One of my old Ukranian friends joked that was the motto of Eastern European history.

Honestly the crux of the issue seems to be what I’ve learned from my experiences working and studying as an engineer:

The devil(s) sign the best paychecks, no one else.

As an engineering undergraduate, the best economic incentive (which is what humans tend to follow) once I graduate is not to work in areas that could possibly make the world a better place (like infrastructure, public services, etc…), but to work at places that make the world a worse place (AI R&D, Military-Industrial Complex, Data/Survailence Capitalism firms, so on).

I am fully aware that any place I work for in those fields will guaranteed make the world a worse place, but I don’t have many alternatives in my area.

In Silicon Valley (the place where I live, grew up, and am studying), you are granted these 3 choices once you graduate:

• Work for the devil (aforementioned fields), and reap the paycheck, benefits, living in a home instead of an apartment…
• Work to make the world a better place for everyone, but be unable to afford anything but apartments, and face difficulties in hiring, alongside being locked in to your position on the social ladder…
• Move out, finding somewhere that will hopefully will take you for your skills as a fresh graduate, that you can live in and hopefully make the world a better place.

For almost everyone around me in my studies, the choice is obvious. When I ask my family members, the choice is also obvious. There is no need to worry about the world around you, because you need to secure your own future, so nobody I’ve asked cares in the end.

In a way, both sides are right: Theoretically, nobody could work to make the world a worse place, and everyone could make the world a better place, and the opposite can be true.

But right now, with the cards we’re dealt in our society, things will always be unbalanced, and it’s hard to blame most individuals for their choices.

calvin was ready to bulldoze a housing development to stop urban sprawl and deforestation.

Or we could organize to collectively exert our political will against a system that was fundamentally designed to exploit us, that’s always an option — one that is actually effective in achieving legitimate change.