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> 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

> 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.
ShinTakuya 6y ago
I'm sure when someone gives you the choice between continued employment and following the ethical standard you'll choose to follow the ethical standard. I mean, don't get me wrong, there are clear scenarios where I think many of us would choose to lose the job. For instance, I'll go unemployed vs directly causing someone to die. But those slightly more ambiguous scenarios are where we need to be enforcing it on a legislative level and the onus should be on ALL levels of the company (engineering and management).
- austincheney 6y ago
  That is the difference between an industry with ethics and an industry without. When ethics are the standard of employment an ethics violation prevents employement at any employer. An example is a lawyer having a disagreement with their law firm may lose their job, but they are still employable. On the other hand if that lawyer loses their law license they lose their current job and cannot get another job at any law firm. In that very real scenario when there is a choice between employment and following the ethical standard the choice is always clearly the later.
- Kednicma 6y ago
  I've told upper management directly, in front of their employees, that they're breaking the law. That was a fun day; my director directly told me to not be a trouble-maker and to knock it off if I wanted to keep my job. Ultimately, upper management elected to follow federal law, and I was dismissed for no reason a year later. It wasn't about whether or not I got to keep my job; upper management was effectively disenfranchising other employees with their policy. Who cares about my job if it must come at the expense of my team's jobs? Moreover, managers aren't somehow better people than engineers. They don't get to be less moral just because they have less to do.
alxlaz 6y ago
> accept risks from intentionally violating the spirit of that limitation. What risk? Since it's the engineers, not the executives that take any oath of professional conduct, there wouldn't be any risk for any executive. All this would get us is a legal framework for throwing engineers under the bus via an ethical commission if they do something silly like blowing the whistle on an unethical decision higher up in the hierarchy. I'm very much for greater personal responsibility in the field of software engineering. Until not too long ago, I used to work a in a field (medical equipment) where accepting the burden of potentially catastrophic mistakes came with the job. But I also know -- based on that same experience -- that personal accountability is meaningless without organizational ability. Unless this hypothetical "Hippocratic Oath for engineers" is backed by a "Hippocratic Oath for executives", a "Hippocratic Oath for product managers", and "Hippocratic Oath for engineering managers", (edit: or by a legal framework that requires companies to enable it) all it'll do is reduce the PR effort involved in cleaning up a mess like Volkswagen's emission test scandal to pretty much zero by providing an exceptional -- and very mythical-sounding! -- framework for scapegoating.
- austincheney 6y ago
  > there wouldn't be any risk for any executive This isn't a real problem. I take it you have never worked outside of software. You don't need a law license to be the business manager of a major law firm or a medical license to manage a large hospital network. How often does such problems occur in major law firms or large hospital networks? In other words this is a hypothetical complaint of some future condition that doesn't exist in order to avoid accepting responsibility in the present. EDIT: Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes%E2%80%93Oxley_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes%E2%80%93Oxley_Act
  - sobellian 6y ago
    If a lawyer does something unethical, they could be disbarred. If a doctor does something unethical, their license may be revoked. These end your career. There are already professional organizations for developers and engineers. ACM's ethics code even includes, "avoid harm." You don't need to be in any of them to write software. We would need to pass laws dictating that Facebook et al can only employ licensed software engineers. Do we really want to impose that level of gatekeeping on the profession? The important part is that there's an accountability structure outside the company. Without that an oath just consists of words on paper.
fnord123 6y ago
This is not realistic. Any H1NB visa holder who doesn't do what they are told will be fired and must move their family back to their country of origin. SWE would need to first unionize to protect workers from being fired/deported for pushing back before anything like this is even considered. Or tackle the problem where it begins: with the organization.
- austincheney 6y ago
  That's an unrelated problem. A person who follows an illegal order, whether in violation of law or ethics of practice, probably won't retain visa sponsorship long enough for that argument to matter. It also won't prevent them from suing their sponsor for wrongful termination and fraud. At any rate ethics is a hard sell to an industry whose professionals are completely unaware of what ethics are or how they apply.
  - fnord123 6y ago
    I don't understand your argument. Do you think people who follow unethical behaviour are quickly fired? That is not usually the case if the unethical behaviour was profitable. Do you think that the legal system is quick to move so people won't be deported in 60 days? >At any rate ethics is a hard sell to an industry whose professionals are completely unaware of what ethics are or how they apply. This is simply not true. Most everyone with a CS related degree in Europe or the US has taken a course on ethics and knows plenty about it.
    - austincheney 6y ago
      > Do you think people who follow unethical behaviour are quickly fired? They are fired once the house of cards collapses in epic failure or when a scapegoat is needed. Those are both evidence of systemic failures.
bsenftner 6y ago
No, we are merely the technical hands of our management's will. AS IF WE HAVE A CHOICE WHAT WE DEVELOP! This is an asinine attempt to blame those not in control. The managers and the owners and the corporate board need to have this Ethics Oath, and it needs to be enforced by law.
- austincheney 6y ago
  You have a choice in how it’s developed and so ethics applies. In all fairness doctors don’t choose their patients and legal aide do not choose their clients and yet they are still ethically bound. All of this fear and crying about management only demonstrates a gross ignorance of what ethics are.

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.

ShinTakuya 6y ago

I'm sure when someone gives you the choice between continued employment and following the ethical standard you'll choose to follow the ethical standard. I mean, don't get me wrong, there are clear scenarios where I think many of us would choose to lose the job. For instance, I'll go unemployed vs directly causing someone to die. But those slightly more ambiguous scenarios are where we need to be enforcing it on a legislative level and the onus should be on ALL levels of the company (engineering and management).

austincheney 6y ago
That is the difference between an industry with ethics and an industry without. When ethics are the standard of employment an ethics violation prevents employement at any employer. An example is a lawyer having a disagreement with their law firm may lose their job, but they are still employable. On the other hand if that lawyer loses their law license they lose their current job and cannot get another job at any law firm. In that very real scenario when there is a choice between employment and following the ethical standard the choice is always clearly the later.
Kednicma 6y ago
I've told upper management directly, in front of their employees, that they're breaking the law. That was a fun day; my director directly told me to not be a trouble-maker and to knock it off if I wanted to keep my job. Ultimately, upper management elected to follow federal law, and I was dismissed for no reason a year later. It wasn't about whether or not I got to keep my job; upper management was effectively disenfranchising other employees with their policy. Who cares about my job if it must come at the expense of my team's jobs? Moreover, managers aren't somehow better people than engineers. They don't get to be less moral just because they have less to do.

alxlaz 6y ago

> accept risks from intentionally violating the spirit of that limitation. What risk? Since it's the engineers, not the executives that take any oath of professional conduct, there wouldn't be any risk for any executive. All this would get us is a legal framework for throwing engineers under the bus via an ethical commission if they do something silly like blowing the whistle on an unethical decision higher up in the hierarchy. I'm very much for greater personal responsibility in the field of software engineering. Until not too long ago, I used to work a in a field (medical equipment) where accepting the burden of potentially catastrophic mistakes came with the job. But I also know -- based on that same experience -- that personal accountability is meaningless without organizational ability. Unless this hypothetical "Hippocratic Oath for engineers" is backed by a "Hippocratic Oath for executives", a "Hippocratic Oath for product managers", and "Hippocratic Oath for engineering managers", (edit: or by a legal framework that requires companies to enable it) all it'll do is reduce the PR effort involved in cleaning up a mess like Volkswagen's emission test scandal to pretty much zero by providing an exceptional -- and very mythical-sounding! -- framework for scapegoating.

austincheney 6y ago
> there wouldn't be any risk for any executive This isn't a real problem. I take it you have never worked outside of software. You don't need a law license to be the business manager of a major law firm or a medical license to manage a large hospital network. How often does such problems occur in major law firms or large hospital networks? In other words this is a hypothetical complaint of some future condition that doesn't exist in order to avoid accepting responsibility in the present. EDIT: Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes%E2%80%93Oxley_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes%E2%80%93Oxley_Act
- sobellian 6y ago
  If a lawyer does something unethical, they could be disbarred. If a doctor does something unethical, their license may be revoked. These end your career. There are already professional organizations for developers and engineers. ACM's ethics code even includes, "avoid harm." You don't need to be in any of them to write software. We would need to pass laws dictating that Facebook et al can only employ licensed software engineers. Do we really want to impose that level of gatekeeping on the profession? The important part is that there's an accountability structure outside the company. Without that an oath just consists of words on paper.

fnord123 6y ago

This is not realistic. Any H1NB visa holder who doesn't do what they are told will be fired and must move their family back to their country of origin. SWE would need to first unionize to protect workers from being fired/deported for pushing back before anything like this is even considered. Or tackle the problem where it begins: with the organization.

austincheney 6y ago
That's an unrelated problem. A person who follows an illegal order, whether in violation of law or ethics of practice, probably won't retain visa sponsorship long enough for that argument to matter. It also won't prevent them from suing their sponsor for wrongful termination and fraud. At any rate ethics is a hard sell to an industry whose professionals are completely unaware of what ethics are or how they apply.
- fnord123 6y ago
  I don't understand your argument. Do you think people who follow unethical behaviour are quickly fired? That is not usually the case if the unethical behaviour was profitable. Do you think that the legal system is quick to move so people won't be deported in 60 days? >At any rate ethics is a hard sell to an industry whose professionals are completely unaware of what ethics are or how they apply. This is simply not true. Most everyone with a CS related degree in Europe or the US has taken a course on ethics and knows plenty about it.
  - austincheney 6y ago
    > Do you think people who follow unethical behaviour are quickly fired? They are fired once the house of cards collapses in epic failure or when a scapegoat is needed. Those are both evidence of systemic failures.

bsenftner 6y ago

No, we are merely the technical hands of our management's will. AS IF WE HAVE A CHOICE WHAT WE DEVELOP! This is an asinine attempt to blame those not in control. The managers and the owners and the corporate board need to have this Ethics Oath, and it needs to be enforced by law.

austincheney 6y ago
You have a choice in how it’s developed and so ethics applies. In all fairness doctors don’t choose their patients and legal aide do not choose their clients and yet they are still ethically bound. All of this fear and crying about management only demonstrates a gross ignorance of what ethics are.