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> So was being a concentration camp guard. What the hell. We are talking about ads on the computer.

by groundzeros2015 4mo ago

vrganj 4mo ago
So we have established that "just a job" is not unpolitical? It's just that you draw the line somewhere between enabling mass surveillance and being a concentration camp guard.
- groundzeros2015 4mo ago
  I actually think “just a job” is a justification in the following ways. - Soldiers and police are a thing in society. They use violence in ways deemed just by society. I do not think their role is immoral. - From experience I know that the number of people who can look at the incentive structure they are in and decide to operate outside it is basically 1%. Humans just aren’t wired that way. - So I do not know in what ways a Nazi soldier could stop doing what they were doing - except in the same way you are free to escape industrial society and capitalism, by moving into a cabin in the woods in isolation. This is why leadership is so essential. The leaders we choose and the systems we build around them determine what people will actually do. Individual moral failure is self-inflicted not systematic.
the_af 4mo ago
> We are talking about ads on the computer. Not just ads on the computer. TFA also discusses AI for surveillance, weapons, etc.
- groundzeros2015 4mo ago
  Let me restate. There is no equivalence between killing people in camps and having an office job at Google.
  - the_af 4mo ago
    Agreed that the comparison is extreme; I wouldn't have made it myself. But it's also not harmless to work at a company which makes tools/components/software for killing people. It wouldn't be "just an office job". Sometimes it's hard to make the call, e.g. a spreadsheet can be used to tally inventory or prisoners at a work camp, but when your company is directly involved e.g. in enabling surveillance by a nation whose actions you consider immoral, then it's probably time to quit. If the mention of the US or Trump as the motive for quitting makes anyone irritated, consider the same situation if it was a guy saying he won't work for a company which is developing AI to enable Putin to better identify dissenters or bomb Ukraine.

> So was being a concentration camp guard. What the hell. We are talking about ads on the computer.

So we have established that "just a job" is not unpolitical? It's just that you draw the line somewhere between enabling mass surveillance and being a concentration camp guard.

groundzeros2015 4mo ago
I actually think “just a job” is a justification in the following ways. - Soldiers and police are a thing in society. They use violence in ways deemed just by society. I do not think their role is immoral. - From experience I know that the number of people who can look at the incentive structure they are in and decide to operate outside it is basically 1%. Humans just aren’t wired that way. - So I do not know in what ways a Nazi soldier could stop doing what they were doing - except in the same way you are free to escape industrial society and capitalism, by moving into a cabin in the woods in isolation. This is why leadership is so essential. The leaders we choose and the systems we build around them determine what people will actually do. Individual moral failure is self-inflicted not systematic.

the_af 4mo ago

> We are talking about ads on the computer. Not just ads on the computer. TFA also discusses AI for surveillance, weapons, etc.

groundzeros2015 4mo ago
Let me restate. There is no equivalence between killing people in camps and having an office job at Google.
- the_af 4mo ago
  Agreed that the comparison is extreme; I wouldn't have made it myself. But it's also not harmless to work at a company which makes tools/components/software for killing people. It wouldn't be "just an office job". Sometimes it's hard to make the call, e.g. a spreadsheet can be used to tally inventory or prisoners at a work camp, but when your company is directly involved e.g. in enabling surveillance by a nation whose actions you consider immoral, then it's probably time to quit. If the mention of the US or Trump as the motive for quitting makes anyone irritated, consider the same situation if it was a guy saying he won't work for a company which is developing AI to enable Putin to better identify dissenters or bomb Ukraine.