Comment by Jach | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Jach | Hacker News Reader

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> And should, if you have the option.

There's the kicker, no? A lot of human technological progress was made under unfortunate (to put it mildly) harm-filled circumstances, and a lot of that wouldn't have been made at all otherwise because the option to make it with a cleaner conscience simply wasn't there. However if you do ever take such a role, despite its context, even if you have a clear conscience, I'd ask to try to have your work expand and live beyond the patron so that it can one day benefit all humanity. There is so much still buried behind the walls of corporate research that's worthwhile to a much broader group, but efforts need to be made to bring it out. Even more so if there aren't many other vertices of the company trying to pull in a better direction. (Ed: And I'd like to add that despite everything, Facebook engineers seem to be doing remarkably well at this. I won't ever join them but I'm not going to blacklist any interactions with them or worse aggressively target them.)

> There's the kicker, no?

Not really, for almost everyone who works there. I know a few exceptions. A rare few.

Look, I'm not arguing that we go string up all facebook engineers from the nearest tree. I'm merely saying that it is in fact quite reasonable to say that you shouldn't work for a company that is actively causing harm. And that there is "cool work" being done there does not obviate that.

And yes, good research is sometimes done in bad places. That isn't a justification for joining bad places so you can do good research. Your logic is all messed up there. It's better to instead do good research at a good place.

The simple matter is most of the people who work there, are there because of the relatively high compensation, and have plenty of other better options to do equally exciting work at more ethical organizations. But maybe not quite as well paid.

So. Let's stop sugar coating that.

Look, selling out is a thing humans do from time to time. Sometimes people are even in places where making that choice is totally justifiable. But don't tell me someone isn't doing it when they are. And you shouldn't let them tell you that either. Because if we don't let them tell us that, maybe they'll have more trouble telling themselves that, and honestly, that's what's really going to be important in the end.

> It's better to instead do good research at a good place.

I don't disagree. My logic is that sometimes the only place to do good research you're interested in and where you can have an impact is at one of these not-good, or not-so-good, places. If you can go elsewhere, of course, do so. But if you can't, I'm not going to tell you off.

I don't really disagree with much of anything else you wrote either. Most FB engineers aren't working on React/HHVM (or now Hack? That's thankfully been something I haven't had to follow but I have recognized its broader impact)/the next of these things or some other cool research project in program analysis or whatever. We aren't in disagreement that for most of them, they have no excuse if their conscience is bothering them. They do have plenty of opportunity to leave and contribute elsewhere. If we have any real disagreement, it's probably that I don't see Facebook as a net-negative (I do see some negative-pulling vertices of course), let alone "fundamentally evil" as mentioned above. My own conscience wouldn't allow me to work there even at a much higher salary than I currently have, but that's more to do with my feeling that as a business they aren't selling an "honest product". That's my own thinking, though, I don't expect others to agree with me exactly on what constitutes an "honest product", or its worth in the moral calculus, and indeed they might think what I do is dishonest in comparison.

"Selling out" is probably the wrong phrase for some FB employees, at least without clarifying what it is you're selling. Sometimes it's your soul, sometimes it's your ethical principles, sometimes it's just your desire to not work on web software. And sometimes it's nothing, because many FB engineers have a clear conscience, despite it all.

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