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What has the tech industry ever resisted on moral or reputational grounds?

sonofhans 6mo ago
This is sarcastically-stated but an excellent point, and an honest answer will come up with a vanishingly small list. We geeks may think we care about Important Things, but our industry cares for nothing but money and power — morality is a hindrance to the accumulation of those.
- pdntspa 6mo ago
  Worse, they exploit our curiosity and open-mindedness to build their empires for them. Which we willingly do because cool shiny shit. Nerd-sniping as a weapon of oppression
  - MattGaiser 6mo ago
    A lot of it is simply that they are far more open to the idea of curiousity as having value than most people.
  - rcbdev 6mo ago
    > cool shiny shit You mean absurdly high compensation for very comfortable, low-stress office work? People work to feed their families, not just because working is 'cool'.
- Throaway199999 6mo ago
  llm made this post?
  - NewsaHackO 6mo ago
    Because of the em-dash? Unfortunately, some writing hipsters created this "uh actually we were writing emdashes first, it's dramatic increase of use since llm proliferation in the 2020s shouldn't mean we can't use it!" movement. This has lead to purposeful use of emdashes to bait people to call them lllms. You can tell because the spaces around it most likely is because they had to copy and paste it from somewhere else as they (like most humans on non macs) don't actually know how to write an emdash otherwise.
    - recursive 6mo ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co4rRptTdQI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co4rRptTdQI
    - sonofhans 6mo ago
      Wow, that’s some pretty farfetched speculation. I’ve been using double-dash as punctuation since I started writing on a computer in the 1980s. I like that MacOS connects them for me. Consider for a moment how different your assumptions are from reality. Can you learn from that?
abound 6mo ago
One example I can think of is Google + Project Maven [1], where Google was partnering with the DoD but "withdrew in 2018 after internal protests". Though they've since partnered with the DoD on other initiatives [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Maven https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Maven [2] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/us-department-defense-awards-contracts-google-xai-2025-07-14/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/us-dep...
- MattGaiser 6mo ago
  That is probably the most notable example and in the end, those few still lost.
burnte 6mo ago
Maybe it's time to start.
selfhoster11 6mo ago
There was Lavabit, though that's an example of just one such event. Edit: and to some extent Apple, at least in the past.

This is sarcastically-stated but an excellent point, and an honest answer will come up with a vanishingly small list. We geeks may think we care about Important Things, but our industry cares for nothing but money and power — morality is a hindrance to the accumulation of those.

pdntspa 6mo ago
Worse, they exploit our curiosity and open-mindedness to build their empires for them. Which we willingly do because cool shiny shit. Nerd-sniping as a weapon of oppression
- MattGaiser 6mo ago
  A lot of it is simply that they are far more open to the idea of curiousity as having value than most people.
- rcbdev 6mo ago
  > cool shiny shit You mean absurdly high compensation for very comfortable, low-stress office work? People work to feed their families, not just because working is 'cool'.
Throaway199999 6mo ago
llm made this post?
- NewsaHackO 6mo ago
  Because of the em-dash? Unfortunately, some writing hipsters created this "uh actually we were writing emdashes first, it's dramatic increase of use since llm proliferation in the 2020s shouldn't mean we can't use it!" movement. This has lead to purposeful use of emdashes to bait people to call them lllms. You can tell because the spaces around it most likely is because they had to copy and paste it from somewhere else as they (like most humans on non macs) don't actually know how to write an emdash otherwise.
  - recursive 6mo ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co4rRptTdQI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co4rRptTdQI
  - sonofhans 6mo ago
    Wow, that’s some pretty farfetched speculation. I’ve been using double-dash as punctuation since I started writing on a computer in the 1980s. I like that MacOS connects them for me. Consider for a moment how different your assumptions are from reality. Can you learn from that?

abound 6mo ago

One example I can think of is Google + Project Maven [1], where Google was partnering with the DoD but "withdrew in 2018 after internal protests". Though they've since partnered with the DoD on other initiatives [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Maven https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Maven [2] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/us-department-defense-awards-contracts-google-xai-2025-07-14/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/us-dep...

MattGaiser 6mo ago
That is probably the most notable example and in the end, those few still lost.

burnte 6mo ago

Maybe it's time to start.

selfhoster11 6mo ago

There was Lavabit, though that's an example of just one such event. Edit: and to some extent Apple, at least in the past.