The premise of your argument is that you have no choice in your employment, which is false. There are hundreds of tech companies to work for, if not thousands.

No one is forcing climate change activists to work for oil companies. As a corollary it would be absurd for a climate change activist to argue that oil companies must employ them to allow their companies to be destroyed from the inside out.

I’m simply saying your employer does not pay you to advance any agenda other than their own and that using your employer’s time to advance a political agenda irrelevant to theirs is theft, for lack of a better term.

> choose your means of survival as a political statement...[or] find a lower salary someplace else that agrees more with your political beliefs.

or, compare how much you like a higher salary, vs a company that agrees with your political views. And choose appropriately.

What's not appropriate is to choose the company with the highest salary, but whose owner's political views differ from your own, and then try to change that to something more suitable to your own. Or use such a position as leverage to push your own political views to a wider audience than you could on your own.

A lot of people need to lie to themselves and others that they’re not complete sell outs who forfeited their morals for a high salary. Being loud at work and social media is one way of doing that. It ends up with no real traction in reality though because the companies they work for don’t prioritize it over profits.

> What's not appropriate is to choose the company with the highest salary, but whose owner's political views differ from your own, and then try to change that to something more suitable to your own. Or use such a position as leverage to push your own political views to a wider audience than you could on your own.

Very well put and I’m terrifyingly surprised at how many people are arguing for the opposite. That is literal subversion.

This is entirely appropriate. Why do you think it isn't?

> What's not appropriate is to choose the company with the highest salary, but whose owner's political views differ from your own, and then try to change that to something more suitable to your own.

Why is that inappropriate exactly? If my boss’ opinion is “unions shouldn’t exist because I think I’m entitled to treat people however I want/play them off each other/depress wages” why am I not allowed to rebel against that and organize with my coworkers? In fact, the right to do this very thing is enshrined in law.

Did you read the Coinbase blog post? The conversation has really devolved away from the original topic. Coinbase issued a statement saying they are focused on their mission as a for-profit company. You're spinning it into something its not.

"I don’t think companies can succeed trying to do everything. Creating an open financial system for the world is already a hugely ambitious mission, and we could easily spend the next decade or two trying to move the needle on global economic freedom."

What exactly do you disagree with about their statement? What are you proposing that Coinbase do differently? Should they collectively vote to align the company with a political party?

It's a business not an activist group.

If you think that politics is an overriding consideration at all times - that every hour you spend working for someone is an hour spent supporting their political agenda - I don't think you have any choice but to choose your means of survival as a political statement. I agree that this is a pretty bad outcome, which is why I'd encourage you not to embrace such totalizing views of politics.

I think what they’re suggesting is an employee who focuses more attention on work at work will outperform the employee who doesn’t. It doesn’t matter what the subject is.