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> Enough is enough. What I don't like about this post is too much emotion, not much action. > If you’re a Google engineer who is still working on AMP, you ar

> Enough is enough. What I don't like about this post is too much emotion, not much action. > If you’re a Google engineer who is still working on AMP, you are a disgrace to your field. Really? Career shaming? That's very low of the author to do. Why are they a disgrace?

grayhatter 6y ago
I assumed it came from a previous essay. Asserting that engineers should take responsibility for their actions in spite of their job. If your employer is doing something immoral or wrong, and you don't do something. You're part of the problem, and share in their guilt.
saurik 6y ago
Someone actively sits down and codes all the things that make the world a worse place, and they often do it after and despite all of the arguments for why it is bad; maybe you disagree that AMP is a problem--I, honestly, haven't made a decision there yet--but to be very blunt about it: we tend to attribute too many things to organizations and companies when there should be a list of very concrete names of engineers working at companies like Apple or Google that actively continue to work on technologies like DRM to lock people out of devices and tracking to centralize data... and we should remember it was only due to their willingness to work on these projects that these projects get done.
- m463 6y ago
  I believe the word you're looking for is quisling. I used to really be happy about computers - they made people's lives better. But business interests have really changed how computers work and I truly hope we can get them to work for us again.
- mathw 6y ago
  We live in an unethical economy. Do you expect everyone to be able to live off founding an ethical startup?
  - type0 6y ago
    Economy itself isn't unethical, the corruption is. Unethical business practices and unethical corporate cultures is what allows our societies to rotten from inside. Tax evasions for the biggest conglomerates of the World, media cheering and rooting for anti-competitive behaviors and we don't even have to mention the shady political ties that make all other abuses possible.
  - m-p-3 6y ago
    This, and if all the devs shun a particular company as large as Facebook, it will just increase the salary offer until someone take it. There's always a price for someone to bend their ethics.
    - account42 6y ago
      > There's always a price for someone to bend their ethics. That doesn't make it any more OK for you (ie, any specific developer) to bend your ethics. Also, increasing the cost for unethical practices will at least discourage some corporations from engaging in them.
blub 6y ago
Silicon Valley is a really nice club with zero consequences for those that have been screwing up the internet and online privacy for decades. Therefore I don't think it's appropriate to now complain that somebody's calling these people a disgrace to their field. Recently we learned on HN of the revolving door between Mozilla and Facebook, straight from the mouths of former Mozilla/current Facebook employees. They were even proud of helping the people that were recently let go by Mozilla with jobs at Facebook, as if it were totally normal to switch from privacy and open web defender to privacy and open web villain. I mean it is totally normal apparently. And really, I think that the moment of shame those people will feel at being called a disgrace, if they're even capable of feeling that any more will go away latest at the time that their fat paycheck hits their bank accounts. To be fair, they probably don't even read HN, Drew's blog or give a crap about any of this.
- colesantiago 6y ago
  Sure Silicon Valley bad, but it's pointless to shame them if they don't care, especially if their employer is bankrolling them. I mean, Google bankrolled Mozilla for years, nobody questioned or even opposed it, yet Mozilla criticises them on privacy, and now look what happened. But what do we do? I would like to take action against this, but this post doesn't really do anything about this. I fear that we will see more posts like this screaming into the blog post void and nothing comes of it, since you said they don't even read HN or Drew's blog.
  - oliwarner 6y ago
    > especially if their employer is bankrolling them That's the problem! These are developers who don't care about the ecosystem. Drew is entirely right, they should be ashamed of what they've done, and use any and all influence to end this experiment.
- type0 6y ago
  Speaking of Web Browsers, I won't be surprised if FB introduces their own browser, this could potentially be so much more dystopian than Chrome it's scary that's a possibility. Chrome is already de facto mandated by some government agencies across the globe by virtue of that their authentication doesn't work in other browsers (not even Chromium in some cases).
0xdeadb00f 6y ago
I agree with Drew about a lot of things, but he's career shamed before and it never sat right with me, even if he has a maybe valid point. I remember he said something very similar about people working for FAANG.
string 6y ago
I don't understand this assumption that "x shaming" is inherently a negative thing. Shame is an essential social emotion. I don't see what's wrong with shaming people for unethical or immoral choices they choose to make.
- fastball 6y ago
  Because AMP isn't objectively unethical or immoral.
- rlwinm 6y ago
  Do you want to call people out or change their behavior? Public shaming may be successful at the former but often fails at the latter. If anything it often causes people to reinforce a position they might have otherwise conceded. The other negative effects of shaming are well discussed in the Jon Ronson book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. If you work on AMP, for example, it’s easy to dismiss Drew’s rant as that of a fanatic. Many people don’t think their work is unethical or immoral. It’s much harder to dismiss a reasoned argument that acknowledges the benefits of AMP and gives examples of the deleterious effects of AMP.
krageon 6y ago
> Why are they a disgrace Other than the fact that they work for Google, I assume?
boomlinde 6y ago
Really? Shaming shaming? That's very low of you to do. In all seriousness I think it's fair to judge people by their actions and tell them in simple terms that you don't approve of them. Not just fair; I think it's fundamental to society that we are able and willing to do so, and that the recipients are able to feel shame as a result. This curbs antisocial behavior.
xet7 6y ago
Drew has a lot of action. His Open Source code repo hosting service https://sourcehut.org https://sourcehut.org does not use any Javascript at frontend, and sourcehut webpages load a lot faster than GitHub and GitLab. https://drewdevault.com/2018/06/05/Should-you-move-to-sr.ht.html https://drewdevault.com/2018/06/05/Should-you-move-to-sr.ht.... https://sourcehut.org/blog/2019-10-23-srht-puts-users-first/ https://sourcehut.org/blog/2019-10-23-srht-puts-users-first/ Problem here is, that Chromium and Firefox based browsers use a huge amount of RAM, and keep increasing amount of features and code. Also, new versions of Chrome etc have broken features that did previously work fine. Then, web developers are adding even more code to webpages, causing web to just feel a lot slower: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21835417 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21835417 It would be nice if: - webpages would use less code at frontend - so web browsers would use less memory - with less features in browsers, there would be less code to audit for security - with less code in browsers, compiling browser would require less time
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

grayhatter 6y ago

I assumed it came from a previous essay. Asserting that engineers should take responsibility for their actions in spite of their job. If your employer is doing something immoral or wrong, and you don't do something. You're part of the problem, and share in their guilt.

saurik 6y ago

Someone actively sits down and codes all the things that make the world a worse place, and they often do it after and despite all of the arguments for why it is bad; maybe you disagree that AMP is a problem--I, honestly, haven't made a decision there yet--but to be very blunt about it: we tend to attribute too many things to organizations and companies when there should be a list of very concrete names of engineers working at companies like Apple or Google that actively continue to work on technologies like DRM to lock people out of devices and tracking to centralize data... and we should remember it was only due to their willingness to work on these projects that these projects get done.

m463 6y ago
I believe the word you're looking for is quisling. I used to really be happy about computers - they made people's lives better. But business interests have really changed how computers work and I truly hope we can get them to work for us again.
mathw 6y ago
We live in an unethical economy. Do you expect everyone to be able to live off founding an ethical startup?
- type0 6y ago
  Economy itself isn't unethical, the corruption is. Unethical business practices and unethical corporate cultures is what allows our societies to rotten from inside. Tax evasions for the biggest conglomerates of the World, media cheering and rooting for anti-competitive behaviors and we don't even have to mention the shady political ties that make all other abuses possible.
- m-p-3 6y ago
  This, and if all the devs shun a particular company as large as Facebook, it will just increase the salary offer until someone take it. There's always a price for someone to bend their ethics.
  - account42 6y ago
    > There's always a price for someone to bend their ethics. That doesn't make it any more OK for you (ie, any specific developer) to bend your ethics. Also, increasing the cost for unethical practices will at least discourage some corporations from engaging in them.

blub 6y ago

Silicon Valley is a really nice club with zero consequences for those that have been screwing up the internet and online privacy for decades. Therefore I don't think it's appropriate to now complain that somebody's calling these people a disgrace to their field. Recently we learned on HN of the revolving door between Mozilla and Facebook, straight from the mouths of former Mozilla/current Facebook employees. They were even proud of helping the people that were recently let go by Mozilla with jobs at Facebook, as if it were totally normal to switch from privacy and open web defender to privacy and open web villain. I mean it is totally normal apparently. And really, I think that the moment of shame those people will feel at being called a disgrace, if they're even capable of feeling that any more will go away latest at the time that their fat paycheck hits their bank accounts. To be fair, they probably don't even read HN, Drew's blog or give a crap about any of this.

colesantiago 6y ago
Sure Silicon Valley bad, but it's pointless to shame them if they don't care, especially if their employer is bankrolling them. I mean, Google bankrolled Mozilla for years, nobody questioned or even opposed it, yet Mozilla criticises them on privacy, and now look what happened. But what do we do? I would like to take action against this, but this post doesn't really do anything about this. I fear that we will see more posts like this screaming into the blog post void and nothing comes of it, since you said they don't even read HN or Drew's blog.
- oliwarner 6y ago
  > especially if their employer is bankrolling them That's the problem! These are developers who don't care about the ecosystem. Drew is entirely right, they should be ashamed of what they've done, and use any and all influence to end this experiment.
type0 6y ago
Speaking of Web Browsers, I won't be surprised if FB introduces their own browser, this could potentially be so much more dystopian than Chrome it's scary that's a possibility. Chrome is already de facto mandated by some government agencies across the globe by virtue of that their authentication doesn't work in other browsers (not even Chromium in some cases).

0xdeadb00f 6y ago

I agree with Drew about a lot of things, but he's career shamed before and it never sat right with me, even if he has a maybe valid point. I remember he said something very similar about people working for FAANG.

string 6y ago

I don't understand this assumption that "x shaming" is inherently a negative thing. Shame is an essential social emotion. I don't see what's wrong with shaming people for unethical or immoral choices they choose to make.

fastball 6y ago
Because AMP isn't objectively unethical or immoral.
rlwinm 6y ago
Do you want to call people out or change their behavior? Public shaming may be successful at the former but often fails at the latter. If anything it often causes people to reinforce a position they might have otherwise conceded. The other negative effects of shaming are well discussed in the Jon Ronson book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. If you work on AMP, for example, it’s easy to dismiss Drew’s rant as that of a fanatic. Many people don’t think their work is unethical or immoral. It’s much harder to dismiss a reasoned argument that acknowledges the benefits of AMP and gives examples of the deleterious effects of AMP.

krageon 6y ago

> Why are they a disgrace Other than the fact that they work for Google, I assume?

boomlinde 6y ago

Really? Shaming shaming? That's very low of you to do. In all seriousness I think it's fair to judge people by their actions and tell them in simple terms that you don't approve of them. Not just fair; I think it's fundamental to society that we are able and willing to do so, and that the recipients are able to feel shame as a result. This curbs antisocial behavior.

xet7 6y ago

Drew has a lot of action. His Open Source code repo hosting service https://sourcehut.org https://sourcehut.org does not use any Javascript at frontend, and sourcehut webpages load a lot faster than GitHub and GitLab. https://drewdevault.com/2018/06/05/Should-you-move-to-sr.ht.html https://drewdevault.com/2018/06/05/Should-you-move-to-sr.ht.... https://sourcehut.org/blog/2019-10-23-srht-puts-users-first/ https://sourcehut.org/blog/2019-10-23-srht-puts-users-first/ Problem here is, that Chromium and Firefox based browsers use a huge amount of RAM, and keep increasing amount of features and code. Also, new versions of Chrome etc have broken features that did previously work fine. Then, web developers are adding even more code to webpages, causing web to just feel a lot slower: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21835417 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21835417 It would be nice if: - webpages would use less code at frontend - so web browsers would use less memory - with less features in browsers, there would be less code to audit for security - with less code in browsers, compiling browser would require less time

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]