4 ms·

This idealism reminds me of a post I saw here a long time ago about a software developer union. One of their stated goals was "to advocate for people whose job

by MrLeap 8y ago

This idealism reminds me of a post I saw here a long time ago about a software developer union. One of their stated goals was "to advocate for people whose job was displaced by automation". Both read to me immediately like high octane, weapons grade, 200 proof naiveté. "Everyone at UPS, for anything they do, should ask a simple question on any proposal ... how does this impact bicycle couriers?" "Everyone at Amazon, for anything they do, should ask a simple quesiton on any proposal ... how does this impact local mom and pop general stores?" The organization you're talking about is diametrically configured to oppose the thing you're saying they should be mindful of. I just don't even know how it's a thing you can imagine is possible in this world. This comment reads to me like someone saying. "When anyone in the world is about to shoot another person, they should stop.. think about what they're doing and then _not_ shoot them. This would reduce the number of shootings dramatically." I uh.. atleast to some degree agree with all the above things.. despite that, there's a whole axis of maximum confused exasperation I feel reading about them.

perfunctory 8y ago
> The organization you're talking about is diametrically configured to oppose the thing you're saying they should be mindful of True. That's precisely why engineering ethics is our last hope.
- MrLeap 8y ago
  If our last hope depends on any kind of unity of intent among members of our profession then we're doomed. It's at this point I am tempted to unpack what precipice we're about to go over when our last hope disappoints. Instead i'll stop on an optimistic note: everything is terrible and nothing matters, but humans will keep doing human stuff for as long as we can. By some measures things will continuously improve and by some others we'll regress and retry old tyrannies under new epochs. The ebb and flow can't be arrested by unity while we all hate each other like we do. Fortunately, we'll only keep on hating each other until we get something else we hate even more. Make no mistake, some day we'll all come together to hate something else again. The unity of action that'll afford will allow us to do some pretty remarkable things. Hopefully the thing we all hate together actually deserves it this time. It doesn't always work that way ;(
- IBM 8y ago
  It absolutely isn't. Industries are regulated because they don't naturally do what society wants. Regulation changes their incentives and behavior to make that happen. A leopard can't change its spots and an ad-tech company is never going to design their products with preserving privacy first, because they can't [1]. It's like a body rejecting an organ transplant. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_by_design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_by_design
  - yuhong 8y ago
    That is why I wrote the essay. The history behind that is not simple.
- FooHentai 8y ago
  Mhm. In the same way that imbuing stoats with a sense of empathy will help restore endangered bird numbers. As another comment stated, direct governance in the form of regulation is the appropriate tool for this problem. Other options, especially hoping for an application of a particular ethical framework, is dreams.
SilasX 8y ago
I can see how the programmer example is analogous to the others and shows naïveté. I don't see how any of those is analogous the parent's suggestion. Privacy is not a business rival to Google (as Amazon to small shops or UPS to bike couriers). True, the attribute privacy hurts one of Google's profit channels; but then, it also makes the product less attractive [1] to the users it needs and exposes it to legal liability, or may leak information that hurts users and hurts profitability in other ways. Even if Google benefits from loss of privacy in some respects, it is hurt in other ways by not consistently, predictably enforcing privacy boundaries. Neither is true for Amazon vs mom-and-pop or UPS vs independent bike couriers. Lumping them together is unfair and only communicates "there exists a superficial similarity to an argument that's stupid". [1] I get it, "if you're not paying, you're not the customer..." My point should be clear though.
- MrLeap 8y ago
  Google's takes money from group B, and use their tools and tech to convince group A to give money to group B. Data about A is the fuel for the machines that allow them to provide value for group B. I removed the indirection in my metaphors to try and communicate how the "consciousness" of a large company views the assertion. If you view google as a sentient entity, it looks upon comments like the GP as though they're coming from children. I could've added more parity by replacing the business rivals with the words "decentralization" on all of my examples, but I think it muddies the message for no gain. "Google should think about what it's doing to people's privacy!" sounds naive to me because google does exactly this! The levy of google's smartest are constantly trying to find ways to gather more data, or infer more things from the data they've got. Privacy is more of a business rival to google than any other company. Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri -- they're all just new pump jacks. Really, the whole concept of the parent shows a lot of naiveté I didn't even address. 7/10 engineers on a floor agreeing not to take the "mind control plebs" ticket doesn't do a thing when there's enough people to complete it anyways. Your gesture didn't do anything. Publicly martyring your career for your idealism DOES add a nugget of fuel to society's awareness and opinions about the thing, but I suspect the issue is just too oblique right now for that fire to get started. Off topic, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Facebook / Google are >100 years ahead of everyone else in sociology. At some point the code's just cracked, and taking away the keys doesn't do anything but deepen the moat around Facebook / Google. If those companies are ever defeated in war, I suspect that their contribution to society will be similar to Unit 731, Ahnenerbe, or any of number the other non consensual human experimentation throughout the years. We'll tut tut about the unethical mongrels while telepathically scheduling the chores of our vat grown slaves made possible by the abuses of this era. Or maybe engineers will just agree to stop sometime soon and that'll be that!
bad_user 8y ago
You're saying it's idealism, I wouldn't call it that. This to me is the social contract that binds our relationship as consumers with these companies. If I cannot trust them, it means I can no longer recommend Google. And I already stopped recommending Google's products a while ago. What changed now is that ... I'm actively recommending against them to everyone I know and that is using a Google product that I happen to notice. Of course, I'm a single individual, I can only influence my friends and my Twitter followers maybe, and I'm sure most of the time I'm preaching to the choir. But I felt that way when I was recommending against Microsoft, since 2005. And guess what, enough people started to do it and it started eroding on their influence and market share, coupled with their own blunders of course, the classic "inovator's dilemma". And as a datapoint, I think one of the primary reasons for why Windows Phone was a failure was because developers rejected it, due to it coming from Microsoft. Now you can talk all you want about market share, monetization and tell people that developers go where the money is, but I remember people hacking for Android phones ever since they hit the market and it took a really long time for Android to become barely profitable for app developers (it still isn't actually), not to mention a worse experience compared with Apple's APIs, yet developers embraced Android. Thus that lost sex appeal and trust that Microsoft had back in the days of Windows 95 was lost and they still haven't recovered, which prevented them from getting a foothold in a market that really matters for their future. Nowadays Microsoft is doing fine, but they had to make some drastic changes to regain the lost trust, as they were going downhill, even if it wasn't necessaril and please notice that in spite of their best efforts, they still haven't regained that trust. Notice what happened when they acquired GitHub. Not the kind of reaction you expect when you buy something for 7.5 billion. Although I'm sure people will get over it soon, if they don't screw it, like they screwed Skype that is. So you know ... I might be idealistic, my colleagues too, but judging by HN's reaction and the reaction of people I follow on Twitter, to me it's clear Google's image has changed and it does matter because we can influence their future. Companies can choose to not care. But that's how they eventually become irrelevant.

by MrLeap 8y ago

perfunctory 8y ago

> The organization you're talking about is diametrically configured to oppose the thing you're saying they should be mindful of True. That's precisely why engineering ethics is our last hope.

MrLeap 8y ago
If our last hope depends on any kind of unity of intent among members of our profession then we're doomed. It's at this point I am tempted to unpack what precipice we're about to go over when our last hope disappoints. Instead i'll stop on an optimistic note: everything is terrible and nothing matters, but humans will keep doing human stuff for as long as we can. By some measures things will continuously improve and by some others we'll regress and retry old tyrannies under new epochs. The ebb and flow can't be arrested by unity while we all hate each other like we do. Fortunately, we'll only keep on hating each other until we get something else we hate even more. Make no mistake, some day we'll all come together to hate something else again. The unity of action that'll afford will allow us to do some pretty remarkable things. Hopefully the thing we all hate together actually deserves it this time. It doesn't always work that way ;(
IBM 8y ago
It absolutely isn't. Industries are regulated because they don't naturally do what society wants. Regulation changes their incentives and behavior to make that happen. A leopard can't change its spots and an ad-tech company is never going to design their products with preserving privacy first, because they can't [1]. It's like a body rejecting an organ transplant. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_by_design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_by_design
- yuhong 8y ago
  That is why I wrote the essay. The history behind that is not simple.
FooHentai 8y ago
Mhm. In the same way that imbuing stoats with a sense of empathy will help restore endangered bird numbers. As another comment stated, direct governance in the form of regulation is the appropriate tool for this problem. Other options, especially hoping for an application of a particular ethical framework, is dreams.

SilasX 8y ago

I can see how the programmer example is analogous to the others and shows naïveté. I don't see how any of those is analogous the parent's suggestion. Privacy is not a business rival to Google (as Amazon to small shops or UPS to bike couriers). True, the attribute privacy hurts one of Google's profit channels; but then, it also makes the product less attractive [1] to the users it needs and exposes it to legal liability, or may leak information that hurts users and hurts profitability in other ways. Even if Google benefits from loss of privacy in some respects, it is hurt in other ways by not consistently, predictably enforcing privacy boundaries. Neither is true for Amazon vs mom-and-pop or UPS vs independent bike couriers. Lumping them together is unfair and only communicates "there exists a superficial similarity to an argument that's stupid". [1] I get it, "if you're not paying, you're not the customer..." My point should be clear though.

MrLeap 8y ago
Google's takes money from group B, and use their tools and tech to convince group A to give money to group B. Data about A is the fuel for the machines that allow them to provide value for group B. I removed the indirection in my metaphors to try and communicate how the "consciousness" of a large company views the assertion. If you view google as a sentient entity, it looks upon comments like the GP as though they're coming from children. I could've added more parity by replacing the business rivals with the words "decentralization" on all of my examples, but I think it muddies the message for no gain. "Google should think about what it's doing to people's privacy!" sounds naive to me because google does exactly this! The levy of google's smartest are constantly trying to find ways to gather more data, or infer more things from the data they've got. Privacy is more of a business rival to google than any other company. Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri -- they're all just new pump jacks. Really, the whole concept of the parent shows a lot of naiveté I didn't even address. 7/10 engineers on a floor agreeing not to take the "mind control plebs" ticket doesn't do a thing when there's enough people to complete it anyways. Your gesture didn't do anything. Publicly martyring your career for your idealism DOES add a nugget of fuel to society's awareness and opinions about the thing, but I suspect the issue is just too oblique right now for that fire to get started. Off topic, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Facebook / Google are >100 years ahead of everyone else in sociology. At some point the code's just cracked, and taking away the keys doesn't do anything but deepen the moat around Facebook / Google. If those companies are ever defeated in war, I suspect that their contribution to society will be similar to Unit 731, Ahnenerbe, or any of number the other non consensual human experimentation throughout the years. We'll tut tut about the unethical mongrels while telepathically scheduling the chores of our vat grown slaves made possible by the abuses of this era. Or maybe engineers will just agree to stop sometime soon and that'll be that!

bad_user 8y ago

You're saying it's idealism, I wouldn't call it that. This to me is the social contract that binds our relationship as consumers with these companies. If I cannot trust them, it means I can no longer recommend Google. And I already stopped recommending Google's products a while ago. What changed now is that ... I'm actively recommending against them to everyone I know and that is using a Google product that I happen to notice. Of course, I'm a single individual, I can only influence my friends and my Twitter followers maybe, and I'm sure most of the time I'm preaching to the choir. But I felt that way when I was recommending against Microsoft, since 2005. And guess what, enough people started to do it and it started eroding on their influence and market share, coupled with their own blunders of course, the classic "inovator's dilemma". And as a datapoint, I think one of the primary reasons for why Windows Phone was a failure was because developers rejected it, due to it coming from Microsoft. Now you can talk all you want about market share, monetization and tell people that developers go where the money is, but I remember people hacking for Android phones ever since they hit the market and it took a really long time for Android to become barely profitable for app developers (it still isn't actually), not to mention a worse experience compared with Apple's APIs, yet developers embraced Android. Thus that lost sex appeal and trust that Microsoft had back in the days of Windows 95 was lost and they still haven't recovered, which prevented them from getting a foothold in a market that really matters for their future. Nowadays Microsoft is doing fine, but they had to make some drastic changes to regain the lost trust, as they were going downhill, even if it wasn't necessaril and please notice that in spite of their best efforts, they still haven't regained that trust. Notice what happened when they acquired GitHub. Not the kind of reaction you expect when you buy something for 7.5 billion. Although I'm sure people will get over it soon, if they don't screw it, like they screwed Skype that is. So you know ... I might be idealistic, my colleagues too, but judging by HN's reaction and the reaction of people I follow on Twitter, to me it's clear Google's image has changed and it does matter because we can influence their future. Companies can choose to not care. But that's how they eventually become irrelevant.