this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
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Devil's Advocate (damn near literally this time around)
Try being a young engineer at the top of your game and saying no to an offer where the yearly salary makes google engineers jealous. Not everyone can say no.
Palantir offers like 400k/year to run-of-the-mill forward deployed engineers for foundry (Civilian platform) where the job is 99% actually helping customers with interesting engineering problems.
I can't even imagine what they are offering folks working on gotham (govt/military side.)
I guess what I'm trying to say is that while a ton of those engineers are soulless sociopaths, some of them just took a job that pays super well and they don't personally align with the goals of the C-levels. And in fact - a ton won't even know what those goals are.
Remember - Our enemy is the c-suite, not the level 1 support agent. Even at evilcorp. Thankfully I am in a position where my kids are grown up and the money treadmill isn't set on hardmode for me anymore. I can say no. But even for me it is sometimes difficult.
Yeah well I don’t really give a fuck. I never became a class traitor for money and don’t forgive anyone who has
I haven't either. But I can see how a young person without a lot of knowledge of the world and the impending weight of 50 years of work ahead of them, possibly with a family to feed, or an extended family to take care of due to the inherently predatory healthcare system where they were born, might make that choice. And I understand it, regardless of "forgiveness".
We are failing the youth and need to completely change our society. I get what you’re saying and see why it happens but it’s the result of our fucked up society and capitalism. People coming out of school shouldn’t have to face these ethical dilemmas because of the system they’re subjected to and if everyone doesn’t get on board then we’re just fucked and all generations after will be more fucked
I would bet we have a lot of the exact same thoughts on why this happens, and probably how to solve it. My only disagreement - and it is not a strong one - is the impossibility of forgiveness.
If they mature and leave, or even better, commit to being a monkey wrench for a bit before leaving... I think I can find space for them in my community.
Thats a fair statement, I’m a stubborn little bastard at times and it’s definitely a fault of mine and forgiveness is the wiser path. I guess I’m also very cautious of people who went the other way and want to redeem themselves cos of how history has treated leftists and infiltration is much worse when it happens to lefties than cons cos they just like to dead lefties
Yeah, but what's more feasible? Uniting a complacent society and not knowing when or where your next meal will be, or taking a hot check home and living comfortably? Especially when kids come into the mix. Why do you think they want to push the "have kids" and anti-abortion agenda? Because you're only going to think about the best for your family and the best is stability and peace when it comes to children.
I don't disagree with you, but I don't condemn the little people trying to survive, either.
Asking the “what’s more feasible” questions, to me, leads to defeatism and continues to perpetuate the system we are living in. That’s why I’m such of a cunt about it, if we continue to just let shit go etc and not go for serious change then nothing will change
How do you go from « saying no to cash » to « c-levels are the issue » in the context of ethical considerations for engineers that enable AI in military industrial complex?
The proverbial prospect engineer definitely decides that lives he will impacts are less relevant than his salary. That’s ethics & morality… and a seasoned AI engineer can certainly eat well enough in any other industry.
I am not sure I get what this word soup is saying. No offense intended but maybe try re-wording this if you want to discuss.
PS: foundry is not an AI platform, the engineers I am talking about are usually 20-ish year old java and python devs, and it is easier to understand how someone in that group might not even know how evil evilcorp is.
Try to read it slowly maybe?