
Ask HN: What’s your “Everyone has a price” experience? - stealthmodeclan
&quot;Everyone has a price&quot;, I&#x27;ve heard this multiple times from the management.<p>Please share your experience which validates this point.
======
mikekchar
Interestingly, I've had management ask me to do unethical and even illegal
things in my 30 years or so as a programmer. When I've refused, not one has
offered me more money to do it. Rather than "Everyone has a price", the
reality is "There will be someone who will do it. I don't need you".

~~~
igetspam
As I've gotten older and more respected in my field, I've done the same. I've
had C level staff demand I do things that I felt were unethical and I've
outright refused. I had someone tell me the CEO supported an action and I told
him he could get the CEO to do it but there was a 0% chance I'd have my name
attached and he was welcome to let me go. There's a lot I'll do for money but
I definitely ha e some things I won't do, like violate privacy.

~~~
WhompingWindows
Thank you for that stance, if only all developers felt that way, things would
be vastly different. Unfortunately, so few think twice about ethics.

~~~
norealidea
when you're in your early twenties and making a ridiculous amount of money,
ethics takes a far back seat.

~~~
justaguyhere
Isn't it the other way around? When I'm in my early 20s, I don't need a lot of
money but when I'm in my 40s with 2.5 kids, mortgage and cars ... then I do.

~~~
pmiller2
I think it’s more of a matter of simultaneously being young and naive while
getting used to making loads of cash.

------
presidentender
I was working as a defense contractor doing DoDAF architecture, documenting
existing intelligence programs which had been funded under the global war on
terror so that they could receive traditional funding when that budget went
away.

I worked for a subcontractor. The prime contract holder's boss found out that
I was a software engineer, which they needed very badly on another project:
it's untoward to just steal your subcontractor's employees, but they didn't
care. They offered me a 25% base salary raise, a fast-tracked TS/SCI
clearance, and travel to Afghanistan with hazard pay.

I went and interviewed, and they wanted to hire me, but the nature of the job
became clear during the interview itself. The job was writing biometrics
tracking software for use in Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan.

I refused. They called me pretty consistently for the next three years. I just
knew I wouldn't be able to sleep at night doing something that was so very
contrary to my beliefs.

Now yeah, I stayed at the architecture contract for a long time, and that was
contrary to my beliefs too. I had no business doing defense contracting in any
form. But that was a boring, actuarial, technical evil; the biometrics stuff
would've been a constant in-my-face reminder of the wrongness.

What finally ended my defense gig was that I was reviewing a powerpoint slide
which included a little graphic labeled 'squirters.' 'Squirters' are the
survivors of indirect fire who run away from the impact site. I couldn't abide
the fact that we dehumanize our foes with that kind of vocabulary, and even
though I was just building useless budget-justification documentation for
existing systems, I didn't want to keep doing it.

Recently, I got recruiter spam with a big number attached. They wouldn't match
my scrappy startup employer's upside potential, but the base salary was
appealing compared to the lottery tickets. I met with the CTO, who desperately
needed someone to run the engineers and serve as a backup repository of
institutional knowledge in case he got hit by a bus, but I didn't like the way
he talked about the women in the bar where he chose to conduct the interview.

~~~
ythn
> Please share your experience which validates this point

Sound like your story actually _invalidates_ this point. You didn't have a
price - you refused and didn't cave.

~~~
criticas
"Now yeah, I stayed at the architecture contract for a long time, and that was
contrary to my beliefs too. I had no business doing defense contracting in any
form. But that was a boring, actuarial, technical evil; the biometrics stuff
would've been a constant in-my-face reminder of the wrongness."

He had a price to tolerate a lesser encroachment on his beliefs. Sounds like
there's two dimensions to explore: what price, and what personal compromise
you're willing to accept.

------
nimbius
As an engine and heavy truck mechanic, ive only seen one that really stood
out. I was assigned to work on a Kenworth T700 after a major accident. This is
a large, commercial truck from around 2012 that has loads of bells and
whistles to handle smog and emissions. The only problem was I couldnt get my
laptop to read anything from the onboard computer that indicated any problems.
Things like the radiator completely missing, or the crank case failure, were
completely ignored. I could pull the air sensors and everything still reported
A-OK, like the truck just rolled off the factory line. I bought a new cable,
assuming it was a problem on my end, but no.

So trucks these days have whats called a urea tank. It gets injected into
diesel streams to knock out harmful pollutants and its required by federal
law. My truck had in its place an oily rag and a few twists of bailing wire.
but...my computer tells me the urea tank is topped up and ready to go!

Turns out the last shop this truck had been to was investigated by the EPA,
NHTSA, and FBI and convicted for hacking ECM's. They were even forging
certifications and licenses. The driver of the T700 I was working on had a
revoked class C license and had never received formal training. Long story
short, the chop shop owner was cooling his heels on a 12 year federal sentence
and my T700 driver was arrested when he showed up with the insurance adjuster.

~~~
bena
No offense, this is a cool story but I don't really see what it has to do with
the topic at hand?

He's asking for stories about people who believed they had staunch morals or
principles but then someone came in with a wad of cash and then they betrayed
those principles.

Shady people exist, we all know that.

"Everyone has a price" is typically used when someone rejects an offer due to
some claimed reason.

~~~
nimbius
>stories about people who believed they had staunch morals or principles but
then someone came in with a wad of cash and then they betrayed those
principles.

Running a shop to repair something that weighs north of forty tons implies
you're a fairly ethical person. Large tanker trucks for example hold a
capacity of 11,000 gallons (14.6kl). This can be anything from milk to salsa,
or more typically gasoline or Methylene Chloride. Hacking around in the
internals of the computer that controls the engine is generally a dangerous
idea as trucks use their engines to slow themselves on hills, or control
themselves during ascents much more than their brakes.

I guess 'everyone has a price' in my field is the greased palm you take when
someone asks you to compromise your ethics. Sure, you made way more on a
routine service overhaul than you normally would have, but gojo doesnt make a
hand cleaner to wash off what happens when your work is directly attributable
to a major accident or fatality.

~~~
grkvlt
> Running a shop to repair something that weighs north of forty tons implies
> you're a fairly ethical person

Wait, so the _weight_ of the machines someone repairs is somehow directly
related to how ethical one it? Would a heavy industrial crane mechanic be even
more ethical then? What about someone who works on a boat? A large cargo ship,
maybe? And does it work the other way - someone who repairs cars is less
ethical? And a wrist-watch repair man would have no ethics at all, I assume?

~~~
kemitche
You're taking that phrase too literally. He's saying that someone in charge of
operating or maintaining something as potentially deadly as a semi truck
should hold themselves to higher standards of ethics, not that there's some
sort of direct correlation between weight and ethics.

~~~
grkvlt
Then he shouldn't have used the word 'implies' as a conjunction, he should
have said 'ought to mean', or 'should require you to be' instead.

~~~
ben509
There's no discernible consequence to him not satisfying your hyper-
literalism, so why "should" he use your preferred phrasing?

~~~
grkvlt
I'd hardly call it hyper-literalism, since he's the one not using the English
language properly - that is, he failed to communicate his ideas accurately.

------
igetspam
I worked at Zynga. They bumped my salary almost quarterly and not small
amounts. By the time I left, I was making 50% more than when I started and I'd
been there less than three years. I burned out so badly I had to leave in the
middle of the day once and not come back for about a week. The entire place
felt sketchy. The CEO was a known bad person, it felt like we were selling
drugs to children and old women and the spam...

I stayed for the money and my loyalty to my team but I hated that place.

~~~
antidaily
Zynga seems tame compared to the predatory bullshit that plagues the App Store
these days.

~~~
busterarm
Do people forget that he knowingly allowed malware to be installed on his
players' computers in order to earn more ad revenue?

And admitted so to a room full of people?

------
pavel_lishin
I'm not sure if this story counts, but what the hey.

I worked for a web development firm as my first job out of college, and one of
our clients was MannaRelief. We were tasked with building the part of their
online presence than handled donations via check, credit card, etc.

I didn't look into their business model for a long time, but when I eventually
got curious, I realized that they (well, their parent company, MannaTech)
basically peddled sugar pills to the parents of children with severe
disabilities, making all sorts of promises (some vague enough to pass FDA
muster, and some not.)

I'm not sure what I should have done differently, but the ethical compromise I
came to was donating all the money I made working for them to St. Jude's
hospital - since we billed clients hourly, it was pretty easy to figure out
exactly how much tainted money was in my paycheck every week.

Fuck MannaTech, and fuck MannaRelief. Feel free to read up on them and their
various run-ins with the law:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannatech](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannatech)

Bonus fun fact: we inherited this project from someone else, and at the time,
they were storing all billing data completely unencrypted, in clear text.
Their production server was some windows box somewhere, running some older
version of some SQL database. I kept pushing them to upgrade this, since a)
not only was it a flagrant security risk, but also b) violated their agreement
with their card processor and put them at risk of not being able to accept
donations at all. Naturally, "it wasn't in the budget" until they discovered
that the machine had been compromised for weeks, and the entire database had
been exfiltrated repeatedly. Suddenly, we had the budget to start doing things
the correct way.

~~~
toss1
Ah, the old No resources to do it right in the first place, but plenty to fix
it when the sh*t hits the fan and it costs 2x-10x as much.

I've quit multiple jobs over that type of repeated stupidity, and left pay and
options on the table. Just intolerable.

------
dazc
I've witnessed the usual denial of people who act dishonestly because their
income depends upon it but, following the death of both parents, the levels to
which close relatives will stoop just gain quite unsubstantial amounts of
money is the only thing that has truly shocked me.

~~~
busterarm
Having lived through a 25 year family court battle that saw multiple new wills
materialize, cracked safes, lawyers paid "go away money", possibly the bribe
of a surrogate court judge... the same judge who threw two 70+ year old women
in jail for contempt of court and then encouraged their lawsuit counterparty
sibilings to file for PoA over them without informing their lawyers or their
own children...

I believe you.

------
oblib
In the late `90s someone called me and asked me to build "a site for people to
upload homemade sex videos of ex-girlfriends".

They told me they'd called several others but were turned down, and they
offered to pay "whatever you want".

I turned them down but it was only a few years later I first heard the term
"revenge porn site".

What really struck me about that conversation was that the guy seemed like a
really nice guy. He was soft spoken and very respectful and understanding, but
also very determined to build that site.

Back in the `70s I built custom cars with my father. Ideal Toy company called
and asked us to build a car based on their "Evel Knievel Stunt and Crash Car"
toy. They asked us if we could make the doors and hood "blow off the car like
it exploded" with the push of a button.

We told them we could do that but in the contract they sent us they wanted us
to assume liability for anyone getting injured when they exploded the car. We
declined to sign that and in the end they modified their request to just have
the hood blow off and took out the liability clause. But the audacity of that
liability request and their initial insistence of it just astounded me.

Anyway, not everyone "has a price". I have turned down many requests to work
on projects I considered unethical or dangerous over the years and don't
regret it at all.

~~~
bena
"Whatever you want" is not a number. If you had said $20 million, would he
have paid that? Did he have that kind of money?

And true, the price to compromise your morals in that case might have been too
great. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

But I think comfort plays a large part in this. You've turned down unethical
and dangerous projects because you could. You had enough income to survive so
there's no need to risk anything. You could be slightly better off, but you're
probably still doing good.

~~~
oblib
That line of thought could be extended to thinking that if one were
uncomfortable enough nothing is beyond what one would do to be comfortable,
but that's just not true for everyone, and it's not true for me.

I've grown old enough now to say with certainty that I will die without
compromising my morals like that, even if I die hungry, homeless, and cold.

------
weliketocode
I know the implication here is clear and wanton breach of ethics.

But I think greasing the wheels is a surprisingly useful and underutilized
tactic.

While many people "get it" when bargaining at the flea market or for some
craigslist item, those same people bawk at the idea of paying more than the
listed price for something they want.

Example: A month back I went to a nice and popular restaurant at prime time
without a reservation.

As I'm slowly getting closer to the host, I see no less than 3 parties all
turned away by the host's matter of fact "No tables available tonight".

I request the same table as others before me and am greeted by the same cold
response.

But, I respond: "Fifty bucks?"

Host: "SIR! Please! No need for such things! Please wait right here and we'll
find you a table right away!"

~~~
SheinhardtWigCo
Did you give them the $50?

~~~
weliketocode
Of course. Thought that much was obvious.

------
themistokl1k
basically seemingly ethical, open, liberal and highly skilled engineers
working for banks and orgs like palantir masking it all under "it's
interestsing problems to work on".

disclaimer: i'm super susceptible to this as well..

~~~
setquk
Yes. I worked for a defence contractor for a while. Everyone had their own
justifications for remaining working there effectively supporting and building
nothing defence related at all, just offensive strike based killing machines.

Graded pay scales meant people's price was very low.

I quit when I started putting 2+2 together.

~~~
golergka
> building nothing defence related at all, just offensive strike based killing
> machines

We must have very, very different concepts of defense.

~~~
mrguyorama
Blowing up semi-random farmers on the other side of the world, those with no
retaliatory strike capability, and posing no actual threat to your country?
That's not defense. "The best defense is a good offense" sounds best to those
who sell the missiles

~~~
grkvlt
What about terrorist masterminds on the other side of the world who are
deniably plotting to kill and maim many hundreds of innocent US civilians, but
whose plans will be thwarted if they are blown up? What if there are a couple
of accidental civilian casualties when the terrorists are blown up? What if
only four of the five targets are terrorists, due to an unforeseen and
unavoidable mistake, and the fifth target _is_ semi-random farmers? What if we
have five targets, and we know _one_ is a terrorist, but not _which_ one? I
mean, nobody in the Pentagon is actually just sitting there thinking 'lets go
and blow up some farmers today, those drones aren't going to target
themselves, you know...'

~~~
mrguyorama
Why should I care if some random angry guys on the other side of the world
hate America? We have plenty of those here in the states.

------
at-fates-hands
I have two stories.

In college my roommate was a gambler and heavy alcoholic. I have no idea how
he even graduated tbh. One day, after a three day gambling bender and a long
afternoon at the bar, he hit a car in the middle of a busy intersection after
running a red light. Completely his fault and when he got out, the person
could smell the alcohol on him and said they were going to call the cops and
told him not to go anywhere.

My buddy, fresh from a good run of luck at the blackjack tables looked at the
ladies car, pulled out $1,000 cash and told her it should cover any damage.
The rear quarter panel was crushed in and the bumper was partially torn off,
but the car was drivable. After a minute or so, she took the cash and he came
home with the front end of his car totaled.

The other story is when I was working at a startup. There were stories one of
the founders was skimming money out of their accounts. After the company went
under, I found out several of the developers I worked with were helping the
founder cover her tracks. There were stories of her exchanging sex or money
for them to keep quiet.

------
projectramo
Didn't happen to me but to someone I met:

Hedge Fund in Connecticut (aren't they all). Someone's first job after grad
school. Someone and his boss are trading, and things go very well the first
year. Its a small fund ($1-$10 million). The idea is to get a track record and
then make the big bucks.

The second year things are way down. Almost half the fund has evaporated.
Someone comes to work to find he can't place trades. Sees that the shares are
there but the liquid money in the cash account seems to be gone. Panics. Calls
the major investors to tell them.

Investor calls cops on him who arrest him. Turns out the boss had run off with
the liquid cash in the account (worked out to about $60,000). The fund was
down but it was a small fund.

Someone was released from jail and not charged, but the boss was.

It is just wild that someone would try to make a run for it and ruin their
lives and go to jail for that sum.

~~~
toss1
Why would the investor call the cops on the guy who alerted them to the
missing funds?

Was there a reason for him to have been suspicious, or was it more of a
"Something's wrong! Start shooting! Oh there's a messenger, shoot him!" sort
of response?

~~~
projectramo
I heard it from the guy who had the cops called on him.

The investor didn't direct the cop to anyone at particular, but to the
"company." There was only one person at the office that they could get ahold
of.

I am fuzzy on the details. I don't know if the arrest happens right then and
he was let go the next morning, or in an hour.

He was _very_ stressed at the cop's presence. He didn't know till later that
everything was okay.

~~~
toss1
Wow, so they go to the company premises, and it's the cops that say "arrest
everyone and sort it out later".

Must have been a uniquely unpleasant day for your acquaintance.

And yeah, absconding for a mere $60K is just stupid. It's not going to get you
very far, except in jail. $6 or $60 million might make some sense, otoh ...
(but that's for discussion under the other item on HN "everyone has his price"
)

~~~
projectramo
I wonder if financial crimes are more common there and the cops are trained to
get everyone out of the office so they can seize and copy the records off the
computers or something.

Edit: found this
[http://www.forensicaccountingservices.com/fraudvault/connect...](http://www.forensicaccountingservices.com/fraudvault/connecticut-
has-a-task-force-for-that/)

------
unit91
This actually happens every day.

If my company decided to start paying me minimum wage, I'd leave.

If my salary stayed the same and another company would pay me slightly more
I'd stay because I like the work, location, people, etc.

If another company (credibly) offered me a million dollars a month, I'd leave
and go work for them.

~~~
nailer
I think the OP is asking about unethical situations, rather than just people
wanting more money.

~~~
bena
I don't think it has to be unethical, just against your principles.

Someone here was talking about working for banks or data analytics companies
that work with law enforcement.

He accuses all of them of some sort of moral breach. But that's from his point
of view. A lot of them may not see what they're doing as wrong. In that case,
it's not a case of "having a price", it's just a job like any other to them.

Now. If he worked for them in spite of his clear objections, then he clearly
has a price.

~~~
catskul2
> I don't think it has to be unethical, just against your principles.

... I mean, that's just a matter of locality of ethics. IMO going against your
own principles is unethical from your own perspective.

~~~
bena
I mean you have to understand that we're talking about the more general
application of ethics.

Killing a man is generally seen as unethical. Eating meat generally isn't.

So if a vegetarian was working as a taster for Al's Nothing But Beef
restaurant, we wouldn't say they are unethical, but they are violating their
principles.

Or if Stallman started working for Apple or Microsoft. He wouldn't be doing
anything unethical, but he'd be violating every principle he stands for.

So I think the distinction is an important one. To separate one's personal
principles from what is generally regarded as ethical.

------
_trampeltier
It was about 20 years ago in my apprenticeship. My monthly salery was about
950 CHF and I had about 7 weeks overtime before my apprenticeship did end. I
would like take this time as holiday. My boss paid 5000 CHF for this 7 weeks
and I worked and did not take the overtime as holiday. I bought a new 125cc
motorcycle.

------
jadbox
This seems like a very Reddit sorta question to appear here...

~~~
mutagen
It is, but I think it is a useful discussion of our own personal ethics to
have. Take a moment to reflect on some of the scenarios and how you would
react to them. Do your principles and your belief system speak to the issues
raised?

It is also timely, in that Google and Microsoft are considering or have had to
consider their ethics company-wide. Current political events also ask what the
United States is willing to accept as a nation.

~~~
antisthenes
Yeah, the only problem is that the people who reply in threads like these are
mostly virtue signaling, and you won't get any 'controversial' replies from
people who have done unethical things for money, and if by any chance you do,
they will come from throwaways, and be as vague as possible.

------
lolsal
I had started my own dev contracting and consulting shop. I was about a year
into it. I was doing well. Once of my clients asked to hire me at 2x my normal
hourly rate as a salaried technical lead for their company, as they were being
shopped for acquisition. I initially declined. They offered to buy out all of
my remaining contracts (wind some contracts that were ending in the very short
term, buy out others with early termination fee).

They ended up offering a very generous salary, compensated me for the income
missed due to the bought out contracts, paid out my early termination fees and
the company was acquired about 7 months later where I got a retention bonus
and another bumped salary on a 3 year contract.

Not sure if I regret it or not - I was really enjoying the entrepreneur aspect
- working towards passive income. Now I'm back in the grind, but my
compensation is pretty silly for the effort required.

------
UAEbound
I think this is mostly related to ethics, but it can also refer to having you
do something that you normally wouldn't do that _is_ ethical, but you can be
paid off to do.

I have an example - I'm an average software engineer in the midwest making
$170K/year in a great field, and I've been offered a position in Dubai, in an
outdated industry, making somewhat less salary, but 0% taxes and a housing and
travel allowance.

Here is the thing - I love my current job, love the field, love the local
weather, culture, apartment. I _really_ don't want to move, don't really like
the new field, really don't like living in Dubai (lived there for six months)
- but, Net of Travel/Allowance/Salary/Housing/Taxes, I'll be making $50K more
_in pocket_

At a certain point, money can buy your unhappiness. I guess we'll see if $50K
is enough to do that for me.

~~~
adamdrake
Not sure if you're a US citizen/green card holder or not, but it might be
worth mentioning that if so all of your worldwide income is subject to
reporting and taxation. If your tax liability in your bona fide tax residence
is less than what you would pay in the US, then you owe money to the US.

AFAIK, for US citizens and green card holders, there aren't any income tax
advantages to working in a place like Dubai.

~~~
gazarsgo
FEIE means there is a sizable dollar for dollar advantage, depending on the
taxation rules of the host country.
[https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-
taxpayers/fore...](https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-
taxpayers/foreign-earned-income-exclusion)

~~~
adamdrake
True. The FEIE does cut that down a bit, but anything over the FEIE limits
would still be subject to tax in the US, though not in the host country, as
you mentioned. I was simply making the point that having a bona fide tax
residence in a country with a lower tax rate than the US does not necessarily
mean that taxes will simply be those of the host country with lower tax rates
(e.g. Dubai, Singapore, etc.).

------
snowwrestler
"Everyone has a price" is a cynical and self-satisfying thing for people to
say when things don't go their way in a negotiation.

The reality is that most people don't have a price, and that's why
negotiating, leadership, and management are so challenging. This is well-
understood in those areas of studies, but of course those areas of study often
come in for mockery or disdain here on ol' HN.

What people usually mean when they say this is " _some_ people have a price,
and those are the types of people I want to find right now."

------
pstuart
My experience is working in ad tech for many years.

~~~
busterarm
Yup :(

------
jarsin
This did not happen to me, but I worked with a coworker who built one of those
who's been arrested sites that forces you to pay to get your results removed.
This was one of the very first ones.

I and just about everyone who found out lost all respect for him.

To make matters worse I find out the idiot did it for $2k to prove to the
owners that he was a badass dev.

Sold his soul for $2k.

------
JTbane
My own experience- got offered more to work for a company that heavily
develops Windows applications vs one that does not. I heavily prefer free
software and cross platform solutions, but money talks.

------
throwaway83827
I had a friend who came up against child services, and showed me
incomprehensible and uncompromising behaviour of a child services director.

I eventually managed to download the director's mail. It made it clear why
(he'd "promised" one of the guy's children to someone in return for a
construction-related favour, essentially for money but slightly more
complicated). I handed those mails to him and looked up what happened, and
helped the guy arrange a very rapid transfer outside of the country he was
working in.

I have worked for political organisations before, so I knew the situation is
far worse than "you can't trust the state/bureaucrats", but there is a huge
difference between knowing and seeing one of them use the power of the state
to essentially kidnap children, "legally". It's not just that these people
have a price ... it's cheap. The police will enforce the kidnapping of a
child, if it won't draw too much of a crowd, for a free veranda. Casually.
Without feeling the need to hide such conversations from their official mail
accounts, where their superiors might read it. It made me see the purpose of
organisations like the police and child services and I'm sure mental services,
the criminal justice system, and so on for what they actually are and do, how
and what someone coming into contact will be treated. The upper echelons will
defend the bad actors, they won't attack them, but this event, seeing those
mails, the fact that they used mail to just banally discuss such a "trade",
killed every last bit of belief I had in even the idea of justice through a
state, and really drove the yearly "we cannot have judicial oversight for
child services decisions" we-must-save-the-children article home. I still have
to fight down feelings to the tune of just killing the director and his
customer. Killing as in ending their life, cruelly, for trying this.

Every last doubt I had about articles like police officers using phone taps to
stalk girlfriends, stealing everything from money to tvs, beating up people
for not immediately submitting to them, attacking/arresting/convicting people
for racist reasons, ... and of the fact that in all but the most extreme of
circumstances the commissioner, mayor, governor, judges, ... will back up
those people and enforce their actions, and protect them, essentially because
the only power they have comes from those assholes. They can't attack the bad
actors without turning 10% of the organisations they control against them, and
so they don't, with most probably being bad actors themselves. The worst thing
to do is to expect help from them.

And that the right action is not to expose them. You can try but odds are
vastly against you. But you can get away from them if you read the rules, and
that is the correct action to take. That when a police officer, or a judge, a
mayor, a governor or some other bureaucrat asks or tells you something you
should look at them in disgust, not say a word and walk away.

Really puts in perspective what the state is : power, to take children, to
take anything, to incarcerate and destroy the lives of poor people you don't
like for whatever reason, racist, ex-girlfriend, whatever, by giving violence
as a tool for social status to exactly the people who would take such an offer
and order is really just the result of attempting to play off these people
against eachother, leaving very little room to actually protect anyone
assuming that's what they want to do in the first place.

~~~
ufmace
Please keep this in mind whenever someone calls for more power for the
Government. Beware arguments of the form "I can't believe the Government
hasn't banned (bad thing x) yet!".

There's a kind of reinforcing loop, where the more power the government gets,
the more it attracts those who abuse that power, who are the most effective at
coming up with reasons to make their organization more powerful and
unaccountable.

However good the intentions sound at each step, it ends in tyranny all too
often.

~~~
ben509
> Beware arguments of the form "I can't believe the Government hasn't
> banned..."

Also be wary of people claiming, "don't worry, no prosecutor would read the
law that way."

If it's part of the law, it's a matter of time before a prosecutor will use
it. And if it's so unreasonable that no prosecutor should read it that way,
the law should say exactly that in black and white.

------
Bahamut
I remember a 2 1/2 years into my career as a software engineer, I was on an
initial phone interview with a VC firm. The position was a lead frontend
developer role, total comp was $350k-400k roughly - I had an unusual level of
expertise in the primary tech wanted.

During the phone interview, I asked some questions about work involved, work-
life balance, PTO/holidays - the work sounded a lot and the engineer claimed
good work-life balance. It didn’t add up. The kicker though was only 6 days of
PTO.

Needless to say, I passed on the role.

~~~
Toast_25
The pay seems worth it to me, but I only get 10 days of PTO as it is, so
there's that.

------
nailer
A family member has worked for fossil fuel companies and a weapons
manufacturer that sells to the regime in Saudi Arabia. They justify it with
"it's just a short while".

~~~
poz_load
I think they were politely trying to avoid a political discussion.

I personally don't see anything wrong with designing weapons that are later
sold and used to kill innocent people. Or with manufacturing firearms that can
be used to shoot innocent people. Or with designing cars that can be used to
run over innocent people.

It's like wanting to ban guns because they can be used to murder innocent
people

~~~
anbende
For me it would matter what they are primarily used for, not just what they
could be used for.

If my company is making a lot of its money selling weapons to people or groups
that I have issue with, and Saudi Arabia is likely on that list (though I’d do
some reading), then that’d be a problem for me.

And there’s only so much I’d excuse in others. If someone knowingly works for
a company that makes “flesh-eating nano-machines” for third world dictators...
I’m probably not going to want that person in my home.

~~~
poz_load
Could you provide an example of weapons developed to be used primarily for
selling to nations for killing civilians?

~~~
anbende
My apologies for being a little unclear. I hadn’t meant to take issue with a
particular product. I’m taking issue with particular customers for particular
products. If my company is selling ICBM guidance systems to sub-Saharan
dictators, that’s an issue for me. As selling weapons to Saudi Arabia
potentially could be.

That said, there are products that I might have issue with across the board.
Chemical or biological weapons might be examples, especially nasty ones.

Some companies lie to or otherwise deceive their customers. The new word on
Theranos is that they might have been falsifying test results. If I’m a lab
tech and I know that they are doing that, that’s a problem, as there’s the
potential for real harm there.

~~~
walshemj
If your "Selling ICBM guidance systems" your main risk is having the interview
without tea and biscuits with the CIA, SIS or FBI.

------
walshemj
Why do you want "validation" are you looking for an excuse

I have been asked to breach my contract (sharing ip) with my current employer
when interviewing.

I told them no a canceled the second interview.

------
w1
I worked aerospace internships throughout my undergrad, but when I got an
offer from a petroleum company that paid 50% more than my aerospace offers, I
took the job.

~~~
bena
And? Do you have some issue with the petroleum industry?

Or is this just about how you compromised your preferred career path?

~~~
w1
I apologize for not clarifying. I was primarily selling out by compromising my
preferred career path for a less desirable one (in my view at the time).

I don't regret the decision, and I ended up really enjoying the five years I
spent working in the energy industry. However, at the time, I definitely
believed I was "selling out".

------
pmiri
Having a job in the first place.

------
dahart
Is your management asking you to do things you wouldn't normally do? As others
have said here, this phrase normally means lowering your standards for more
money.

But the literal interpretation is somewhat tautological; we all work for
money, and we all would like more money. Most of us would do boring things we
wouldn't normally do if offered more money -- because most of us are already
doing some boring things we wouldn't normally do, for money. Think about it
this way; if you won the lottery, would you stay at your current job? Why or
why not?

During my 20s and 30s, I worked in film and games and pulled a _lot_ of
overtime. At some point, I suddenly realized that I was trading all of my
waking hours and all of my available energy for the salary and bonuses I was
getting. I was paid reasonably well, and I enjoyed the work and don't have
many regrets, but I realized that I had had a price. I was giving up the
opportunity to do anything else with my life other than work. After that, my
price has gone up, I will no longer do 80 hour weeks for extended periods
without the payoff being much higher. I probably still have a price, but
thinking more carefully about what I'm trading for that price has led me to
make different decisions, and to value my time more.

------
maym86
Anyone here stay working for Uber the money?

------
JAdamMoore
Sociopaths projecting.

------
eli
I don't think this is true.

------
fierarul
How is this on the front page?

------
davebryand
This is a statement as produced by a consciousness that believes that ALL
humans are willing to violate their values for money. This is common in
materialist paradigms or people stuck in Spiral Dynamics Red Level.

This is, of course not "Truth", nor is it true for many people who have
evolved out of these earlier levels. Those stuck in early stages of
psychological evolution often trot it around to influence others by asking
them to subvert their true path for money.

This tends to resonate with people that are also stuck on earlier levels of
psychological evolution. Those that have evolved past that and have a clear
understanding that true happiness comes from serving their values and not
their egotistical or fearful desire for Federal Reserve Notes will reject this
out of hand.

~~~
fwdpropaganda
On the other hand, it is also true that some people who reject this out of
hand just have never been offered any substantial compensation to do anything.

In any case, OP wasn't claiming that "everyone has a price", he was asking for
examples where someone did have a price, so your comment doesn't even apply.

~~~
bena
Also, it's not about money per se.

Basically the question is "What could cause you to betray your claimed
principles"

~~~
davebryand
Good point. The "price" one would be willing to exchange for their integrity
might be acquisition of power, fame or some other five-sense "prize".

