I think they really meant “rock climbing jet skiing” which, like “extreme ironing”, is not for the feint of heart.

I’m drinking your milkshake.

Working in IT is rife with these kinds of philiosophical quantries. Right now, I try to seek out work that is as ethically and morally aligned with my values as possible, while still building a comfortable retirement for me and my partner. That also means working where I am skilled, and so I pay a price for not being more based earlier in my career.

For the moment, let’s push aside the whole problem of working for money in a society with little to no safety-net, as exploitative in the first place. Also, the problem that while not a zero-sum game, moving money around usually has exploitative moments for others.

At present, I would (and have) refused work that would inflict harm directly or indirectly on others. I consider participating in increasing strife, wealth extraction, and exploitation to be a big part of that. I work in an industry (IT) that has big problems with pollution and waste, concentrating wealth in the hands of the few, and more recently, stressing public resources (AI through power and water); this is a story that I do not like and wrestle with constantly. No job is perfect, but some are better than others.

All this leads me to a stance of trying to balance the above. This pragmatism also has me thinking in terms of harm reduction, which brings me to an actual answer to OP’s question.

Were the job something that gave me enough leeway to reduce harm, I might consider a position that doesn’t align well with my values. A much bigger paycheck would go a long way to help that - I might be able to do more for people with more disposable capital. To be blunt, it would be like taking a bet that were I not involved, things would be worse.

The pay would have to be figured out on a scale of moral compromise. A little more compromising than now would be at least a half million/yr, but i’d need to be upper management to defend livlelyhoods and chart a stable forward direction for people. Once we get into life-and-limb territory, we’ve transcended salary so “total compensation” would need to be in the millions and I’d still require levers to pull to prevent harm. I’m not sure that kind of position exists without owning the whole company.

Meta. But perhaps an additional and entirely petty reason: It’s a terrible pun.

That man is a menace.

I had a dusty laptop running a homelab for you, and figured I should show something nice on the screen. Then, I typed in my password like an idiot. Not gonna put that online. :(