If you don't debate the merits of your work you aren't working on something big enough.

When I worked on h.264 and VC1, I knew what I was doing would do two things. By Making it cheaper and easier to create and distribute video the world would get more content creators.

The two things that all adds up to:

1. Greater Democracy of Content and More freedom of Speech Expression.

2. Dumbing down of content, more exploitation of people through extreme porn, gore, and bully videos.

I only work on things that can change the world, and anything that can change the world can have a negative impact as well, but I won't work on something that only has a negative impact.