Ask Lemmy

This question really highlights how this is by design.

The system becomes more and more expensive to exist in, forcing people to choose money over morals every day just to survive.

Because if you're living paycheck to paycheck, of course you'll work for raytheon.

Of course youll take that 50k cash for joining the ICE gestapo.

Of course you'll only ever buy the cheapest shit from amazon and temu despite then using slave labour and killing factory workers.

Of course you'll give up your morals to not have to live like everyone else that's been made into the impoverished 90% of the population, on the astronomical chance you'll get a taste of the 1% life.

I would never take a job at Palantir, United Healthcare, Nestle, Lockheed martin DeBeers. I don't give a fuck if they offered me million, but I'm Neurodivergent with a strong sense of justice while lacking the mental ability to act on it.

I once quit a well-paying job on the spot.

I was asked to write nuclear reactor safety specifications that I did not feel remotely qualified to write.

I'm not comfortable with even mild compromise.

It depends on how dispersed the consequences are. Definitely no single human life is ruined.

I'd steal a dollar from a 100k people.

I'd not steal 100k from one person if they're not a multimillionaire at least.

250k is SO LOW man. It's not that hard to get by and be happy on 60k a year if you use your money right. Your happiness and peace can't be quantified. Do you want to enjoy life, love people, and make the world better? Or just be another parasite who makes everyone's life just a bit worse every day

I wouldn't work for Palantir for any amount of money under any circumstance I can imagine.

I wouldn't be able to live with myself.

Did not and still would not.

Hell, I even got fired from a nursing job for telling doctors they did a poor job with a patient to their face. While being the main income, with two kids.

You adapt, find something else.

No regrets, would even say it's a building moment for oneself. If you fold at the first pression, you'll always fold. My moral compass is too important for me to sell it.

Can't find ? Change job, change region, change country. Most of the time, you have a choice.

I "sold out" i was desperate and took a job with Burson-Marsteller a major crisis response public relations company. I got fired after 4 months for making fun of a client to a co-worker. I saw some shit that made me never go against my morals after that. The worst thing (that I can talk about since it was leaked to the press already) was Mars candy company lobbying congress to make sugar based snacks part of school lunches.

I've turned down jobs because I thought they would make the world worse.

Everyone's a saint until the rent's due...

I'm currently working on making a graceful exit from a position I'm no longer comfortable with, so it's hard to say what I'd do if offered a massive salary to put myself back into a similar situation.

I suspect that there are few ethically pure jobs out there, and very few alternatives that don't feed into the orphan crushing machine somehow. So in my mind it comes down to striking a balance between what impact your position has, what level of control you exercise over what the company does, and what you can do outside of work to try and improve the system.

Are you willing to campaign and vote against the interests of your employer even if it means the possibility of being laid off or fired? Does supporting yourself financially provide a benefit to marginalized people by making the scarce aid they can find more available to them? Are you designing products or processes to increase other's misery or just mopping the floor? If you quit, what impact would it have on the org as a whole?

I don't think there's a simple answer to this, and I've long felt that we allow our occupations define our identites to an unhealthy degree, so I'd rather judge and be judged based on one's beliefs and actions outside of work than for participating in a system designed to force our participation.

When I was younger, I wouldn't have cared that much.

Now I would not work for criminals anymore.

I am good at my job, so my work has impact. If I worked for the bad guys, then that would mean my work turns the world in a bad direction. Every day.

The thing about working for evil people is it’s not just the work. You’re surrounded by people with no morals day in and day out, so you’re never safe. Everyone around you will cut you down to get ahead- that’s the job. You’ll be forced to develop paranoia, no way around it. You’ll be forced to do that to others as well, and you’ll lose sight of why that’s a bad thing. “Everyone does it,” “it’s just part of the game,” “I had it worse before,” or “I deserved it.” It’s bad for you. I don’t want to be around those people, personally. If you have any critical thinking and empathy at all, you’ll see through them and recognize that they’re just always horrible.

You're pricing yourself too cheaply. My soul is easily worth seven figures...

Seriously, if you're willing to do immoral things for money you need to take a hard look at yourself and your views about what is moral and why. And are you willing to do things that will make anonymous strangers suffer? How about your friends? Research strongly suggests that a willingness to put the good of the community above our own needs is probably why humans as a species are still around. What kind of person do you want to see in the mirror every morning?

Been there, done that - kept my morals/ethics. I am retiring this year. Not as well off as maybe I could have been but I can look myself in the mirror and I sleep well at night. I have enough. Not as much as others who put money above everything, but enough. I also never need to worry about someone stabbing me or shooting me because my business caused loss to them. I don't have to worry that my partner or children are toxic and only want my money which often happens to people who don't have ethics or morals and are only out for the money themselves - like attracts like?

Itt, people build the Torment Nexus

More than I'd probably care to admit to myself.

Gross take. Call me a goody two shoes if you want, but I wouldn't, and I actively look down on people who do.

The only way you'd get me to work for those kinds of companies is if I could actively sabotage them from the inside.

Fun thought experiment, but I don’t think one can know without it truly on the table. I like to think I would not at all, but my responsibilities to loved ones may force me to in some situation.

I was fortunate enough to grow up firmly middle class. My dad sold car chemicals for a pretty good income. He and my stepmom (who also made good money in project management) explained the concept of golden handcuffs to me in high school, that when you start making a lot of money and get used to that lifestyle it’s tough to take a pay cut that takes it away. They didn’t seem especially happy or content to me so having a lot of money has never been a priority for me. I just want enough to get by and save for the future.

When I was scraping by on 28k a year slinging pizzas and delivering for the post office on Amazon Sundays I told my project manager uncle that if I made twice what I did at the time I would be fine. Now I do make 60k working IT for a school district where I can sometimes do some good, and like I had told my uncle I’m doing fine now. I have a pension, I can max out my Roth IRA, have a good down payment for my next car when mine kicks the bucket, and I’m lucky enough to rent a couple rooms relatively cheap from a friend who was lucky enough for their farmer parents to buy them most of a house, all owing me to save a few hundred a month for a house of my own. And I can still buy nice stuff for myself every now and then.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to have an extra 10 or 20k for extra breathing room, but moving back to the private sector would suck, and I would probably just end up like my mother whose financial advisor literally tells her to spend more money. I feel very privileged to say this, but I just don’t think I could be bought at this point.

Well... I was 1/3 heir to a large apartment building that around that time was worth approximately 30 million dollars. It was not a family member of mine. But I had been performing most of the maintenance tasks in the building for about 4 years at that point.

I walked away from it over a couple things. The children of the owner were causing issues because I was entrusted with a lot of access and other things they didn't like, the owner had no concept of value of other people's time, and the owner had created a safety hazard in the building fire alarm system and ignored it even though i told him it needed to be fixed and was outside of my purview.

A few years after I left the fire alarm panel still had the same issue. The battery charger was not working correctly and the batteries needed replaced/upgraded. The Fire Marshall walked into the building after an anonymous tip I made and the panel was in an audible fault condition.

After I left my wife was sick and we were nearly homeless living in an old rv in a friend's driveway. It took us about 7 months to get back on our feet again.

I have a pretty strong adherence to my personal moral compass. So - a lot more than some. There are politicians who get caught taking 4 and 5 figure bribes or job offers with mid 6 figures (USD). I wouldn’t sell out my people - and risk being caught - for less than 7 figures. Money that makes me comfortable to disappear and not work.

For a job, it needs to be fuck you money (buy a Japanese shit box and midsize home with enough left to live the rest of my life) within a tolerable period and that depends on the job, but I suspect seldom would it exceed 3 years.

The older I get, the more I realise I am susceptible to moral injury. I can't do evil work without destroying myself. And I don't mean morally as in I feel a little guilty - I get increased stress, more depressed etc.

But unfortunately, I need to keep a roof over my head and stay fed.

Anyone that would sell out for something as petty as money is, in my opinion, human garbage.

I’ve outright not even looked at opportunities working in certain companies eg Meta, gambling firms etc.

Have worked for an ‘evil’ corpo before when I was very young and became disillusioned and jaded.

It’s a major consideration for me now when looking at potential employers, as to how ethical it is and what it gives back to society.

I don’t just want to make line go up for shareholders, I would like to make a difference, however naive that may sound.

Hard to say. The amount of money someone would have to pay me to murder someone, for example, would be in the tens of millions, but I have no use for that much money so risking it feels pointless.

It would pretty much need to be so much that I could retire in a year or two - otherwise it's pretty meaningless. I'm already in the financial situation where I can afford almost anything I want, and what I want isn't that much. Most of it I already have.

I wouldn't.

Sure I'll take the Palantir job and do work that's at best useless and at worst actively damaging them , then keep trying to pin the blame on others. Let's see how long they'll keep paying me.

I took a pretty good cut in pay to work for a nonprofit I believe in. Years later it's still just getting by but now I run it and our first quarter of 2026 was the best in the last few years. But my wife has three jobs, I have two kids in college and a third close behind. We're still struggling. I could make more money a lot of places. And no, I wouldn't work for an evil company.

Not for a salary. My morals are holding out for some kind of corruption at least.

For a paycheck? Meh. I’ve lived comfortably on $35k or less for almost 30yrs, there’s no allure to a bigger check. If you gave me a scenario where I desperately needed the money, say to save my dog’s life, I’d still try and figure out a way to lie, cheat, steal, or kill some rich, conservative asshole to get the money rather than work for them.

I don't, and haven't, and I've lived in poverty before that the average person would find humiliating.

That said, I can see I have a stronger sense of righteousness than the average person, probably due to some type of neurodivergence. I have dealt with plenty of bullying for it. So the pain that comes from it sometimes is something I'm used to and no longer afraid of.

It's easier once you lose the fear. Fear is what pushes people to compromise their morals.

It also helps that I'm relatively smart and can always find alternative options so far.

Depends entirely on the moral and the money.

Would I rip out a page from a hardcover book for a billion dollar? Probably.

Would I kill a human being for any amount? Absolutely not.

I think it would depend on the price. I'll screw one annoying person over if I get paid maybe $1.5B, nothing less. The person needs to be very annoying.

Interesting question. I think it partially depends on how high up in the company I am, and how much I could damage them without being caught.

I get everything I need from my current salary, so right now it would be infinity dollars. More money won't make me happier and an eviler job would make me less happy.

But if my family was in danger of becoming homeless, then I would do nearly anything to protect them. It's easy to say now, but I'd probably value their lives at significantly more than the lives I'd take. Especially if I felt the victims were deserving somehow.