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I worked at Monsanto for a few years. I won't get into the ethics of the company on this forum, but as a software engineer it was a pretty great place to work.

I worked at Monsanto for a few years. I won't get into the ethics of the company on this forum, but as a software engineer it was a pretty great place to work. Good engineering culture, lots of very dedicated and smart people and some really fun challenges to work on.

nickpeterson 4y ago
I think you just summarized the problem pretty well.
- tptacek 4y ago
  Could you maybe summarize it further, for those of us who don't know what you mean by this?
  - whatshisface 4y ago
    Inside life is great and people are nice, and all of the evil is generated at the boundary between the inside and the outside. On top of that, information about the evil is very much suppressed within the organization, so that the people working on it are even more ignorant about it than external bystanders. For example, take the oil industry in 2006: everyone inside it was inundated by detailed climate change denial, so that they were worse off (in terms of the accuracy of their beliefs) than relatively uninformed outsiders who vaguely recalled hearing something about how climate change was a problem. (Not to change the subject, but this always strikes me as funny when people debate misinformation; some of the most damaging misinformation of the past 50 years was disseminated first and most intensely through the internal channels of powerful institutions.)
    - aporetics 4y ago
      The real evil is always in not asking and not thinking about the meaning of the work. If you work at a company because it has a great engineering culture, but the work it happens to make it super efficient to turn babies into cowfeed, you’re still evil…for not thinking about the meaning of what you do. If you work at a company because it has an awesome engineering culture, and the work is to make it really easy and efficient for other companies to do whatever they do, how do you assess (and take responsibility) for your work? Can you? If you can’t, what are you doing? If you work in the cloud, this is you.
      - whatshisface 4y ago
        You have got to make some finer distinctions for what is or isn't evil than "the cloud." All you will accomplish with overbroad strokes is convincing people that ethical distinctions do not actually exist. As for what the distinctions actually are, for a start, how about products that harm parties which have not agreed to anything?
        aporetics 4y ago
        Ah. I wasn’t calling the cloud evil, I was showing that working in the cloud poses some difficult questions about how to identify the meaning of the work. It would be easy to defer such a task. (But what would it mean to spend your life working in such a way that the meaning of your work is always up to someone else?) I was pretty clear in locating the root of evil in thoughtlessness.
  - harry8 4y ago
    Agree or not all you like but I flat out don't believe you don't know what is meant. 1) Doesn't wish to discuss the ethics at all. 2) The working conditions are very good.
    - seattle_spring 4y ago
      They likely don't want to discuss ethics because the exact same arguments and insults get trotted out everytime. Especially because if his arguments don't align with the common narrative, several people will likely just dismiss him as a "paid shill." Why would anyone willingly wade into that mess with nothing to gain?
      - tptacek 4y ago
        Yeah, this is what I was getting at.
        harry8 4y ago
        Maybe say so plainly rather than faking at playing dumb? What you're assuming was meant wasn't actually said either. Make your case. Make well. Make it clearly and forcefully but please don't go in for those kind of hollywood-drama-style courtroom argument tricks, it's not helpful to any given discussion.
        seattle_spring 4y ago
        The intent you're claiming isn't anywhere in the person's posts. All they said was that they didn't want to get into the morality argument in this forum, which is a reasonable position to have given there are people like you chomping at the bit to "prove him wrong" or whatever. Chill out, guy.
        harry8 4y ago
        I did not claim any intent.

nickpeterson 4y ago

I think you just summarized the problem pretty well.

tptacek 4y ago
Could you maybe summarize it further, for those of us who don't know what you mean by this?
- whatshisface 4y ago
  Inside life is great and people are nice, and all of the evil is generated at the boundary between the inside and the outside. On top of that, information about the evil is very much suppressed within the organization, so that the people working on it are even more ignorant about it than external bystanders. For example, take the oil industry in 2006: everyone inside it was inundated by detailed climate change denial, so that they were worse off (in terms of the accuracy of their beliefs) than relatively uninformed outsiders who vaguely recalled hearing something about how climate change was a problem. (Not to change the subject, but this always strikes me as funny when people debate misinformation; some of the most damaging misinformation of the past 50 years was disseminated first and most intensely through the internal channels of powerful institutions.)
  - aporetics 4y ago
    The real evil is always in not asking and not thinking about the meaning of the work. If you work at a company because it has a great engineering culture, but the work it happens to make it super efficient to turn babies into cowfeed, you’re still evil…for not thinking about the meaning of what you do. If you work at a company because it has an awesome engineering culture, and the work is to make it really easy and efficient for other companies to do whatever they do, how do you assess (and take responsibility) for your work? Can you? If you can’t, what are you doing? If you work in the cloud, this is you.
    - whatshisface 4y ago
      You have got to make some finer distinctions for what is or isn't evil than "the cloud." All you will accomplish with overbroad strokes is convincing people that ethical distinctions do not actually exist. As for what the distinctions actually are, for a start, how about products that harm parties which have not agreed to anything?
      - aporetics 4y ago
        Ah. I wasn’t calling the cloud evil, I was showing that working in the cloud poses some difficult questions about how to identify the meaning of the work. It would be easy to defer such a task. (But what would it mean to spend your life working in such a way that the meaning of your work is always up to someone else?) I was pretty clear in locating the root of evil in thoughtlessness.
- harry8 4y ago
  Agree or not all you like but I flat out don't believe you don't know what is meant. 1) Doesn't wish to discuss the ethics at all. 2) The working conditions are very good.
  - seattle_spring 4y ago
    They likely don't want to discuss ethics because the exact same arguments and insults get trotted out everytime. Especially because if his arguments don't align with the common narrative, several people will likely just dismiss him as a "paid shill." Why would anyone willingly wade into that mess with nothing to gain?
    - tptacek 4y ago
      Yeah, this is what I was getting at.
      - harry8 4y ago
        Maybe say so plainly rather than faking at playing dumb? What you're assuming was meant wasn't actually said either. Make your case. Make well. Make it clearly and forcefully but please don't go in for those kind of hollywood-drama-style courtroom argument tricks, it's not helpful to any given discussion.
        seattle_spring 4y ago
        The intent you're claiming isn't anywhere in the person's posts. All they said was that they didn't want to get into the morality argument in this forum, which is a reasonable position to have given there are people like you chomping at the bit to "prove him wrong" or whatever. Chill out, guy.
        harry8 4y ago
        I did not claim any intent.