alt Hacker NewsLetting it die is the self-serving, career-optimizing, amoral take. But it's more ethical to stand up for what's right even at personal cost. A bunch of people wasting years of their life, not to mention all the resources, is a tragedy worth avoiding.
Of course, the wisdom of taking the person risk is a continuum. In some cases it is and in some it isn't. But.. To omit the ethical angle entirely seems like a bad take.
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You can voice your concerns, but should not go fighting, especially at personal cost. It could be that you may be wrong in your assessment, and the project turns out to be successful, or it could be that you may have been right for the wrong reasons, or it could be that you were right all along. In any case, you are part of a company, and that means recognizing that yours is only one of many opinions driving strategy and allocating resources. If you find your self often needing to stand up against others for your beliefs, then you are probably not in the right company.
There’s also the possibility that you’re not omniscient and the project succeeds.
> A bunch of people wasting years of their life, not to mention all the resources, is a tragedy worth avoiding.
Is it? We live in a world in which social safety nets are eroding; an economically-divided one in which the middle class is rapidly disappearing.
These things (e.g. bullshit projects/jobs) are a form of "white collar welfare", no?
That's not bad. It's not like we're actually going to fix the underlying problem.
Perhaps another bored patent clerk will use his downtime to change the world.
Honestly, I don’t even know that letting it die is self serving except at big companies which can suffer repeated failures.
Depending on scale, a couple large train wrecks may take the company out and leave you unemployed.
> it's more ethical to stand up for what's right even at personal cost.
Employment is a business transaction not a transaction based on ethics viewpoints
How do you know it's right? You can't run the same experiment of life twice so you only get one shot
I don't understand this point of view. Most of the people aren't wasting their time. They're getting paid for the effort. The business is taking a risk, and pays people to realize their vision. Some visions are bad.
Getting personally attached and emotionally invested in work you get paid for is a risk too. There's nothing wrong with that. But there's also nothing wrong putting your time in and churning out requirements if that's what you want.