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Funny, I don't see similar moral outrage at talented engineers working in Facebook and Google, doing no evil. (I do see such outrage at the companies themselves
by danra 8y ago
Funny, I don't see similar moral outrage at talented engineers working in Facebook and Google, doing no evil. (I do see such outrage at the companies themselves - but rarely at the developers working for them).
Yes, these companies do make useful products. But they have real negative effects on the world, which would have been better off if all those engineers had made these products for companies other than these lobbyist, competition-stifling, aggressive monopolies.
There's no real moral difference between selling your talents to the highest bidder and this specific case of running a spam service to make money.
- tempestn 8y agoFor one thing, facilitating spam is some distance further down on the benefits to harms scale than facilitating Facebook or Google. Google, especially, has created a enormous amount of value, and continues to do so^; spam, not so much. ^Which isn't to say that it's perfect, of course. Or even necessarily a net good, although my personal belief in the case of Google is that it still is.
- danra 8y ago> facilitating spam is some distance further down on the benefits to harms scale than facilitating Facebook or Google So... Facilitating spam is worse than facilitating censorship in China?
- chii 8y agoIs an arms manufacturer at fault when there's war? China is always going to censor. Google facilitating it or not make no difference. Might as well make the money, and also hope to influence the system from a position of power rather than a position of weakness (i.e, not involved at all)
- danra 8y agoSpam is always going to exist. Might as well facilitate, make money, and try to influence the system from a position of power?
- StavrosK 8y agoAlthough this spamblaster is terrible, I consider Instagram to be a clear net negative for humanity. It has almost no redeeming traits, it just makes people insecure, envious and wastes their time.
- tempestn 8y agoI can tell you it's a net positive in my life. I rarely use facebook proper, but I quite enjoy instagram. I keep it to a small number of actual friends (I think I have about 20 contacts, or whatever they're called on Instagram.) And I enjoy opening it and seeing what they're up to once or twice a day.
- StavrosK 8y agoI think you and I are the very, VERY small minority. I muted everyone I didn't care about too, and it works for me, but young people especially are very affected by it.
- WD-42 8y agoReally? It seems moral outrage against engineers working at Facebook and Google has been pretty popular for the last ten years. First it was because they are displacing long term residents in places like San Francisco, and now it's because they are responsible for building giant surveillance machines.
- danra 8y agoThere’s far more respect among the tech community for the (truly!) talented engineers working in these companies than there is moral outrage.
- sfopdxnonstop 8y agoYes there is. And it's obvious.