These are great points. I'm reminded of a comedy TV show, The Good Place, where it turns out nobody has gone to "heaven - the good place" for a long time because there are too many unintended consequences of a person's actions. Buy an organic bamboo T-shirt? The company dumped waste into river. Vegan? You produced a bunch of single plastic plastic packaging.

It highlight the need to be diligent in daily decisions day-by-day. And when working somewhere that's doing something borderline, or totally unethical, working to move it in the right direction. I hope I can be aware enough to create a net benefit. The problem is knowing enough of the consequences of any action to evaluate if it's a net benefit. That's really hard, but I have to believe that toiling away _trying_ to make net positives happen will _actually_ result in net positives happening. Doubting I could ever make net positives happen leads to cynicism and ensures nothing good will come of my work.

(and thank you for bringing up point about benefit systems - that's the next gig for me, I will work to not be part of the problem)