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>Are there other fields so thoroughly invested in making the world a worse place to be a consumer? Just last week I was reading about a court ruling proving a

>Are there other fields so thoroughly invested in making the world a worse place to be a consumer? Just last week I was reading about a court ruling proving a local bank overcharged interest on car loans, entire department knew, and they did this for years. Effectively stealing from people. The other day a retail store tried to get out of warranty obligation under the excuse that I don't have the receipt, even though I have the warranty card with serial number - a friend working in support said it was a common tactic to see if people would give up. If you think this is an example of a morally questionable job I'd like to know what universe you live in.

n8cpdx 5y ago
There are people who make food. People who drive trucks. People who fly airplanes. People who do customer service. People who fill cavities. People who cure cancer. People who fill potholes. People who clean floors. People who cook meals. People who maintain transmission lines. People who build houses. I’d say that most jobs are in fact doing critical work to make the world better for people, even if in small ways like improving the dining experience. I’ll also point out that in the case of the bank overcharging, it sounds like outright fraud (totally unacceptable) and the courts held them to account. It is shocking that fraud and corruption happen, but at least society seems to have a mechanism for dealing with it. Software engineering isn’t morally questionable, if you aren’t going out of your way to make the world worse for people. There is no compelling reason to do that, so the vast majority of jobs should be perfectly reasonable. I love my job in part because I’m never asked to actively make my product worse, or work against users and customers. We’re imperfect and don’t always work as well as we could, but at least we’re working in the right direction.
- moonchrome 5y ago
  > There are people who make food. All ethical upstanding folk, Monsanto, Nestle, by their standards Microsoft are saints. > People who drive trucks. An industry know for their honesty and reliability, no organised crime involved ever. It's shocking to me how much people here get outraged over relatively trivial stuff.

n8cpdx 5y ago

There are people who make food. People who drive trucks. People who fly airplanes. People who do customer service. People who fill cavities. People who cure cancer. People who fill potholes. People who clean floors. People who cook meals. People who maintain transmission lines. People who build houses. I’d say that most jobs are in fact doing critical work to make the world better for people, even if in small ways like improving the dining experience. I’ll also point out that in the case of the bank overcharging, it sounds like outright fraud (totally unacceptable) and the courts held them to account. It is shocking that fraud and corruption happen, but at least society seems to have a mechanism for dealing with it. Software engineering isn’t morally questionable, if you aren’t going out of your way to make the world worse for people. There is no compelling reason to do that, so the vast majority of jobs should be perfectly reasonable. I love my job in part because I’m never asked to actively make my product worse, or work against users and customers. We’re imperfect and don’t always work as well as we could, but at least we’re working in the right direction.

moonchrome 5y ago
> There are people who make food. All ethical upstanding folk, Monsanto, Nestle, by their standards Microsoft are saints. > People who drive trucks. An industry know for their honesty and reliability, no organised crime involved ever. It's shocking to me how much people here get outraged over relatively trivial stuff.