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Why must responsibility be with one party or the other? To me, it feels pretty obvious that both the executives and the engineers are to blame! Just because som

by saurik 2y ago

Why must responsibility be with one party or the other? To me, it feels pretty obvious that both the executives and the engineers are to blame! Just because someone is paying you to do something, that doesn't automatically make it morally OK to do whatever makes the two of you the most money. The idea that someone is "just doing their job" is nothing more than a convenient excuse: even if you really really REALLY need the money for what feels like morally justified reasons, if you aren't at least simultaneously trying to get a job that doesn't require you to do something evil--much less doing what you can within your powers to stop and/or sabotage the effort--we shouldn't grant you a free pass.

skulk 2y ago
So how, if engineers are equally responsible, do they enact their fair share of change? Adopt a strict guild-level code of ethics? I find this unlikely in the US political climate; someone will always happily step in to implement Manifest v3 Someone in leadership could literally flick their wrist 3 times and MV3 is dead. This doesn't sound like an equal responsibility type of situation to me.
- saurik 2y ago
  "If I don't do this morally bad thing, someone else will." can be used to justify almost doing any morally bad thing. Seriously: where do you draw the line on this? And even still: since when is "I can't stop it" an excuse in the first place? This is just such a strange model of morality if we believe we are merely responsible for change rather than what we profit from.
  - skulk 2y ago
    I'm not going to say where the line is, but I hope we can definitely agree that it lies somewhere between murdering innocents and implementing dark patterns in software. I'm baffled that you think it's reasonable to spread the blame equally on the dictator and implementor when it comes to the latter.
- wavemode 2y ago
  Exactly, this is what I was getting at. The leaders are the ones with all the decision-making power in this situation. The engineers would have to stage some kind of protest and/or quit their jobs to change things. Whereas all the leaders have to do is just stop choosing to invest in harmful projects. While I do see how it's one of those situations where, the system is set up to incentivize certain decisions. I get that. But that doesn't change the fact that the leaders are the ones making the decisions.

by saurik 2y ago

skulk 2y ago

So how, if engineers are equally responsible, do they enact their fair share of change? Adopt a strict guild-level code of ethics? I find this unlikely in the US political climate; someone will always happily step in to implement Manifest v3 Someone in leadership could literally flick their wrist 3 times and MV3 is dead. This doesn't sound like an equal responsibility type of situation to me.

saurik 2y ago
"If I don't do this morally bad thing, someone else will." can be used to justify almost doing any morally bad thing. Seriously: where do you draw the line on this? And even still: since when is "I can't stop it" an excuse in the first place? This is just such a strange model of morality if we believe we are merely responsible for change rather than what we profit from.
- skulk 2y ago
  I'm not going to say where the line is, but I hope we can definitely agree that it lies somewhere between murdering innocents and implementing dark patterns in software. I'm baffled that you think it's reasonable to spread the blame equally on the dictator and implementor when it comes to the latter.
wavemode 2y ago
Exactly, this is what I was getting at. The leaders are the ones with all the decision-making power in this situation. The engineers would have to stage some kind of protest and/or quit their jobs to change things. Whereas all the leaders have to do is just stop choosing to invest in harmful projects. While I do see how it's one of those situations where, the system is set up to incentivize certain decisions. I get that. But that doesn't change the fact that the leaders are the ones making the decisions.