6 ms·

Yes. That’s how values work. You VALUE them, meaning—objectively—you are willing to make some sacrifice for them. Same goes for working for a predatory financ

Yes. That’s how values work. You VALUE them, meaning—objectively—you are willing to make some sacrifice for them. Same goes for working for a predatory financial institution, a manufacturer who makes dangerous products, or for that matter, a company with a toxic culture. How is this different from working for a tobacco company? Decades ago we had the same conversation about people who ”were just following orders.” If you aren’t able to change your organization, change organizations. If not, fine, but you cannot escape having proven that you don’t actually value consumer privacy or what-have-you more than your hot supper. You just consider it a nice ideal to bandy about in conversation. Summary: Those who are complicit certainly deserve their share of the blame. At the very least, you can say of them, “they value money more than privacy.” If you don’t think so, maybe YOU don’t value these things that much, which is why you won't hold anyone else accountable for them.

braythwayt 8y ago
One more thing (apologies): If you take the engineer off the hook because “they can’t change things,” you know what inevitably happens? You discover that the product and eng managers can’t change things either. In theory, maybe, but in practice they are given accountability for revenue and growth targets, so what choice do they have? Let’s move up the ladder. Can we blame the directors and ELT. No, the markets hold them accountable for growth, and every company plays dirty, so what choice do THEY have? Pretty soon everyone is shrugging, and now you understand how SYSTEMIC problems persist: Nobody is held personally accountable because no one person can make change without sacrifice, and sometimes not even then, it would take mass walkouts or protests , and each person is but a drop in the bucket. This mechanism of not holding people accountable because they don’t have sufficient authority or power to make unilateral change is how all systemic injustices persist. Racism, sexism, class distinctions, corruption in government, predatory corporations, all of them. They persist because individuals say, “What can I do? Nothing, so I might as well go along with it.” And if everyone accepts this... The next thing you know, they’re writing software to assist opressive regimes oppress their citizens.
- pliny 8y ago
  Agree in spirit, but in the case of Google/Alphabet there is somewhere for the buck to stop: AFAIK Larry + Sergei (+ maybe Eric?) control more than half of the equity in terms of voting power, so if they want too promote their principles at the expense of revenue growth they can do that regardless of the feelings of other shareholders. This is more speculative, but I think public markets don't really react adversely to visionary CEOs / founders putting principles over growth, so it's not like they would make all their paid-in-equity engineers take a pay cut for their principles either.
  - braythwayt 8y ago
    All participants are equally complicit, but some are more equally complicit than others :-) p.s. I know the market seems to like Apple’s perspective on privacy, but unless we can examine an altrnate universe where iPhones aren’t selling like hotcakes, it’s tough to know whether the market values the eithics involved, or just thinks it’s a fine strategy. If the latter, the market doesnkt really value their values, but rther their ability to make money. Which is mot the same thing.
    - snaky 8y ago
      We can examine an alternate universe where iPhones aren’t selling like hotcakes actually. > With only seven million iPhones sold in China during the second quarter of 2018, Apple's market share in the country dropped by 12.5 percent year on year to 6.7 percent, according to a report by the International Data Corporation (IDC) Apple have some very particular values in China though, storing iCloud data and encryption keys on state-owned servers. But the trend to decline started a long before that recent Apple decision.
      - mrguyorama 8y ago
        Hasn't Apple basically abandoned the low price phone market in the same period though?
esrauch 8y ago
I don't feel like it is reasonable to draw a direct analogy between Nazis and implementing browser level account logins.
- braythwayt 8y ago
  The decades I was thinking about referred to the business of tobacco companies. I was very much alive while public opinion swang against them, and I recall lively debate about the ethics of working for tobacco companies, the loss of tax revenue from tobacco companies, the ethics of tobacco companies sponsoring sport, and so on. As for the Nazis, there are some parallels, just as there are for other social problems like racism. But in my initial comment, I preferred to stick to a more direct comparison involving employment with a fantastically profitable and legal company.
  - esrauch 8y ago
    I meant the quote on "just following orders" which is specifically the Nuremberg Defence.
kryogen1c 8y ago
This is a toothless, short-sighted, and self-serving philosophy that does not solve any problem. I will explain, but first let it be known that I am a scorned Google user. I jumped on board the magic carpet of every Google service as soon as I could and loved it the whole time, but it has become clear to me that Google and my values no longer align. So I'm leaving. However, telling the workers to "just quit" won't solve anything. In fact, it guarantees that the company will have a higher percentage of people you morally disagree with leading to, by your moral standards and actions, a more evil product. Additionally, quitting because you disagree with company politics is the least meaningful protest you could levy. Inaction from the sidelines is just as damning as internal complicency. If you want to split moral hairs and feel Superior because you quit, go for it but don't pretend like you're a hero or in any way part of the solution. To be specific, Google won't reverse it's whole company plan and Buck the entire industry trend due to a _temporary_ uptick an employee turnover of a few percentage points (if that). Change can come from internal activism and external Market pressures. Quitting is neither of those and actively contrary to the former.
- braythwayt 8y ago
  To be specific, my words above are: “If you can’t change your organization, change organizations.” If the argument is that by staying they can create change, our views are compatible. If the argument is that “although they may try, they can’t change anything, but they should still stay,” then my argument is that they have chosen to be complicit, and it is appropriate to hold them to account. Nobody is really telling anyone to quit, but the argument above is that if they don’t quit, they cannot be held accountable. I reject that notion.
  - kryogen1c 8y ago
    > To be specific, my words above are: > “If you can’t change your organization, change organizations.” > Nobody is really telling anyone to quit, but the argument above is that if they don’t quit, they cannot be held accountable. I reject that notion. This is a false dichotomy. The world exists in grey areas. Just because you are passionate about security and privacy does not mean joe the google engineer is culpable for the _industry accepted_ practices you disagree with. People are fallible and so are companies. If everyone had to change-or-quit every company they worked at, no one would work anywhere. Your philosophy is not sustainable, logical, or implementable. In the spectrum of immoralities, fingerprinting users is pretty far down on the list, although it is certainly present.
dordoka 8y ago
I reckon it´s not only money that they give value. Other intangibles might apply (as all family related issues). I agree that engineers might also have something to say, but we don´t actually have a clue if some of them actually expressed they concerns for this change, unless you have some insight from inside the company that you may not be able to share. Even if some of them left as you suggest, I´m pretty sure Google wouldn´t have any problem to find some other engineers that would happily implement anything without questions. Nevertheless, I agree that concerns should be raised by everyone in the org, but the only ones that might lead to an actual change is stock holders/board of directors.
- lolc 8y ago
  Sure. If you have the monopoly, you don't need people to love you. While Google could easily find engineers to implement anything, they can't as easily find people who know what to implement: People with a deep understanding of the web. The power grab we could observe over the last year has alienated a lot of people. In hindsight we will know whether that grab worked for them. Right now, they are burning through goodwill at a high rate.
matwood 8y ago
I agree that values are important, but I have a problem with comparing this Google situation to other situations that literally kill people. An engineer who values privacy could reasonably think that staying at Google and fighting the privacy fight is the best way to keep pushing his or her values.
BeetleB 8y ago
I think you're misreading his comment. And your followon comment is showing your assumptions: >If you take the engineer off the hook because “they can’t change things,” He never said this, and in my reading is not trying to say this. What I read him trying to say is: "Quitting is not the only way to handle the problem." Or the harsher: "The solution is not to run away from the problems." More or less the equivalent of: "If the US is going downhill, the solution isn't to run away from the country, but work to fix it" As an engineer you're part of the company. And putting a recent unfortunate case aside, Google is relatively open to engineers voicing their opinions. If you're fatalistic or meek, sure, you can leave. But that's the weakest of all options.

braythwayt 8y ago

One more thing (apologies): If you take the engineer off the hook because “they can’t change things,” you know what inevitably happens? You discover that the product and eng managers can’t change things either. In theory, maybe, but in practice they are given accountability for revenue and growth targets, so what choice do they have? Let’s move up the ladder. Can we blame the directors and ELT. No, the markets hold them accountable for growth, and every company plays dirty, so what choice do THEY have? Pretty soon everyone is shrugging, and now you understand how SYSTEMIC problems persist: Nobody is held personally accountable because no one person can make change without sacrifice, and sometimes not even then, it would take mass walkouts or protests , and each person is but a drop in the bucket. This mechanism of not holding people accountable because they don’t have sufficient authority or power to make unilateral change is how all systemic injustices persist. Racism, sexism, class distinctions, corruption in government, predatory corporations, all of them. They persist because individuals say, “What can I do? Nothing, so I might as well go along with it.” And if everyone accepts this... The next thing you know, they’re writing software to assist opressive regimes oppress their citizens.

pliny 8y ago
Agree in spirit, but in the case of Google/Alphabet there is somewhere for the buck to stop: AFAIK Larry + Sergei (+ maybe Eric?) control more than half of the equity in terms of voting power, so if they want too promote their principles at the expense of revenue growth they can do that regardless of the feelings of other shareholders. This is more speculative, but I think public markets don't really react adversely to visionary CEOs / founders putting principles over growth, so it's not like they would make all their paid-in-equity engineers take a pay cut for their principles either.
- braythwayt 8y ago
  All participants are equally complicit, but some are more equally complicit than others :-) p.s. I know the market seems to like Apple’s perspective on privacy, but unless we can examine an altrnate universe where iPhones aren’t selling like hotcakes, it’s tough to know whether the market values the eithics involved, or just thinks it’s a fine strategy. If the latter, the market doesnkt really value their values, but rther their ability to make money. Which is mot the same thing.
  - snaky 8y ago
    We can examine an alternate universe where iPhones aren’t selling like hotcakes actually. > With only seven million iPhones sold in China during the second quarter of 2018, Apple's market share in the country dropped by 12.5 percent year on year to 6.7 percent, according to a report by the International Data Corporation (IDC) Apple have some very particular values in China though, storing iCloud data and encryption keys on state-owned servers. But the trend to decline started a long before that recent Apple decision.
    - mrguyorama 8y ago
      Hasn't Apple basically abandoned the low price phone market in the same period though?

esrauch 8y ago

I don't feel like it is reasonable to draw a direct analogy between Nazis and implementing browser level account logins.

braythwayt 8y ago
The decades I was thinking about referred to the business of tobacco companies. I was very much alive while public opinion swang against them, and I recall lively debate about the ethics of working for tobacco companies, the loss of tax revenue from tobacco companies, the ethics of tobacco companies sponsoring sport, and so on. As for the Nazis, there are some parallels, just as there are for other social problems like racism. But in my initial comment, I preferred to stick to a more direct comparison involving employment with a fantastically profitable and legal company.
- esrauch 8y ago
  I meant the quote on "just following orders" which is specifically the Nuremberg Defence.

kryogen1c 8y ago

This is a toothless, short-sighted, and self-serving philosophy that does not solve any problem. I will explain, but first let it be known that I am a scorned Google user. I jumped on board the magic carpet of every Google service as soon as I could and loved it the whole time, but it has become clear to me that Google and my values no longer align. So I'm leaving. However, telling the workers to "just quit" won't solve anything. In fact, it guarantees that the company will have a higher percentage of people you morally disagree with leading to, by your moral standards and actions, a more evil product. Additionally, quitting because you disagree with company politics is the least meaningful protest you could levy. Inaction from the sidelines is just as damning as internal complicency. If you want to split moral hairs and feel Superior because you quit, go for it but don't pretend like you're a hero or in any way part of the solution. To be specific, Google won't reverse it's whole company plan and Buck the entire industry trend due to a _temporary_ uptick an employee turnover of a few percentage points (if that). Change can come from internal activism and external Market pressures. Quitting is neither of those and actively contrary to the former.

braythwayt 8y ago
To be specific, my words above are: “If you can’t change your organization, change organizations.” If the argument is that by staying they can create change, our views are compatible. If the argument is that “although they may try, they can’t change anything, but they should still stay,” then my argument is that they have chosen to be complicit, and it is appropriate to hold them to account. Nobody is really telling anyone to quit, but the argument above is that if they don’t quit, they cannot be held accountable. I reject that notion.
- kryogen1c 8y ago
  > To be specific, my words above are: > “If you can’t change your organization, change organizations.” > Nobody is really telling anyone to quit, but the argument above is that if they don’t quit, they cannot be held accountable. I reject that notion. This is a false dichotomy. The world exists in grey areas. Just because you are passionate about security and privacy does not mean joe the google engineer is culpable for the _industry accepted_ practices you disagree with. People are fallible and so are companies. If everyone had to change-or-quit every company they worked at, no one would work anywhere. Your philosophy is not sustainable, logical, or implementable. In the spectrum of immoralities, fingerprinting users is pretty far down on the list, although it is certainly present.

dordoka 8y ago

I reckon it´s not only money that they give value. Other intangibles might apply (as all family related issues). I agree that engineers might also have something to say, but we don´t actually have a clue if some of them actually expressed they concerns for this change, unless you have some insight from inside the company that you may not be able to share. Even if some of them left as you suggest, I´m pretty sure Google wouldn´t have any problem to find some other engineers that would happily implement anything without questions. Nevertheless, I agree that concerns should be raised by everyone in the org, but the only ones that might lead to an actual change is stock holders/board of directors.

lolc 8y ago
Sure. If you have the monopoly, you don't need people to love you. While Google could easily find engineers to implement anything, they can't as easily find people who know what to implement: People with a deep understanding of the web. The power grab we could observe over the last year has alienated a lot of people. In hindsight we will know whether that grab worked for them. Right now, they are burning through goodwill at a high rate.

matwood 8y ago

I agree that values are important, but I have a problem with comparing this Google situation to other situations that literally kill people. An engineer who values privacy could reasonably think that staying at Google and fighting the privacy fight is the best way to keep pushing his or her values.

BeetleB 8y ago

I think you're misreading his comment. And your followon comment is showing your assumptions: >If you take the engineer off the hook because “they can’t change things,” He never said this, and in my reading is not trying to say this. What I read him trying to say is: "Quitting is not the only way to handle the problem." Or the harsher: "The solution is not to run away from the problems." More or less the equivalent of: "If the US is going downhill, the solution isn't to run away from the country, but work to fix it" As an engineer you're part of the company. And putting a recent unfortunate case aside, Google is relatively open to engineers voicing their opinions. If you're fatalistic or meek, sure, you can leave. But that's the weakest of all options.