I have always worked this way professionally. But unfortunately it often bleeds over into real life; it's so hard to see the good in things. :(

We're all just trying to do a good job. I think it's very rare for someone to be earnestly malicious attempting to block the company from doing well.

A lot of "anti-cynical" takes are actually built on a deeply cynical view of how change happens

Tech companies have become pure evil

> "you should do things that make your manager happy"

If doing things ethically (not defrauding investors and customers) keeps your manager happy, then do it. If not, do it fucking anyways.

>cynical: concerned only with one's own interests and typically disregarding accepted standards in order to achieve them

Indeed you are, for calling software developers “engineers” meanwhile software development is actually writing, so they are more closer to writers than engineers.

In 2026 everyone could do worse than become a little bit more cynical

more than we already are?!

Any analysis of corporations without contextualizing them within systems generating/maintaining genocides is going to be too reductive to be about the real world, like most economic models. The result will always be too idealistic & artificially limiting the scope of potentially meaningful work (as well as the creativity needed to move past such limits).

Passively contributing to genocide is still contributing to genocide. Complicity/apathy toward genocide is still contributing to genocide.