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Comment by tempsy | Hacker News Reader

Will never not be surprised by how little people will accept to ruin their lives. $5k? Really?

$5k from one customer. I bet it wasn't the only time he did this.

Nope. We do it all the time. Next time you get to an intersection, look around to see how many folks are looking at their phones.

This morning I saw somebody riding their bicycle without a helmet. They could die like that, and for what? A moderate sensation of comfort?

Obviously they perceived the risk as low.

fwiw not all cultures look at bicycle helmets the same: https://www.treehugger.com/bikes/why-dutch-dont-wear-helmets...

Fair enough. My point however is that risk taking is common in all walks of life. A facebook worker who accepts a $5k bribe doesn't think he's going to get caught and the cyclist thinks he won't hit his head.

Note that bicycle helmets are not very useful at improving outcomes. Especially for cycling within cities, MTB or something completely different is likely to have a different risks and helmets may be a clearly good idea there.

I hope that pedantry about cycling safety aside, my point is clear. Feel free to swap out "cycling without a helmet" for any other risky activity you might observe day to day if you pay attention to the world around you.

Why do people break the speed limit on wet roads just to get home a minute sooner, when they could slide off the road into a ditch and never make it home at all? Obviously, because they think that won't happen.

I moved from a single level apartment to a two level home with a staircase. I'm sure that increases my risk substantially.

If $5k is worth the risk of losing their job, they're not making much money at Facebook, nor think there's potential for much growth in the role. Losing that job isn't going to be a big deal for them, and the article doesn't suggest any legal action may be taken against them.

It's another argument, but I think it's on Facebook entirely that they don't pay their employees enough, keep them happy enough, to prevent this sort of thing from happening. When you leave content moderation to your lowest paid employees, you are only encouraging people to figure out how to game the system for more.

I think you're making the mistake of assuming people always act rationally. There are countless anecdotes of well paid, ostensibly happily employed people losing their job over juiced expense reports or similar small (in dollar terms) schemes.

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