4 ms·

Not very realistic for people who need to put food on the table and where the evil vs non evil is not that clear. Especially if you work on a very small cog in

Not very realistic for people who need to put food on the table and where the evil vs non evil is not that clear. Especially if you work on a very small cog in the machine, which most engineers do ofcourse. Where do you draw the line? Maybe your company makes software that is nice but it is sold to companies using it for evil? I think this is too vague and not solvable by engineers unless in clear cut cases like you mention; not many of those really. There are not infinite jobs either; most companies will, at some stage, do things that you might consider evil. It is generally management that should be blamed; they have the oversight and make decisions about client base etc. In rare cases where an engineer knew they were wrong very clearly but still did it, then sure, punishment is ok. Edit; I see you are from Eindhoven; I was born close to there and studied at the TUE under Dijkstra pupils. We had a little group at the time that believed in Dijkstra like thinking; software has to be proven correct and we added that it has to be ethical. It was an idea to somehow make software dev a gild. Then we grew up and saw nothing like that is possible unless you want the world to grind to a halt. The Netherlands would be a likely candidate for this kind of experiment though; you cannot really die of poverty there unless mentally ill, so it is easier to ‘just quit’ if you think your boss went satan on you.

enraged_camel 7y ago
>>Not very realistic for people who need to put food on the table and where the evil vs non evil is not that clear. Evil vs. non-evil being not that clear is not a problem. That's why we have the court system: to sort those types of things out. As for "needing to put food on the table", how far are you willing to take that logic? It seems you could use it to justify virtually any behavior, as long as you get paid doing it.
- andreilys 7y ago
  I don’t think the court system is a panacea for solving moral dilemmas. Especially in tech where things move much quicker than our laws can keep up with.
- Supermancho 7y ago
  > Evil vs. non-evil being not that clear is not a problem. Evil isnt the same as immoral, excepting a subjective interpretation of equivalence. Whats worse is a lack of standardization (or even distinction) between terminology to describe behaviors (eg pernicious, evil, immoral, corrupt, dangerous, et al). What is evil to you is certainly not the same as what is evil to me...much less how a legal doctrine is worded. It is a HUGE problem that people dont agree on what constitutes undesired action.
skrebbel 7y ago
FWIW my opinion on this isn't actually as black and white as my earlier comment might make it seem. I'm well aware that not everybody is in a position to quit their jobs over something as vain as ethics. That's classic Bertolt Brecht right there, "Food comes first and then morality". I'm mostly just frustrated that vast swathes of developers, most of them like me living a comfortable life in a comfortable place with plenty of options, are happy to condone and support the evils their employer commits. Plenty of people look at me like I'm an alien when I say I refuse to work for a weapons manufacturer. So I get worked up when people hide behind their bosses and pretend that developers, perhaps the most influential people of the next few decades, are nothing but amoral code machines. No we're not, we're people and we have a choice. It's not very black and white at all. I personally wouldn't work for Google of Facebook for moral reasons, but I understand that some people say "well, we're targeting ads, not cluster bombs" and they have a point. I'm asking that people consider whether their work fits their own personal ethics. I'm asking that people look around for better jobs when they discover that, deep inside, when they really think about it, no, their current job does not fit with their own ethics. I'm convinced that large numbers of developers would go and look for alternatives if we make it common to just do this thought exercise. I think many people simply don't consider it. After all, there's a fun team and exciting tech! I don't think that's too much to ask. But when we propagate the idea that developers are mindless robots that turn money into code, we're letting psychopaths take more advantage of us than necessary. Let's try to move the needle, just a bit. Sidenote: yeah TUE with the Dijkstra apostles was fun, loved the handwriting :-) When were you there? 2002-2008 here. I recognize how the Dijkstra ideals could be extrapolated to ethics by a particularly zealous crowd, but I agree with you that it doesn't hold up to the real world for a long while :-)

enraged_camel 7y ago

>>Not very realistic for people who need to put food on the table and where the evil vs non evil is not that clear. Evil vs. non-evil being not that clear is not a problem. That's why we have the court system: to sort those types of things out. As for "needing to put food on the table", how far are you willing to take that logic? It seems you could use it to justify virtually any behavior, as long as you get paid doing it.

andreilys 7y ago
I don’t think the court system is a panacea for solving moral dilemmas. Especially in tech where things move much quicker than our laws can keep up with.
Supermancho 7y ago
> Evil vs. non-evil being not that clear is not a problem. Evil isnt the same as immoral, excepting a subjective interpretation of equivalence. Whats worse is a lack of standardization (or even distinction) between terminology to describe behaviors (eg pernicious, evil, immoral, corrupt, dangerous, et al). What is evil to you is certainly not the same as what is evil to me...much less how a legal doctrine is worded. It is a HUGE problem that people dont agree on what constitutes undesired action.

skrebbel 7y ago

FWIW my opinion on this isn't actually as black and white as my earlier comment might make it seem. I'm well aware that not everybody is in a position to quit their jobs over something as vain as ethics. That's classic Bertolt Brecht right there, "Food comes first and then morality". I'm mostly just frustrated that vast swathes of developers, most of them like me living a comfortable life in a comfortable place with plenty of options, are happy to condone and support the evils their employer commits. Plenty of people look at me like I'm an alien when I say I refuse to work for a weapons manufacturer. So I get worked up when people hide behind their bosses and pretend that developers, perhaps the most influential people of the next few decades, are nothing but amoral code machines. No we're not, we're people and we have a choice. It's not very black and white at all. I personally wouldn't work for Google of Facebook for moral reasons, but I understand that some people say "well, we're targeting ads, not cluster bombs" and they have a point. I'm asking that people consider whether their work fits their own personal ethics. I'm asking that people look around for better jobs when they discover that, deep inside, when they really think about it, no, their current job does not fit with their own ethics. I'm convinced that large numbers of developers would go and look for alternatives if we make it common to just do this thought exercise. I think many people simply don't consider it. After all, there's a fun team and exciting tech! I don't think that's too much to ask. But when we propagate the idea that developers are mindless robots that turn money into code, we're letting psychopaths take more advantage of us than necessary. Let's try to move the needle, just a bit. Sidenote: yeah TUE with the Dijkstra apostles was fun, loved the handwriting :-) When were you there? 2002-2008 here. I recognize how the Dijkstra ideals could be extrapolated to ethics by a particularly zealous crowd, but I agree with you that it doesn't hold up to the real world for a long while :-)