While I can understand the sentiment, it should be expressed with less vulgarity, and frankly, workers should show more solidarity to one another, not because of “deserving it” or not, but simply because it’s the only way out of the pit they put us in. Otherwise we are forever dragging each other back in.

"Companies should be able to offer massively addictive and manipulative websites, since their users are free to not look at them" is not compatible with a decent society either.

Want them to stick through a 10 year lawsuit while they get fired anyways? Do you think there is a lot of hope of winning such a lawsuit? Metas CEO hangs out at the Pentagon and has bomb bunkers. They can do whatever they want to their employees

I agree and consider a lot of regulation to be useful but there are some examples of this where I think we just perpetuate bad companies into existing when they'dgo bankrupt or have to pay wild salaries to compensate being shitty. But it just doesn't seem practical to expect people to stop working for bad companies. In the country I'm from the average salary is super close to the minimum wage with low unemployment so technically employees could change easily and find another job with the same minimum wage and still people stay at bad companies. It'd be the best regulator if people quit, even unions wouldn't need to exist, under this light a union just perpetuates a bad boss, but human nature is not changing so protections are needed.

That's the crux. People aren't asking "Am I earning enough?" but "How can I earn more?", and it all spirals into whatever the current system could be called.

So employees should have plenty in the bank to fall back on while they found their own companies to compete … right?

Ok, so this spyware is another step in the "either they comply with what we force them to do, or they quit, whichever way, for us it's a win-win" strategy, after Return To Office? And, just to make sure the employees get the point, they concurrently announce a further 10% round of layoffs? Yeah, makes sense...

> They can currently scoop up an endless supply of developers that have memorized every single leetcode hard, system design and """behavioral""" interview question.

And will those help them get where they think they want to go?

And existing obligations. Most people I know, myself including, stretch our current situation as the paycheque grows.

Some of it is intentional. A lot of it is slow creep (“ah, I can afford a, b, c now..that Maserati/Porche Cayenne GTS/Urus-lol I’ve always wanted!”). While you’re doing this, your spouse and kids are doing it 2x - “oh dad got that fancy new car! I guess I can ask him for the special edition Jordans now..”). Out of guilt, you let your family join in on the buying frenzy.

Now you’ve landed yourself with new loans and obligations (more expensive car = higher maintenance cost, same with house, etc - higher expectation all around, keeping up with Joneses, charity events, …).

Getting out of all that is much more difficult than overcoming your own greed and discomfort - many are legal obligations and you basically need a multi-year plan to go back unscathed (assuming you and your family are pragmatic enough to readjust your comfort level). For some it can be leaving useful social obligations - you lose your social circle if you downgrade (may have to move further away, no more club or association memberships).

The only real remedy is to not let your expenditure go up when you get a raise. But it’s less about you and in equal measure about how your partner operates, kids, family, their expectations etc. All in all, odds are not in an average Meta employees favour no matter what they might personally think/feel.

If it’s company equipment it’s fair game. Literally everytime I sign in it states I have no expectation of privacy while using the equipment.

Claiming that developers and technology workers at Meta are working there because that's the only stable, well-paying job they can find, is extremely out of touch. People forget how comfortable us developers really have it, compared to almost any other field out there.

Has anyone asked Palantir and their many subsidiaries and foundations what they have on Zuck?

He is using a mobile phone, his location is sold by the mobile company and can be bought for relatively cheap

> We should focus on effective means for change.

Labor unions.

Techies believed they didn't need unions because their compensation is high, and "meritocracy" yadda yadda. But unions were never just about compensation. Crucially, they also collectively negotiate working conditions.

You quitting your job is not necessarily much of a threat to your employer. But a union going on strike, effectively everyone quitting simlultaneously, is a major threat.

You are confusing pointing out that people are morally responsible for the their actions with suggesting "that someone should leave their job on ideological grounds".

I get that you (and most of them) want to cash the checks without feeling responsible. Tough. People make the choice to work there, and they make the choice every day to keep working there. Other people get to make choices too, including about how they think about, describe, and treat people who profit from harming others.

Freedom of speech and freedom of action does not include freedom from consequences. Your freedom, or that of people making bank at Meta, is not more important than anybody else's freedom.

Meta hasn’t suddenly gone bad in the last 12 months. Anyone who has joined in the last 15 years has done so knowing full well what sort of company it is, and what sort of evil it does.

Do you see how this topic might mirror something like some dudes just working on the Death Star, never having actually met a sith?

There's been whole genocidal campaigns waged where people were just treating it as a day job.

I think you’re treating the people at these companies as more dumb/powerless than they really are. I used to work in big tech and quit after a few years due to similar concerns that are being raised here. I will tell you anecdotally that everyone there I worked with thought our company was a net negative on society and that our work was at best indifferent and in my case likely exploited weak labor laws in poor countries to overwork people who we never were allowed to speak with for cheap data labelling. Yes, there definitely was some organizational shuffling to make it hard for us to see. We all knew, we weren’t idiots. My personal favorite book on similar concepts is “Modernity and the Holocaust”.

I would argue the organizational tricks exist more for the benefit of the worker than the org itself. The “powerless software engineers” there wanted the excuse to accept the huge salary for very easy work. The organizational tricks don’t fool anyone it’s a favor to the workers at these companies. They exist specifically to ease the cognitive dissonance just enough continue doing your job so you can get paid as much as you want without having to take guilt home with you. I’d say the same is true of my friends in the aerospace defense world. Do you really think they can’t put two and two together and understand that their “flight stabilization module” isn’t going to be used to blow up some school in another country?Your argument is just giving these people the ease of conscious which they want.

On the decision front as well I’d say most of the actual decisions in my org were not actually being made by C-Suite level or even executives. The managerial class at these companies are playing a totally different game than engineers. All the managers care about is that they have good metrics to show their boss so they can get promoted before the person on their sister team. I didn’t interact with a single person above VP and on my projects (as a recent grad mind you) I couldn’t even get my product manager to make a decision on how my product should be implemented. Everyone in the managerial class in these large companies largely exists to provide the illusion that you have no power. Meanwhile they have no idea what anyone in their org is actually working on and as long as they get a nice number to show their boss at the end of the quarter they won’t bother looking too closely.

I think we’re going to have a reckoning in the near future where we’re going to have to come to terms with the fact that the surveillance state which we’re scared of has been designed and built by the “powerless” engineers. The world is too complex for executives to actually have any understanding of what’s being done beneath them. There is SO MUCH room for the average engineer to shape their work in a more positive direction but that would actually require taking ownership over their work and risk some mental connection to its implementation. The average big tech employee already exists on the precipice of too much cognitive dissonance so they can’t afford to try and change anything otherwise they’d be convinced to give up their mid 6 figure salary while already having a larger net worth than 99% of the world will achieve in their lifetime. You cannot equate the life of a software engineer at a large company with the struggle of the working class in any meaningful way. Having a large mortgage is not at all similar to living paycheck to paycheck with variable hours at multiple jobs.

I’m being a bit brutal here I know but I’m so tired of people making excuses for themselves and others for living a life devoid of responsibility. If what I’m saying has struck a chord with anyone who is in a similar spot as I was, I’d suggest strongly questioning your position in the world. I have since found a different career path where I have clear ownership over my work and direction and am much happier now. I’m not fixing the world or anything and took a huge paycut but I agree with the outcome of job and am actually willing to work hard without resentment. I also applaud those who fight against the indifference of their coworkers in these companies since I know they exist. If every worker took responsibility for their output I promise you the parasitic Google or Meta as we know it would not exist. We are not the victims here. If we were desperate coal miners, I’d agree with you, but we are a class of workers with a level of financial flexibility, education, and freedom in our work most of the world has never been able to dream of. The success of these companies exists in how much responsibility they can put in the hands of their engineers who ultimately make most of the meaningful decisions whether they’re willing to admit it or not.

Your employer does not think anything they do is 'wrong' and neither should you when your employer is the 'victim' of one of your 'immoral' actions. Strange that they leave morality to the employee like yourself to impose on yourself to make yourself work harder for your employer. "If I bill for 40 hours and only work 10 while saving them millions of dollars, it's actually immoral on my part." You are literally admitting your shame for your own self-described immoral actions against your employer while completely blind or willfully ignorant of their proud immorality.

Hopefully you aren't one of those "well I signed the contract that let me be abused, I have no right to complain about my material conditions" kind of people.