I’m concerned about the environment but I don’t consider myself to have very radical political views in general. These are areas I’d want to avoid. What’s left? What areas could I pursue that are also potentially doing interesting things online?
- AdTech. Most obviously the known harm some social media can cause to democracy by fueling rage, but also systematic economic problems related to e-commerce below. - Most e-commerce. Trying to get people to buy material things they don’t need. Bad for the environment. - Crypto. Companies fall into one of 3 categories: terrible for the environment, a Ponzi scheme, or neutral but legitimizing or encouraging projects in the previous two categories. - FinTech/e-commerce platforms. Trying to get people to buy stuff they can’t afford, on credit, and don’t need. Bad for the environment and society. - Gambling. Duh. - Gaming with in-app-purchasing. Exploiting people prone to addiction or with low impulse control. Immoral and bad for society. - Fossil-heavy industries. Air travel, booking and similar. We need to fly occasionally, but I now celebrate when flying is reduced. I don’t want a bonus to change that.
I’m not judging anyone, I’ve worked with several of the above myself. I just want to do things differently after 15 years.
This is not a discussion thread about my claims above, I respect if you consider them ridiculous, but we’re not very likely to have a fruitful discussion on this particular topic.
But I'm wondering how much not taking a "significant pay cut" is entering into your decision-making, because your list of things in the known universe is pretty narrow. If you decide you can't give up the salary, that's fine, but that's also your answer right there about how highly you value those aspects of your career. Or as The Onion put it, "Facebook Employees Explain Daily Struggle Of Trying To Care About Company's Unethical Practices When Gig So Cushy".
Full on user tracking and drm focused. It was easier coding gaming anticheaters and copy protection than work on 2018 pearson.
As far as choosing a company goes, one strategy that I have is to keep lists of companies that do things I like. When I'm looking for work, I go through those lists to see who's hiring. I've got a list on Twitter of companies I like, a spreadsheet of companies that I like and links to their jobs pages, and when I come across a job posting that looks like a role I might like, I add the link to it as a todo item in a specific category of my todo app, and when I have some time I send off an application, just in case.
Even the most innovative company that treats its workers fairly and compensates them “well” across the board is probably doing something somewhere that will put someone else out of work.
I’m sort of ranting here, but I feel it’s very easy to go down this rabbit hole of complaining about X or Y or spreading negativity, and even on HN, we seem to spend quite a bit of time painting things in large brush strokes and labeling just about anything anyone is doing as being nefarious or having some ulterior motive.
I can’t say this is really productive.
There's is a huge difference in the harm created by someone working on, say, Jira vs. someone building interactive cigarette ads that subtly appeal to children.
There are also lots of companies much more evil than most: Facebook is the most obvious example.
There are companies that aren't particularly evil at all, like the ones working on carbon capture tech.
Does a company's product or service determine whether they're evil or not evil? What if the carbon capture tech company builds something great for the environment, but has dependencies on a supplier that uses exploited labor in the developing world? What if that same carbon capture company has a "significant" wage gap between the average employee and the executive level?
It's interesting you pointed out that Facebook is evil, but by default, a carbon capture company couldn't possibly be evil "at all".
And that speaks to my point – your definition of evil is based on your set of beliefs, which I'll simply refer to as your politics. It's not necessarily "objective", no matter how hard you believe it is.
>The logical conclusion of your comment is that all companies are equally harmful (or that any attempt at distinguishing between them is pointless), which is blatantly untrue.
No, that's actually not what I'm saying at all.
What you *can* conclude is that all companies are harmful in some aspect.
* What would you be proud to be remembered by after you die? I worked in adtech for a long time. No one is proud of me for that.
* There is a lot of unrealized potential in edtech. I work in education now. If you want to add millions--or even billions--of dollars to future GDP, education is the place to be. Look for an effective company.
* Pay is only worth so much. The last two jobs I took involved significant paycuts, and it was worth every penny to do something I felt was worthwhile for hours that didn't destroy the rest of my life. Never been happier. YMMV, of course.
If there were ever a misanthropic worldview, this is it.
To be alive in the year 2021 and think that all is bad or worse than some halcyon prior age is, if not ridiculous, horrifying.
If you and OP are not familiar with anything you feel is worthwhile to work on as a company, then I pity anyone who has to be around you. My advice to OP is to figure out why he/she is unable to see enough good in the world and has to ask HN for where that value is.
>To be alive in the year 2021 and think that all is bad or worse than some halcyon prior age is, if not ridiculous, horrifying.
and think that [..] -> is your own assumption. I don't think this. Now that you know, maybe we can have a more positive conversation.
>My advice to OP is to figure out why he/she is unable to see enough good in the world and has to ask HN for where that value is.
'Figure it out' is not good advice in any situation. Its along the lines of "If you can't see why you're wrong then its your fault".
At many industries you won't. But it can be quite an effort to find such jobs - and of course succeeding at the interview unless salary/location are suboptimal.
Advertising: Bad to advertise lies, good to advertise truth E-commerce: Bad to sell consumption, good to sell solution Crypto: Bad for the environment, good for personal empowerment Finance: Bad for irresponsible spenders, good for people with low assets relative to cashflow Drugs, gambling, etc: Bad for the long run, good for the short run.
Even God, a construction meant to represent pure goodness, is bad to half of yall