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Nope, sorry, I have absolutely had the option to do something similar and emphatically declined. I generally don't care to tell anyone this, either, outside the rare instances when it organically comes up as it did here. I want to see myself as a good person with a positive effect (as much as feasible) on the world, and taking such jobs is deeply incompatible with that.

Nope sorry, you still aren't having a positive effect unless you live a barebones selfless life dedicated to helping others. You purchase products from companies, use services, and do things for entertainment that all somehow negatively affect someone in some form and way.

Oh, you think that the arbitrary line your draw in your own life determines the standard for being moral? Well, welcome to the club with the rest of us. Its easy to make an argument that shifts the blame away from Meta - they offer a product that is completely optional, its up to the individual person whether to use it or not, so working for Meta is not immoral. Thats a line someone could draw in their own life, and there isn't a single argument you can make based in any sort of grounded framework for them being wrong.

This is tired and reductivist reasoning deployed only by those rationalizing wrongs, and immediately recognizable by nearly everybody as such. My kids could tell you what's wrong with this thinking. I believe that working a job where I would knowingly contribute to mass mental illness (including but not limited to inducing teenage depression and body image issues leading to suicide), the destruction of liberal democracy and free society, mass surveillance unlike anything constructed before in the history of mankind, and even genocide falls on the wrong side of the line. If you have convinced yourself otherwise, this is a weight you must carry. Acting so callously against your fellow humans always exacts a price, knowingly or not; it requires destroying part of your capacity to care for other people.

I hope you realize that you have addressed nothing in my post, you are just squirming on some irrelevant stuff.

Once you find a solid counter argument to "its a product that people are free not to use", then we can have a conversation.

Anyone with kids could tell you that this is an ethically vacant position to hold. Particularly given the social network effects of not being on these platforms and the addiction engineering that goes into keeping you on them, especially at an age when you're prone to feeling insecure about your place in the world. The effects are pronounced in children, but still hold for adults.

Anyway, I think I've said all I possibly can to educate you. I hope you can take something from it.

Gotcha so basically what you are saying is that its not the parents responsibility to raise their kids, the society should be structured so that everything that the kid has access to be under tight legal control, from tv shows, to prodcuts they see in stores, to celebrities being legally required to speak and act a certain way, and so on.

TLDR, if you can do that much mental gymastics, you can probably do the same to justify you taking the Meta job.

I wouldn't normally reply again, but please try and take my arguments in the good faith and appeal to the heart and humanity that they were given. I think you're quite capable of reading what I've written and responding to it coherently; consequently, I also think you must be aware that you haven't done this in the heat of the disagreement. It's only if we're charitable, not cynical, about this stuff that the world may improve. Thanks. :)

Your good faith arguments are not good faith. You are basically saying it feels right to be against Meta, therefore your arguments are correct. World doesn't work like that.

I work at a frontier lab and have rejected Meta interviews (for much higher salary) many times over the years.

And BMW meetups are not good ways to meet high-salary people. Likely the exact opposite.

> I work at a frontier lab and have rejected Meta interviews (for much higher salary) many times over the years

Good for you, but this is not the counter example to the wager that the parent proposed. It would be "I worked for a no-name company in a developing country and still turned down interviews from Meta".

The point is that there is a number for everyone to go against their "high level" morals (i.e stuff that is far removed from actually physically harming humans yourself). Anyone who says they don't have one (and not a buddhism follower) is lying.

As for BMWs, thats the idea - you can buy an M car with that salary and everyone who can't afford an M car is gonna wanna be your friend.

No - not everyone has a moral number, believe it or not. And no, most people don't give a shit about the car you drive, or want to friend you for it. Maybe in your social circles, but as someone in circles of both non-tech people and (literally) the richest bunch in tech - I promise, they don't.

What a truly sad mindset/worldview that you believe that to be true.

I've been offered to interview at these places several times but always declined. Some on principle but mostly because I didn't want to relocate and I don't want to work for a large company.

> Id honestly wager that at you and most of the people who are agreeing with you in the comments don't make the meta SDE salary, and if offered the 300k/year positions at Meta, even for a limited time, you would absolutely take it

Not OP but I can say with 100% truth and certainty that it wouldn’t matter how much money they offered - I would not work for meta. Some things matter more than money.

I mean, you Can, but I like my friends and myself.

I feel gross about the place I’m at and I don’t want to lose that feeling.