Poor and middle-income people earn money. Rich people just take it from the people who earn it.

Honestly at this point in my software career (~10 years), it's not evil per se, but I don't feel great about essentially existing to help rich people (VCs, PE, etc.) get richer. But I suppose that's a problem that isn't limited to IT.

I've had this thought for a while and I definitely agree that a lot of software I've built is a net negative to society as a whole and the only reason why I get paid as well as I do is because I'm helping rich assholes suck value out of society more efficiently.

For instance, I've worked on CMSs that automated 90% of the processes for medium-large insurance companies. Sure, it may result in a marginal price reduction for insureds (lol), but it almost certainly has led to fewer staff being hired to the benefit of the overlords. If more and more middle-class white-collar jobs gets replaced by software, that helps put downward pressure on wages. At the end of it all, are the marginally lower prices worth it to society, when everyone has a lower wage or no well paying job forcing them to participate in the gig economy and such?

It's a depressing thought, and I've been trying to break into research engineering roles or something of the sort to get away from my current role but it's been an uphill task.

Computer science is no more evil than most of the industries on the chart; they all offer ethical jobs as well, they just tend not to pay as well as the evil ones

I feel like I mostly got away with it without being evil thus far. I ended up working for a foundation and the team I'm in builds internet access (and layer 2 transport) for institutions of higher education. But maybe network engineering isn't really the typical outcome, most of my friends became developers.

Should be a subbranch of "ambivalent towards safety" - How do you like to endanger yourself -> Blowing things up = Chem Eng or Hit things with hammers = Geology

Then when you go to grad school you realize you have to like all of them.

Like, so what if we store our tBuLi with other low-flash point flammables? And pyrophoric oxidizers? In the same bin? That's stuck in a block of ice in the 30-year-old freezer because it hasn't ever been de-iced?

What if the power goes out for a long period of time and the tBuLi goes for a swim? Or we say you have to de-ice the freezer?

Haha sounds crazy. And, I wouldn't have to do the shitty quench before disposal. Or work on that project anymore.

Because you're injured or because PI fires you?

Haha, yeah :)

:|

:)

:|

Oh, while you're here, does this still smell like DCM? I can't tell if I rotavapped it all off and the NMR tubes all need aqua regia (sorry my b).

Look, I'm all for green chemistry, and I'll switch to using safer, more environmentally friendly reagents and solvents the second they are close to the efficacy of the real deal.

Until then, leave my acetone and heavy-metal catalysts alone!

When I find a solvent on pubchem that has the taste characterized by some mad lad from the 1800s, it makes me want to try it.

You say THF is spicy water? Now I'm curious. We must confirm this claim.

I hear ether smells good. We must confirm this claim.

These fancy new box cutters are safe and cannot cut your hand. We must confirm this claim.

Economics is science but with resources.

Economics is like ecology for the financial / resource world.

Well, whilst it's basically Astrology, it does decorate itself heavily with Mathematics.

(A more serious answer is: it depends on which part within Economics one is talking about. For example Behavioural Economics does use the Scientific Method).

Yes. In the heirarchy of science, it ranks just below literature.

Having done a degree, yes. It's entirely empirical.

Yeah but what if we imagine it's real and convince everyone to believe it too. Surely nothing will go wrong!

Economics just means studying how we distribute limited goods. It breaks down when goods aren't limited (or rather, we have more of it than we can reasonably use), but we're not quite at that level of post-scarcity for most things. Though we might be close enough to cover the first level of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Economics as a practical discipline tends to assume capitalism. Economics can still be valid without assuming capitalism. There are tons of non-capitalist modes of distributing limited goods.

Same for computer science