When I tell people to grow a pair and say no, they tell me to grow up, it's not how the "real" world works, they say. The fact is, they have no role models to look up to and teach them how to say no to corruption and immoral or unethical behavior.
There was also an idea that, Google employees are the "good guys" compared to "evil Amazon", therefore when Google does something, it's de facto good, and it's better for Google to do the unethical thing since they will do it less unethically than Amazon.
Google employees care a lot about their "TC" and "GSUs" - that's it. What bugs me is that at least Goldman employees and their ilk kind of have that tacit acknowledgement that they are in it for the lucre. A lot of Googlers really act like they are in it for the greater good even when the company picks money over ethics at literally every junction.
This is a publicly traded company that explicitly states its mission as “helping the world do good”, and the executive team used the exact same argument when someone questioned them on this during an all-hands meeting. It was one of the most demoralizing moments of my career.
0: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/catholic-church-scandal-spent-1...
Imagine you were accused of doing something decades ago. Do you have an alibi for December 17, 1955? (adjust if you are younger, or imagine being accused of today's crime in 2077) You will have lost receipts, calendars, and ticket stubs. The people you were with, who could have served as witnesses, are long dead. You'll go up against a jury that hears a tragic story about some helpless child you supposedly harmed. Good luck with that.
It's especially bad that changes in statue of limitations don't just apply going forward. It really feels like ex-post-facto law, which is expressly forbidden by the United States Constitution. Cases from about 70 years back are pushing Scouting BSA into Chapter 11.
The church is simply acting to prevent further legal exposure to what has to be the largest child sex abuse scandal in history. They’re not interested in protecting the innocent. If they were, they’d be much more transparent and cooperative with authorities than they have been.
You’re generalizing 100,000+ people of all ages and backgrounds from all around the world.
I get that people on this site get a raging hard-on against tracking on the web, I suffer from the same, but to say that getting site owners to snitch on you in exchange for their sites being able to exist is some huge breach of ethics is not a rational position to take.
When one is inclined to blame someone or some company for all the troubles in the world, it is helpful to ask them about the _specific_ harm that they feel the object of their ire is causing them. If they respond with a laundry list of things, that's a tell they aren't thinking rationally about it.
This isn't always about role models and being upstanding citizens. A lot of us in this field are fortunate enough to be able to decline work based on ethical stances. Anyone can say no. Can they afford the consequences?
If the "consequence" of making ethical career choices is you earn only $250,000/year instead of $300,000/year, you should probably reflect on why you value your soul so cheaply.
That said it is possible for multiple people to be in the wrong in multiple dimensions and there is room for nuance. Robbing a bank is wrong, but doing so when under duress saying that the robber should be punished would be wrong but not if they were instead tasked to outright murder.
Putting it in such an offensive way undercuts any moral claims you might make. Maybe that's why you get such strong push-back. People don't choose to work for "evil" companies out of fear. Some just don't think about it. Some just don't care. Neither of those make their decisions right, but that's not the same as fear either. Some people have different ideas of what's right. Some people believe they can turn something that's currently negative into something more positive. Agree or disagree, it's still not about fear. "Grow a pair" isn't an argument. It's an attack, and people respond to it as such. If you wanted to make an effective argument instead of just giving yourself a dopamine hit, you might try engaging with the actual reasons people decide as they do.