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Ask HN: The devil's hiring. Would you work for him?

15 points by noduerme ↗ HN
At what point or for what amount of money would you throw away all your ethics, all your independence, to take a paycheck for putting your hands on the wheel of putting something viciously evil into the world?

I came across this tonight:

https://www.bermanco.com/careers/

Like a lot of my generation I'm a Silver Jews fan and I've read a lot into David Berman's music and his thoughts about his father. I'm glad to see that the father can't find a web developer to do his "controversial" dirty work. I'd assume the money is right. You just have to "believe in free markets and limited government" and "have a sense of humor".

I have a sense of humor, and believe in free markets, which is why I'm posting this. I find it funny that this schmuck can't find a fucking web designer in America willing to touch his toxic shit.

So what would it take for you?

26 comments

[ 5.6 ms ] story [ 103 ms ] thread
mantas
If F-U money could me made in 6 months? Procrastinate enough to make sure project is not usable by the end of the term and then quit.
i_cannot_hack
Then you are not working for the devil, you are sabotaging the devil. Not really an answer in the spirit of the question.
anthonygd
I'm always confused when I see these sorts of comments.

You're so concerned with ethics, while having no qualms about lying and stealing? Ethics are optional when personal benefit is involved?

jjj123
Some people don’t think lying to and stealing from bad people is unethical. It sounds like you disagree, that’s probably the core of your confusion.
anthonygd
It seems like such as clear cut example of how "bad people" think though. They always considered themselves justified in harming others.

Variations of "the golden rule" are common around the world. If you actively decide to treat others in a way that you don't want to be treated, then you've failed the most universal rule of being a decent person.

I fully understand thoughtless knee jerk behavior that is unethical, but taking your time and calming coming up with the idea that you are special and it's ok to harm others... it's just a bit strong on the cognitive dissonance.

jjj123
I think the missing piece is the harm being done to others constantly by bad actors (not just people, also institutions, should have clarified that in my first comment). By doing harm to those bad actors, you’ve potentially mitigated harm to others.

Here’s an extreme example, just to take this to its logical conclusion: you’re in nazi Germany, you decide to join the Nazi party and sabotage it in many small ways, generally just gumming up the works. You lie and steal from the party to do it. Is that an unethical thing to do?

I’m not saying that joining a bad company and committing time theft is anywhere near as clear-cut, I’m just curious if you think it’s ever okay to break the golden rule.

mantas
Consider that vast majority of people are eating meat. They harm (or somebody else harms for them) animals literally every day. Just like a lot of other living beings on the planet. Maybe cognitive dissonance is the norm? Or harming someone for your own survival is not automatically a bad thing?
mantas
I don't see either lying or stealing as ethic subjects. They're just derivatives from other ethic points.

Kid accidentally saw his Christmas too early and started asking about it. I see it much more ethical to work my way out by lying than the alternatives.

I grew up in ex-USSR. Stealing form occupant Soviet government was the norm and even cheered. Because why not? Evil regime with corrupt elite deserves such treatment. Obviously it did bit us back since some people still had that attitude and kept stealing from our own free state.

Some people may say that now some people sabotage current regime by stealing so that must be OK. Yes, that may be OK in those people mind. But regime can fight back (just like Soviet regime had full rights to fight back). And I support the regime that I think is fair. Obviously different people have different life experiences and that brings us to conflicts when different people support different regimes. And all sides think their side is ethical while the other is evil. But such is the cost in the diverse world.

mypastself
Is there context to this? Brief online search doesn’t turn up much about who any of those people are or why we should hate them.
noduerme
If you go one directory up and look at the main page of the site hiring, you can watch the PR flack in charge of the operation interviewed on 60 Minutes where he more or less revels in being labeled "Dr Evil".

His son, David Berman, was a fantastic songwriter/poet who spent most of his life denouncing his father's politics. This is a good primer: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/forgive-father-sinned/

axiosgunnar
Slightly conservative opinions are now "the devil"?
noduerme
I'm somewhat conservative. This ain't that. Run 80 websites for 80 false front nonprofits that peddle whatever opinion the corporation who funded that one asks you to run . Oh, and be creative! Bring some zesty fun to the job.
petecooper
If my domestic / relationship situation was different, I'd work for / with Dominic Cummings[1].

He's not the devil, and I don't know David Berman so will not compare, so I'm sidestepping your OP question.

I'm also not a fan of the in-power Conservative party (his previous employer) we have in the UK right now, but there's something about him and his tactics that give me a gut feeling it'd be the wildest of wild rides, and there's something perversely appealing about that to me.

This probably says more about me and my chosen career path to date than anything else.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_Cummings

noduerme
I don't know much about this guy (Cummings), but I think it's different in that he has at least a position you may quietly agree with. The case above has no actual position; it's purely mercenary public manipulation.
anthonygd
Doesn't seem fundamentally different from any other PR firm. They tend to specialize in clients leaning in one direction or the other, but don't have specific interests beyond revenue.

The page showing their work (https://www.bermanco.com/television-video/) has a bit of a theme but nothing jumped out as outside of the mainstream, definitely not worthy of the devil.

c7DJTLrn
Plenty of people already work for Facebook.
noduerme
Short story. In 1998 I was a junior web designer at the company that had the contract w/ Sansome Street Associates (AKA, Banana Republic, GAP, Old Navy, and the Mendocino Redwood Company). Guess you didn't hear about it, but the MRC was bigtime into chopping down old-growth redwoods while they were pushing trendy sweaters through their Old Navy brand. So it fell on me to build the MRC website. They wanted it to look eco-friendly and wholesome. After the initial review, we met with them and they basically said it looked too slick and professional. They said they wanted 'something that looks more granola and hippie, like it was made by an amateur, so all the enviro fucks emails can go there to die.' I paraphrase, but, we had to reduce all the images to 256-color dithered GIFs and make the email form malfunction on purpose. They paid the company I worked for somewhere north of $100k for this website. (I was making $8.50 an hour). My immediate superior quit as a result of it, and I followed her shortly thereafter.

It was a good lesson when I was 17.

Also, long before he had announced that his father was this asshole, that was the year I could play every single word of the Silver Jews' "Natural Bridge" - and fell off the stage at the Blue Lamp on Jones and Geary with a harmonica, in the middle of playing one of those songs.

h2odragon
There's a difference between evil, and beliefs you disagree with.

Someone else mentioned "false front nonprofits"... If the companies are willing to cheat the government and society that way, they're likely gonna fuck over their employees too.

Issue advocates often have this thing where they feel that since they see their issue as more important than money and success, everyone else should too; and thus professional service providers oughtta be honored to have had the chance to contribute to the cause. Whatever the cause is. If you accept these terms even once, you're a supporter and thus any sign that you're not as nuts as they are later is a betrayal.

Even decent people become twisted caricatures after a few years of that kind of world.

noduerme
I think that's true of issue advocates. This is the opposite case, though. This is a job where no issue is as important as the money. You might have to be a supporter of some position or other, temporarily, but they'll tell you what to support. Other than that, the main qualification is taking the money and shutting up.
gherkinnn
It would take a lot. I could earn multiples of my current salary working for a Faang. But I find most of questionable, so here I am.

But at the very least, Google Photos is a good product. AWS is solid. I like my iPhone and React is pleasant to work with. Despite heaps of nastiness there's _some_ good aspects.

While companies like Berman and Company have brought nothing but shit upon us.

It is PR firms like them that helped tobacco companies hide the link between smoking and lung cancer. It is ticks like them who continue to sabotage meaningful measures against obesity. It is leeches like them who try to sabotage attempts at solving climate change.

Literally hundreds of thousands of people have perished because of their actions.

These vultures are disgusting, their methods are disgusting, everything they do is disgusting, and I find it exceedingly hard not to think of everybody working for them as the same.

So no. I would never work for Berman.

noduerme
Thanks. I'd understand I guess if you made an argument to the contrary, but this reply comes back to me as the one good thing about my angry shitpost. -- I think all I wanted was to hear someone else say this.
pmdulaney
Even if only spoken of metaphorically, it's good to have people reminded of the existence of the devil. Some corner of their mind, if only momentarily, will ask, "I wonder if he really exists?"
irvingprime
I looked at the job description. What is toxic about it? And what does your taste in music have to do with it?

It's not in my line but if it was, I would at least talk to them. Why not?

SecurityMinded
Give me job security and 50% more than what I am making, which is not much with my current salary in very low 6-digits, I'll start working for the devil tomorrow.

Life is not so rosy to follow your ideals and inclusivity and all that crap when you're past 50 and still in a non-managerial role in tech industry. So, everyone who is poo-poo'ing ggogle's and facebook's whatevrer other companies being the evil, get off your high horses. Before you know it, you will be unemployable. Think about it.