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No Neutral Ground in a Burning World http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/no-neutral-ground-burning-world/ http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/no-neutral-gr

by pdkl95 8y ago

No Neutral Ground in a Burning World http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/no-neutral-ground-burning-world/ http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/no-neutral-ground-burn... > I know that you didn’t ask for this job. You didn’t ask for this role in society. None of you, not one of you, wants to think about the many people that can be affected by one fucking perfectly normal bug or mistake in the technology that you built. And this is one of the reasons we keep our heads down. No one became a geek because they wanted to be the center of political attention. > That just happened. > You don’t get to choose. You don’t get to choose what era of history you live in and what that era wants to do with you. And this is a moment when it’s all up for grabs. That’s what it means to say we’re on a burning planet. And what it means to say that we don’t have neutral ground is that you’re at the center of that fire. You set it. You’re one of the people that set it. You’re one of the people that tend it. And everything you do, the changes you make over the next months and years are going to chime down decades and centuries and shape the lives of people you will never know [...]

husw 8y ago
The solution to social problems are not going to come from nerds sitting in ivory towers, who so far have been happy to take credit for unintended positive consequences and look the other way or get defensive when negative consequences show up. The is the wrong class of people to be guilt-tripping. As dumb as trying to guilt trip someone on Wall Street. Not that guilt tripping works at all any class of people. It just produces short term fixes under pressure with costs down the line. Techies need to be guided by social scientists, psycologists, anthropologists, politicians local to different cultures. These are the people on front lines dealing with the consequences. That is the only route to a better place.
- ianleeclark 8y ago
  The problem is you have vast swathes of hard science people who inherently distrust or think soft sciences are worthless.
- freeone3000 8y ago
  If these people are so important, why aren't they making the millions and the decisions? The money and the power are in the technologists and management. We need a route to your proposed route. Some way to convince large organizations of software developers that ethics is, somehow, more important than money.
  - jonny_eh 8y ago
    > If these people are so important, why aren't they making the millions and the decisions? The money and the power are in the technologists and management. You literally answered yourself. The key is that "important" != "earns money or has power".
- kitsunesoba 8y ago
  As necessary as what you suggest may be, it won’t come without costs. It’s likely to slow technological progress down to a crawl as every step is painstakingly debated as well as render innovation more vulnerable to political and economic interests — anybody who decides they have an axe to grind about any particular technology or surrounding field can just construct a wall of false ethical questions to debate and keep it perpetually bogged down. I’m not arguing against having more thought put into what we do, but taking it too far could easily put us into a collective rut that is nearly impossible to get out of.

by pdkl95 8y ago

husw 8y ago

The solution to social problems are not going to come from nerds sitting in ivory towers, who so far have been happy to take credit for unintended positive consequences and look the other way or get defensive when negative consequences show up. The is the wrong class of people to be guilt-tripping. As dumb as trying to guilt trip someone on Wall Street. Not that guilt tripping works at all any class of people. It just produces short term fixes under pressure with costs down the line. Techies need to be guided by social scientists, psycologists, anthropologists, politicians local to different cultures. These are the people on front lines dealing with the consequences. That is the only route to a better place.

ianleeclark 8y ago
The problem is you have vast swathes of hard science people who inherently distrust or think soft sciences are worthless.
freeone3000 8y ago
If these people are so important, why aren't they making the millions and the decisions? The money and the power are in the technologists and management. We need a route to your proposed route. Some way to convince large organizations of software developers that ethics is, somehow, more important than money.
- jonny_eh 8y ago
  > If these people are so important, why aren't they making the millions and the decisions? The money and the power are in the technologists and management. You literally answered yourself. The key is that "important" != "earns money or has power".
kitsunesoba 8y ago
As necessary as what you suggest may be, it won’t come without costs. It’s likely to slow technological progress down to a crawl as every step is painstakingly debated as well as render innovation more vulnerable to political and economic interests — anybody who decides they have an axe to grind about any particular technology or surrounding field can just construct a wall of false ethical questions to debate and keep it perpetually bogged down. I’m not arguing against having more thought put into what we do, but taking it too far could easily put us into a collective rut that is nearly impossible to get out of.