srswtf123

I hope you never are homeless, drug addicted, or mentally ill. I have been all of these things. I can tell you first-hand forcing people to comply makes things worse.

That you don't care about someone's wishes is deeply indicative of your own moral character -- or lack thereof. That we can't even agree to disagree turns my stomach a bit. I'm deeply disappointed, and you've made it very clear to me that I need to walk away from this "community".

So, my final thought will simply be this:

Silicon Valley and their enablers, through their arrogance, short sightedness, and dare I say.. general lack of humanity are creating a dystopian nightmare. In many places, that nightmare already exists in full force. That you don't or can't see it doesn't matter. It's well underway and it won't leave any of us untouched.

Well, certainly we can agree to disagree.

This is, in all honesty, a terrifying point of view.

Forcing people to take part in a society that has already rejected them and conform to someone else’s view of normal, healthy, stable, etc., that, to me, would be literal torture. I don’t consider it humane to torture people.

How do you feel about all the busywork jobs that enable so so much more squandering of human potential? Should all those folks be forced to live your version of their best life?

It most certainly is not difficult. The ethics of it are exceptionally straightforward.

Greed is at the root of your conundrum. Put that aside, and you'll see more clearly.

Voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil. We only get to choose between candidates who are corrupt in different ways. That isn't the fault of the people, it's the fault of the incumbent politicians who game the system to be most favorable to themselves.

If you want to blame us for something, blame us for enjoying the empty comforts of modern life over choosing civil war.

This feels like an attempt to normalize wage reduction & reduced benefits in exchange for working from home.

I call BS. No one should accept this.

I wonder how much has been spent over the years suppressing this?

Every corporation has secrets they’d like to hide. No one is beyond reproach.

I don’t think anyone is disputing that — but every thing Google is doing is the result of fallible humans acting in pursuit of profit.

It doesn’t matter who or when. What matters is that people put aside their ethics in pursuit of profits. I think that needs to end.

</soapbox>

Okay, but we can agree that IBM powered the holocaust, and that those tattoos on survivor’s arms represented the punch cards for IBM systems, right?

Because really, when there’s a profit to be made, American companies are there to fill a “need”, right?

Ah yes, the legendary honesty, integrity, and forthrightness of Silicon Valley, and Corporate America in general.

My father, an ex-Navy man, pointedly asked me once: “why do you want your own country to lose?” I don’t! I want us to be honest in our success, not smug while saying “if it isn’t illegal it must be OK!”.

The solution to this could be teaching ethics at all levels of education.

Back in 2004, I had a phone screen with the folks at Time, Inc., for a systems admin position. Now, I'd been out of school for about 10 years at that point. The interviewer's first question was "what was your GPA in college?", and I was forced to confess I honestly didn't remember.

He stammered a bit, apologizing, and then hung up on me. I've always considered that dodging a bullet. It's a weird thing to ask someone with many years of professional experience. The only thing I could infer was that all of their staff were very young, and this was still relevant to them.

But then, every organization has it's quirks.

For what it’s worth, I made the same decision several years ago. I am 110% happier! I can look at myself in the mirror and feel good again.

For me it wasn’t just tech though; its all of corporate America. I just can’t take the lack of humanity, empathy, kindness. Nor can I take the useless work, endless, pointless posturing, forced “fun” activities, and the general dishonesty.

I weep for what we’ve done and the awful future that awaits. All this is probably histrionic too. But like you, I’d rather be able to look myself in the mirror, and get a good nights sleep.

I currently use 1blocker. I also run a local pihole on my network for dns blocklists and rarely is my phone away from wifi. Seems ok.

So what you’re saying is: it’s reasonable to dehumanize blue collar workers because they might be lazy?

This reason is why I personally would like separate app stores. I'd _really_ like to see an iOS app store, curated by the FOSS community, focused on privacy and productivity -- actual productivity, not mind-numbing dopamine fix loops!

Running a local "pihole" equivalent might be possible then; really the sky is the limit if we regain control of our devices.