI, surveillance etc. and all the infrastructure for it and have no moral qualms doing so. Spare me the sanctimoniousness. Yes, many companies are morally gray. But, again, especially developers have their pick of companies they can go to. Including companies that are less morally gray. They chose Facebook.
SecretDreams 6mo ago
1) As others have said, there's a big difference between a country you're born in without choice and a company you've actively chosen to have a career at, so I don't want to get too off topic. 1a) Life's not fair sometimes and talking about the morality of life not being fair isn't going to change how people perceive you when you vote a certain way or happen to live in a country where the majority of the country voted a certain way. Once your country is shitting on other countries, y'all end up being painted by the same broad strokes. Reputational damage does not discriminate and the long term consequences of such damage won't, either. Not all that different than how when bombs are launched during war, the bombs are not checking the voting records of the civilians in their paths. If people don't like this reality and they did not vote for it, they should actively try harder to fix that reality - even if this is a hard thing to ask. 2) I'll repeat - once you're working on the death star, no matter why, people and history are not going to look at you favourably. At some later point in time, this might even become a shame you try to hide from the world.