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A doctor can lose their license for malpractice. A lawyer can be disbarred. Architects and civil engineers will lose their license if they knowingly create an u

A doctor can lose their license for malpractice. A lawyer can be disbarred. Architects and civil engineers will lose their license if they knowingly create an unsafe structure. These professions have codified standards, licensing, and membership requirements for practitioners. There is a real incentive to conform and maintain your license because otherwise you cannot work. In these professions you know the standard of ethical behavior and you can reasonable expect your fellow professionals to also refuse questionable requests. An unethical client is going to have a hard time going down the street to find someone else who is willing to do what you won't. I'm not trying to excuse the bad behavior of some software developers. My point is that the software industry and profession lacks much of what other professions have established in order to maintain high standards.

adamiscool8 7y ago
You're comparing situations where ethical violations put lives truly at risk with situations where someone is possibly induced into (but can fully opt-out of) a larger sales transaction?
- arama471 7y ago
  Yes, and it seems to be a fair comparison to me. Both the unsafe situations and fraudulent situations can be avoided by the adherence to standards, which the software industry currently does not have. The other industries mentioned do, and they seem to work quite well.
  - icxa 7y ago
    Of course it seems like a fair comparison to you, it's your comparison. To everyone else, putting it as nicely as possible, it's very off. Software that has the potential to cause serious, directly attributable material harm to lives is already heavily regulated: The FDA regulates medical device software, the FAA regulates flight software, the FTC regulates communications software, etc. For everything else, there is court. If you buy a laptop with a lithium ion battery that explodes and causes you burns, you will probably be rewarded handsomely in a suit. If you want to sit here and try to argue in front of a judge that dark UI patterns are causing you some sort of material harm, by all means go for it in court. My advice to you is you probably won't get very far / laughed at.
    - ForHackernews 7y ago
      Fine, substitute "accounting fraud" then. That's a more direct comparison: fraudulent accounting practices or fraudulent e-commerce practices. Nobody dies; somebody gets ripped off. The point is that accountants are professionals and have professional standards that they adhere to. Software devs are not and do not.
      - Frost1x 7y ago
        "Nobody dies; somebody gets ripped off." One often overlooked relationship I find to this sort of argument is that economic harm is somehow independent of physical harm. While in the purest theoretical sense, its obviously clear/true, the more we abstract parts of life away to monetary valuation and control, the more economic effects have real serious indirect physical consequences. So someone lost a few bucks due to a manipulative ad? Most the time this has no serious consequences as devious as it may be. However, when lost assets become more significant or lead to serious economic distress, it can and does directly result in health effects that have physical consequence. Obvious extreme examples include cases of financial ruin that lead to mental health distress leading to suicides. Small repeated loss could also lead to unhealthy lifestyles over time coupled with poor financial choices resulting in limited to no access to preventative healthcare... directly leading to a cause of death (say heart disease from poor dieting). Practices of advertising from the tobacco industry in the past provide a good model for how these can effect peoples choices which over time had serious physical consequences--the main difference being the tobacco industry actually provided a dangerous product that their behaviours pushed. Arguably consumers have to actively make a choice to follow through but with enough data, people are tending to be more and more easily manipulated.
      - username90 7y ago
        Software developers are not professional lawyers, businessmen or psychologists. It is therefore not their job to judge whether to implement functionality that sells things you don't have. The only way they could be held accountable in the ways tou want is if we force them to be expert in every field in existence so that whenever they implement software related to it they understand the implications fully.
  - scarejunba 7y ago
    If I adhered to standards I would have forced password rotation (a shit policy) because the standards are behind me. They only recently changed. I was right all along. I literally protected people's data when the standards would have put them at risk. No, thank you.

adamiscool8 7y ago

You're comparing situations where ethical violations put lives truly at risk with situations where someone is possibly induced into (but can fully opt-out of) a larger sales transaction?

arama471 7y ago
Yes, and it seems to be a fair comparison to me. Both the unsafe situations and fraudulent situations can be avoided by the adherence to standards, which the software industry currently does not have. The other industries mentioned do, and they seem to work quite well.
- icxa 7y ago
  Of course it seems like a fair comparison to you, it's your comparison. To everyone else, putting it as nicely as possible, it's very off. Software that has the potential to cause serious, directly attributable material harm to lives is already heavily regulated: The FDA regulates medical device software, the FAA regulates flight software, the FTC regulates communications software, etc. For everything else, there is court. If you buy a laptop with a lithium ion battery that explodes and causes you burns, you will probably be rewarded handsomely in a suit. If you want to sit here and try to argue in front of a judge that dark UI patterns are causing you some sort of material harm, by all means go for it in court. My advice to you is you probably won't get very far / laughed at.
  - ForHackernews 7y ago
    Fine, substitute "accounting fraud" then. That's a more direct comparison: fraudulent accounting practices or fraudulent e-commerce practices. Nobody dies; somebody gets ripped off. The point is that accountants are professionals and have professional standards that they adhere to. Software devs are not and do not.
    - Frost1x 7y ago
      "Nobody dies; somebody gets ripped off." One often overlooked relationship I find to this sort of argument is that economic harm is somehow independent of physical harm. While in the purest theoretical sense, its obviously clear/true, the more we abstract parts of life away to monetary valuation and control, the more economic effects have real serious indirect physical consequences. So someone lost a few bucks due to a manipulative ad? Most the time this has no serious consequences as devious as it may be. However, when lost assets become more significant or lead to serious economic distress, it can and does directly result in health effects that have physical consequence. Obvious extreme examples include cases of financial ruin that lead to mental health distress leading to suicides. Small repeated loss could also lead to unhealthy lifestyles over time coupled with poor financial choices resulting in limited to no access to preventative healthcare... directly leading to a cause of death (say heart disease from poor dieting). Practices of advertising from the tobacco industry in the past provide a good model for how these can effect peoples choices which over time had serious physical consequences--the main difference being the tobacco industry actually provided a dangerous product that their behaviours pushed. Arguably consumers have to actively make a choice to follow through but with enough data, people are tending to be more and more easily manipulated.
    - username90 7y ago
      Software developers are not professional lawyers, businessmen or psychologists. It is therefore not their job to judge whether to implement functionality that sells things you don't have. The only way they could be held accountable in the ways tou want is if we force them to be expert in every field in existence so that whenever they implement software related to it they understand the implications fully.
- scarejunba 7y ago
  If I adhered to standards I would have forced password rotation (a shit policy) because the standards are behind me. They only recently changed. I was right all along. I literally protected people's data when the standards would have put them at risk. No, thank you.