Of course they have a choice, just like you do. You're making excuses for them that they don't need. They're actively choosing the "work at Meta and maintain lifestyle" rather than "don't work at Meta and maybe slightly change lifestyle". Every day, they make that choice.

Take all the people who get and got laid off. Their life goes on.

> responsiblities that come with obvious, healthy, lifestyle choices (i.e. marriage and kids)

99.9999% of people in the world who are married with kids, don't work at Meta.

Unfortunately, because 99.999% of people in the world are “customers” of Meta, making profit for Meta, the 0.001% of people who do work at Meta are paid like relative kings.

I think you're arguing with a point I didn't make. I'm not excusing anyone. I'm describing a mechanism in response to "I cannot comprehend why." Here, why people stay in situations they might privately find distasteful. That's a different project than assigning moral grades.

"They have a choice" is of course literally true. It's also not very interesting? Everyone always has a choice in the tautological sense. The question the parent raised was how do people live with it, and the answer is: the same way people live with all kinds of things. Incrementally, surrounded by context that makes it feel normal, with stakes that feel high relative to their baseline, not yours.

Your 99.9999% stat kind of makes my point for me. Those people also didn't get a $400k offer from Meta. The trap isn't marriage+kids, it's young + don't know better + land there + marriage + kids+a lifestyle calibrated to a specific income, plus the identity that comes with it. The golden handcuffs thing is a cliché because it's real.

None of this is a defense of working on things you find unconscionable. It's just that "they could simply choose not to" has never once in history been a sufficient explanation of human behavior.