6 ms·

> “I keep having the same unsolved question: if my rifle claimed people’s lives, then can it be that I… a Christian and an Orthodox believer, was to blame for t

• dragontamer 4y ago
  What about racist bridges? If you invent low-height bridges to keep black people out of select neighborhoods (because they tend to take the bus, and busses can't cross the bridge / tunnel), would you just be "someone else would have created something similar eventually??". As an engineer, you are responsible for your inventions. That's always been true. Ideally, you create things for people who are trustworthy. If you don't care about ethics, then don't be surprised if those ethics come to bite you in the ass later. Is it "just a low height bridge", or is it a "racist bridge"? As an engineer, its your job to make the thing (or decide to not make the thing).
  • spurgu 4y ago
    > As an engineer, you are responsible for your inventions. Disagree. Feel free to design whatever you want. The person actually building and putting it to use would be the one at fault.
    • dragontamer 4y ago
      > Feel free to design whatever you want. Yes. And if you design a racist bridge designed to keep black people out of a neighborhood, you're either helping racists, or are racist yourself. Feel free to be whatever you want, but accept that if you make racist decisions it makes you a racist.
      • bobkazamakis 4y ago
        but you don't understand! I didn't create my face tracking software for surveillant capitalism!
        • dragontamer 4y ago
          I'm not racist! I just chose to work under racist bosses, do what the racist bosses say, and build / design things that those racist bosses liked! Now replace "racism" with whatever other adjective is out there (face-tracking software, guns, etc. etc.) and its really the same thing. We engineers must ethically agree with the things we make, and their expected use. Its one thing if maybe our boss uses the device in a way we didn't expect. But on the other hand, Oppenheimer knew damn well what he was making. The people we support and work for are ethically and morally tied to us engineers. They can only do the things they want with our support. And we are tied with them, since their use of our inventions is actually quite predictable in most situations.
          • jl6 4y ago
            This sort of moral principle is easy to apply in extreme scenarios, but most decisions are not so clear cut: a lot of engineers don’t have complete agency in choosing where they work, and a lot of engineers work on dual-use technology with plausible ethical use. As an example, if we assume Facebook is 100% evil (debatable but let’s go with it), then did the developers of React act unethically because their work furthered Facebook’s goals, or ethically because React is morally neutral (or even positive, as Free software) and it was other engineers who put it to evil uses? And furthermore, even nuclear bombs had a plausible ethical use (end the war sooner).
            • dragontamer 4y ago
              How hard is it for a React.js developer to find a new job elsewhere? If Facebook is 100% evil, then it behooves the workers to work for a less evil company, at a minimum. Of course, Facebook itself isn't 100% evil so things break down in your example. If you're a React.js developer and you're worried about internet privacy, intrusive ad-tech being used to track people (etc. etc.), then maybe... just maybe... you should find something else to work on in a company that matches your ethics better.
              • spurgu 4y ago
    • rolph 4y ago
      An engineer takes an oath similar to the hippocratic [do no harm] [ I am an Engineer. In my profession I take deep pride. To it I owe solemn obligations. As an engineer, I, (full name), pledge to practice Integrity and Fair Dealing, Tolerance, and Respect, and to uphold devotion to the standards and dignity of my profession, conscious always that my skill carries with it the obligation to serve humanity by making best use of the Earth's precious wealth. As an engineer, I shall participate in none but honest enterprises. When needed, my skill and knowledge shall be given without reservation for the public good. In the performance of duty, and in fidelity to my profession, I shall give the utmost.]
      • thatguy27 4y ago
        Well, some engineers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Engineer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Engineer. Looks like there are similar associations in other countries.
    • kube-system 4y ago
      Strong disagree. If you build a bridge with a safety factor of 0.00001 and people die, it is your fault. The deaths as a result of those actions are predictable.
      • spurgu 4y ago
        So you're saying the engineer who designed it is innocent and the manager who actually put the trainwreck into production is to blame? If so then I agree with you completely. Ideas require free flow of ideas, concepts, experiments. If the bridge happens to be "racist" (what a dumb example) then so what. Let the person you pitch it to (if you get that far) point it out and go from there. If it passes initial examination and goes as far as to actually getting built, I'm way past washing my hands off any guilt. Edit: And your example is equally weird. Who in their right mind would ever design a bridge that was 0.001% safe? There are a ton of people up the chain who make way dumber (and "RACIST") decisions if they go ahead and build the contraption.
        • deleted 4y ago
          [deleted]
    • matkoniecz 4y ago
      Someone who invented and designed gas chambers in Auschwitz concentration camp is partially blameworthy for their use. (less if they were forced/unaware or there are somehow other mitigating reasons) The same goes for other designer of things that could be clearly put into primarily or only bad use.
    • throwaway892238 4y ago
      Comparatively few German soldiers were stationed at the Holocaust death camps. The people working on the railroads didn't kill the Jews. The people processing Jewish identities to build lists of people to pick up didn't kill them. The neighbors who reported the Jews didn't kill them. The statisticians who calculated how many people could be killed per month, and how to transport them all efficiently, didn't kill them. The chemists who sold Zyklon B to the SS for use on humans didn't kill them. Somebody else would have done the same thing anyway. If you agree with the above statement, then the basic rationalization of "I didn't directly do it, therefore I am innocent" holds. But if you disagree with the above statement, you acknowledge that simply not being the person who "pulls the trigger" does not absolve you of doing the work leading up to it. Or put another way: "All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to design their death camps."
  • brodouevencode 4y ago
    > As an engineer, you are responsible for your inventions To a point. Intention and context matter more. If you build low-height bridges because at the time it was the economical thing to do, and perhaps not even considering bus sizes, then you are not responsible. This happens ALL THE TIME in software.
    • dragontamer 4y ago
      > If you build low-height bridges because at the time it was the economical thing to do When I talk about "racist bridges", I'm talking about the well known case of Robert Moses. Most people who have studied the ethics of engineering should be familiar with him.
      • brodouevencode 4y ago
        Correct, but not everyone knows this case. So to put an even finer point to it - context matters a helluva lot.
        • dragontamer 4y ago
          Fair. Its a bit of a controversial topic, and I expect that historians will continue to revisit the issue of Robert Moses as the decades go on.
  • Ekaros 4y ago
    I would argue that building a too low bridge is failure anyway. But not do racism, but do effects on regular commerce. If a bus can't pass under a reasonable sized delivery truck can't either.
    • dghlsakjg 4y ago
      This is specifically a reference to Robert Moses who built the bridges that accessed Long Island beaches low enough that busses from the city wouldn't be able to get to the beach. It is pretty widely accepted that he did this to keep "certain people" away from the public beaches.
  • the_third_wave 4y ago
    This is a story about a rifle and as such it has nothing to do with race or 'racism' [1]. Knowing that the mere mentioning of 'racism' is enough to derail a discussion I want to ask why you brought this up and I suggest the need for a corollary to Godwin's law [3] to be applied here. He who mentions race or 'racism' where there is no call for such has put himself out of the discussion. [1] 'racism' is not the same as racism [2] [2] https://www.britannica.com/topic/racism https://www.britannica.com/topic/racism [3] https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110810105009431 https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20...
• Ancapistani 4y ago
  It's not even 100% clear that it's really "Kalashnikov's Rifle". It appears to share its pedigree with a number of German firearms from the WW2 era, the designers of which just so happened to "immigrate" to the Soviet Union in 1945. The Soviets wouldn't have found it very palatable to field a weapon designed by Germans, and the story of a common soldier designing one of the great battle rifles of the 20th Century and being elevated to a Hero of the Soviet Union as a result is great propaganda. I'm not asserting that the man had nothing to do with it, don't get me wrong. It's just very obviously not the work of one individual's mind, and given the context of the era we should probably take a critical view of the official story.
  • spurgu 4y ago
    "Standing on the shoulders of giants". Very few things in recent centuries have been invented from scratch.
  • simonh 4y ago
    While the latter was a clear inspiration, the AK operating mechanism is very different from the Stg 44 I believe you are referencing. There are plenty of disassembly videos on YouTube you can check to see differences. They’re no more similar than is say the AR15. On the other hand Kalashnikov worked with other soviet weapons designers and some features of the AK are clearly borrowed from some of their designs. There are plenty of records, schematics and eye witness accounts of the weapons development and military trials at various stages, and no Germans were involved.
    • Ekaros 4y ago
      Stg 44 from what I can see can clearly be called German. That is rather complicated in engineering. Unlike AK which is exceedingly simple. I think only thing is the inspiration for class of weapon which time had clearly come. Something beyond sub-machine gun. With decent single shot accuracy.
      • simonh 4y ago
        Indeed, the Russian military was explicitly trying to develop a weapon like the 44. First they developed the 7.62x39 cartridge and then developed a weapon to use it. Kalashnikov had been working on a sub machine gun design and then adapted it (redesign really) to the new cartridge.
• Volundr 4y ago
  > Yes/no/whatever. Someone else would've created something similar eventually. Same with the Oppenheimer and the atomic bomb. I don't think this reasoning works. A few years ago I turned down a job at an MLM after digging through their mandated public filings and determining that almost everyone who worked with them ended up underwater. More recently I turned down a very well paying job in a financial investment company after reflecting on the fact that they didn't produce anything, or provide any services and instead took a (lower paying) job writing software for hospitals/medical clinics. They basically existed to leach of the market. My point is that I think if you build something knowing full well how it will be used, you carry a certain amount of responsibility when it is indeed used that way. You don't get to absolve yourself of responsibility because someone else is doing the has their hand on the trigger/button. You wired that trigger/button knowing what it was for. "Someone else would do it anyway" could be used to justify anything. To go full Goodwin it could be used to justify "just following orders" under the Nazis. After all someone else would've done it anyway.
  • mhb 4y ago
    "MLM" = Multi-Level Marketing You're welcome.
    • Volundr 4y ago
      Yes, sorry. One day I'll learn to define my acronyms.