Everyone just saying jobs they dont like, or that they have ethical qualms about, but ignoring “regardless of pay” - and I don’t believe you.
Just imagine the salary for the position is $500m per year. At a certain point, you would be able to quit the job with plenty of money for the rest of your life after working for a very short period of time, or else you would be able to use the money to make more good in the world than the harm done by your labor.
If you have a skill set someone is offering $500k for, someone less shitty is going to be offering at least $400k. So you’re not giving up $500k, you’re giving up $100k or 20%. I’ve taken bigger pay cuts than that in exchange for increased job satisfaction.
Every other job will only hire you for a normal wage that you would make in the real world.
The point of the exercise is to grapple with an ethical quandry, not to sidestep it.
I’m not particularly interested in an exercise which is completely irrelevant to real-world scenarios. In the real world your choice would look more similar to my example, so that is the more relevant hypothetical.
If we cared about the real world, we’d be actually doing something, rather than just talking.
ICE thug Slumlord’s handyman Anything that takes orders directly from the Trump administration
“By the way, if anyone here is in advertising or marketing…kill yourself” --Bill Hicks
“Oh, you know what Bill’s doing? He’s going for that anti-marketing dollar. That’s a good market. He’s very smart.”
No! Fuck you, you work in advertising you’re sucking the devils cock. Kill yourself!
Planting seeds.
I worked in marketing. Though…
- I create materials/tools to help patients with chronic diseases stay adherent to medication while building a better lifestyle
- I made materials to convince health insurance companies to cover medications
So, it’s not all bad. I moved on to hospital records analysis to identify things that would kill people, and now work in protocols and systems that help preserve the privacy of user data (one of them even uses ActivityPub).
I’ve been pretty fortunate in the jobs I’ve been able to find.
“Look, I’ve worked with other vulture companies to convince them to get better PR by not being absolute soul-rotting evil all the time!” is not the flex you think it is, R.E. insurance compainies.
I think you misread. I didn’t work with or for insurance companies.
ICE agent.
What if they paid you enough to bankroll a political campaign for the opposition?
A) they wouldn’t. B) I’d still end up in jail for attacking another agent.
A) That’s not the question. The question said “regardless of pay.” So we can imagine you get paid $500m. It doesn’t have to be realistic. That’s the point of a hypothetical.
B) If that’s the case, you need to work on your impulse control. In our hypothetical scenario, you would be sacrificing the political change you could create with your salary for the short term satisfaction of hurting someone else. It’s a bit of a trolley problem - but then, the point of trolly problems is to get us to grapple with our ethical assumptions.
Unless you are very good at causing internal disruptions, sabotage and slow downs.
Same. Although mainly because I don’t have the cool maintain my cover while undermining the organization from within.
I’d end up with assault/murder charges, for tasing/shooting one of the bulldogs.
But, what about your monthly “nut”?
I’ll stick with growing weed and building computers. Less blood on my hands there.
Was just a silly reference to the last South Park episode.
Palantir
Meta
Amazon
Apple
As a Software Engineer my list is only slightly longer and has these additional companies:
Oracle
Microsoft
Google
any military or military complex job. i refuse to assist or partake in the murdering of humans.
Don’t forget the fiscal, environmental, and resource destruction. Now if they only made cool camping/ outdoor gear…
assist or partake in the murdering
Militaries outside of America do a LOT of non-murderous jobs. Sandbag the planet? Search and Recovery? Coordinating aid on the ground? When you’re a force that happens to be armed, it’s a different job. But they still need boots and belts and brass and buttons and berets and boomsticks.
deleted by creator
Would you be willing to spread misinformation & propaganda to advance a good agenda for money?
Jack booted tool of oppression
Nursing.
Couldn’t pay me to go through the hell those people witness
Me ex-wife worked 100% in surgery. She used to laugh that she never had to talk to the fuckers. She was so clinical about it that she could tell me about a case and had no idea if it was a man or woman, black or white, nothing, just body parts.
there’s a lot of different settings for a nurse, but I guess a good nurse should be able to at least stomach the worst of em if needed
Mercenary/ “private military contractor”, ICE agent, prison gaurd
ICE
Hmm, you sure? You should watch South Park, S27, E2.
Might change your mind. 😉
Debt collector
My wife works in Accounts Receivable, and now manages a team who talks nicely to people about paying that debt over others, so their essential products arrive on time. She’s an absolute sweetie and I don’t know how she does it, but she’s excelled for a decade at it now.
Anything requiring me to travel to the US
travel to the US
They round up 12 people a month from New Zealand. NEW ZEALAND! Anyone hating on the nicest country on the planet really has mental issues they need to get solved.
Sales. Especially telesales.
I spent years doing sales because they were the only opportunities that I had available, and I hated every minute of it. Now that I’m finally out, I would NEVER go back.
Anything where you’re around the public all day. Rather wash dishes than be a waitress.
That’s the one thing i got from working food service: i so much prefer dealing with the stink and mess of dish room than having to deal with people …. Although tipping made the pay disparity pretty significant
I’d go back to waitering if I needed to – and if my feet weren’t so trashed from either combat boots or dress shoes already!
