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Aral Balkan

Work at Google. Work at Facebook. Work at Palantir. Heck, work at Phillip Morris or Exxon Mobil or Halliburton. But don’t you dare be proud of it. And don’t you dare tell me you’re working to bring about a better world for everyday people. Don’t you fucking even dare.

@aral I get people having to work to make money.

But frankly, I think people working at those places should try to be looking for other jobs.

@aral But the evilcorp I work at invest 0,00001% of their tax evasion in a local cat shelter that is doing important work! What more could you possibly want!

@jfml @aral probably because some relative of evil CEO has interest in this "local cat shelter" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@cybastl @aral That'll bring their tax evasion to 110%, yay!

@jfml
They've probably got a PR consultant (who gets more money than the cat shelter) telling them it's good for their image...

Seriously, there *are* companies whose owners are trying to accomplish genuinely good things while also making a living for themselves and their employees. But the current corporate/regulatory landscape does not make that easy, and it's incredibly easy to compromise your ideals for money. Even easier to just make some token effort for publicity's sake.
@aral

@aral I'd rather not work at all than work for those assholes,no matter how much they pay.

@aral like a buddy of mine said at my work, never be loyal to a company. Always be after yourself. These big corporations can be just as bad as governments. They just don't have guns

@aral

Billions of "users" are working for Google, Facebook etc.

24/7.

For free. FOR FREE!

Just by using their platforms.

@aral
That sounds like a monologue from a Trainspotting intro meme...

@yarmo @aral "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, then beat 'em" The only good rationale for working for those companies is if you intend to work /against/ them at the same time. When they do something wrong, tattle.

@aktivismoEstasMiaLuo @yarmo Oh, indeed, that’s why I’m going to work for Saudi Aramco. I mean, yeah, the high six figure salary and stock options are a factor but mostly, it’s to stick it to the man. ✊

@aral @yarmo it works best if you don't have the expertise they're hiring. E.g. a Hobby Lobby cashier managed to submit a fake CV to a fortune 500 company (a defense contractor). He conned his way into a 6 figure SWE gig working on a fighter plane.

@yarmo @aral He printed piles of docs, attended meetings, mirrored the jargon, & managed to fool everyone around him for 3 months until a reckoning where ppl realized he didn't even know how to code.. at which point he was escorted out. He was simply good at adapting to his environment and pulling a con for money, & he certainly could have sold docs to the competitor.

@aral @yarmo It takes a pair of balls for sure but it can be done.

@yarmo @aral Software positions on big teams are particularly vulnerable b/c a lot of up front training is entailed (to acquire the internal tribal knowledge), and when the team is big it's easy to hide in the crowd.

@aktivismoEstasMiaLuo @yarmo Right, well, sabotage is an option, of course. But 99.99999% of folks “working for change from the inside” are just picking up a pay cheque and making themselves feel better about it.