alt Hacker News> As individuals realize that nakedly appeasing the autocrat wins favor, they voluntarily corrupt themselves and others in hopes of advantage.
When I pointed out that this is the work culture in most American corporations, I was told that is a feature, not a bug, because US government and most big tech at the time preached values in line with average white middle-class Californian. Now that this is no longer the case, the mindset of appeasing the leader is suddenly a problem.
The whole situation was preventable, but everyone was too high on ZIRP to notice. We could've used the good times to establish good cultural values, but we didn't. Freedom of speech and other foundations of democracy were already rotting long ago but nobody cared. We could've used the good times to allow better dialogue between different political fractions, but we didn't. At some point democrats honestly believed they would simply never lose power again, making it seem pointless to talk to republicans. Now that the money dried out, people suddenly start asking questions and talking about "muh big values".
I have zero empathy.
Replies
I’m curious which specific problematic values do you think were being adhered to and preached in the past, that was comparable to what’s happening in CECOT, and wasn’t opposed?
> When I pointed out that this is the work culture in most American corporations, I was told that is a feature, not a bug, because US government and most big tech at the time preached values in line with average white middle-class Californian.
It is a bit analogous to many of us worrying about Google and others getting so much power. The arguments were quickly dismissed with: "But these folks are responsible, don't be paranoid". The problem with this kind of thinking is, once the power balance changes, you find yourself in a situation you'd never put yourself now. You cannot make Google unlearn what they know about you. You cannot unsend the photos you privately shared on Messenger and force Meta to untrain their facial recognition models. Now all these things you considered a convenience given to you for free can be used against you, and the extend and direction of the abuse is correlated with who is in power.