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This points at a huge problem in software culture. A lot of us don't see ourselves as professionals, with our own ethical standards and responsibilities. We jus

This points at a huge problem in software culture. A lot of us don't see ourselves as professionals, with our own ethical standards and responsibilities. We just do whatever a boss orders us to do, like minions or mercenaries. It's also an organizational problem, though. If you're, say, a doctor or an actual engineer, there are professional organizations that stand up for the professional standards and that can have your back if you're being asked to violate them. This is especially disappointing to me given the demand for software developers. It's much easier for us to find news jobs than most people, so the risk of taking an ethical stand is much lower for us than most people. And we also have a lot to gain! So many places are poorly run that businesses and developers would all gain if we used our power to fix process and organizational issues. I've certainly done my best to use that power well. But I would love to see cultural and organizational changes so that more of us do that.

malloreon 5y ago
100% true. If a software engineer writes software that hurts people, they believe in hurting people and believe people should be hurt. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t write software that hurts people. The impressive amount of freedom tech workers have to choose what they work on means the ethical and moral issues with their production should fall on each person’s shoulders, but it doesn’t.
- mdoms 5y ago
  It's a video scrub bar. Calm down.
- standardUser 5y ago
  This attitude implies an unambiguous, black and white world where such decisions are always clear. In other words, a fantasy world which does not exist.
  - wpietri 5y ago
    I agree it's a bit hyperbolic. But it seems weird to suggest that developers, who are hired for their intellectual power and subtlety, are great at figuring out the implications of complex decisions except when ethics are involved. I think it's more likely that their sudden inability in this one aspect is related to Upton Sinclair's observation: " It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
curryst 5y ago
> A lot of us don't see ourselves as professionals, with our own ethical standards and responsibilities. We just do whatever a boss orders us to do, like minions or mercenaries. In contrast, I think that's precisely how we all feel about ourselves. Some people just have different (i.e. lower) ethical standards than you do. > If you're, say, a doctor or an actual engineer, there are professional organizations that stand up for the professional standards and that can have your back if you're being asked to violate them. More importantly, they're the ones that set a minimum baseline for ethical behavior. We don't have that. That's what makes it so easy to threaten to replace developers with people who will do what their told. They can do it, and easily. It would be a much more hollow threat if they were going to have to find someone willing to risk their career. > This is especially disappointing to me given the demand for software developers. It's much easier for us to find news jobs than most people, so the risk of taking an ethical stand is much lower for us than most people. The risk still isn't low enough. The incentives are wildly mismatched. Either I put a shitty anti-user feature in a product I'm probably never going to use, or I risk my family being homeless. It's probably a small risk, but so is dying in a plane hijacking and yet a lot of people worry about that. > And we also have a lot to gain! So many places are poorly run that businesses and developers would all gain if we used our power to fix process and organizational issues. I would put an extremely heavy "citation needed" around that. I don't doubt that we can all identify things that need improving at work, but having 85 different developers asking for 307 different things all at once isn't going to help. You need something structured. A union or professional organization might be helpful. A bunch of people threatening to quit for random causes probably won't.
- wpietri 5y ago
  You don't seem very consistent here. Either "all" developers have ethical standards, meaning that there are things they will stand up and fight for, or they're people who are much more concerned for their jobs and will do whatever managers say. But you can't really argue for both at once. You also talk as if you aren't at risk of losing your job now. People lose their jobs all the time. It's something any responsible adult has to be prepared for. And yes, of course when I say "we used our power to fix process and organizational issues" I definitely meant the "we" part of it, not some half-assed random individual behavior. A suggestion for happy dialog: try assuming the person you're talking to has thought of the obvious implications that just occurred to you.

malloreon 5y ago

100% true. If a software engineer writes software that hurts people, they believe in hurting people and believe people should be hurt. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t write software that hurts people. The impressive amount of freedom tech workers have to choose what they work on means the ethical and moral issues with their production should fall on each person’s shoulders, but it doesn’t.

mdoms 5y ago
It's a video scrub bar. Calm down.
standardUser 5y ago
This attitude implies an unambiguous, black and white world where such decisions are always clear. In other words, a fantasy world which does not exist.
- wpietri 5y ago
  I agree it's a bit hyperbolic. But it seems weird to suggest that developers, who are hired for their intellectual power and subtlety, are great at figuring out the implications of complex decisions except when ethics are involved. I think it's more likely that their sudden inability in this one aspect is related to Upton Sinclair's observation: " It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

curryst 5y ago

> A lot of us don't see ourselves as professionals, with our own ethical standards and responsibilities. We just do whatever a boss orders us to do, like minions or mercenaries. In contrast, I think that's precisely how we all feel about ourselves. Some people just have different (i.e. lower) ethical standards than you do. > If you're, say, a doctor or an actual engineer, there are professional organizations that stand up for the professional standards and that can have your back if you're being asked to violate them. More importantly, they're the ones that set a minimum baseline for ethical behavior. We don't have that. That's what makes it so easy to threaten to replace developers with people who will do what their told. They can do it, and easily. It would be a much more hollow threat if they were going to have to find someone willing to risk their career. > This is especially disappointing to me given the demand for software developers. It's much easier for us to find news jobs than most people, so the risk of taking an ethical stand is much lower for us than most people. The risk still isn't low enough. The incentives are wildly mismatched. Either I put a shitty anti-user feature in a product I'm probably never going to use, or I risk my family being homeless. It's probably a small risk, but so is dying in a plane hijacking and yet a lot of people worry about that. > And we also have a lot to gain! So many places are poorly run that businesses and developers would all gain if we used our power to fix process and organizational issues. I would put an extremely heavy "citation needed" around that. I don't doubt that we can all identify things that need improving at work, but having 85 different developers asking for 307 different things all at once isn't going to help. You need something structured. A union or professional organization might be helpful. A bunch of people threatening to quit for random causes probably won't.

wpietri 5y ago
You don't seem very consistent here. Either "all" developers have ethical standards, meaning that there are things they will stand up and fight for, or they're people who are much more concerned for their jobs and will do whatever managers say. But you can't really argue for both at once. You also talk as if you aren't at risk of losing your job now. People lose their jobs all the time. It's something any responsible adult has to be prepared for. And yes, of course when I say "we used our power to fix process and organizational issues" I definitely meant the "we" part of it, not some half-assed random individual behavior. A suggestion for happy dialog: try assuming the person you're talking to has thought of the obvious implications that just occurred to you.