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> and being powerless to stop it. You are only powerless so long as you decide to stay within the comfortable confines of the law. The crowd of Hacker News al

> and being powerless to stop it. You are only powerless so long as you decide to stay within the comfortable confines of the law. The crowd of Hacker News alone certainly has enough ability to cause serious problems for Citizen, whether through activism within their own megacorporations or independent ability.

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Nextgrid 5y ago
You don't even have to break the law. Hacker News and the software engineering industry has a decent influence in the world, as we can't (yet) be automated away and it takes years to become proficient. If we as an industry collectively agree that X is bad and refuse to work on it, X will be significantly disrupted, as their only option might to be offering more money (to get someone to defect and renege on the promise) than they can afford or that makes sense with their economics. Creepy adtech could die tomorrow if people refuse to work on it. The same applies to this Citizen crap.
- kelnos 5y ago
  I just don't see that as feasible. I consider the entire concept of Palantir to be disgusting, but there are clearly enough software developers who think that enabling state surveillance makes people safer. All it takes is a few thousand such people (a small fraction of a percent), and it doesn't matter what "the industry" agrees not to work on. I feel like you might have the misconception that "tech people" are some homogenous bloc that believes in the same things and would stand behind a single policy platform. The reality is nothing at all like that.
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  That's true, but you'd need an implausibly high percentage of developers to agree to the boycott for it to work. Since that conformity is unlikely it's even harder to attain because every individual thinks "Even I forgo this lucrative job it'll still be done by someone else and I'll just have less money."
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Nextgrid 5y ago

You don't even have to break the law. Hacker News and the software engineering industry has a decent influence in the world, as we can't (yet) be automated away and it takes years to become proficient. If we as an industry collectively agree that X is bad and refuse to work on it, X will be significantly disrupted, as their only option might to be offering more money (to get someone to defect and renege on the promise) than they can afford or that makes sense with their economics. Creepy adtech could die tomorrow if people refuse to work on it. The same applies to this Citizen crap.

kelnos 5y ago
I just don't see that as feasible. I consider the entire concept of Palantir to be disgusting, but there are clearly enough software developers who think that enabling state surveillance makes people safer. All it takes is a few thousand such people (a small fraction of a percent), and it doesn't matter what "the industry" agrees not to work on. I feel like you might have the misconception that "tech people" are some homogenous bloc that believes in the same things and would stand behind a single policy platform. The reality is nothing at all like that.
ALittleLight 5y ago
That's true, but you'd need an implausibly high percentage of developers to agree to the boycott for it to work. Since that conformity is unlikely it's even harder to attain because every individual thinks "Even I forgo this lucrative job it'll still be done by someone else and I'll just have less money."

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