That's not an EA belief. While EAs have made arguments somewhat in this direction, being a tobacco exec is just incredibly harmful and no one should do it: https://80000hours.org/2016/01/just-how-bad-is-being-a-ceo-i...

(80000 Hours is the primary EA career advising organization)

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/4N5BsDkcWjr5MRSQy/...

EA is one of the most evil ideologies out there.

Reading both articles, I think it depends a lot what strategy the exec employs. If they optimize for getting people to become addicted to smoking or increase how much they smoke (growing the market) then I think it's really unlikely they could donate enough to make up for that enormous harm. On the other hand, if they optimize for increasing profitability by increasing prices and advocating for regulation that acts as barriers to new entrants, and especially if the person who would otherwise have the role would be optimizing for growing the market, then it's likely their work is positive on it's own, regardless of donating.

Would you also say "so you're saying it's ok to be a member of the Nazi party who runs a munitions factory [1], QED"?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Schindler

To highlight this part of the original in support of this comment. This comes of as somewhat arrogant and is a pretty big red flag...

But also there seems to be a pervasive belief, which if anything feels way strong than it was when I was younger (maybe because the moral-majority christian-nation vibes have fully disappeared, in the US at least? sure, it was always fairly hollow, but at least it was a thing at all), that a business leader is not supposed to do moral things, because it's not their job description; their job truly is "increase shareholder value on a 6-12 month timescale", and if they try to do something different they are judged negatively!

So maybe there is in theory good to be done by being an exec and being more moral than average (maybe not a tobacco exec, but, say, in tech?). But the system is basically designed to prevent you from doing it? It almost seems as though modern model of shareholder capitalism is almost designed to keep things this way: to eliminate the idea at any point that a person should feel bad if they just do the "efficient", shareholder-value-maximizing thing. Nobody has any agency in the big machine, which means no one is accountable for what it does. Perfect, just how we like it? Whereas at least a private enterprise which is beholden to the principles of its leader could in principle do something besides the most cynical possible play at every turn.

"They did all that, and literally none of them went to jail? We got to get us some..."

Post-2008 tech companies were built that way from the get-go.

It seems pretty clear that the forces at work are designed to incentivize, reward, and rationalize "greed", and so if one just does their job, so to speak, they will end up doing the greedy thing at every turn. And really we are fine with it! -- what we value more than anything is value creation (on paper). No matter if the actual world is getting worse as long as it appears to be getting better: the economy/investment accounts/stock grants are going up.

The fist paragraph seems to say: "greed is not a good explanation", while the second seems to claim: "greed explains everything and we are all OK with it".

"We were only obeying orders" all the way up. And even when you get to the top, they're only obeying the orders of the market.

At least, that's what they'll tell you, and that's what they tell themselves.

So we have a system that puts selection pressure on economic elites to be sociopathic. And then those same people write the books on "how to be a good CEO" etc, so of course they are going to say that you're not supposed to do things that they themselves don't do.

If people in power don't provide and protect a democratic process to removing poor leadership then they do not get to complain when people make those decisions on their own.

You're saying this as if it's a given, but why wouldn't this work?

I have a problem with violence...

Anyone who could do that job has many far better ways they could apply their career.

but basically it comes across as, "I am willing to sacrifice others (but not myself) to achieve my goals because I know better."

Since money is fungible but finite, basically any sort of donation decision involves sacrificing someone. Donating to fund malaria nets when you'd otherwise have funded your local little league team means you're in effect, sacrificing the local little league team. Moreover, by donating their own money, they're by definition "sacrificing myself".

So I actually agree with the notion that being the big tabacco exec and doing good things with your money, plus helping steer things from the inside is a better proposition than becoming a baker and letting someone who has NO moral qualms with tabacco run the ship.

It’s rarely as effective to push change from the outside as it is the inside.

In the public discourse, you'll often see CEOs and founders lauded as incredibly brilliant and rare. As soon as you start to talk about ethics though, they're suddenly fungible. "Someone else would run the orphan crushing factory if not for me"

Should people simply never be able to sell or consume tobacco? Even if one’s consumption of tobacco does not negatively affect anyone else?

There, I fixed your uninspired and incorrect anecdote.

Big tobacco execs are quite literally killing absolutely no one. Last I checked they aren’t sticking cigarettes in anyone’s mouth. Personal responsibility for your own actions is unfortunately lacking in many discussions surrounding things like this.