zlacker

>>colone+(OP)
Said this yesterday in the other Facebook thread, and I'll say it again.

Working for Facebook is a morally bankrupt position. If you are an engineer you have plenty of job opportunities available to you and there is no excuse for you to continue contributing your labor and time to a wholly malignant organization. At a certain point one has to ask how we as an industry will start dealing with those who continue to take a paycheck from Facebook even in the face of constant and horrific evidence of wholesale ethical violations and negligence.

>>pdeuch+zb
So is working at Google, Amazon and probably 90% of the big corps of the world in many sectors - from oil to finance to pharmaceutical to telecommunications and so on. And we can include the government. If you're a subcontrator or sold in body rental (modern IT slavery) you're also in the same position as an employee, so you're enabling their evils. Also, if one of those companies is a client of your company you're also enabling them (or a client of a client of your company? How many layers of separation should exist between you and Walmart before you stop being an accomplice in enabling their abuse of workers?).

Your point? Should we stop working in IT and go back to the fields?

Also, I fear that HN somewhat forgets the world is not SF, in Europe going to work for Facebook/Google/Amazon is a enormous bump (we're speaking 2-4x) of salary for many people, which in some cases means you can buy an house after 3-4 years even with the crazy rents back in your home country - and that's HUGE. Why should those people spend their time slaving as a subcontractor for yet another TLC/bank trying to squeeze their customers dry at the first occasion while getting 25% the salary and zero benefits? Are those less evil?

What needs to happen is that people keep applying pressure so facebook is forced to adapt its business model even if it hits their bottom line - which is already happening apparently.

>>chroni+mq
> Your point? Should we stop working in IT and go back to the fields?

Not the OP... But no... Just stop working for morally bankrupt companies.

There are enough consulting jobs, to say nothing of current and future startups around (including your own if you create one), to not need to work for them.

> What needs to happen is that people keep applying pressure so facebook is forced to adapt its business model even if it hits their bottom line - which is already happening apparently.

Then again, would-be employers saying loud and clear that they won't hire people who worked for morally bankrupt companies is a potential answer too.

If software engineers pushed hard to consider that working for them was a dead-end job rather than something very desirable, then maybe they might end up attracting less talent and go bust eventually.

On your deathbed you'll only take a single thing with you. Not your house or family; not your wealth; only whether what you did with your life was worth it.

A very very few, like Alfred Nobel, are lucky enough to see what their contemporaries thought about their lives before they passed away and got to adjust. You probably won't.