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> Refuse to work on systems that profit from digital addictions. > Refuse to work on systems that centralize control of media. > Refuse to work on systems tha

> Refuse to work on systems that profit from digital addictions. > Refuse to work on systems that centralize control of media. > Refuse to work on systems that prop up an unjust status quo. > Refuse to work on systems that require unsustainable tradeoffs. > Refuse to work on systems that weaponize the fabric of society. Rich people can afford to turn their nose up at any kind of work apparently. Also noteworthy that the internet was invented as a result of "weaponizing"...so put that phone down. Oddly enough all of this also invalidates working on most open source code, since the OSI says a license should not discriminate against intended use

empath75 8y ago
I think one can simply refuse to work on code that adapts the open source code towards nefarious ends. A screwdriver can build a pipebomb, but surely the person using the screwdriver is more culpable than the person who built the screwdriver.
- claydavisss 8y ago
  Define "nefarious end". This is why the OSI guidelines are correct to stay out of the tarpit of value judgements. Edit: BTW This is another reason OSI does not discriminate against intended use...to protect otherwise rational people from behaviors like you see on HN...blind downvoting and no responses HN is becoming incredibly anti-intellectual, bordering on reddit
  - wffurr 8y ago
    A good start is anything that works contrary to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/ http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/ How about acting in a way so as to not cause others to suffer or impede their search for happiness? The Dalai Lama makes a case for this as a universal ethic in his Ethics for a New Millennium. Calling making any kind of value judgement a "tarpit" is itself a value judgement in favor of the status quo and ceding any of your own culpability to others.
    - claydavisss 8y ago
      What businesses have goals that violate that Charter? You might actually want to read it... > How about acting in a way so as to not cause others to suffer or impede their search for happiness? MEANING?????? This thread is so gibberish-laced...I feel like I am debating a bunch of fifteen year olds.
      - coldtea 8y ago
        >What businesses have goals that violate that Charter? You might actually want to read it... It's not their "goals", it's their behaviors. Tons of businesses have behavior that violates that Charter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweatshop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweatshop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/google-china-search-engine-censorship-leak-project-dragonfly-state-government-a8577241.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne... https://www.alternet.org/story/146579/coca_cola%27s_role_in_the_assassinations_of_union_leaders_explored_in_powerful_new_documentary https://www.alternet.org/story/146579/coca_cola%27s_role_in_...
      - klez 8y ago
        > I feel like I am debating a bunch of fifteen year olds This is why you're getting downvoted, not anti-intellectualism.
      - cityzen 8y ago
        Article 12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. That being said, you should go for a walk or something. You seem to be getting unnecessarily worked up over the fact that there are people on HN that have different opinions on this subject.
      - empath75 8y ago
        It's up to you, isn't it? If you're okay with writing software that actively harms people, then you're the one that needs to figure out a way to sleep at night.
  - Retra 8y ago
    The OSI guidelines are themselves a codification of values; all systems are. Don't fool yourself into believing that there's any way to function in the world without exercising discriminating judgement. Your responsibility is to make sure you're exercising productive judgement, not avoiding judgement altogether.
wiz21c 8y ago
>> Rich people can afford to turn their nose up at any kind of work apparently. No, those who have the opportunity to work on stuff that supports some values should do it. You introduce the notion of money here, but it's not written. >> Oddly enough all of this also invalidates working on most open source code Those who work on nuclear fission don't all work on nuclear bombs (fortunately).
- claydavisss 8y ago
  So you are asserting that nuclear fission is benign and working on it is unassailable? There are plenty of people who would disagree.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Which is neither here nor there. At the end, if you agree to work on benign things, you make it on your own assertion of which is benign and which thing is not. Not on whether some disagree.
crawfordcomeaux 8y ago
I get to choose to make my money programming or doing something else. I am not rich. And yes, phones and social media networks have been weaponized against our attention and wellbeing. That's why people at the head of companies producing these systems keep them out of the hands of their children. Edit: accidentally left out "their" in the last sentence... Definitely changes the meaning a bit :D
- claydavisss 8y ago
  > That's why people at the head of companies producing these systems keep them out of the hands of children. ? Does Apple stop my kids from placing orders? No. Does Youtube stop my kids from watching videos? No. In fact, they make a special service specifically targeting kids.
  - fjsolwmv 8y ago
    Parent means that the execs don't let their own kids use the toxic products they make.
TomMarius 8y ago
Let's see what a rational stance would look like. - technologies like Internet, phones, GPS... is a result of militsary investment. It is no longer majorly funded from military resources. The technology is here and nothing would change if we stopped using it - actually, a lot of human suffering (including material - tax money) would be rendered pointless if we did that. - employers like Facebook or Google do a lot of data analysis that might be considered wrong by many privacy oriented people. - licenses are open, but that does not mean that a person should be expected to work on software they deem unethical. There is no connection between a license and subjective personal ethics. - required functionality might be oriented towards anti-ethical functionality, or neutral, or ethical. A developer is free to choose whether they want or do not want to contribute and I expect them to make a subjective evaluation of their feelings. - we have freedom of speech, developers are free to persuade each other - taking things to the extreme is never productive
dustfinger 8y ago
> Also noteworthy that the internet was invented as a result of "weaponizing" For those curious about how military funding influenced the invention of ARPANET, the internetsociety has a brief article on the history [1]. Ironically the sites responsive behavior is not designed very well for small viewports. For example, it is difficult to read from a phone. [1]https://www.internetsociety.org/internet/history-internet/brief-history-internet/ https://www.internetsociety.org/internet/history-internet/br...
zzzcpan 8y ago
> since the OSI says a license should not discriminate against intended use And why would an opinion of some organization funded and supported by unethical corporations even matter here? Of course they want you to make software they can use. You shouldn't though. It's very reasonable to discriminate at least against unethical corporations. You probably don't want your software to be used in organizations that kill people or that sell censorship solutions.
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
  How do you know what I want? You probably don't want your software to be used in organizations that perform abortions or promote religious beliefs.
coldtea 8y ago
>Rich people can afford to turn their nose up at any kind of work apparently. Dirt poor people have made much harder choices all over the world. And they had families and everything. It's called dignity, and it's not a luxury reserved for the rich. >Also noteworthy that the internet was invented as a result of "weaponizing"...so put that phone down. Which is neither here nor there. The internet was not some special invention that only the military could make. It was a design created to solve certain constraints. If the military hadn't worked on it (e.g. because programmers refused to do it), it would have been developed by some company or university. Besides it took 3+ decades and lots work after its invention until it got to the hands of the people, and thanks to public funded telephone network infrastructure, academic work (from MIT to CERN), and private companies (CompuServe, AOL and co). Left to the military it would be an insignificant niche network.
niftich 8y ago
The OSI model of licensing has its philosophical roots in a very classical notion of universal rights and freedoms. As with all absolutist points-of-view, this frustrates some pragmatic people, and/or irks those developers who want to benefit from the publication of their work without large corporations then profiting monetarily from the same work. That's fair, but there's an entire, centuries-old legal apparatus designed to protect the rights of that kind of developer: they should engage a lawyer, craft a license with the correct balance they seek, and pursue to reap the concrete or abstract rewards from their work. But instead, it's en vogue to complain about open source licenses and wonder why the cake can't also be eaten, because developers have a marketshare-scaling problem: they want their software distributed to a wide audience such that it gains usage and mindshare, but not wide enough where AWS is selling their work as a managed service at prices they couldn't by themselves. Attempts by rightholders of software that suffered this fate always try to split the offering into a libre core and a proprietary set of enhancements with various levels of success, while some go down a nonsensical and legally-dubious path of trying to force libre licensing onto proprietary companion software within a larger offering. These demonstrate that giving away libre software may not be a sound business model on its own. Unfortunate for this article's author, the ethical stands he wants other developers to make are quite often good business models. That's to the detriment of all of us. Some amount of people will make a stand, but there will be others who won't, and they'll reap the rewards, and we'll suffer the consequences of their work nonetheless.
- beat 8y ago
  It's very easy to derive a good business model from bad ethics. All business models derive from friction, right? We make money doing things for others that they find difficult or unpleasant to do for themselves. The more difficult/unpleasant it is, the greater the potential value. Something that can make a task difficult or unpleasant is that task being unethical. Take for example an investment scheme that bilks the elderly out of their retirement savings. Technically, it's not difficult to do. Ethically, it's awful. So it's profitable because it's unethical. If robbing the elderly was ethical, a lot more people would do it, and there'd be a lot less money in it.
miguelrochefort 8y ago
I'm not rich, yet I quit my job to work on the problems the writer mentioned in this article. I'm surprised I can't find more people willing or able to do this.

empath75 8y ago

I think one can simply refuse to work on code that adapts the open source code towards nefarious ends. A screwdriver can build a pipebomb, but surely the person using the screwdriver is more culpable than the person who built the screwdriver.

claydavisss 8y ago
Define "nefarious end". This is why the OSI guidelines are correct to stay out of the tarpit of value judgements. Edit: BTW This is another reason OSI does not discriminate against intended use...to protect otherwise rational people from behaviors like you see on HN...blind downvoting and no responses HN is becoming incredibly anti-intellectual, bordering on reddit
- wffurr 8y ago
  A good start is anything that works contrary to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/ http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/ How about acting in a way so as to not cause others to suffer or impede their search for happiness? The Dalai Lama makes a case for this as a universal ethic in his Ethics for a New Millennium. Calling making any kind of value judgement a "tarpit" is itself a value judgement in favor of the status quo and ceding any of your own culpability to others.
  - claydavisss 8y ago
    What businesses have goals that violate that Charter? You might actually want to read it... > How about acting in a way so as to not cause others to suffer or impede their search for happiness? MEANING?????? This thread is so gibberish-laced...I feel like I am debating a bunch of fifteen year olds.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      >What businesses have goals that violate that Charter? You might actually want to read it... It's not their "goals", it's their behaviors. Tons of businesses have behavior that violates that Charter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweatshop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweatshop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/google-china-search-engine-censorship-leak-project-dragonfly-state-government-a8577241.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne... https://www.alternet.org/story/146579/coca_cola%27s_role_in_the_assassinations_of_union_leaders_explored_in_powerful_new_documentary https://www.alternet.org/story/146579/coca_cola%27s_role_in_...
    - klez 8y ago
      > I feel like I am debating a bunch of fifteen year olds This is why you're getting downvoted, not anti-intellectualism.
    - cityzen 8y ago
      Article 12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. That being said, you should go for a walk or something. You seem to be getting unnecessarily worked up over the fact that there are people on HN that have different opinions on this subject.
    - empath75 8y ago
      It's up to you, isn't it? If you're okay with writing software that actively harms people, then you're the one that needs to figure out a way to sleep at night.
- Retra 8y ago
  The OSI guidelines are themselves a codification of values; all systems are. Don't fool yourself into believing that there's any way to function in the world without exercising discriminating judgement. Your responsibility is to make sure you're exercising productive judgement, not avoiding judgement altogether.

wiz21c 8y ago

>> Rich people can afford to turn their nose up at any kind of work apparently. No, those who have the opportunity to work on stuff that supports some values should do it. You introduce the notion of money here, but it's not written. >> Oddly enough all of this also invalidates working on most open source code Those who work on nuclear fission don't all work on nuclear bombs (fortunately).

claydavisss 8y ago
So you are asserting that nuclear fission is benign and working on it is unassailable? There are plenty of people who would disagree.
- coldtea 8y ago
  Which is neither here nor there. At the end, if you agree to work on benign things, you make it on your own assertion of which is benign and which thing is not. Not on whether some disagree.

crawfordcomeaux 8y ago

I get to choose to make my money programming or doing something else. I am not rich. And yes, phones and social media networks have been weaponized against our attention and wellbeing. That's why people at the head of companies producing these systems keep them out of the hands of their children. Edit: accidentally left out "their" in the last sentence... Definitely changes the meaning a bit :D

claydavisss 8y ago
> That's why people at the head of companies producing these systems keep them out of the hands of children. ? Does Apple stop my kids from placing orders? No. Does Youtube stop my kids from watching videos? No. In fact, they make a special service specifically targeting kids.
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
  Parent means that the execs don't let their own kids use the toxic products they make.

TomMarius 8y ago

Let's see what a rational stance would look like. - technologies like Internet, phones, GPS... is a result of militsary investment. It is no longer majorly funded from military resources. The technology is here and nothing would change if we stopped using it - actually, a lot of human suffering (including material - tax money) would be rendered pointless if we did that. - employers like Facebook or Google do a lot of data analysis that might be considered wrong by many privacy oriented people. - licenses are open, but that does not mean that a person should be expected to work on software they deem unethical. There is no connection between a license and subjective personal ethics. - required functionality might be oriented towards anti-ethical functionality, or neutral, or ethical. A developer is free to choose whether they want or do not want to contribute and I expect them to make a subjective evaluation of their feelings. - we have freedom of speech, developers are free to persuade each other - taking things to the extreme is never productive

dustfinger 8y ago

> Also noteworthy that the internet was invented as a result of "weaponizing" For those curious about how military funding influenced the invention of ARPANET, the internetsociety has a brief article on the history [1]. Ironically the sites responsive behavior is not designed very well for small viewports. For example, it is difficult to read from a phone. [1]https://www.internetsociety.org/internet/history-internet/brief-history-internet/ https://www.internetsociety.org/internet/history-internet/br...

zzzcpan 8y ago

> since the OSI says a license should not discriminate against intended use And why would an opinion of some organization funded and supported by unethical corporations even matter here? Of course they want you to make software they can use. You shouldn't though. It's very reasonable to discriminate at least against unethical corporations. You probably don't want your software to be used in organizations that kill people or that sell censorship solutions.

fjsolwmv 8y ago
How do you know what I want? You probably don't want your software to be used in organizations that perform abortions or promote religious beliefs.

coldtea 8y ago

>Rich people can afford to turn their nose up at any kind of work apparently. Dirt poor people have made much harder choices all over the world. And they had families and everything. It's called dignity, and it's not a luxury reserved for the rich. >Also noteworthy that the internet was invented as a result of "weaponizing"...so put that phone down. Which is neither here nor there. The internet was not some special invention that only the military could make. It was a design created to solve certain constraints. If the military hadn't worked on it (e.g. because programmers refused to do it), it would have been developed by some company or university. Besides it took 3+ decades and lots work after its invention until it got to the hands of the people, and thanks to public funded telephone network infrastructure, academic work (from MIT to CERN), and private companies (CompuServe, AOL and co). Left to the military it would be an insignificant niche network.

niftich 8y ago

The OSI model of licensing has its philosophical roots in a very classical notion of universal rights and freedoms. As with all absolutist points-of-view, this frustrates some pragmatic people, and/or irks those developers who want to benefit from the publication of their work without large corporations then profiting monetarily from the same work. That's fair, but there's an entire, centuries-old legal apparatus designed to protect the rights of that kind of developer: they should engage a lawyer, craft a license with the correct balance they seek, and pursue to reap the concrete or abstract rewards from their work. But instead, it's en vogue to complain about open source licenses and wonder why the cake can't also be eaten, because developers have a marketshare-scaling problem: they want their software distributed to a wide audience such that it gains usage and mindshare, but not wide enough where AWS is selling their work as a managed service at prices they couldn't by themselves. Attempts by rightholders of software that suffered this fate always try to split the offering into a libre core and a proprietary set of enhancements with various levels of success, while some go down a nonsensical and legally-dubious path of trying to force libre licensing onto proprietary companion software within a larger offering. These demonstrate that giving away libre software may not be a sound business model on its own. Unfortunate for this article's author, the ethical stands he wants other developers to make are quite often good business models. That's to the detriment of all of us. Some amount of people will make a stand, but there will be others who won't, and they'll reap the rewards, and we'll suffer the consequences of their work nonetheless.

beat 8y ago
It's very easy to derive a good business model from bad ethics. All business models derive from friction, right? We make money doing things for others that they find difficult or unpleasant to do for themselves. The more difficult/unpleasant it is, the greater the potential value. Something that can make a task difficult or unpleasant is that task being unethical. Take for example an investment scheme that bilks the elderly out of their retirement savings. Technically, it's not difficult to do. Ethically, it's awful. So it's profitable because it's unethical. If robbing the elderly was ethical, a lot more people would do it, and there'd be a lot less money in it.

miguelrochefort 8y ago

I'm not rich, yet I quit my job to work on the problems the writer mentioned in this article. I'm surprised I can't find more people willing or able to do this.