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> And we — the well-meaning engineers — shoulder much of the blame. This does not follow from the rest of the article at all. I'll begin by acknowledging the c
by delusional 2y ago
> And we — the well-meaning engineers — shoulder much of the blame.
This does not follow from the rest of the article at all. I'll begin by acknowledging the concept of the "asymmetric nudge" as a useful thought. It does somehow explain and ground a feeling of engineers within large corporate structures, where somehow all of your good ideas turn user hostile. The author fails to sufficiently answer the followup question though. Why are the nudges asymmetric, and who holds responsibility for that?
This is where the "sociopathic" executive comes in. The executive does not make technical decisions. Instead they make human decisions, like what projects to fund, what form of communication to accept, and what sorts of arguments to listen to.
The power of the executive is not to censor designs, it's to instill the values into you that steers your self-censorship.
- salawat 2y agoDing ding ding. Welcome to the modern executive 101. If you are ever directly culpable, you aren't nudging well enough. You try to structure things around the peons to make them do that thing you want; but in a way responsibility never bubbles back to you. As a "peon", your moral job is to make that impossible by not tolerating hand waves, and pinning execs down into giving a clear, traceable, accountable order. Even if it makes them uncomfortable. If they aren't made uncomfortable, you aren't doing it hard enough.