6 ms·

Doctors no longer take the Hippocratic Oath (because it is incompatible with a lot of difficult situations doctors are placed in). But more to the point: Why a

Doctors no longer take the Hippocratic Oath (because it is incompatible with a lot of difficult situations doctors are placed in). But more to the point: Why are we trying to shift focus from the wrongs large multi-nationals do to individual software engineers? Plus what would the result be if this "oath" conflicts with a manager's instructions? Maybe we should start with Microsoft, Google, Comcast, Oracle, and similar taking an oath to do no harm, before we push engineers under the bus for not fighting hard enough against what they're ordered to do.

rjp0008 6y ago
Maybe, “don’t be evil”.
- jedimastert 6y ago
  What is evil?
  - Shared404 6y ago
    That's why you leave it in your motto, where it is _not_ legally binding, as a reminder to try to do whatever you think the right thing is... Unless you don't.
- ipsum2 6y ago
  Depends how you define evil. Is advertising evil? Then Facebook and Google engineers are committing evil. Is working with repressive governments evil? Then Apple and Microsoft engineers are committing evil. That's a sizeable chunk of engineers right there.
  - justinclift 6y ago
    Well, it would be interesting to see MS seriously attempt to implement such an Oath in their own organisation. Personally, I hope they do try. :)
  - onion2k 6y ago
    Some employees at Google certainly see working with repressive governments as 'evil', yes. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/technology/google-employees-protest-search-censored-china.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/tech...
dialamac 6y ago
> Doctors no longer take the Hippocratic Oath You have incorrect information. A an abridged or modernized version of the oath is still taken upon graduation of most American MD schools.
- medymed 6y ago
  Or the graduating class writes their own oath
- IvyMike 6y ago
  At the two ceremonies I have attended, the new MDs took this oath: https://www.hospicepatients.org/modern-physicians-oath-louis-lasagna.html https://www.hospicepatients.org/modern-physicians-oath-louis... While it is often referred to as "The Modern Hippocratic Oath", I would argue the Lasagna oath contains significant differences from the original Hippocratic oath, and it is worth treating them as separate things. P..S. I remember because I was like "Mmmm, Lasagna...." both times.
- Someone1234 6y ago
  Your first sentence contradicts your second. You also pocket-quoted the original post removing key context: > Doctors no longer take the Hippocratic Oath (because it is incompatible with a lot of difficult situations doctors are placed in). The original Hippocratic Oath is no longer used (as both the original post, and you yourself readily admit). Why it is no longer used it highly relevant to this discussion because someone is calling for a Hippocratic Oath-like thing in a different area. The fact doctors have moved to a less idealized Hippocratic Oath should be a historical lesson, not something we should seek to emulate.
skybrian 6y ago
This seems out of touch with the reality of these large firms. Management is pretty distributed, decision-making is distributed, and your manager is likely also an engineer, or used to be one. Many people work on tools that are general-purpose, in different levels of the stack. Someone working on keeping the data center running doesn't deal with what the applications actually do. Also, people change positions fairly often and avoid work in areas they consider to be unethical. This means that the people in a position to actually make the call are people who don't find it unethical, because the people who would be concerned about it avoided the whole area. Like, if you don't want to work in ads, you'll probably find a job in some other division, or at least not directly on something you consider unethical. The people who came up with AMP (to pick something controversial on Hacker News) were true believers who sold it to management. But people still care about the company's reputation as a whole, and as a result you get conflict between the people not actually working on the controversial thing and the people who are, but that mostly results in a lot of drama and cynicism. The politics is complicated. I can't think of a generic oath that you couldn't rationalize your way out of.
austincheney 6y ago
> Why are we trying to shift focus from the wrongs large multi-nationals do to individual software engineers? Because software engineers are the ones doing the actual work. By imposing an ethical standard on the people doing the real work the multinational executives then either accept that limitation or knowingly accept risks from intentionally violating the spirit of that limitation.
- Someone1234 6y ago
  Reads like an argument for unionization more than a simple "oath."
- pixl97 6y ago
  Since you're talking about multinationals, since when have ethical standards not deviated significantly between different countries? Are you now going to ask for more software import/export laws?
- spaced-out 6y ago
  The people who actually decide to do these unethical things are the executives, not engineers. Executives are the ones who should be taking Hippocratic oaths.
  - austincheney 6y ago
    So? The goal is to eliminate improper behavior not cry about it and point fingers.
    - throwawaygh 6y ago
      So, there’s always a sucker who needs the cash or health insurance.
      - TheRealDunkirk 6y ago
        I hope no one wonders why it's been so easy to tie a person's health insurance to their employment in "capitalist US" (as opposed to "communist Russia"), and how frustratingly difficult it has been to affect substantive change now that it's been shown to be exactly as constrictive as it sounds.
cmurf 6y ago
Build it into the corporate charter.
thingymajig 6y ago
"Just doing my job"
XorNot 6y ago
This absolutely reeks of the corporate effort to undermine action of climate change or environmental policy in general: advertising campaigns being run with a focus on individual responsibility to consume less, save water etc. as a way to divert attention from systemic action which would have an impact by controlling the biggest contributors.
- wisty 6y ago
  Whistle blower protection laws, and regulators with teeth being more likely to be effective?
iandanforth 6y ago
Ironically the "don't seduce people" bit that got axed is actually still enforced and is one of the most common reasons doctors get their licensed revoked. (More specifically sexual misconduct).
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Shivetya 6y ago
tl;dr Reality, we have virtue signaling. .... soap box because its and end run. the idea being that if software developers had this as a whole then corporations could not force them to do whatever it is that was then decided as against the oath but it amounts to nothing more than virtue signaling the issue with a software developer Hippocratic Oath is that you can damn well bet it will be subject to the whims of whomever is loudest on social media or whatever political group wants to use it to damage the other party. The Hippocratic Oath is protected by history and pretty much limited to interpretation but any such oath or rule today is not worth page it is printed on.
bsenftner 6y ago
We need an Ethics Oath to be required by law for anyone in the C-Suite or Corporate Board. That's where this needs to begin.
quotemstr 6y ago
> Why are we trying to shift focus from the wrongs large multi-nationals do to individual software engineers? This "ethics" business doesn't make sense because the stated goals of the people pushing this idea aren't their actual goals. The stated goal of this "ethics" push is to reduce the harm done by software to society. As you point out, it won't work. The actual goal of the "ethics" push is to entrench a certain politically-contentious ideology in tech by branding this ideology as "ethics" and thereby making it immune to criticism. The only legitimate binding code of ethics is the law. If a practice is harmful, we can all talk about it together and agree to enact a law against it. The "ethics" people are trying to use elevated moral rhetoric to bypass this democratic process, and we shouldn't let them get away with it.
SkyPuncher 6y ago
> Doctors no longer take the Hippocratic Oath Lol. I'm married to an MD. Doctors definitely still take the Hippocratic Oath. Perhaps some places no longer do it, but I am not aware of any of here peers that have not taken the Hippocratic Oath.

rjp0008 6y ago

Maybe, “don’t be evil”.

jedimastert 6y ago
What is evil?
- Shared404 6y ago
  That's why you leave it in your motto, where it is _not_ legally binding, as a reminder to try to do whatever you think the right thing is... Unless you don't.
ipsum2 6y ago
Depends how you define evil. Is advertising evil? Then Facebook and Google engineers are committing evil. Is working with repressive governments evil? Then Apple and Microsoft engineers are committing evil. That's a sizeable chunk of engineers right there.
- justinclift 6y ago
  Well, it would be interesting to see MS seriously attempt to implement such an Oath in their own organisation. Personally, I hope they do try. :)
- onion2k 6y ago
  Some employees at Google certainly see working with repressive governments as 'evil', yes. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/technology/google-employees-protest-search-censored-china.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/tech...

dialamac 6y ago

> Doctors no longer take the Hippocratic Oath You have incorrect information. A an abridged or modernized version of the oath is still taken upon graduation of most American MD schools.

medymed 6y ago
Or the graduating class writes their own oath
IvyMike 6y ago
At the two ceremonies I have attended, the new MDs took this oath: https://www.hospicepatients.org/modern-physicians-oath-louis-lasagna.html https://www.hospicepatients.org/modern-physicians-oath-louis... While it is often referred to as "The Modern Hippocratic Oath", I would argue the Lasagna oath contains significant differences from the original Hippocratic oath, and it is worth treating them as separate things. P..S. I remember because I was like "Mmmm, Lasagna...." both times.
Someone1234 6y ago
Your first sentence contradicts your second. You also pocket-quoted the original post removing key context: > Doctors no longer take the Hippocratic Oath (because it is incompatible with a lot of difficult situations doctors are placed in). The original Hippocratic Oath is no longer used (as both the original post, and you yourself readily admit). Why it is no longer used it highly relevant to this discussion because someone is calling for a Hippocratic Oath-like thing in a different area. The fact doctors have moved to a less idealized Hippocratic Oath should be a historical lesson, not something we should seek to emulate.

skybrian 6y ago

This seems out of touch with the reality of these large firms. Management is pretty distributed, decision-making is distributed, and your manager is likely also an engineer, or used to be one. Many people work on tools that are general-purpose, in different levels of the stack. Someone working on keeping the data center running doesn't deal with what the applications actually do. Also, people change positions fairly often and avoid work in areas they consider to be unethical. This means that the people in a position to actually make the call are people who don't find it unethical, because the people who would be concerned about it avoided the whole area. Like, if you don't want to work in ads, you'll probably find a job in some other division, or at least not directly on something you consider unethical. The people who came up with AMP (to pick something controversial on Hacker News) were true believers who sold it to management. But people still care about the company's reputation as a whole, and as a result you get conflict between the people not actually working on the controversial thing and the people who are, but that mostly results in a lot of drama and cynicism. The politics is complicated. I can't think of a generic oath that you couldn't rationalize your way out of.

austincheney 6y ago

> Why are we trying to shift focus from the wrongs large multi-nationals do to individual software engineers? Because software engineers are the ones doing the actual work. By imposing an ethical standard on the people doing the real work the multinational executives then either accept that limitation or knowingly accept risks from intentionally violating the spirit of that limitation.

Someone1234 6y ago
Reads like an argument for unionization more than a simple "oath."
pixl97 6y ago
Since you're talking about multinationals, since when have ethical standards not deviated significantly between different countries? Are you now going to ask for more software import/export laws?
spaced-out 6y ago
The people who actually decide to do these unethical things are the executives, not engineers. Executives are the ones who should be taking Hippocratic oaths.
- austincheney 6y ago
  So? The goal is to eliminate improper behavior not cry about it and point fingers.
  - throwawaygh 6y ago
    So, there’s always a sucker who needs the cash or health insurance.
    - TheRealDunkirk 6y ago
      I hope no one wonders why it's been so easy to tie a person's health insurance to their employment in "capitalist US" (as opposed to "communist Russia"), and how frustratingly difficult it has been to affect substantive change now that it's been shown to be exactly as constrictive as it sounds.

cmurf 6y ago

Build it into the corporate charter.

thingymajig 6y ago

"Just doing my job"

XorNot 6y ago

This absolutely reeks of the corporate effort to undermine action of climate change or environmental policy in general: advertising campaigns being run with a focus on individual responsibility to consume less, save water etc. as a way to divert attention from systemic action which would have an impact by controlling the biggest contributors.

wisty 6y ago
Whistle blower protection laws, and regulators with teeth being more likely to be effective?

iandanforth 6y ago

Ironically the "don't seduce people" bit that got axed is actually still enforced and is one of the most common reasons doctors get their licensed revoked. (More specifically sexual misconduct).

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Shivetya 6y ago

tl;dr Reality, we have virtue signaling. .... soap box because its and end run. the idea being that if software developers had this as a whole then corporations could not force them to do whatever it is that was then decided as against the oath but it amounts to nothing more than virtue signaling the issue with a software developer Hippocratic Oath is that you can damn well bet it will be subject to the whims of whomever is loudest on social media or whatever political group wants to use it to damage the other party. The Hippocratic Oath is protected by history and pretty much limited to interpretation but any such oath or rule today is not worth page it is printed on.

bsenftner 6y ago

We need an Ethics Oath to be required by law for anyone in the C-Suite or Corporate Board. That's where this needs to begin.

quotemstr 6y ago

> Why are we trying to shift focus from the wrongs large multi-nationals do to individual software engineers? This "ethics" business doesn't make sense because the stated goals of the people pushing this idea aren't their actual goals. The stated goal of this "ethics" push is to reduce the harm done by software to society. As you point out, it won't work. The actual goal of the "ethics" push is to entrench a certain politically-contentious ideology in tech by branding this ideology as "ethics" and thereby making it immune to criticism. The only legitimate binding code of ethics is the law. If a practice is harmful, we can all talk about it together and agree to enact a law against it. The "ethics" people are trying to use elevated moral rhetoric to bypass this democratic process, and we shouldn't let them get away with it.

SkyPuncher 6y ago

> Doctors no longer take the Hippocratic Oath Lol. I'm married to an MD. Doctors definitely still take the Hippocratic Oath. Perhaps some places no longer do it, but I am not aware of any of here peers that have not taken the Hippocratic Oath.