Taxing externalities is great, and we should totally do that.
However, your ordinary political vote as 1 of 300,000,000 Americans is probably less impactful than your job as 1 of 100,000 Googlers. And you still get to vote regardless of your job status. Heck, this post is on the frontpage of hn getting viewed by thousands of people in relevant industries.
Certainly most ex-FAANG employees can afford more financial sacrifice than your typical person. I think there is a tradeoff here, and at certain levels it can make sense.
This reminds me of arguments about protests vs. legislation (e.g. "why are you making a protest instead of trying to change the law?"). You aren't a legislator. You can't just write a bill and conduct a vote on it tomorrow. Instead, you make public protests to bring attention to your cause and build support.
E.g. if Google can't get its employees to work for oil and gas companies, maybe they should lobby for a carbon tax so that they become acceptable companies again.
My reaction is specifically to quitting Google, not just making a noise. You should always make noise. But quitting Google damages every customer of Google, most of whom are probably doing beneficial things, so the effects are mixed. And doing it for this reason doesn’t even directly address the underlying problem.
So if you’re making a sacrifice like this to send a message, let it be “support a carbon tax”, not “don’t work for oil companies”.
However, your ordinary political vote as 1 of 300,000,000 Americans is probably less impactful than your job as 1 of 100,000 Googlers. And you still get to vote regardless of your job status. Heck, this post is on the frontpage of hn getting viewed by thousands of people in relevant industries.
Certainly most ex-FAANG employees can afford more financial sacrifice than your typical person. I think there is a tradeoff here, and at certain levels it can make sense.
This reminds me of arguments about protests vs. legislation (e.g. "why are you making a protest instead of trying to change the law?"). You aren't a legislator. You can't just write a bill and conduct a vote on it tomorrow. Instead, you make public protests to bring attention to your cause and build support.
E.g. if Google can't get its employees to work for oil and gas companies, maybe they should lobby for a carbon tax so that they become acceptable companies again.