I've been in circles with very rich and somewhat influential tech people and it's a lot of talk about helping others, but somehow beneath the veneer of the talk of helping others you notice that many of them are just ripping people off, doing coke and engaging in self-centered spiritual practices (especially crypto people).
I also don't trust that people within the system can assess if what they're doing is good or not. I've talked with higher ups in fashion companies who genuinely believe their company is actually doing so much great work for the environment when they basically invented fast-fashion. I've felt it first hand personally how my mind slowly warped itself into believing that ad-tech isn't so bad for the world when I worked for an ad-tech company, and only after leaving did I realize how wrong I was.
I agree. I've met some very wealthy people before and when you're outside of the bubble you start to see how $$$ helps a lot to justify anything you do as helping people. A lot of wealthy people will say "look I contribute to this cause!" as an indulgence in the religious sense to "counteract" much of what they do in their day to day or the raison d'etre of their work.
It's weird to say, but some people simply are not tuned in to the long term ramifications of their work. The "fuck you I got mine" mentality is even at play in many outwardly appearing progressive communities where short term gain is a moral imperative above doing good.
> I've felt it first hand personally how my mind slowly warped itself into believing that ad-tech isn't so bad for the world when I worked for an ad-tech company, and only after leaving did I realize how wrong I was.
You should write a book about that. Did you start seeing adblockers as immoral? I've heard ad-dependent people literally claiming that.
I also don't trust that people within the system can assess if what they're doing is good or not. I've talked with higher ups in fashion companies who genuinely believe their company is actually doing so much great work for the environment when they basically invented fast-fashion. I've felt it first hand personally how my mind slowly warped itself into believing that ad-tech isn't so bad for the world when I worked for an ad-tech company, and only after leaving did I realize how wrong I was.