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Comment by kranke155 | Hacker News Reader

People who work at Meta, the ones I met in London, didn’t seem too far removed from people working in the financial industry.

They didn’t seem to look much further than their desk and their bank accounts for what was meaningful to them. That’s ok, I’m sure we need people like that, but a lot of them were just doing the “career” thing and don’t really mind about what happens to the system they’re contributing to after they’ve done their part. They do the necessary work to keep the system in motion, without caring too deeply about what happens next. They worry about their locus of understanding and control and don’t mind much what happens after. That was my impression.

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> I’m sure we need people like that

Is that because if all people in the software industry cared about the subject and technology more than the money, we would be overworked for low wages? Eg. in the video games industry?

On the flip side, is it good that people are willing to ignore the negative societal consequences of their job?

(I'm not trying to make a point, but rather asking questions since I want to know how people see this.)

I think if something happens in the universe, It probably has its function, otherwise it wouldn't exist.

If there was no reason for it to exist, it wouldn't. I'm not saying it's good or bad, it's a question of accepting the construct of existence as what is not what I hope it could be under different circumstances.

There's probably an evolutionary reason why we need people who don't get paralyzed by second and third order effects.

I've known many people that worked at FB/Meta, though most of them served between 2010-2020. The scale they deal with does lead to some very interesting tech challenges that can be very satisfying. Most of them eventually moved on, and my impression is that the culture really has changed post-covid.

I visited a former colleague at the Palo Alto campus in ~2014. What they were working on looked intriguing (I signed an NDA to visit and don't remember the terms, so I won't say what), but it did feel cultish at the time.

"Desk and bank account" makes for a very small world. Have we shrunk? Are we dwarfs now?

It's the material reality of what people live through. When one is entirely alienated from the product of their own labour, what do they care for the mission and culture of a company who will fire me at an irrational whim? Better to have a vibrant life outside of work to keep oneself sane.

Well, especially if the mission of the company who will fire them at a whim is driving "engagement" at any cost in order to sell ads, or (as in the case of the company I work for since the company I originally applied at was bought out), sell sports data to betting companies, who can blame them?

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