The other favorite arguments are, "if we don't do <unethical> thing, someone else will, therefore it's ethical". I call it the "selling crack to teenagers" argument but it was the go-to by Google employees defending the autoaim killbot project Maven.
There was also an idea that, Google employees are the "good guys" compared to "evil Amazon", therefore when Google does something, it's de facto good, and it's better for Google to do the unethical thing since they will do it less unethically than Amazon.
Google employees care a lot about their "TC" and "GSUs" - that's it. What bugs me is that at least Goldman employees and their ilk kind of have that tacit acknowledgement that they are in it for the lucre. A lot of Googlers really act like they are in it for the greater good even when the company picks money over ethics at literally every junction.
I faced this when I worked at a company that was building a custom fundraising platform for the Catholic Church while the church was spending millions to lobby states not to modify statute of limitations to benefit victims of sex abuse[0].
This is a publicly traded company that explicitly states its mission as “helping the world do good”, and the executive team used the exact same argument when someone questioned them on this during an all-hands meeting. It was one of the most demoralizing moments of my career.
It's easy to hate on those accused of heinous crimes (both the person and their employer) but what about the concept of a fair trial?
Imagine you were accused of doing something decades ago. Do you have an alibi for December 17, 1955? (adjust if you are younger, or imagine being accused of today's crime in 2077) You will have lost receipts, calendars, and ticket stubs. The people you were with, who could have served as witnesses, are long dead. You'll go up against a jury that hears a tragic story about some helpless child you supposedly harmed. Good luck with that.
It's especially bad that changes in statue of limitations don't just apply going forward. It really feels like ex-post-facto law, which is expressly forbidden by the United States Constitution. Cases from about 70 years back are pushing Scouting BSA into Chapter 11.
If you're a member of the Catholic Church and that child was a member of your congregation and you definitely had contact with them during that time this isn't going to boil down to dinner receipts.
I completely agree with the concept of a fair trial, but the church isn’t a person, nor should they be shielding predators from facing trial.
The church is simply acting to prevent further legal exposure to what has to be the largest child sex abuse scandal in history. They’re not interested in protecting the innocent. If they were, they’d be much more transparent and cooperative with authorities than they have been.
Exactly. And I'd also like to point out that earning good money and ethics aren't mutually exclusive things at all. I certainly didn't spend my years there for comp alone. I like to think, as well, that my work there helped improve the world in some small way, and I could justify that position pretty easily, with evidence.
I get that people on this site get a raging hard-on against tracking on the web, I suffer from the same, but to say that getting site owners to snitch on you in exchange for their sites being able to exist is some huge breach of ethics is not a rational position to take.
When one is inclined to blame someone or some company for all the troubles in the world, it is helpful to ask them about the _specific_ harm that they feel the object of their ire is causing them. If they respond with a laundry list of things, that's a tell they aren't thinking rationally about it.
There was also an idea that, Google employees are the "good guys" compared to "evil Amazon", therefore when Google does something, it's de facto good, and it's better for Google to do the unethical thing since they will do it less unethically than Amazon.
Google employees care a lot about their "TC" and "GSUs" - that's it. What bugs me is that at least Goldman employees and their ilk kind of have that tacit acknowledgement that they are in it for the lucre. A lot of Googlers really act like they are in it for the greater good even when the company picks money over ethics at literally every junction.