This is something I still find as kind of a culture shock on HN honestly. The idea that pursuing work that is personally interesting and remunerative is at worst neutral is basically an in-built assumption here. There is often pretty intense policing of it if there's a whiff of deviation.
FWIW I don't think it's true either. A lot of engineers can be convinced to work on basically anything if it's "a hard problem" in the right way. This is bad. We should all consider ourselves responsible for the end results, rather than entitled to the means.
Right. I've seen this parodically phrased as "I just make the rockets go up, it's the Luftwaffe's business where they come down" and I don't get that attitude at a gut level but it's clearly common (even if people don't like to imagine themselves in that particular scenario).
FWIW I don't think it's true either. A lot of engineers can be convinced to work on basically anything if it's "a hard problem" in the right way. This is bad. We should all consider ourselves responsible for the end results, rather than entitled to the means.