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Engineers, like almost all employees, have to work for a living and will build whatever they have to build. Jobs are not easily replaceable for them to be able

Engineers, like almost all employees, have to work for a living and will build whatever they have to build. Jobs are not easily replaceable for them to be able to take a stand. This means that even highly skilled and highly specialized engineers can't afford to have a problem working on censorship and surveillance tech, they probably find it exciting given all that cutting edge high performance packet processing or massive neural networks for face recognition. On top of that a bit of propaganda always helps to justify all this inhumane stuff, just like it helps to push lots of people to join the military. So, my point is, it can't come from individual employees taking responsibility, it doesn't work like that at all. Organized efforts won't stop any of it either, even if it succeed in one country, there are too many countries, some much more oppressive and brain washy than the others and make it practically impossible to have an influence.

_bxg1 8y ago
> Engineers, like almost all employees, have to work for a living and will build whatever they have to build. Right now software engineering is one of the most fertile job markets out there. In the right city you can walk out on the street and stub your toe on a new job, offering good pay and office perks. Maybe it won't always be that way, but being a programmer right now feels like being the prettiest girl at the ball. That's a good climate in which to quit your job out of principle. > Organized efforts won't stop any of it either, even if it succeed in one country, there are too many countries, some much more oppressive and brain washy than the others and make it practically impossible to have an influence. It sounds like you've just succumbed to general defeatism, which to me seems like a waste of time and energy.
- zzzcpan 8y ago
  > Right now software engineering is one of the most fertile job markets out there. In the right city you can walk out on the street and stub your toe on a new job, offering good pay and office perks. It's not like that for almost anyone in the world.
  - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
    I literally got offered a job once by some other customer in a Panda Express because I was wearing Google Glass. Whatever job he was offering, I am reasonably confident I wasn't qualified for it.
convivialdingo 8y ago
>> work for a living and will build whatever we have to build. No, not all of us do this. I’ve quite jobs over questionable morals/ethics a couple of times. It wasn’t a hard choice - I applied for a new job and was gone in two weeks.
- JohnFen 8y ago
  Yes, me too. Interestingly enough, I have solid reasons to believe that sticking to my principles as made me more employable, not less.
JohnFen 8y ago
> Jobs are not easily replaceable for them to be able to take a stand. I don't think this is true. Jobs are plentiful and easy to get in most of the nation for skilled software engineers.

_bxg1 8y ago

> Engineers, like almost all employees, have to work for a living and will build whatever they have to build. Right now software engineering is one of the most fertile job markets out there. In the right city you can walk out on the street and stub your toe on a new job, offering good pay and office perks. Maybe it won't always be that way, but being a programmer right now feels like being the prettiest girl at the ball. That's a good climate in which to quit your job out of principle. > Organized efforts won't stop any of it either, even if it succeed in one country, there are too many countries, some much more oppressive and brain washy than the others and make it practically impossible to have an influence. It sounds like you've just succumbed to general defeatism, which to me seems like a waste of time and energy.

zzzcpan 8y ago
> Right now software engineering is one of the most fertile job markets out there. In the right city you can walk out on the street and stub your toe on a new job, offering good pay and office perks. It's not like that for almost anyone in the world.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  I literally got offered a job once by some other customer in a Panda Express because I was wearing Google Glass. Whatever job he was offering, I am reasonably confident I wasn't qualified for it.

convivialdingo 8y ago

>> work for a living and will build whatever we have to build. No, not all of us do this. I’ve quite jobs over questionable morals/ethics a couple of times. It wasn’t a hard choice - I applied for a new job and was gone in two weeks.

JohnFen 8y ago
Yes, me too. Interestingly enough, I have solid reasons to believe that sticking to my principles as made me more employable, not less.

JohnFen 8y ago

> Jobs are not easily replaceable for them to be able to take a stand. I don't think this is true. Jobs are plentiful and easy to get in most of the nation for skilled software engineers.