This argument could and was used endless times here when it became clear that companies like google and especially facebook are not OK in any meaningful way, and never will be. Few left, but most enjoyed that sweet 300k+ paycheck even if the know very well they can't buy morals for any amount of money. You don't hear about these companies struggling to find talent, so unfortunately its not that effective.

There is only one way to live if you want to be long term happy with who you see in the mirror, and countless ways otherwise...

> We need the people with morals to stand up against doing this kind of work. At the very least it shrinks the talent pool

Very much this. But taking a stand first requires some agonising self-searching, educational leaps, being able to talk to others about it. It requires no less than a change in culture. But it is the most promising counter to tyranny. As Stalin sound in the Soviet Union, without the engineers it all falls apart. This is what I mean by "digital literacy 2.0". I hope some of you will read "Ethics for Hackers" when I get it out, and that we can get technical civics and ethics as part of every CS course.

I was one of these people, a moral ethics voice operating as the principal engineer of a leading enterprise FR system (ranked in top 5 by FRVT multiple years). I received major pushback on my opinions, had orders to no longer make professional contacts outside the company, and was given overworking deadlines when opportunities to influence deployments or expectations arose. My big issue with FR is the lack of training, such that high school educated operators are given the impression the software is far more accurate than it is, and that the software has an authority it does not. For these reasons, and the generalized software work/life balance abuse that industry demands, I quit a few years ago.