4 ms·
> My son Atlas is just over nine months old [...] One thing that’s been troubling me, is that he probably wont have [privacy] in his lifetime. > I write system
by xvector 8y ago
> My son Atlas is just over nine months old [...] One thing that’s been troubling me, is that he probably wont have [privacy] in his lifetime.
> I write systems that predict the moods in real-time of nearly a million people who are communicating on the internet (HNProfile.com & RedditProfile.com).
Moral bankruptcy at its finest. No one is forcing you to write systems that do this. You can easily make top-tier salaries at companies that value the privacy of their customers.
- blueboo 8y agoMr. Gotcha claims another victim [https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha]
- xvector 8y agoAmusing, but entirely irrelevant to my point. You need a phone, car, society to function and live a reasonably high quality of life. OP has options here and this makes all the difference. No one is forcing him to write deanonymizing software, and he faces no loss in quality of life by finding a job in which he can work on something more ethical, whereas the people in the comic all face a significant loss.
- ismail 8y ago“You need a phone, car, society to function and live a reasonably high quality of life.” Is that actually true? Yes that may be necessary in society Today. But does that = quality of life ?
- cimmanom 8y agoI think that’s tangential to the parent’s main point.
- est31 8y agoSomeone will write the software one way or another. All that OP would achieve by leaving is to increase the price for this specific thing a little bit. Also, insiders like OP always have specific insights into the full extent of the thing they are involved in so they also know really well how bad it is.
- Bakary 8y agoIsn't your post a recursive example of Mr. Gotcha? In fact my own post might be too. Call it a contrarian loop.
- zulgan 8y agoThis. It took me 15 years to realize it, we can be fighting a losing battle, but we still get to choose the side we fight on. The systems will be written anyway.
- pdimitar 8y agoAs a prominent pessimist on this topic, lately I've seen several anecdotal evidence cases where this is actually not that true anymore. If enough high-level tech talent starts refusing to write such systems then trust me, govts and corps are slowed down and inconvenienced for real. 5 junior programmers can't write software as well as 1 senior. Sure those orgs might win in the end, but we can delay that "end" with years if not decades. And if they get frustrated by the delays, they'll make a mistake.
- jstarfish 8y agoAs a fellow pessimist, I'm not as convinced. The most horrific products of the Holocaust did not build themselves. Same with the Chinese and their current endeavors. Orgs will just continue importing talent from abroad to work around labor shortages. Governments can always publicly execute a few pain in the ass engineers to make the rest fall in line.
- pdimitar 8y agoAll of that is sadly true. And as citizens we have zero recourse. Not sure what the future holds for basic human rights and liberty.
- VvR-Ox 8y agoIsn't that the #1 argument arms and drug dealers use to defend their actions? When I live by this standard I don't have any reason to protect the environment and take care to not harm our future. In the end this logically leads to life without meaning and we could as well commit mass suicide.
- nothrabannosir 8y agoThat's not the entire quote. It starts with: > Hell, as a one man startup, I write ... The "Hell," being commonly used as "Hey, even I do it!". In that context, it makes perfect sense: the author is showing their own involvement in what they so lament to demonstrate just how dire they see the situation. I honestly don't see the incongruity. People are hypocrites. All of us, all the time. If only the morally pure could have meaningful conversations, the only people speaking would be infants.