3 ms·
So... you're saying it's unethical to invent tools that can be used to write software that works as intended and contains no exploitable bugs, because that soft
by caconym_ 10y ago
So... you're saying it's unethical to invent tools that can be used to write software that works as intended and contains no exploitable bugs, because that software could then be used as a tool of oppression?
You can extend that absolutist argument to say that inventing anything that could be used as a tool of oppression is unethical. Like, inventing plumbing may have done great things for human society, but it was ultimately unethical because when the police came to take away your general-purpose computer they used a pipe to hit your kneecaps until you told them where it was. Or, how about this: developing any society beyond the level of the most primitive hunter-gatherer tribe is unethical, because what are governments if not the agents of oppression themselves?
This is the sort of abstract position that can't really be argued with in a vacuum, so I'm not going to try. But it's also not a useful ethic for building a modern society free of large-scale oppression, because it completely ignores the practical realities of doing so.
In the mean time, buggy, exploitable software is out there in the real world hurting real people every day.