Listening to that argument is a clear “catch 22”. If he quits his job, it’s not much of a stance but obviously staying is not a stance either. What was he supposed to do? I think that in a capitalist country we choose who we buy from and who we work for. These are two powerful choices that can shape society. He’s doing the right thing.

> He’s doing the right thing.

He worked at Facebook, let's not get carried away.

Working at Facebook and then leaving because of the non-intervention wrt to the President is a bit like manufacturing landmines quite happily, but having a change of heart because you saw a dog stepping on one. You've still been manufacturing landmines all that time, making money and not giving a damn.

Beating people up for not having your morals is not a great way to get them on your side.

Facebook has been on my list of companies not to work at for a long time, but I have friends who work there. Accepting that other people value different things and being willing to interact with them on a basic, human level is a lot more likely to build bridges and lead to constructive conversation about important matters down the road than casting people aside because they don't conform to your worldview today.

I'll grant you that Facebook, among others, enables exactly the sort of thing I'm advocating against. I'll grant you that it seems to promote people yelling at each other over the internet instead of building the relationships that enable difficult conversations in time. And I'll grant you that they do it to sell ads for shit we mostly don't need.

But that doesn't make everybody who works there bad, and it doesn't mean that people who decide that continuing to work there is no longer consistent with their values should be equated with merchants of death when they publicly leave.

You're castigating somebody for voting with their feet, but presumably mostly because they didn't do it as soon as you did.

> You're castigating somebody for voting with their feet, but presumably mostly because they didn't do it as soon as you did.

No. I'm saying they did always vote with their feet. And "get money, fuck society" was the vote they cast.

Facebook isn't the army, there is no draft, they had and have plenty of other options. It's greed and a general feeling of superiority that sees the general population the same way the owners of factory farms see pigs.

That analogy does not work though. Landmine's sole purpose is to kill/injure whoever steps on it. I don't use Facebook much, but plenty of people have benefited from it.

Instead of personal cost to him, I'd rather view it through the lenses of the impact of his action. It's inviting a lot of constructive conversation and making people re-evaluate Mark's decisions, which I think overall is a net positive.

> I don't use Facebook much, but plenty of people have benefited from it.

Namely those who hold stock options or who used it to hyper target unsuspecting fools and scam them.

> Instead of personal cost to him, I'd rather view it through the lenses of the impact of his action.

Let's. The "constructive conversation" has been going on already. This doesn't move the needle on that conversation, it's not one with a lot of grey area where the world is on the fence. This is great - for him. But not much else.

> Namely those who hold stock options

Oh sure those too. But small businesses benefit from it immensely, e.g using fb live and fb groups to connect with their customers for example.

> Let's. The "constructive conversation" has been going on already. This doesn't move the needle on that conversation, it's not one with a lot of grey area where the world is on the fence. This is great - for him. But not much else.

If that's the case, what do you think he should have done, or we should have done?

> obviously staying is not a stance either

This is not obvious to me.

I think the suggestion here is: if you are in a position to leave your job, and you do not, then than is implicit support for your employer.

I might even say explicit support. After all, how better to support a company than directly working for them? In some business models you're probably generating more value for the company working for them than you would as a customer.

Ah sorry, I think I parsed this wrong. I thought it meant "no stance" instead of "not much of a stance".

Whilst his stance is to be applauded, it lessens the value of the stance given that he’s not sacrificing much and won’t suffer for his cause.

Doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do, just that it would carry more weight if he was leaving to go work at Burger King. Then you’d say “man that guy stands tall”.

Edit: Ok reasonable criticism, I’ll withdraw.

He would stand even taller if while he was quitting Facebook, he was running in to a burning building to save a child. Of course, while saving a child is to be applauded, it lessens the value of his stance that he's not also saving 10,000 from starvation. Of course, that would be nothing next to achieving world peace while eliminating corruption in every government in the world. I'm not saying he shouldn't quit Facebook over his convictions, it's just that it would be awfully nice if he solved every global problem and then was crucified on an actual cross for doing it on the way out.

While there's no proof of life on other planets, there's equally no proof there's not, and it might be suffering terribly and frankly I don't see this guy doing anything about that either.

Until he does it's just virtue signalling.

(yeah, I don't get some people either)

Public resignations are an honorable form of protest. There is probably some consequence for doing so publicly, but suffering isn’t a requirement.

Resigning isn’t about sacrifice to the volcano god, and if that is what you’re looking for, you are not the audience.

Wouldn't you say that a society that only places high value on taking a stance if that comes at great personal cost will probably not find too many people willing to take a stance?

Currently he's leaving his ~250k job with no other job lined up. I don't think it lessens the value of his stance at all.

Yeah, he might have to move away from the west coast and live like a king on whatever scraps he saved.

I think you have to measure these things (if at all) by the person's own context, not by external comparisons.

It reminds me of the old joke about the skinflint who accidentally put a pound in the collection plate instead of a shilling. "Oh well", he says, "I'll get credit for the pound." The priest hears him and replies, "No, you'll get credit for the shilling."

I think that the idea that one must suffer to be valid is a way to ensure that no radical transformations of society take place, because in such a culture the most radical people can only be validated by dying.

So it would be more valuable if a janitor quit their job at Facebook than if a developer quit?

Only if the janitor was clearing 250k at Facebook. OP’s idea is sacrificing a high paying job that isn’t easy for you to replace.

Facebook loses much more money with this employee's departure (if their salary is indeed 250k like you're claiming) -- the cost of recruiting, training, and keeping employees is incredibly high, especially in tech.

Now imagine that OP inspires 100 employees quit -- now Facebook has a problem that it must address, because it's threatening their bottom line.

>it lessens the value of the stance given that he’s not sacrificing much and won’t suffer for his cause.

You are literally the only person who thinks this.