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I still don't blame the developers, I blame government. It's not the job of rank and file workers to police companies. I wouldn't work for LN, but I'm not going

I still don't blame the developers, I blame government. It's not the job of rank and file workers to police companies. I wouldn't work for LN, but I'm not going to blame someone else for doing so. We've all gotta feed our families. (I realize there's a line somewhere, you wouldn't excuse a prison guard at Auschwitz the same way, but I can't get too worked up about a developer making a ticketing app even if I hate the ticketing company.) Developed countries long ago came to the conclusion that companies should not be allowed to have monopolies because it is bad for society as a whole, and it's hard to think of a current monopoly as egregious as this one. There is absolutely no reason one company should have exclusive rights to 85% of large venues, also be an evebt promoter, and also be the ticket seller. Anything their developers do is not the real issue, a society that allows this to happen in the first place is.

ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
I mean would you say that developers who work for Facebook have crossed that line?
- photonbeam 2y ago
  Depends on when they joined
- mattmaroon 2y ago
  No. Not even close.
- NavinF 2y ago
  ...by doing what? FB is one of the largest employers of people on this site. If you ran a poll, I'd expect the majority to answer "no" to your question. Of the people who answered "yes", I bet the majority would still accept an offer from FB if it was just 20k more than the next best offer.
  - ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
    One small example: In 2012 Facebook emotionally manipulated people in the name of science without anybody's consent by controlling positive / negative posts on their news feed. Right? Wrong? Discuss.
    - NavinF 2y ago
      https://xkcd.com/1390/ https://xkcd.com/1390/ I don't see the issue. Every social media site does this, FB was just naive enough to share their research
      - ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
        And this just proved my point. During the Nazi regime, everyone was hating the jews. And everyone was doing fascism. Now to bring this to a close, people like you, who will jump companies for 20_000 and have lost the ability to see a clear ethical violation will be holding the guns and guarding the gas chambers when the next Hitler comes along. Meditate on this. Also this XKCD is dumb. Previously the feed was chronological post of friends which was definitely more ethical. But of course that didn't make people addicted enough.
        mattmaroon 2y ago
        If that proved your point, you didn’t have a point. If you can’t see the difference between genocide and lack of informed consent on a social network algorithm experiment you can’t be helped. I’m all for moral relativism, but there’s no future in which Facebook’s current actions aren’t at least reasonably debatable, and no past in which Auschwitz was. If you wanted an example of where the line gets blurry (it does sometimes, just not in either of these) I’d go with pharmaceuticals.
        immibis 2y ago
        One thing I have learned from the internet is that if you mention the Nazis or the Jews, you lose, good day sir, even if you are right. People are illogical.
vjerancrnjak 2y ago
Even government software has issues (Vienna). I paid a €100+ fine for not having a ticket, even though I spent time going through the purchase flow. I have 100s of tickets purchased. Live agent and support agent just shrugged and told me I don't know how to use the app, washed their hands of any responsibility or need for understanding. It's like there's no way to make the software human and humans in the loop have a crutch to lean on to not behave as a human. When I contacted the dev team directly, they shrugged too. No refund. To me it feels like software is the place where society can just exercise its cruelty and indifference, or maybe it is a reflection of society, it's probably just like humans are. What we think software should behave like is not human. I had more pleasant experiences with London/UK train ticket edge cases and felt like the system is built to deal with user/server errors.
- dzhiurgis 2y ago
  That’s just reflection of your culture. I.e. I come from Eastern Europe where cheating is so engrained and “i made an oopsie” would never fly. Beurocracy is face to face and takes ages Now living in NZ I get tons of slack for something like “verify youre local for free museum entry” or “get your passport by post”. Life is so much easier when societal trust is high.
  - lmm 2y ago
    Societal trust is extremely valuable. Policy decisions that weaken it should be scrutinised extremely strictly.
reddalo 2y ago
> I still don't blame the developers, I blame government. Yes, but I think they still have some responsibility, even if they say "I was just following orders!" [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders
- toolz 2y ago
  Everyone bears some responsibility if you've ever interacted with any entity that profits off of TM or helps TM make profit. I don't find it's particularly useful to spend any thought on what people with minuscule responsibility should do differently. It's just bike-shedding when there are important problems to solve.
ryandrake 2y ago
"Developers are blameless" is a uniquely HN take, for obvious site demographic reasons. I see a worthwhile product as a stool with at least three legs: Technical feasibility, business viability, and ethical acceptability. Take one leg away and the stool should fail. Yet, HN commenters endlessly discuss/debate the first two and largely ignore the third. I think we all have a duty to work on projects that are ethically sound (defining that is a whole other discussion). There are plenty of companies out there and plenty of products to work on--it's not like we have to pick an evil one in order to survive and "feed our families."
- jgeada 2y ago
  Yeah, but only one of those legs controls the money. At least in the US, no money means no food, no shelter, no healthcare, etc, so it is not a viable choice for most. So rightfully most of the blame should be assigned to those that control the money: management and executives. Rarely hear of required ethics guidelines and handwringing about ethics from the MBA types. I'll accept a share of developer blame in places with strong unions and the ability for workers to strike.
  - mattmaroon 2y ago
    And the developer job market has changed. We can act like everyone can just go get a job that pays well somewhere else, but I’ve got friends who are very senior developers who’ve been laid off and had a hard time finding a good job in recent years. The market isn’t what it once was and while overall still good, we do all have bills to pay.
    - ryandrake 2y ago
      I guess I'd turn it around and ask those developers: Are there any projects you wouldn't do, no matter how much you needed the money, because you found them ethically unacceptable? If the answer is yes, then they actually agree with me, and we're maybe just discussing where the evilness threshold line should be drawn. I don't know many actual people who would say "No, I would willingly work on absolutely any project, no matter how harmful or depraved it is, as long as I get paid," but then again maybe I don't know enough truly desperate people.

ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago

I mean would you say that developers who work for Facebook have crossed that line?

photonbeam 2y ago
Depends on when they joined
mattmaroon 2y ago
No. Not even close.
NavinF 2y ago
...by doing what? FB is one of the largest employers of people on this site. If you ran a poll, I'd expect the majority to answer "no" to your question. Of the people who answered "yes", I bet the majority would still accept an offer from FB if it was just 20k more than the next best offer.
- ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
  One small example: In 2012 Facebook emotionally manipulated people in the name of science without anybody's consent by controlling positive / negative posts on their news feed. Right? Wrong? Discuss.
  - NavinF 2y ago
    https://xkcd.com/1390/ https://xkcd.com/1390/ I don't see the issue. Every social media site does this, FB was just naive enough to share their research
    - ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
      And this just proved my point. During the Nazi regime, everyone was hating the jews. And everyone was doing fascism. Now to bring this to a close, people like you, who will jump companies for 20_000 and have lost the ability to see a clear ethical violation will be holding the guns and guarding the gas chambers when the next Hitler comes along. Meditate on this. Also this XKCD is dumb. Previously the feed was chronological post of friends which was definitely more ethical. But of course that didn't make people addicted enough.
      - mattmaroon 2y ago
        If that proved your point, you didn’t have a point. If you can’t see the difference between genocide and lack of informed consent on a social network algorithm experiment you can’t be helped. I’m all for moral relativism, but there’s no future in which Facebook’s current actions aren’t at least reasonably debatable, and no past in which Auschwitz was. If you wanted an example of where the line gets blurry (it does sometimes, just not in either of these) I’d go with pharmaceuticals.
      - immibis 2y ago
        One thing I have learned from the internet is that if you mention the Nazis or the Jews, you lose, good day sir, even if you are right. People are illogical.

vjerancrnjak 2y ago

Even government software has issues (Vienna). I paid a €100+ fine for not having a ticket, even though I spent time going through the purchase flow. I have 100s of tickets purchased. Live agent and support agent just shrugged and told me I don't know how to use the app, washed their hands of any responsibility or need for understanding. It's like there's no way to make the software human and humans in the loop have a crutch to lean on to not behave as a human. When I contacted the dev team directly, they shrugged too. No refund. To me it feels like software is the place where society can just exercise its cruelty and indifference, or maybe it is a reflection of society, it's probably just like humans are. What we think software should behave like is not human. I had more pleasant experiences with London/UK train ticket edge cases and felt like the system is built to deal with user/server errors.

dzhiurgis 2y ago
That’s just reflection of your culture. I.e. I come from Eastern Europe where cheating is so engrained and “i made an oopsie” would never fly. Beurocracy is face to face and takes ages Now living in NZ I get tons of slack for something like “verify youre local for free museum entry” or “get your passport by post”. Life is so much easier when societal trust is high.
- lmm 2y ago
  Societal trust is extremely valuable. Policy decisions that weaken it should be scrutinised extremely strictly.

reddalo 2y ago

> I still don't blame the developers, I blame government. Yes, but I think they still have some responsibility, even if they say "I was just following orders!" [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders

toolz 2y ago
Everyone bears some responsibility if you've ever interacted with any entity that profits off of TM or helps TM make profit. I don't find it's particularly useful to spend any thought on what people with minuscule responsibility should do differently. It's just bike-shedding when there are important problems to solve.

ryandrake 2y ago

"Developers are blameless" is a uniquely HN take, for obvious site demographic reasons. I see a worthwhile product as a stool with at least three legs: Technical feasibility, business viability, and ethical acceptability. Take one leg away and the stool should fail. Yet, HN commenters endlessly discuss/debate the first two and largely ignore the third. I think we all have a duty to work on projects that are ethically sound (defining that is a whole other discussion). There are plenty of companies out there and plenty of products to work on--it's not like we have to pick an evil one in order to survive and "feed our families."

jgeada 2y ago
Yeah, but only one of those legs controls the money. At least in the US, no money means no food, no shelter, no healthcare, etc, so it is not a viable choice for most. So rightfully most of the blame should be assigned to those that control the money: management and executives. Rarely hear of required ethics guidelines and handwringing about ethics from the MBA types. I'll accept a share of developer blame in places with strong unions and the ability for workers to strike.
- mattmaroon 2y ago
  And the developer job market has changed. We can act like everyone can just go get a job that pays well somewhere else, but I’ve got friends who are very senior developers who’ve been laid off and had a hard time finding a good job in recent years. The market isn’t what it once was and while overall still good, we do all have bills to pay.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    I guess I'd turn it around and ask those developers: Are there any projects you wouldn't do, no matter how much you needed the money, because you found them ethically unacceptable? If the answer is yes, then they actually agree with me, and we're maybe just discussing where the evilness threshold line should be drawn. I don't know many actual people who would say "No, I would willingly work on absolutely any project, no matter how harmful or depraved it is, as long as I get paid," but then again maybe I don't know enough truly desperate people.