If there's a real net effect on their hiring, they'll have to increase salaries to lure people in, which will take in even more unethical people (of course, not everyone that works for or wants to work for Facebook is unethical).
Some things exist in a gray area (for now) so while some people might argue that its righteous or necessary to do something, there's no problem with an opposition to such an ideal shoving it back.
You just reduced the linked comment - a nuanced, neutrally presented argument that there are significant practical and philosophical difficulties inherent to refusing to develop technology for military application - to "lots of words", followed by what is effectively a rhetorical sneer.
You don't have to agree with every comment asserting an opposing view, but at least give them a modicum of respect if they put in as much intellectual effort as that one. Why even bother commenting if you're just going to issue a middle-brow dismissal without a substantive critique?
Engineer used to (hundreds of years ago) literally mean someone who worked on designing weapons of war and/or defensive structures. How times have changed, hah.
On the other hand, your argument is weak because 1) you attack a strawman (the commenter did not indicate by their choice of example that it is the most recent), and 2) you did not substantiate why developing military technology then would be different to developing military technology now, in such a way that precludes beneficial use.
The popular rationalizations are "it will help save lives of armed services" or "prevent the big terrorist attack". Ther are dozens of reasons people make up to convince themselves and others that it's ok.
Judgement as to whether their reasons hold up to the light of day are left as an exercise to reader.
So you have read Aquinas and have a reasoned argument against the concept of Jus ad bellum - please I am sure hn readers would like to see your argument.
The "just war" argument can be taken to places it's not fit for, is all I'm saying. I'm not denying that it has it's place and time.
It is simply too powerful/useful to be assumed to be legit all the time.
It's not clear to me which one will cause more human death. Civillian aircraft is a significant cause of anthropgenic climate change.
I’m saying that deterrence and defense are different words with different meanings, and you used the word, “defend” somput down the goal posts.
Could Facebook exist without selling as much personal data to advertisers as possible? It doesn't look like it currently, but it is at least hypothetical possible.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/technology/facebook-tinke...
You're exposed to psychological experiments on every large website you use, although typically the psychometrics are more limited to things like "did you click the button that gives us money?" instead of questions like "how does the emotional content of the news feed affect our users well being?"
Also the fact that they made this research public is, in my eyes, a sign of good faith (in this specific case), and an indication that at least some people in the company take the power they have over their users' health seriously.
I have lots of other reservations about working for Facebook, that was just the one I specifically cited to the recruiter.
It showed a surprising lack of awareness and care for the users of their platform. Regardless of the intention it was grossly irresponsible to do the experiment in that way. The kind of data that Facebook had and was manipulating is completely more personal and completely different than getting people to click a buy button, a distinction lost on them. We’re talking about people’s relationships with their family, their old friends, and we’re talking about cries for help or compassion that were suppressed to see how it would affect users mood, not just engagement.
This was several years ago, before any specific scandal I can think of. I have constantly questioned whether I made the right move ... it was a lot of money. Now, finally, I have my answer.
That said, of course my story is anecdotal and for the most part, I guarantee you that the great majority of folks would jump for a job at FB. At the time I was going through the process, the work environment was very much kool-aid, with kool-aid posters everywhere, "work hard" posters and such. It went past my sad filter straight to laughable. I was on campus a few months ago and that kind of thing is gone or mostly gone. I hear it's a pretty good working environment these days, actually.
I'd say at the time several years ago it had more to do with "I don't want to have to re-activate my closed FB just to join the company", never mind having to drink the koolaid.