I think this kind of analysis discounts the importance of family. Maybe, "not doing Y" is less important than "keeping my family fed".
Which family. (a) The family of the person doing Y or (b) the families of the persons who fail to ever see the benefit of X or, worse, who suffer harm from Y. If the answer is (b), then not doing Y benefits the most families. Choice (b) fits better with the idea of "doing something important to the world", especially if one agrees that what he is doing now is preventing him from doing not something that is important to the world.
You want to discount the importance of not doing Y/doing X. The "keeping my family fed is more important than [something important ot the world]" argument is just not very convincing. Because the question is not all-or-nothing. It is not either-or question. It is possible to keep a family fed without working on adtech. And if no one was in fact keeping their family fed while working on more important things, then it stands to reason the world would be even worse off as a result.
This is how you get neglected kids with parental issues. I've seen it happen. If you're going to have kids, they need to know that they are your first priority, and they need to be treated that way.
> You want to discount the importance of not doing Y/doing X.
Nope. I just want to make the point that however important X is, or not doing Y is, the hierarchy should be family > ( X | !Y).
> It is not either-or question. It is possible to keep a family fed without working on adtech.
If you're lucky. But you're sidestepping my point, which is that if you have a choice between not working on adtech and feeding the family, feed your family.
