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This argument conflates a number of issues and frankly loses steam on that basis. The running list of demands so far: Don’t sell facial recognition, don’t work

This argument conflates a number of issues and frankly loses steam on that basis. The running list of demands so far: Don’t sell facial recognition, don’t work with the government, kick a paying customer off of your system because of who they provide services to and while we are at it you shouldn’t be working with anyone I don’t like. Is that it? For now, but check back with me cause I might want to add greedy investment firms to the list or any other villain of the moment. I really find it odd that all of a sudden tech employees are resistant to supporting their own government. If it’s about the current administration - they are gonna be gone in a couple years and you want another admin to be years behind in capability? The reason the internet and the tech industry as a whole exists at this point is because of the defense technology complex. If this really bothered people they would leave the nice paycheck and the perks and go work for a co-op or a non profit or some other organization untouched by anything unsavory.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
spamizbad 8y ago
A balance is going to have to be found here. A nightmare scenario for technology is one where it’s perceived as boot-licky and enabling the worst parts of government. Finding talent was hard even when tech was perceived as good or at least neutral; if it’s seen as an imperialist cog or even just an enabler for our governments bad behaviors it will make developing organizations even harder.
- fixermark 8y ago
  Will it? Or will it make developing the wrong type of organization harder? I'm not clear if you're predicting a drought of Computer Science students or a drought of Fortune 500 company computer science hiring candidates.
- ovi256 8y ago
  This talent scenario is a plausible one that could turn the balance from huge companies taking all the oxygen out of the system towards smaller ones being able to innovate again.
  - spamizbad 8y ago
    The problem is so few startups IPO and instead organize around becoming acquisition targets for "huge companies" that would theoretically now be in deep with the defense and law enforcement.
losteric 8y ago
For what it's worth, those 450 "signatures" were just members of an email list. That email list was founded to discuss ethical issues and draft a letter of complain, but discussion quickly fizzled without consensus on issues or solutions. Then, a month later, this was published out of the blue. No prior communication, no broader input, not even the opportunity to opt-out. Pretty unethical. As someone who was on that list, that letter is in no way representative... most had pragmatic complaints, like ethical oversight mechanisms to ensure engineers weren't transitively supporting dictatorships. This letter is so hand-wavy, simultaneously cynical and naive.
- jhabdas 8y ago
  There's nothing unethical about being a hero. You should try it sometime.
  - Zombieball 8y ago
    Unless I misunderstood losteric, it sounds like all the names of people on a mailing list were automatically added as “signatures” to this letter even if they didn’t agree with the letter contents. That sounds pretty unethical.
    - losteric 8y ago
      I'm sure some agree, but yes the list never saw the complaints or demands.
  - deleted 8y ago
mindcrime 8y ago
I really find it odd that all of a sudden tech employees are resistant to supporting their own government. Nothing sudden about it. If anything, this trend is a return to normalcy. Hackers have traditionally been fairly opposed to authoritarianism, including - but not limited to - that expressed through the mechanism of governments and nation-states.
- derefr 8y ago
  Exactly. There's a reason the average Berkeley-Unix/MIT-Lisp programmer is depicted as having a long beard: the creators of much of the foundations of our modern software ecosystem were a bunch of hippies, who hated the idea of their code being used to make money, let alone to power weapons. They saw code as a more direct manifestation of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_power: something you can create and promulgate that, in so doing, resists top-down authoritarian control and promotes bottom-up communication and organization. This fact is subtext to a lot of the flamewars that occurred between these "greybeard hackers" and mainframe programmers on the one hand, and Windows PC programmers on the other hand. In both cases, the greybeards saw their counterparts working at IBM or Microsoft, or working at other companies developing software for z/OS or Windows, as people who were willing to "sell out" and work for "the man." (Not "the man" as in Microsoft/IBM; "the man" as in the government's various three-letter agencies.) This was also the original subtext of Microsoft and Apple's fight over personal-computer market mindshare. Bill Gates and Paul Allen came from money, met at a private prep school, and shared a vision of selling their software to companies like IBM, who would drop thousands of copies top-down into enterprise partners' offices. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were introduced because of a shared interest in illegal pursuits like phone phreaking and LSD use, and wanted—sort of like the One Laptop Per Child project—to empower individuals by putting computers in their hands. (Consider: they were probably envisioning use-cases exactly like "being able to share copies of the Anarchist's Cookbook over the Internet.") Apple and Microsoft today are more alike than different, but they started off with diametrically-opposed cultures and corporate visions; and which ecosystem you bought into (at least back when) could tell people a lot about who you were as a person. There was a reason Apple found its first beach-head in schools: the schoolteachers of the 1970s shared pretty much the same countercultural ideals. Read through the Jargon File, or the fortune(1) database, and you'll quickly get a sense of what "hackers" as a culture were like. A modern Stanford-MBA-alum YC applicant, who fancies themselves a "hacker", might be a bit shocked :)
hodgesrm 8y ago
Bezos had a reasonable response as reported by the WSJ, though it was somewhat hidden beneath a clickbait headline. [0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/bezos-bucks-the-bullies-1539818350 https://www.wsj.com/articles/bezos-bucks-the-bullies-1539818...
- hodgesrm 8y ago
  p.s., The topic he was addressing was slightly different but the comment is still relevant here.
throwaway837914 8y ago
> I really find it odd that all of a sudden tech employees are resistant to supporting their own government. Could you expand on this? Because it reads like "help build killing machines even though you signed up for a completely different job, or you don't support your government because you're a political partisan."
- tengbretson 8y ago
  > Could you expand on this? Because it reads like "help build killing machines even though you signed up for a completely different job, or you don't support your government because you're a political partisan." What's to expand upon? Anyone will admit that there are good elements and bad elements to the way our police force operates. This boils down to the question "Do you believe our police force as it exists today has a net-positive impact on our society?" I suspect very few people would say they believe they have a net-negative impact. And even among the people that say they believe the police have a net-negative impact very few people actually act as if that is what they believe.
  - balfirevic 8y ago
    > This boils down to the question "Do you believe our police force as it exists today has a net-positive impact on our society?" That is supposed to be the benchmark now? Holy shit.
rapind 8y ago
Trust in government is at an all time low, and IMO for good reason. Secret courts, lack of oversight and transparency, massive data collection, downplaying of what that means, security breaches, lack of competency at the court and congress level to even understand what they are passing into law, and most importantly regulatory capture. Personally I'd be OK with government collection of some data if I knew it was properly secured, there was more oversight, and if it wasn't so beholden to corporate interests. If anything, the current administration makes this even worse in my opinion, but it was already a really big problem with the previous administration.
stevew20 8y ago
The US government continues to lose the trust of the citizens. Because of poor policy making, too MUCH policy making, and crazy assholes attaining high level positions (Trump, Pai, etc...). So, what exactly is odd about that? I agree that the military industrial complex (let's not call it "defense", when is the last time our military had to defend our borders?) created the environment that spawned the current tech industry, but, who cares? The people are rightly sick of it. We are sick of wasting tax dollars on foreign oil wars, sick of our friendly town police officer using military weapons and aggressive military escalation policies, and sick of the microcontrol our government exercises over our lives. Well that turned into a rant...
siruncledrew 8y ago
Demands like this consequently further authoritarianism based on the belief "As <PartyX>, we believe we hold a superior moral/ethical high ground, and should therefore be responsible for the decision-making that impacts the masses." Identifying as being on the "correct side" pushes an agenda of inequality and gatekeeping out of confirmation bias (which, in theory, this group stands against given the current political discussions surrounding such issues). If the point of revoking services and kicking customers out of their walled garden is to combat the villain of the moment and make them suffer, that is sure to have unintended negative consequences as well. The terms of this letter are looking through a lens blanketing entities as good or bad, when in reality it isn't as clear cut. Such mechanism also seems rife for abuse. People also love to knock the government because it's easy to do, but they forget we are also responsible for the government by choosing to live in a democracy. Times change, societies change, laws change. Sure, at times it seems nothing changes and things stay shitty, but with that attitude there's nearly a guarantee that will stay true. People can talk the talk to their heart's content, but it's far easier to wish than to do.
hanswesterbeek 8y ago
Your argument sounds a lot like an argument that excludes the middle. It is perfectly reasonable to work for a government or a company while at the same time demanding that decision-takers within that organization do not completely disregard morals, or the general well-being of society. This sort of thing is not a matter of binary choices.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

spamizbad 8y ago

A balance is going to have to be found here. A nightmare scenario for technology is one where it’s perceived as boot-licky and enabling the worst parts of government. Finding talent was hard even when tech was perceived as good or at least neutral; if it’s seen as an imperialist cog or even just an enabler for our governments bad behaviors it will make developing organizations even harder.

fixermark 8y ago
Will it? Or will it make developing the wrong type of organization harder? I'm not clear if you're predicting a drought of Computer Science students or a drought of Fortune 500 company computer science hiring candidates.
ovi256 8y ago
This talent scenario is a plausible one that could turn the balance from huge companies taking all the oxygen out of the system towards smaller ones being able to innovate again.
- spamizbad 8y ago
  The problem is so few startups IPO and instead organize around becoming acquisition targets for "huge companies" that would theoretically now be in deep with the defense and law enforcement.

losteric 8y ago

For what it's worth, those 450 "signatures" were just members of an email list. That email list was founded to discuss ethical issues and draft a letter of complain, but discussion quickly fizzled without consensus on issues or solutions. Then, a month later, this was published out of the blue. No prior communication, no broader input, not even the opportunity to opt-out. Pretty unethical. As someone who was on that list, that letter is in no way representative... most had pragmatic complaints, like ethical oversight mechanisms to ensure engineers weren't transitively supporting dictatorships. This letter is so hand-wavy, simultaneously cynical and naive.

jhabdas 8y ago
There's nothing unethical about being a hero. You should try it sometime.
- Zombieball 8y ago
  Unless I misunderstood losteric, it sounds like all the names of people on a mailing list were automatically added as “signatures” to this letter even if they didn’t agree with the letter contents. That sounds pretty unethical.
  - losteric 8y ago
    I'm sure some agree, but yes the list never saw the complaints or demands.
- deleted 8y ago

mindcrime 8y ago

I really find it odd that all of a sudden tech employees are resistant to supporting their own government. Nothing sudden about it. If anything, this trend is a return to normalcy. Hackers have traditionally been fairly opposed to authoritarianism, including - but not limited to - that expressed through the mechanism of governments and nation-states.

derefr 8y ago
Exactly. There's a reason the average Berkeley-Unix/MIT-Lisp programmer is depicted as having a long beard: the creators of much of the foundations of our modern software ecosystem were a bunch of hippies, who hated the idea of their code being used to make money, let alone to power weapons. They saw code as a more direct manifestation of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_power: something you can create and promulgate that, in so doing, resists top-down authoritarian control and promotes bottom-up communication and organization. This fact is subtext to a lot of the flamewars that occurred between these "greybeard hackers" and mainframe programmers on the one hand, and Windows PC programmers on the other hand. In both cases, the greybeards saw their counterparts working at IBM or Microsoft, or working at other companies developing software for z/OS or Windows, as people who were willing to "sell out" and work for "the man." (Not "the man" as in Microsoft/IBM; "the man" as in the government's various three-letter agencies.) This was also the original subtext of Microsoft and Apple's fight over personal-computer market mindshare. Bill Gates and Paul Allen came from money, met at a private prep school, and shared a vision of selling their software to companies like IBM, who would drop thousands of copies top-down into enterprise partners' offices. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were introduced because of a shared interest in illegal pursuits like phone phreaking and LSD use, and wanted—sort of like the One Laptop Per Child project—to empower individuals by putting computers in their hands. (Consider: they were probably envisioning use-cases exactly like "being able to share copies of the Anarchist's Cookbook over the Internet.") Apple and Microsoft today are more alike than different, but they started off with diametrically-opposed cultures and corporate visions; and which ecosystem you bought into (at least back when) could tell people a lot about who you were as a person. There was a reason Apple found its first beach-head in schools: the schoolteachers of the 1970s shared pretty much the same countercultural ideals. Read through the Jargon File, or the fortune(1) database, and you'll quickly get a sense of what "hackers" as a culture were like. A modern Stanford-MBA-alum YC applicant, who fancies themselves a "hacker", might be a bit shocked :)

hodgesrm 8y ago

Bezos had a reasonable response as reported by the WSJ, though it was somewhat hidden beneath a clickbait headline. [0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/bezos-bucks-the-bullies-1539818350 https://www.wsj.com/articles/bezos-bucks-the-bullies-1539818...

hodgesrm 8y ago
p.s., The topic he was addressing was slightly different but the comment is still relevant here.

throwaway837914 8y ago

> I really find it odd that all of a sudden tech employees are resistant to supporting their own government. Could you expand on this? Because it reads like "help build killing machines even though you signed up for a completely different job, or you don't support your government because you're a political partisan."

tengbretson 8y ago
> Could you expand on this? Because it reads like "help build killing machines even though you signed up for a completely different job, or you don't support your government because you're a political partisan." What's to expand upon? Anyone will admit that there are good elements and bad elements to the way our police force operates. This boils down to the question "Do you believe our police force as it exists today has a net-positive impact on our society?" I suspect very few people would say they believe they have a net-negative impact. And even among the people that say they believe the police have a net-negative impact very few people actually act as if that is what they believe.
- balfirevic 8y ago
  > This boils down to the question "Do you believe our police force as it exists today has a net-positive impact on our society?" That is supposed to be the benchmark now? Holy shit.

rapind 8y ago

Trust in government is at an all time low, and IMO for good reason. Secret courts, lack of oversight and transparency, massive data collection, downplaying of what that means, security breaches, lack of competency at the court and congress level to even understand what they are passing into law, and most importantly regulatory capture. Personally I'd be OK with government collection of some data if I knew it was properly secured, there was more oversight, and if it wasn't so beholden to corporate interests. If anything, the current administration makes this even worse in my opinion, but it was already a really big problem with the previous administration.

stevew20 8y ago

The US government continues to lose the trust of the citizens. Because of poor policy making, too MUCH policy making, and crazy assholes attaining high level positions (Trump, Pai, etc...). So, what exactly is odd about that? I agree that the military industrial complex (let's not call it "defense", when is the last time our military had to defend our borders?) created the environment that spawned the current tech industry, but, who cares? The people are rightly sick of it. We are sick of wasting tax dollars on foreign oil wars, sick of our friendly town police officer using military weapons and aggressive military escalation policies, and sick of the microcontrol our government exercises over our lives. Well that turned into a rant...

siruncledrew 8y ago

Demands like this consequently further authoritarianism based on the belief "As <PartyX>, we believe we hold a superior moral/ethical high ground, and should therefore be responsible for the decision-making that impacts the masses." Identifying as being on the "correct side" pushes an agenda of inequality and gatekeeping out of confirmation bias (which, in theory, this group stands against given the current political discussions surrounding such issues). If the point of revoking services and kicking customers out of their walled garden is to combat the villain of the moment and make them suffer, that is sure to have unintended negative consequences as well. The terms of this letter are looking through a lens blanketing entities as good or bad, when in reality it isn't as clear cut. Such mechanism also seems rife for abuse. People also love to knock the government because it's easy to do, but they forget we are also responsible for the government by choosing to live in a democracy. Times change, societies change, laws change. Sure, at times it seems nothing changes and things stay shitty, but with that attitude there's nearly a guarantee that will stay true. People can talk the talk to their heart's content, but it's far easier to wish than to do.

hanswesterbeek 8y ago

Your argument sounds a lot like an argument that excludes the middle. It is perfectly reasonable to work for a government or a company while at the same time demanding that decision-takers within that organization do not completely disregard morals, or the general well-being of society. This sort of thing is not a matter of binary choices.