I don't see how that's possible. I could just quit if I felt I was doing something unethical. It is easy to get hired as a software engineer, though if you are on a restrictive work visa "just quitting" becomes a much harder decision.

By working in a supermarket, you're directly supporting an unethical business which relies on modern slavery in China, Africa, etc... along with being damaging to the environment (single use plastics, animal farming) and pushing wage slavery onto you and your colleagues. You have sold your soul, quite literally.

Reductio ad absurdum.

The cashier at the supermarket does not enjoy a job market with exceptionally high salaries, benefits, and mobility. They don't have any choice. You do.

Mobility in entry-level jobs isn't as bad as you make it out to be (I worked plenty of these as recently as a year ago).

There are zero jobs in the world without a dark side. Or as you say, "blood on their hands". Even the tiniest non-profit, village bakery might accidentally source ingredients from exploited farm workers in 3rd world countries, or pay tax dollars which goes into US war efforts.

The only reason we're having this conversation is because it's trendy to shit on FAANG companies. For any other case people would rightly say you're holding them to an unreasonable standard.

>Mobility in entry-level jobs isn't as bad as you make it out to be (I worked plenty of these as recently as a year ago).

Having been there, too, and knowing many others who have had similar experiences, I don't think you fully understand what it's like for most people working low-wage jobs.

>There are zero jobs in the world without a dark side. Or as you say, "blood on their hands". Even the tiniest non-profit, village bakery might accidentally source ingredients from exploited farm workers in 3rd world countries, or pay tax dollars which goes into US war efforts.

There is an important difference. The bakery accidentally sourced those ingredients - and I'd expect them to change if it was brought to their attention. Megacorps deliberately and cognizantly engage in the behaviors we're discussing. Everyone is required to pay taxes, so that point can be dismissed. We are accountable to our country's misdeeds, but in a much different way and with a much different approach for addressing the problem. You can change your employer (as a tech worker enjoying excellent mobility) much more easily than you can change your nationality.

> Having been there, too, and knowing many others who have had similar experiences, I don't think you fully understand what it's like for most people working low-wage jobs.

FWIW I'm from the UK so things might be very different here.

> The bakery accidentally sourced those ingredients

So your argument is about intent, rather than just the final effect? So what do you think about the tech workers who believe their job puts out more good than evil into the world?

I work on healthcare tech and the above calculus works for me.

>FWIW I'm from the UK so things might be very different here.

Yeah, it's different. One obvious difference is that you don't have the threat of preventable death or debilitating injury bankrupting you overnight.

>So your argument is about intent, rather than just the final effect? So what do you think about the tech workers who believe their job puts out more good than evil into the world?

No, it's not about intent, it's about accountability. You can only address the problems that you are aware of. If you're talking about unreasonable standards then it is unreasonable to hold someone accountable for problems that they're not aware of.

And if you believe your job to do more good than evil, and I disagree, then that reflects poorly on my opinion of you. I do not hold the ignorant accountable, but I do hold the irrational accountable.

On the accountability of megacorps, I think there are roughly two groups they are accountable to:

1. The shareholders, who care about growth and potential future profits

2. The pampered employees

For the first group, I don’t think they will effect much positive change (from time to time some massive fund like blackrock will say that companies should have better corporate governance, and positive environmental and societal effects, but this is purely words and won’t affect their investments. Other investors want to invest in ESG funds of “good” companies but they also want those funds to have the same returns as the S&P500 ...)

For the second group (who are also likely shareholders but only to a minor extent), I think they have a lot of power to hold these companies to account, otherwise they wouldn’t be so pampered. So I think it’s an important question as to why they don’t succeed in doing this at all. I suspect many employees either don’t care or think about ethics at all, or don’t particularly object to what the company does. Being charitable, they may nor care because the issues concern parts of the vast business which are not so close to what the person works with. Others may just not know about many objectionable projects (surely the company would be motivated to keep them relatively secret if internal backlash seemed likely.)

But there also seem to be many employees who do find out about these things and care and complain. The energy seems to be dissipated entirely by internal discussion or meme boards (people can post “company is doing X and it’s awful” and nothing will change but maybe the poster feels like they’ve done something now) and the few instances where someone tries to do some kind of workplace organising, gets fired, wins some money in an unfair dismissal suit, gets some media attention, and goes to work at a think tank or something, hence no longer posing a threat to the company.

Perhaps one reason people don’t organise around such issues is that they feel some kind of embarrassment about it—they have this relaxed pampered lifestyle and high pay, so they would look silly to be complaining about it.

> You are directly supporting an unethical business and generating at least as much revenue for them as the salary you take home.

Whoever benefits from this value/excess value can behave unethically with it: is it evident that Bigcorp will behave (on average/net) more unethically than Smallco?

If you work for Bigcorp and act to help them behave more ethically, are you making more of a difference than you would elsewhere?

I say this lovingly, as someone who has actively chosen not to work for Bigcorps because I find them unethical. It's not always immediately obvious that the alternatives are more ethical. A smaller company might do more harm and face less scrutiny.

>is it evident that Bigcorp will behave (on average/net) more unethically than Smallco?

Smallco is certainly capable of unethical behavior, and I would encourage you to critically examine your both prospects and the companies you end up working for. But, for most values of Bigcorp that anyone could name, there's clear evidence of ongoing unethical behavior.

>If you work for Bigcorp and act to help them behave more ethically, are you making more of a difference than you would elsewhere?

Definitely, and I would support anyone who is doing so. But this isn't easy, and the typical software engineer plugging away is almost certainly not doing this. It takes a lot of hubris to presume that you, an engineer worth .00075% of your employer's revenue, can exert the necessary influence to cause substantive changes in unethical behavior. Perhaps if megacorp tech workers collectivized, it would be more realistic.

> for most values of Bigcorp that anyone could name, there's clear evidence of ongoing unethical behavior.

Yeah, 'cuz they're big. They have a ton of people working at them and some fraction will do unethical stuff. I'd be surprised if the actual rate of unethical behavior was higher than average (barring fundamentally corrupt orgs like Enron or Theranos).

> But, for most values of Bigcorp that anyone could name, there's clear evidence of ongoing unethical behavior.

This slightly missed my point:

Bigcorps engage in a lot of behaviour, some of which is evidenced to be unethical. Smallco engages in less behaviour, which is not evidenced. You have no way to judge if it's more unethical.

You're comparing a known with an unknown. We can judge that the known is unethical. We cannot judge either way on the unknown. It follows that the only possibly ethical choice is at Smallcorp.

And I'm sure we could make a much better argument for it if we substituted Bigcorp and Smallcorp with actual options you were deciding between as a prospective employer.

Your perspective requires agreeing with a specific interpretation that is just your opinion, then is wrapped into an accusatory tone that is unlikely to be particularly effective at getting OP to consider any changes that you think they should make.

It sounds like your problem is with capitalism in general. If participating in capitalism is selling my soul, I'd rather sell it dearly.

I've worked at small companies that did flagrantly unethical things. I've worked at small companies where my work was meaningless, I was unappreciated, or colleagues were unfairly forced out. Big companies don't have a monopoly on doing "evil" stuff. If anything their evil gets called out more frequently due to their size.

Did you not read the part in the GP where he said "I could just leave and get another job at any time."? How is that not easily walking away from it?

You may not walk away if the BigCorp is subtle enough to hide how your actions are supporting an unethical intention.

I don’t blame people for working in a BigCorp. You gotta pay rent or mortgage. I’m wary of the uncontrolled power they hold over humanity and the prestige we associate working for them. These two together can be lethal.