It is not naivety to have a passion (expressed as their work) and to be taken advantage of by management, billionaires, whomever. It's simply exploitation of someone's belief system by someone lacking some combination of morals, ethics, and empathy.

Let's not blame good people for the contemptible actions of those exploiting them. We want to encourage more good people who channel their passion into their work (and hopefully that results in progress), and put the contemptible people into metaphorical boxes via laws and regulations to protect others from the harm they cause.

If shitty people are still getting wildly wealthy and we keep churning out burned out cynical people in the process, that’s not progress nor sustainable.

>It is not naivety to have a passion (expressed as their work) and to be taken advantage of

It is. It totally is naivety.

I find it incredibly odd that if someone goes to, say, a Brazilian slum showing off their expensive stuff people are fine with labeling them naive when (not if) they get robbed

Some people have been so sheltered from reality that they'd put their hands in the mouth of a lion and be surprised when the lion bites it off. At some point it is indeed naivety. And on this specific case it's not even like said billionaires are trying hard to fake decency

I agree with you. But this is just not the sentiment of current society. It's called "victim blaming".

If you are tolerating exploitation by wealthy sociopaths when there is enough information available to know what they're doing and they have the resources to live a tolerable life without participating are either complicit or willfully naive and credulous.

Either way they share the blame.

Can you edit that to be coherent? "You", "they", and the target of "are either..." seem out of sync.

"It's their fault for having feelings and empathy that makes them weak, it is my duty as an apex predator to exploit them": every narcissist ever.

Sometimes a victim is just a victim.

But do they actually learn? Or ignore the sunk cost of living in the Bay Area and proceed to drink another flavor?

I think cost of living in so high that many have no choice but to drink the koolaid. Software engineers in the US gets paid the highest in the world. The price for it is to become a part of the culture. It's sad, but how else will they be able to afford having a family?

This is very interesting and reminds me of Shadowrun.

Basically these people are living in a cocoon. They get a nice house and salary but in exchange the corporation gets their body and soul.

Live…somewhere…else?

That's not a realistic solution for many people with families.

You just said SWEs are some of the highest paying positions in the US. Not to mention many are able to work fully remote. It should be feasible that even with a family they can move.

If you move away then it becomes difficult to justify the high pay.

If you move away and persist with the high pay and excessive resource acquisition, then congrats- you've just entered the category of being another needlessly greedy human, like Mollusk.

But working 12 hours a day is ?

Yes, when you go to a fancy school and make a lot of money you stop being a moron and start being naive.

That's why they need a union.