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I find it surprising that educated people are "just now" doing this. What did people think corporations were doing to the world? Open up your eyes and look arou

I find it surprising that educated people are "just now" doing this. What did people think corporations were doing to the world? Open up your eyes and look around and get your head out of the code and the bullshit slogans your companies have sold you. It's obvious something has gone wrong and is going on.

lolive 8y ago
Engineering abilities does not imply political awareness. Making things work is surprisingly hard and (imho) a soul crushing process. You need a specific kind of people's profile for that. From my experience, the presence of a political vision alongside the engineering skills is much lower than expected. When both are present, the political vision does not come from a kind of enlightenment in the engineer's inner soul. But from a feedback loop coming from accurate sources of informations.
- PopeDotNinja 8y ago
  > Making things work is surprisingly hard and (imho) a soul crushing proces. I'm not able to turn off caring about what I work on, although I have picked up some tricks over time that help me turn that caring on. However, there's if I'm working on something that is ultimately lame, eventually I'll run out of stuff to care about. That's when the soul crushing starts to happen.
  - wolfgke 8y ago
    > However, there's if I'm working on something that is ultimately lame, eventually I'll run out of stuff to care about. That's when the soul crushing starts to happen. A very important factor whether the work is soul-crushing or not is whether the work is intellectually stimulating or not.
- EdgarVerona 8y ago
  Very true. It is also easy to be so wrapped up in the trappings of what you're doing and the pleasure/sense of duty/sense of fulfillment you're getting from the actual act of your work and the compensation around it that you stop thinking about the consequences of your actions. This sounds terrible, but it's really just a small variant on the banality of evil. Solving problems, working on tight deadlines, and getting recognition, status, and money are all things that make a person feel like what they're doing is right. It gives an endorphin high, it's a sign that other people are recognizing their work. I hesitate to use the word "addictive" in this context, but it can certainly be compulsive. It's easy to lose sight of whether what you're doing is what you ought to be doing when the act of doing it is so compelling, financially rewarding, and celebrated by others. This isn't a justification; it is a warning to anyone coming into this field, a warning that I wish I'd thought more about coming into it. This is something we need to be vigilant about as engineers, because it's easy to look the other way on questionable activities by your business when everything else in your life is becoming enriched by it and they're telling you that the ethical issues are for "their side of the business" to worry about. It is not. Do not believe them. Understand where your paycheck is coming from, and make sure that you continue to evaluate it as your company changes and ask yourself if you're okay with it. In my career, I have: * Been lied to about the true purpose of a product we were building, and only realized the lie because another engineer was brave enough to call them out and force them to tell the truth. I was fully prepared to be the coward that didn't follow up on it and remain willfully ignorant, and his ethical bravery was the only thing that snapped me out of it. * Seen a company's financial plan gradually change from an ethical one to an unethical one, and have seen good people struggle and contort themselves to justify it: including myself, for a time. * Worked in fields where the profits gained by maintaining the status quo has created a desire for minimium compliance instead of continual improvements. The mandatory ethics class I took for my CS degree never prepared me for what to do, how to be vigilant, or how to take action when it is the company itself that is the unethical one. I feel like we need to have open and honest discussions with people coming into this field about this very real possibility, and about the need to evaluate not just the compensation and interesting problems being presented by a given business, but also the ways that they earn money and whether it is something you find acceptable. And what to do if that situation takes a turn for the worse. The ACM has some high-level recommendations in their ethics statements, and I think they're a good start. They should be required reading for all software engineers. https://ethics.acm.org/ https://ethics.acm.org/ I have been a coward. I have been an example of the banality of evil. And I don't think I'm alone in this field: not by a long shot. We've got to pay attention to the ethics of what we create, and we need to be much more brave than we have been.
  - ryandrake 8y ago
    When I went to undergrad in the mid 90s there was a single, optional “social and ethical issues in computing” class which was a total joke. Hopefully today the situation is better, but I suspect not, given the truckloads of new grads year after year, all prepared to not worry so much about the ethics of how their products are being used.
    - EdgarVerona 8y ago
      Aye, I went through my undergrad in the early-to-mid 2000's, and the ethics class (I think it was in 2004? It was a long time ago!) was more about your personal ethical duties to your company, with some discussion of general ethics. I don't recall any significant discussion of the ways in which a company itself might be unethical.
  - domador 8y ago
    Sounds like engineers (and people in general) are good at optimizing locally (achieving what's good for me) and stink at optimizing globally (achieving what's good for everyone in society).
    - EdgarVerona 8y ago
      Aye, I definitely think it's a human thing. I apologize, because I'm going to use the word "addicting" in a non-scientific sense, but the normal use of the word that best conveys the situation in my opinion. Solving problems is addictive. Getting the rush of a job well done - regardless of what that job is - is addictive. Getting recognition is addictive. Having a comfortable salary is addictive. It's so easy for me to slip into those addictions and not pay attention to the bigger picture. And I feel like I'm not the only one suffering from this problem. In fact, I can see it empirically in the people who have worked at the aforementioned jobs with me. There needs to be a balance. A person doesn't need to be outright altruistic, but focusing exclusively on local optimization allows for a sort of hedonistic behavior set that can justify - and has historically justified - participation as a cog in larger and harmful systems.
    - 8y ago
amelius 8y ago
> I find it surprising that educated people are "just now" doing this. Why? Even doctors have been doing nasty things for money (e.g. bribing by big pharma). And they have an official ethical code!
ams6110 8y ago
Eh well let's not throw corporations under the bus entirely. Corporate organization allows people to work together to take risks and tackle problems that are too big for individuals. This has given us the modern technology upon which most of us here earn our livings and given us huge advances in health and standard of living. Have corporations done bad things? Of course, and so they are regulated, and there are processes for dealing with bad corporate behavior.
- typomatic 8y ago
  Are you serious? There's a better way to work together to take risks and tackle problems that are too big for individuals, and it's called "government": the original corporation that won't sell your grandmother to a meat company for a quarter.
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    And if you should want to pursue something on a large scale that is not currently trending in government or social circles? Space is maybe the clearest example of the problem with governments doing anything outside of creating a playground for innovation. 1969 was probably the greatest single government led achievement. We put a man on the moon, having only first put a man into orbit in 1962 and any object into orbit in 1958. That was when space had the government's full attention both as a possible means of weaponization and as a soft power victory of communist powers [ironically] aiming to show the resolve and capability of capitalist nations. But that same story also shows the downsides of government dependence. Today, nearing the 50th anniversary of putting a man on the moon - we're severely struggling to try to send a man around the moon. And in fact no human would ever leave low Earth orbit after 1972. We not only stopped progressing technologically, we actually and literally technologically regressed. On top of this regression, government never has much of any motivation to cut costs or improve efficiency since they're short term public 'servants' who are just spending other peoples' money. Because of this costs became insane. After all was said and done the Space Shuttle program ended up costing more than half a billion dollars per launch. At the risk of being tautological, corporations let people pursue what people want to pursue. Governments, by contrast, pursue what governments want to pursue. If you don't like what the government's pursuing you can try to influence votes, lobby, or 'raise social awareness' but in reality it's generally going to be about as effective as pissing into the wind. By contrast, anybody can start a company and start making whatever they want to. And indeed maybe SpaceX would be the proper epilogue here. Enter corporations. Elon Musk wanted to send a greenhouse to Mars. The costs were unacceptable. It made no sense to him why a rocket that cost on the order of tens of millions of dollars in materials would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to contract. And indeed it didn't make any sense. So he started a company and changed it. Now costs are down by nearly an order of a magnitude, SpaceX is one of the world's largest supplier of launches, and it's looking increasingly likely that the first person to leave our orbit in nearly half a century won't be doing so on a government rocket, but on a privately built, privately funded, and privately launched rocket. Of course SpaceX would never have been able to get to where they are without governmental contracts and assistance, so I'm not proposing anything like anarcho-capitalism, but rather that government should is the one that provides the sandbox - the people are the ones that build as they choose.
jiveturkey 8y ago
No wonder you're surprised; it isn't a "just now" thing. It's a clickbait title. Conscientious objectors have existed probably since time immemorial.
TulliusCicero 8y ago
It's easy to talk about all the shitty things corporations do -- which, to be sure, are many -- but the critics ignore anything good, or just claim that "obviously the government/open source projects/NGO's could've done it just as well". It's exactly like how hardcore libertarians respond to anything good the government does ever by saying the free market would've done it even better: their dogma doesn't permit them to say otherwise, and so they can safely assume they're always right.

lolive 8y ago

Engineering abilities does not imply political awareness. Making things work is surprisingly hard and (imho) a soul crushing process. You need a specific kind of people's profile for that. From my experience, the presence of a political vision alongside the engineering skills is much lower than expected. When both are present, the political vision does not come from a kind of enlightenment in the engineer's inner soul. But from a feedback loop coming from accurate sources of informations.

PopeDotNinja 8y ago
> Making things work is surprisingly hard and (imho) a soul crushing proces. I'm not able to turn off caring about what I work on, although I have picked up some tricks over time that help me turn that caring on. However, there's if I'm working on something that is ultimately lame, eventually I'll run out of stuff to care about. That's when the soul crushing starts to happen.
- wolfgke 8y ago
  > However, there's if I'm working on something that is ultimately lame, eventually I'll run out of stuff to care about. That's when the soul crushing starts to happen. A very important factor whether the work is soul-crushing or not is whether the work is intellectually stimulating or not.
EdgarVerona 8y ago
Very true. It is also easy to be so wrapped up in the trappings of what you're doing and the pleasure/sense of duty/sense of fulfillment you're getting from the actual act of your work and the compensation around it that you stop thinking about the consequences of your actions. This sounds terrible, but it's really just a small variant on the banality of evil. Solving problems, working on tight deadlines, and getting recognition, status, and money are all things that make a person feel like what they're doing is right. It gives an endorphin high, it's a sign that other people are recognizing their work. I hesitate to use the word "addictive" in this context, but it can certainly be compulsive. It's easy to lose sight of whether what you're doing is what you ought to be doing when the act of doing it is so compelling, financially rewarding, and celebrated by others. This isn't a justification; it is a warning to anyone coming into this field, a warning that I wish I'd thought more about coming into it. This is something we need to be vigilant about as engineers, because it's easy to look the other way on questionable activities by your business when everything else in your life is becoming enriched by it and they're telling you that the ethical issues are for "their side of the business" to worry about. It is not. Do not believe them. Understand where your paycheck is coming from, and make sure that you continue to evaluate it as your company changes and ask yourself if you're okay with it. In my career, I have: * Been lied to about the true purpose of a product we were building, and only realized the lie because another engineer was brave enough to call them out and force them to tell the truth. I was fully prepared to be the coward that didn't follow up on it and remain willfully ignorant, and his ethical bravery was the only thing that snapped me out of it. * Seen a company's financial plan gradually change from an ethical one to an unethical one, and have seen good people struggle and contort themselves to justify it: including myself, for a time. * Worked in fields where the profits gained by maintaining the status quo has created a desire for minimium compliance instead of continual improvements. The mandatory ethics class I took for my CS degree never prepared me for what to do, how to be vigilant, or how to take action when it is the company itself that is the unethical one. I feel like we need to have open and honest discussions with people coming into this field about this very real possibility, and about the need to evaluate not just the compensation and interesting problems being presented by a given business, but also the ways that they earn money and whether it is something you find acceptable. And what to do if that situation takes a turn for the worse. The ACM has some high-level recommendations in their ethics statements, and I think they're a good start. They should be required reading for all software engineers. https://ethics.acm.org/ https://ethics.acm.org/ I have been a coward. I have been an example of the banality of evil. And I don't think I'm alone in this field: not by a long shot. We've got to pay attention to the ethics of what we create, and we need to be much more brave than we have been.
- ryandrake 8y ago
  When I went to undergrad in the mid 90s there was a single, optional “social and ethical issues in computing” class which was a total joke. Hopefully today the situation is better, but I suspect not, given the truckloads of new grads year after year, all prepared to not worry so much about the ethics of how their products are being used.
  - EdgarVerona 8y ago
    Aye, I went through my undergrad in the early-to-mid 2000's, and the ethics class (I think it was in 2004? It was a long time ago!) was more about your personal ethical duties to your company, with some discussion of general ethics. I don't recall any significant discussion of the ways in which a company itself might be unethical.
- domador 8y ago
  Sounds like engineers (and people in general) are good at optimizing locally (achieving what's good for me) and stink at optimizing globally (achieving what's good for everyone in society).
  - EdgarVerona 8y ago
    Aye, I definitely think it's a human thing. I apologize, because I'm going to use the word "addicting" in a non-scientific sense, but the normal use of the word that best conveys the situation in my opinion. Solving problems is addictive. Getting the rush of a job well done - regardless of what that job is - is addictive. Getting recognition is addictive. Having a comfortable salary is addictive. It's so easy for me to slip into those addictions and not pay attention to the bigger picture. And I feel like I'm not the only one suffering from this problem. In fact, I can see it empirically in the people who have worked at the aforementioned jobs with me. There needs to be a balance. A person doesn't need to be outright altruistic, but focusing exclusively on local optimization allows for a sort of hedonistic behavior set that can justify - and has historically justified - participation as a cog in larger and harmful systems.
  - 8y ago

amelius 8y ago

> I find it surprising that educated people are "just now" doing this. Why? Even doctors have been doing nasty things for money (e.g. bribing by big pharma). And they have an official ethical code!

ams6110 8y ago

Eh well let's not throw corporations under the bus entirely. Corporate organization allows people to work together to take risks and tackle problems that are too big for individuals. This has given us the modern technology upon which most of us here earn our livings and given us huge advances in health and standard of living. Have corporations done bad things? Of course, and so they are regulated, and there are processes for dealing with bad corporate behavior.

typomatic 8y ago
Are you serious? There's a better way to work together to take risks and tackle problems that are too big for individuals, and it's called "government": the original corporation that won't sell your grandmother to a meat company for a quarter.
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  And if you should want to pursue something on a large scale that is not currently trending in government or social circles? Space is maybe the clearest example of the problem with governments doing anything outside of creating a playground for innovation. 1969 was probably the greatest single government led achievement. We put a man on the moon, having only first put a man into orbit in 1962 and any object into orbit in 1958. That was when space had the government's full attention both as a possible means of weaponization and as a soft power victory of communist powers [ironically] aiming to show the resolve and capability of capitalist nations. But that same story also shows the downsides of government dependence. Today, nearing the 50th anniversary of putting a man on the moon - we're severely struggling to try to send a man around the moon. And in fact no human would ever leave low Earth orbit after 1972. We not only stopped progressing technologically, we actually and literally technologically regressed. On top of this regression, government never has much of any motivation to cut costs or improve efficiency since they're short term public 'servants' who are just spending other peoples' money. Because of this costs became insane. After all was said and done the Space Shuttle program ended up costing more than half a billion dollars per launch. At the risk of being tautological, corporations let people pursue what people want to pursue. Governments, by contrast, pursue what governments want to pursue. If you don't like what the government's pursuing you can try to influence votes, lobby, or 'raise social awareness' but in reality it's generally going to be about as effective as pissing into the wind. By contrast, anybody can start a company and start making whatever they want to. And indeed maybe SpaceX would be the proper epilogue here. Enter corporations. Elon Musk wanted to send a greenhouse to Mars. The costs were unacceptable. It made no sense to him why a rocket that cost on the order of tens of millions of dollars in materials would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to contract. And indeed it didn't make any sense. So he started a company and changed it. Now costs are down by nearly an order of a magnitude, SpaceX is one of the world's largest supplier of launches, and it's looking increasingly likely that the first person to leave our orbit in nearly half a century won't be doing so on a government rocket, but on a privately built, privately funded, and privately launched rocket. Of course SpaceX would never have been able to get to where they are without governmental contracts and assistance, so I'm not proposing anything like anarcho-capitalism, but rather that government should is the one that provides the sandbox - the people are the ones that build as they choose.

jiveturkey 8y ago

No wonder you're surprised; it isn't a "just now" thing. It's a clickbait title. Conscientious objectors have existed probably since time immemorial.

TulliusCicero 8y ago

It's easy to talk about all the shitty things corporations do -- which, to be sure, are many -- but the critics ignore anything good, or just claim that "obviously the government/open source projects/NGO's could've done it just as well". It's exactly like how hardcore libertarians respond to anything good the government does ever by saying the free market would've done it even better: their dogma doesn't permit them to say otherwise, and so they can safely assume they're always right.