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Code like this doesn't happen unless a programmer sits down and writes it. You have a responsibility to refuse to write code which is morally wrong. This is the
by ddevault 6y ago
Code like this doesn't happen unless a programmer sits down and writes it. You have a responsibility to refuse to write code which is morally wrong. This is the cost if you don't: real human lives.
- gregoriol 6y agoIn China programmers probably can't refuse without very huge consequences for them and their own families.
- ddevault 6y agoPerhaps. But I'm appealing to HN readers here, not to China.
- strogonoff 6y agoThere was another time, not long ago, when people justified doing or facilitating vile things against masses of fellow humans as “just following orders”. Their point is valid—refusing might cost own life, and there's the prisoner's dilemma, etc. A situation like that seems unlikely to be resolved from within a system itself. However, appeals to consequences aside, in the end each of us has a choice: write that code (slash architect that solution) or not.
- fileeditview 6y agoEveryone may have the choice but for some it's easier to say no than for others..
- strogonoff 6y agoSince it’s posted here on HN, I believe this is primarily addressed to those whom saying “no” would cost maybe a promotion, a customer, or even just impaired relationship with a manager. Having to choose between your family and thousands of others is tragic and I can’t honestly claim which I’d choose, but being blind to that choice (intentionally or not) is probably even more tragic.
- floatingatoll 6y agoThere are a lot of people who have never faced the decision “Do I stand up for what’s right when it means my family will be murdered?”. While you’re clearly familiar with another scenario where that happened, others aren’t, and so the parent comment may help them realize that.
- strogonoff 6y agoWe don’t have evidence that the latter engineer was actually facing a choice between implementing the feature and non-figuratively sacrificing their and their family’s life. Unlike the 70+ year old precedent I was alluding to, for a talented software engineer of non-Uyghur descent in competitive modern China forever robbing yourself and everyone from your family of the opportunity to advance up the party hierarchy may well qualify as “very huge consequences”—meanwhile, what the feature in question facilitates may well qualify as a crime under international law.
- Analemma_ 6y agoUnfortunately I doubt fear of reprisal was the motivating factor behind whoever wrote this code.
- maallooc 6y agotbh I'd prefer food in our kitchen than some human lives far away.