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The banality of evil. So many engineers just want to make the trains run on time with a better algorithm. Never mind that they cary oil or weapons or the victim

by chb 9y ago

The banality of evil. So many engineers just want to make the trains run on time with a better algorithm. Never mind that they cary oil or weapons or the victims of our next genocide. Engrossing technical problems are convenient blinders for inconvenient truths.

NumberCruncher 9y ago
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
rangibaby 9y ago
But maybe for all of us there is something about what the Germans did that pleases and excites us-something that opens the catacombs of the imagination. Maybe part of our dread and horror comes from a secret knowledge that under the right-or wrong-set of circumstances, we ourselves would be willing to build such places and staff them. Black serendipity. Maybe we know that under the right set of circumstances the things that live in the catacombs would be glad to crawl out And what do you think they would look like? Like mad fuehrers with forelocks and shoe-polish moustaches, heiling all over the place? Like red devils, or demons, or the dragon that floats on its stinking reptile wings?' 'I don't know,' Richler said. 'I think most of them would look like ordinary accountants,' Weiskopf said. 'Little mind-men with graphs and flow-charts and electronic calculators, all ready to start maximizing the kill ratios so that next time we could perhaps kill twenty or thirty millions instead of only seven or eight or twelve. Excerpt From: King, Stephen. “Different Seasons.”
eeZah7Ux 9y ago
You can't tell in advance what trains, in general, will carry. When writing ad targeting code, user surveillance, nuclear missile guidance, VW pollution test circumvention code... you know exactly what is going on.
- kbart 9y ago
  Not necessarily. I don't know much details about other technologies you have mentioned, but user surveillance has many overlapping technologies with IT security: deep packet inspection, network flows monitoring, white/black listing etc. can be used for both good and evil and switched in-between quite easily. I'm very pro-privacy and sometimes get to work with such technologies, though I emphasize that what I do is strictly for security purpose only.
  - eeZah7Ux 9y ago
    > deep packet inspection, network flows monitoring, white/black listing This is usual network security. At some point someone need to glue together existing devices and software into something that has an obvious use case with ethical implications e.g. the chinese "great firewall".
ncke 9y ago
"Engrossing technical problems are convenient blinders for inconvenient truths." Where does this take us though? If you build a bridge, how do you know what will go across it? Either we all stop or we accept that not all ethical questions can be resolved by individuals acting alone.

by chb 9y ago

NumberCruncher 9y ago

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

rangibaby 9y ago

But maybe for all of us there is something about what the Germans did that pleases and excites us-something that opens the catacombs of the imagination. Maybe part of our dread and horror comes from a secret knowledge that under the right-or wrong-set of circumstances, we ourselves would be willing to build such places and staff them. Black serendipity. Maybe we know that under the right set of circumstances the things that live in the catacombs would be glad to crawl out And what do you think they would look like? Like mad fuehrers with forelocks and shoe-polish moustaches, heiling all over the place? Like red devils, or demons, or the dragon that floats on its stinking reptile wings?' 'I don't know,' Richler said. 'I think most of them would look like ordinary accountants,' Weiskopf said. 'Little mind-men with graphs and flow-charts and electronic calculators, all ready to start maximizing the kill ratios so that next time we could perhaps kill twenty or thirty millions instead of only seven or eight or twelve. Excerpt From: King, Stephen. “Different Seasons.”

eeZah7Ux 9y ago

You can't tell in advance what trains, in general, will carry. When writing ad targeting code, user surveillance, nuclear missile guidance, VW pollution test circumvention code... you know exactly what is going on.

kbart 9y ago
Not necessarily. I don't know much details about other technologies you have mentioned, but user surveillance has many overlapping technologies with IT security: deep packet inspection, network flows monitoring, white/black listing etc. can be used for both good and evil and switched in-between quite easily. I'm very pro-privacy and sometimes get to work with such technologies, though I emphasize that what I do is strictly for security purpose only.
- eeZah7Ux 9y ago
  > deep packet inspection, network flows monitoring, white/black listing This is usual network security. At some point someone need to glue together existing devices and software into something that has an obvious use case with ethical implications e.g. the chinese "great firewall".

ncke 9y ago

"Engrossing technical problems are convenient blinders for inconvenient truths." Where does this take us though? If you build a bridge, how do you know what will go across it? Either we all stop or we accept that not all ethical questions can be resolved by individuals acting alone.