7 ms·

Thing is, when the company that pays you actively wants to track everyone, there's little you can do as the person that creates tech form them. If the piece of

Thing is, when the company that pays you actively wants to track everyone, there's little you can do as the person that creates tech form them. If the piece of software you created is unbiased and unopinionated, it can be used for evil purposes. If you make the software deliberatedly against that, you have to (a) take measures without the company knowing (b) have the manpower to do it alone while still reaching development goals (c) those measures can be undone by another developer that cares less that you. After all, software big enough is collective by nature. It's also unfair to us to think that we're responsible for any misuse as if we were mechanical engineers creating weapons for war

gnat 4y ago
"Thing is, when the company that pays you actively wants to track everyone, there's little you can do as the person that creates tech form them." You can quit. Literally, there is something you can do. If your boss asks you to write or adapt something to surveil, then you can quit. There may be consequences to quitting, perhaps disproportionately felt between you and the company, perhaps consequences that you won't enjoy as much as your current job stability and paycheck, but the choice is always there.
- lasfter 4y ago
  > There may be consequences to quitting, perhaps disproportionately felt between you and the company This is why unions are so important, even in a field like software engineering. If you quit on your own, the company may not care. But using the threat of strikes, workers can demand better conditions for themselves and more ethical directions for their company.
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    Why are tech workers so resistant to organized action? Their owner employers sure are organizing adversarially in a multitude of ways in the open and behind closed doors
    - int_19h 4y ago
      Tech workers disproportionally 1) believe in meritocracy, and 2) believe that the existing arrangement in IT is it, or at least closer to it than it would have been with unions in the picture. Why that is the case is another interesting question.
      - scaramanga 4y ago
        Which is to say that even very intelligent people can be very vulnerable to believing in things which are patently false provided that the end result is the ability to continue to live in a state of complete denial, and a world of pure imagination, where no action is required on one's own part and you can just continue to hope that all of this is a temporary aberration that will get better on its own :)
        nibbleshifter 4y ago
        Yep. Even clever engineers can be delusional fuckwits.
        ethbr0 4y ago
        There's also a time component. It's entirely possible that in the post-IBM microcomputer, pre-Google AdWords span, they were correct. However, it's pretty obvious that current era, power has slid back from labor towards extremely-large corporations.
        Wyoming23 4y ago
        Obviously. Why else would people on hacker news advocate for all the socialist economic policies that humanity just spent the entire 20th century proving don't work? Sadly history repeats so we'll probably just have another "cultural revolution" and "great leap forward" in the 21st century.
      - eyelidlessness 4y ago
        I disagree. I think most tech workers identify more with their employers and their class than their own status and that of their colleagues. They’re moving up, fast, and they’re satisfied with their prospects more than anything they might get from solidarity. In Marxist terms, lumpenproletariat is a close approximation, but a weird accident of history.
  - MikePlacid 4y ago
    > This is why unions are so important My favorite counter-example is a collective action of about a thousand medical workers in SF Hospital demanding from Facebook an increase in censorship (and the censorship is impossible without surveillance). Why do you think a union will support your ethical choices? And if it would not - you’d have to quit the company and the union, loosing not only your salary, but also union fees.
    - lasfter 4y ago
      This is an argument against democracy itself. If you don't think democracy would work for you, then I can't convince you a union would either.
    - gnat 4y ago
      The marginal cost of union fees is trivial in comparison to a salary. A union gives you more choices than "surveil or resign". And if the union fails you because it says "no, you have to surveil" then you can still resign.
  - t-3 4y ago
    That well has been poisoned in the US. It's tough to find any extant union which isn't a corrupt sellout organization leeching off the workers they're supposed to represent. It's hard to change, because laws around unions are designed to lead to the current situation. Cross-industry/informal/extra-organizational action and coordination using the internet is probably a far more workable idea than traditional unions.
    - NoGravitas 4y ago
      Have you considered that that's what Porky wants you to think about unions?
      - t-3 4y ago
        Yes. I've also worked in a few union shops and experienced it myself. I'm a socialist through and through, but what is called a union in the US is not an organization of and for the workers, it is a co-opted parasitic extension of corporate and government policy. Workers can and should organize, but restricting ourselves to following the controlled opposition is stupid and self-defeating.
- scaramanga 4y ago
  You can organize. Why shouldn't workers in a factory have a say over how their labour is used by those who appropriate it? Baffled by how obvious solutions appear to have fallen off the radar.
  - taneq 4y ago
    They do have a say. Their labour is being purchased from them, not appropriated. They can say no (individually or together) and ultimately they can walk away. As you say, collective bargaining is usually going to be more effective than individual.
    - MikePlacid 4y ago
      > As you say, collective bargaining is usually going to be more effective than individual. It may be more effective in terms of salary and working conditions (though I doubt that in software engineering I would have been able to get better pay through collective). But in terms of ethics? Individually, it’s almost impossible to make me support surveillance and censorship. But a big collective is much more vulnerable to manipulation. Comes 9/11 and you’ll get “collective” support for Patriot act, comes 6/1 and you’ll get “collective” support for censorship.
- NoGravitas 4y ago
  > You can quit. Literally, there is something you can do. If your boss asks you to write or adapt something to surveil, then you can quit. If you had a union, or even a professional association whose code of ethics had teeth, you could refuse without having to quit. It's incredible to me that in 2022, most programmers are still anti-union.
ISO-morphism 4y ago
Even in war, we don't universally take "I was following orders" as a valid excuse. People writing surveillance software are not innocent - not as guilty as those that gave the order, but still guilty.

gnat 4y ago

"Thing is, when the company that pays you actively wants to track everyone, there's little you can do as the person that creates tech form them." You can quit. Literally, there is something you can do. If your boss asks you to write or adapt something to surveil, then you can quit. There may be consequences to quitting, perhaps disproportionately felt between you and the company, perhaps consequences that you won't enjoy as much as your current job stability and paycheck, but the choice is always there.

lasfter 4y ago
> There may be consequences to quitting, perhaps disproportionately felt between you and the company This is why unions are so important, even in a field like software engineering. If you quit on your own, the company may not care. But using the threat of strikes, workers can demand better conditions for themselves and more ethical directions for their company.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  Why are tech workers so resistant to organized action? Their owner employers sure are organizing adversarially in a multitude of ways in the open and behind closed doors
  - int_19h 4y ago
    Tech workers disproportionally 1) believe in meritocracy, and 2) believe that the existing arrangement in IT is it, or at least closer to it than it would have been with unions in the picture. Why that is the case is another interesting question.
    - scaramanga 4y ago
      Which is to say that even very intelligent people can be very vulnerable to believing in things which are patently false provided that the end result is the ability to continue to live in a state of complete denial, and a world of pure imagination, where no action is required on one's own part and you can just continue to hope that all of this is a temporary aberration that will get better on its own :)
      - nibbleshifter 4y ago
        Yep. Even clever engineers can be delusional fuckwits.
      - ethbr0 4y ago
        There's also a time component. It's entirely possible that in the post-IBM microcomputer, pre-Google AdWords span, they were correct. However, it's pretty obvious that current era, power has slid back from labor towards extremely-large corporations.
      - Wyoming23 4y ago
        Obviously. Why else would people on hacker news advocate for all the socialist economic policies that humanity just spent the entire 20th century proving don't work? Sadly history repeats so we'll probably just have another "cultural revolution" and "great leap forward" in the 21st century.
    - eyelidlessness 4y ago
      I disagree. I think most tech workers identify more with their employers and their class than their own status and that of their colleagues. They’re moving up, fast, and they’re satisfied with their prospects more than anything they might get from solidarity. In Marxist terms, lumpenproletariat is a close approximation, but a weird accident of history.
- MikePlacid 4y ago
  > This is why unions are so important My favorite counter-example is a collective action of about a thousand medical workers in SF Hospital demanding from Facebook an increase in censorship (and the censorship is impossible without surveillance). Why do you think a union will support your ethical choices? And if it would not - you’d have to quit the company and the union, loosing not only your salary, but also union fees.
  - lasfter 4y ago
    This is an argument against democracy itself. If you don't think democracy would work for you, then I can't convince you a union would either.
  - gnat 4y ago
    The marginal cost of union fees is trivial in comparison to a salary. A union gives you more choices than "surveil or resign". And if the union fails you because it says "no, you have to surveil" then you can still resign.
- t-3 4y ago
  That well has been poisoned in the US. It's tough to find any extant union which isn't a corrupt sellout organization leeching off the workers they're supposed to represent. It's hard to change, because laws around unions are designed to lead to the current situation. Cross-industry/informal/extra-organizational action and coordination using the internet is probably a far more workable idea than traditional unions.
  - NoGravitas 4y ago
    Have you considered that that's what Porky wants you to think about unions?
    - t-3 4y ago
      Yes. I've also worked in a few union shops and experienced it myself. I'm a socialist through and through, but what is called a union in the US is not an organization of and for the workers, it is a co-opted parasitic extension of corporate and government policy. Workers can and should organize, but restricting ourselves to following the controlled opposition is stupid and self-defeating.
scaramanga 4y ago
You can organize. Why shouldn't workers in a factory have a say over how their labour is used by those who appropriate it? Baffled by how obvious solutions appear to have fallen off the radar.
- taneq 4y ago
  They do have a say. Their labour is being purchased from them, not appropriated. They can say no (individually or together) and ultimately they can walk away. As you say, collective bargaining is usually going to be more effective than individual.
  - MikePlacid 4y ago
    > As you say, collective bargaining is usually going to be more effective than individual. It may be more effective in terms of salary and working conditions (though I doubt that in software engineering I would have been able to get better pay through collective). But in terms of ethics? Individually, it’s almost impossible to make me support surveillance and censorship. But a big collective is much more vulnerable to manipulation. Comes 9/11 and you’ll get “collective” support for Patriot act, comes 6/1 and you’ll get “collective” support for censorship.
NoGravitas 4y ago
> You can quit. Literally, there is something you can do. If your boss asks you to write or adapt something to surveil, then you can quit. If you had a union, or even a professional association whose code of ethics had teeth, you could refuse without having to quit. It's incredible to me that in 2022, most programmers are still anti-union.

ISO-morphism 4y ago

Even in war, we don't universally take "I was following orders" as a valid excuse. People writing surveillance software are not innocent - not as guilty as those that gave the order, but still guilty.