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Comment by blickentwapft | Hacker News Reader

Whilst his stance is to be applauded, it lessens the value of the stance given that he’s not sacrificing much and won’t suffer for his cause.

Doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do, just that it would carry more weight if he was leaving to go work at Burger King. Then you’d say “man that guy stands tall”.

Edit: Ok reasonable criticism, I’ll withdraw.

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He would stand even taller if while he was quitting Facebook, he was running in to a burning building to save a child. Of course, while saving a child is to be applauded, it lessens the value of his stance that he's not also saving 10,000 from starvation. Of course, that would be nothing next to achieving world peace while eliminating corruption in every government in the world. I'm not saying he shouldn't quit Facebook over his convictions, it's just that it would be awfully nice if he solved every global problem and then was crucified on an actual cross for doing it on the way out.

While there's no proof of life on other planets, there's equally no proof there's not, and it might be suffering terribly and frankly I don't see this guy doing anything about that either.

Until he does it's just virtue signalling.

(yeah, I don't get some people either)

Public resignations are an honorable form of protest. There is probably some consequence for doing so publicly, but suffering isn’t a requirement.

Resigning isn’t about sacrifice to the volcano god, and if that is what you’re looking for, you are not the audience.

Wouldn't you say that a society that only places high value on taking a stance if that comes at great personal cost will probably not find too many people willing to take a stance?

Currently he's leaving his ~250k job with no other job lined up. I don't think it lessens the value of his stance at all.

Yeah, he might have to move away from the west coast and live like a king on whatever scraps he saved.

I think you have to measure these things (if at all) by the person's own context, not by external comparisons.

It reminds me of the old joke about the skinflint who accidentally put a pound in the collection plate instead of a shilling. "Oh well", he says, "I'll get credit for the pound." The priest hears him and replies, "No, you'll get credit for the shilling."

I think that the idea that one must suffer to be valid is a way to ensure that no radical transformations of society take place, because in such a culture the most radical people can only be validated by dying.

So it would be more valuable if a janitor quit their job at Facebook than if a developer quit?

Only if the janitor was clearing 250k at Facebook. OP’s idea is sacrificing a high paying job that isn’t easy for you to replace.

Facebook loses much more money with this employee's departure (if their salary is indeed 250k like you're claiming) -- the cost of recruiting, training, and keeping employees is incredibly high, especially in tech.

Now imagine that OP inspires 100 employees quit -- now Facebook has a problem that it must address, because it's threatening their bottom line.

>it lessens the value of the stance given that he’s not sacrificing much and won’t suffer for his cause.

You are literally the only person who thinks this.

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