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I don't buy the "you can't blame anyone except the person that pulls the trigger" argument. That type of whataboutisim is at the heart of every major engineeri

by lrvick 6y ago

I don't buy the "you can't blame anyone except the person that pulls the trigger" argument. That type of whataboutisim is at the heart of every major engineering effort of silicon valley and surveillance capitalisim that is used abusively on the masses. We can say no. We -must- say no. Making alcohol should be legal. Specifically selling it to a kid is not legal, because then you are specifically helping them commit a crime. Likewise I don't blame steel mills for producing steel that is later used in guns wielded by dictators on their own people. I sure do blame the people that sell the guns to said dictators with full knowledge of their likely use case though. We as engineers have an ethical responsibility if we make a nuke with full knowledge the buyer probably intends to drop it on a city. I once built a company that produced a very effective social data aggregator, classifier, and sentiment analysis engine with an easy search interface. It quickly identified sentiment trends across a dozen networks and could of been amazing for brand managers or stock traders. My investors decided they wanted to repurpose it for political propaganda and market it to a specific party. I could of said "well this is really cool tech, and I am making good money... Not my problem what they do with it". I thought that for a bit. I even helped build an MVP for political candidate tracking. It felt wrong, so I quit. I didn't help them replace me. The company ended and all my years of work and research with it. So be it. I don't always get it right, but looking back, -not- continuing that project remains one of the proudest choices of my life.

prophesi 6y ago
> "well this is really cool tech, and I am making good money... Not my problem what they do with it" Yep. I've got a feeling this is a sentiment shared among all of the engineers working on shady tech. I'd also add, "and even if I quit, someone will quickly take my place."
- ryandrake 6y ago
  Yea, I can’t stand this mentality. Like, dude, step back and look at the big picture once in a while! I was in a similar situation as the GP. I was hired to work on a software that technology-wise we’d all agree was ethically neutral. But if you looked at who all our customers were, and what they used it for, I’d guarantee many HN posters would have ethical concerns. I ended up quitting for a number of reasons, but the ethics of who our customer base was ranked pretty high in that decision.
bhupy 6y ago
> Making alcohol should be legal. Specifically selling it to a kid is not legal, because then you are specifically helping them commit a crime. This seems reasonable. > Likewise I don't blame steel mills for producing steel that is later used in guns wielded by dictators on their own people. So far, a steady train of thought > I sure do blame the people that sell the guns to said dictators with full knowledge of their likely use case though. This is a bit of a jump. Up to this point, you had a gradually growing line of argument, but then jumped straight to selling guns to dictators. There's a step right before, and that's manufacturing the gun itself — is that acceptable in your view? I think most people agree that selling guns to dictators is bad, but whether or not the gun should be manufactured at all, and sold to police and militaries of countries with republican governments is debatable. Palantir does not work with "dictators". At least according to their IPO S-1 filing, as a matter of policy they only work with US and her allies. Whether you think that NATO states constitute "dictators" is an orthogonal and controversial claim. If you agree that NATO defense agencies and local police departments don't constitute "dictators", then you would agree that what Palantir is doing here, per your analogy, is "making alcohol", but not "selling it to a kid".
- prophesi 6y ago
  (I'm not the original poster) I wouldn't conflate the US as a dictatorship (maybe a broken two-party corporatocracy), but in light of the BLM protests, dealing with local police departments to better surveil their own citizens is unethical. In light of Snowden's revelations, dealing with ICE to better surveil their own citizens is unethical.
  - bhupy 6y ago
    > but in light of the BLM protests, dealing with local police departments to better surveil their own citizens is unethical. I'm not sure that this is so clear cut. This also one of those things where it's fairly uncontroversial that the George Floyd (and all of the other comparable incidents) were unquestionably bad. But is that representative of all policing? Are police departments, as a concept, unethical? I'm not sure that this is clear cut or obvious. And finally, all of these police departments are funded and run by republican forms of government (which BTW are predominately one-party democracies, just not the party that's popular to hate), that can democratically change. It's not a dictatorship. Any more than 21st century Italy is a "dictatorship" because it briefly had an authoritarian Prime Minister (Berlusconi). > In light of Snowden's revelations, dealing with ICE to better surveil their own citizens is unethical. Sure, and I think that it's up to the public to elect leaders that change these policies, which is possible because the US is a Federal republic, not a dictatorship. Unfortunately, in light of right-wing extremism, domestic surveillance is increasingly developing bipartisan approval. Is it unethical to serve the needs of the people even if some subset of those people don't approve of domestic surveillance? Unless it's not about doing business with dictators, it's about doing business with democracies that enact policies we don't like, but that's a different line of argument entirely, and one much less straightforwardly bad than "selling guns to dictators".

by lrvick 6y ago

prophesi 6y ago

> "well this is really cool tech, and I am making good money... Not my problem what they do with it" Yep. I've got a feeling this is a sentiment shared among all of the engineers working on shady tech. I'd also add, "and even if I quit, someone will quickly take my place."

ryandrake 6y ago
Yea, I can’t stand this mentality. Like, dude, step back and look at the big picture once in a while! I was in a similar situation as the GP. I was hired to work on a software that technology-wise we’d all agree was ethically neutral. But if you looked at who all our customers were, and what they used it for, I’d guarantee many HN posters would have ethical concerns. I ended up quitting for a number of reasons, but the ethics of who our customer base was ranked pretty high in that decision.

bhupy 6y ago

> Making alcohol should be legal. Specifically selling it to a kid is not legal, because then you are specifically helping them commit a crime. This seems reasonable. > Likewise I don't blame steel mills for producing steel that is later used in guns wielded by dictators on their own people. So far, a steady train of thought > I sure do blame the people that sell the guns to said dictators with full knowledge of their likely use case though. This is a bit of a jump. Up to this point, you had a gradually growing line of argument, but then jumped straight to selling guns to dictators. There's a step right before, and that's manufacturing the gun itself — is that acceptable in your view? I think most people agree that selling guns to dictators is bad, but whether or not the gun should be manufactured at all, and sold to police and militaries of countries with republican governments is debatable. Palantir does not work with "dictators". At least according to their IPO S-1 filing, as a matter of policy they only work with US and her allies. Whether you think that NATO states constitute "dictators" is an orthogonal and controversial claim. If you agree that NATO defense agencies and local police departments don't constitute "dictators", then you would agree that what Palantir is doing here, per your analogy, is "making alcohol", but not "selling it to a kid".

prophesi 6y ago
(I'm not the original poster) I wouldn't conflate the US as a dictatorship (maybe a broken two-party corporatocracy), but in light of the BLM protests, dealing with local police departments to better surveil their own citizens is unethical. In light of Snowden's revelations, dealing with ICE to better surveil their own citizens is unethical.
- bhupy 6y ago
  > but in light of the BLM protests, dealing with local police departments to better surveil their own citizens is unethical. I'm not sure that this is so clear cut. This also one of those things where it's fairly uncontroversial that the George Floyd (and all of the other comparable incidents) were unquestionably bad. But is that representative of all policing? Are police departments, as a concept, unethical? I'm not sure that this is clear cut or obvious. And finally, all of these police departments are funded and run by republican forms of government (which BTW are predominately one-party democracies, just not the party that's popular to hate), that can democratically change. It's not a dictatorship. Any more than 21st century Italy is a "dictatorship" because it briefly had an authoritarian Prime Minister (Berlusconi). > In light of Snowden's revelations, dealing with ICE to better surveil their own citizens is unethical. Sure, and I think that it's up to the public to elect leaders that change these policies, which is possible because the US is a Federal republic, not a dictatorship. Unfortunately, in light of right-wing extremism, domestic surveillance is increasingly developing bipartisan approval. Is it unethical to serve the needs of the people even if some subset of those people don't approve of domestic surveillance? Unless it's not about doing business with dictators, it's about doing business with democracies that enact policies we don't like, but that's a different line of argument entirely, and one much less straightforwardly bad than "selling guns to dictators".