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If you were a Californian engineer, wouldn’t you speak up? Anyone with insights about what consequences they are afraid of?

Intralexical 3y ago
You're assuming the engineers that do this care on a fundamental level, but that there must exist other factors which coerce them into doing it anyway. That's a comforting thought. It rationalizes the harmful behaviour. But it's also arrogant in a way, because you're projecting your own moral values and assuming that other individuals must share those too. The simpler explanation, but also one that's much more difficult to understand, is that some number of humans simply don't care about, and may not even be capable of understanding and internalizing in any real way, the consequences that their actions have for other people. And sometimes, a system built around apathy as a value weeds out all the ones that do care, or are even able to care. The question in those cases isn't "Why not speak up? What are you afraid of?"; it's "Why say anything? How does that profit me personally?". I believe Zuckerberg when he says he doesn't know why [1] people trust him. I think it, and most of the harm that Facebook does, comes from a genuine place of not understanding. Amoral actions don't require the presence of some willful evil, nor of some coercive force; they just require the absence of sufficient empathy and self-awareness. --- 1: https://www.businessinsider.com/embarrassing-and-damaging-zuckerberg-ims-confirmed-by-zuckerberg-the-new-yorker-2010-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/embarrassing-and-damaging-zu...
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  > You're assuming the engineers that do this care on a fundamental level, but that there must exist other factors which coerce them into doing it anyway. FAANG salaries. prestige of FAANG work. work devolved into L1 and L2 requirements that can, with a bit of effort, obfuscate what a feature does. "hey Jim, did you knock out those 8 L2s? we gotta ship end of the month" -- and it just becomes another feature add.
itopaloglu83 3y ago
> If you were a Californian engineer, wouldn’t you speak up? Let’s ask the latest whistleblower we know about. Wait, he’s no longer alive with a controversial suicide.
- laweijfmvo 3y ago
  Who are you talking about here?
  - ambichook 3y ago
    boeing whistleblower probably
  - teddyh 3y ago
    <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Barnett_(whistleblower)&oldid=1216461147 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Barnett_(whi...>

Intralexical 3y ago

You're assuming the engineers that do this care on a fundamental level, but that there must exist other factors which coerce them into doing it anyway. That's a comforting thought. It rationalizes the harmful behaviour. But it's also arrogant in a way, because you're projecting your own moral values and assuming that other individuals must share those too. The simpler explanation, but also one that's much more difficult to understand, is that some number of humans simply don't care about, and may not even be capable of understanding and internalizing in any real way, the consequences that their actions have for other people. And sometimes, a system built around apathy as a value weeds out all the ones that do care, or are even able to care. The question in those cases isn't "Why not speak up? What are you afraid of?"; it's "Why say anything? How does that profit me personally?". I believe Zuckerberg when he says he doesn't know why [1] people trust him. I think it, and most of the harm that Facebook does, comes from a genuine place of not understanding. Amoral actions don't require the presence of some willful evil, nor of some coercive force; they just require the absence of sufficient empathy and self-awareness. --- 1: https://www.businessinsider.com/embarrassing-and-damaging-zuckerberg-ims-confirmed-by-zuckerberg-the-new-yorker-2010-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/embarrassing-and-damaging-zu...

red-iron-pine 3y ago
> You're assuming the engineers that do this care on a fundamental level, but that there must exist other factors which coerce them into doing it anyway. FAANG salaries. prestige of FAANG work. work devolved into L1 and L2 requirements that can, with a bit of effort, obfuscate what a feature does. "hey Jim, did you knock out those 8 L2s? we gotta ship end of the month" -- and it just becomes another feature add.

itopaloglu83 3y ago

> If you were a Californian engineer, wouldn’t you speak up? Let’s ask the latest whistleblower we know about. Wait, he’s no longer alive with a controversial suicide.

laweijfmvo 3y ago
Who are you talking about here?
- ambichook 3y ago
  boeing whistleblower probably
- teddyh 3y ago
  <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Barnett_(whistleblower)&oldid=1216461147 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Barnett_(whi...>