Hacker News Reader

Comment by tablespoon | Hacker News Reader

> A more apt analogy might be OP wanting to help all the passengers off the sinking ship before jumping off themselves.

That's not an apt analogy. No one's going to die or even be harmed if Twitter crashes and burns tomorrow. Twitter is a frivolous discretionary product that exists only for its owners' profit, nothing more.

> OP just wants to help people, which I think is quite admirable.

Yes, but it's also not a good thing to be tricked into thinking you're helping people, when you're really being exploited.

If you're going to keep working on a sinking ship, you better have a pretty good reason to think you're actually helping people that doesn't amount to a regurgitation of a corporate mission statement or a foolish one-sided loyalty to an unloyal organization.

View on HN

Ok that's fair, I don't think anyone is going to die. But calling Twitter a "frivolous discretionary product" feels very dismissive of the real impact that it has on society. For instance: the Capitol Insurrection

To be entirely honest, I have no idea what Elon Musk's management will bring to Twitter--whether it'll get better or worse, and what might happen as a result. I don't personally think anything will crash and burn, but that's not to say that the transition won't be rocky and influence _some_ people at least.

Elon Musk wants to make verified statuses purchasable. Would fake news outlets abuse this to further spread misinformation? I don't know, but I do hope that there is someone in the company who will consider these issues more deeply than I have the time for.

So no, I don't think anyone is a sucker for acting in the best interest of their customers and colleagues. Yes, the new executives might not value their employees the same way anymore, but I don't believe it's right to abandon those you care about in the face of a new enemy. OP sounds to me more like they're loyal to the users, rather than to the organization.

> Yes, but it's also not a good thing to be tricked into thinking you're helping people, when you're really being exploited.

Why can't it be both? For you, you probably think that "avoiding being exploited by your employer" is more important than helping people (eg. your users). Which is probably fine if people just left it at that.

In a sense it becomes an ethical problem with the general sentiment that hurting Elon Musk as much as possible is more important than not harming your users, to the extent that some people call out on people who don't subscribe to those views.

Personally, IMHO, if one doesn't like a company they can quit. I don't see how people can claim moral high ground by advocating staying onboard for the purpose of sabotaging the company.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com