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Its written into our Code of Ethics in Canada that all Engineers are to put the public good above that of our own personal gain or that of our employer. Our tas

by TheCapn 13y ago

Its written into our Code of Ethics in Canada that all Engineers are to put the public good above that of our own personal gain or that of our employer. Our tasks are to be selfless and to the betterment of all mankind but like any difficult subject there's a fog of gray areas and open interpretation to be had. Heck we wear the Iron Ring as a reminder of this sworn duty. However, the role we claim to take on, true "selflessness" is near impossible to reach in practice. Before we are engineers we are people and have basic needs. Without whipping out my Googlefu I would wager there are certainly more cases of people blowing the whistle and seeing their way of life crumble around them than there are who get protected by law. There is massive resistance to change from those who call the shots and if you're to go against the grain you're looking to sacrifice your career, life, health, etc.. The engineer says "you need to say something or people will die" but the person says "your family needs to eat". In the end I think engineers weigh decisions of ethics in the moment. A protocol, security appliance or other technology development isn't bad, its how its governed to say when its harmful and to or how it gets implemented into the bigger picture that starts to cross ethical boundaries. Any engineer sees the good in his/her work and is perhaps aware of its dark side but elects to overlook it for the good it will provide. Asking engineers to hold themselves to this standard is good. A self-governed society with regulation helps everyone for the better but I feel anyone tasked with decisions that effect the public at large should be held to this accountability. I think I'm preaching to the choir at this point though.

canistr 13y ago
While it's true as engineers we must be ethical, try to ask the question of ethics with regards to what we do, and do stand by those ethics in the face of adversity, the reality is that we are but only engineers. Without a historical grasp for lessons learned in the past and training on how specifically to handle ethical situations (and I can attest that the Intro to Engineering Ethics are poor lessons for practical purposes), there truly needs to be people versed in such code of ethics to really do the work (hence the ACLU, EFF, various Privacy Commissioners of Ontario/Canada, etc.) as well as within the organizations doing the work (lawyers, policy analysts, etc.)
onebaddude 13y ago
>"The engineer says "you need to say something or people will die" but the person says "your family needs to eat"." This is the eternal moral conundrum. And the latter justification has led to some historically horrendous events.
- mikestew 13y ago
  As far as I can tell, it's not a conundrum that many software engineers will face. As for the U. S., the worst that's going to happen is that one goes and finds another job. In the worst imaginable case (that is very unlikely to happen), one begs at an exit ramp off the interstate highway. Oh, you'll sacrifice some pride, but you won't starve. The most likely case is that the person doesn't say "your family needs to eat", but rather "I'll have to explain why we gave up the leased BMW and the kids aren't getting iPads for Christmas" (or pick your own lifestyle impact that doesn't involve going without food). Maybe India is different, Europe I'm inclined to believe not so different. Few of us will have to explain to our children that they are hungry because Mommy didn't take that job at Lockheed Martin.
mseebach 13y ago
> Its written into our Code of Ethics in Canada that all Engineers are to put the public good above that of our own personal gain or that of our employer. That's great. Which part of "protecting the motherland against terrorists" would not satisfy that code? I'd bet that the vast majority of the (necessarily quite competent) engineers that built the NSA infrastructure believed (and possibly still do) that that is what they're doing. It would surprise me severely if a majority of them was making a trade-off between "family eats" and "the right thing to do". We're not talking about people that plausibly do not have alternative employment available. These are highly competent engineers and they could go work for any number of companies with decidedly less evil businesses if they felt their ethics were being compromised.
- gaius 13y ago
  Sorry accidental down vote on phone.
michaelochurch 13y ago
However, the role we claim to take on, true "selflessness" is near impossible to reach in practice. Before we are engineers we are people and have basic needs. Without whipping out my Googlefu I would wager there are certainly more cases of people blowing the whistle and seeing their way of life crumble around them than there are who get protected by law. There is massive resistance to change from those who call the shots and if you're to go against the grain you're looking to sacrifice your career, life, health, etc.. The engineer says "you need to say something or people will die" but the person says "your family needs to eat". I blew whistles twice in about a 6-month period. First was at a good company (won't name it, you know what it is) when I had a really bad manager. (I worked with a recruiter once who knew the name and said, "I get his people all the time, he's the worst manager at <company>.") Four months later I worked at a startup where top management tried to get me to commit felony perjury. Refusing to it so cost me my job, and the CEO launched a months-long personal campaign to ruin my reputation. If he weren't basically considered a joke by everyone who actually knows him, and if I weren't above-average in terms of being articulate, I'd have been fucked. If I were of more moderate talents (meaning IQ 130-140, so I'm talking about a level that's still quite strong) or older (meaning 45) or had kids, I would have been in a lot more danger. The percentage of people who can blow whistles and survive it is small-- maybe 1 or 2 percent. There are a lot of shady databases that some companies are now doing to make it easier to share information in appropriate ways. It started with banks and tech companies to share compensation information (because in finance, your bonus is your performance review, so people inflated their numbers) but it's also been used for blacklisting attempts. What really surprised me out of the whistleblowing experience was not the official response. That generally came out to what I expected. But you learn quickly that most people are morally weak and will turn on you, either because they don't like your "tone" or because "you should have used proper channels". What those people don't see is that whistleblowing almost always happens when "proper channels" fail. (See: the infamous, but misunderstood "hot coffee lawsuit", wherein the plaintiff originally just asked not for a million-dollar award-- which she never received, by the way-- but to have her medical bills paid-- a reasonable request given all the circumstances.) Most people are morally vacant "slutty cheerleaders" (please see this high-school metaphor as gender neutral; sluts and cheerleaders can both be male) who ultimately side with power unless power really fucks up. What's the best thing society can do for whistleblowers? Personally, I think blacklisting should be a jail offense with the same penalty as attempted murder, because that's what it is.

by TheCapn 13y ago

canistr 13y ago

While it's true as engineers we must be ethical, try to ask the question of ethics with regards to what we do, and do stand by those ethics in the face of adversity, the reality is that we are but only engineers. Without a historical grasp for lessons learned in the past and training on how specifically to handle ethical situations (and I can attest that the Intro to Engineering Ethics are poor lessons for practical purposes), there truly needs to be people versed in such code of ethics to really do the work (hence the ACLU, EFF, various Privacy Commissioners of Ontario/Canada, etc.) as well as within the organizations doing the work (lawyers, policy analysts, etc.)

onebaddude 13y ago

>"The engineer says "you need to say something or people will die" but the person says "your family needs to eat"." This is the eternal moral conundrum. And the latter justification has led to some historically horrendous events.

mikestew 13y ago
As far as I can tell, it's not a conundrum that many software engineers will face. As for the U. S., the worst that's going to happen is that one goes and finds another job. In the worst imaginable case (that is very unlikely to happen), one begs at an exit ramp off the interstate highway. Oh, you'll sacrifice some pride, but you won't starve. The most likely case is that the person doesn't say "your family needs to eat", but rather "I'll have to explain why we gave up the leased BMW and the kids aren't getting iPads for Christmas" (or pick your own lifestyle impact that doesn't involve going without food). Maybe India is different, Europe I'm inclined to believe not so different. Few of us will have to explain to our children that they are hungry because Mommy didn't take that job at Lockheed Martin.

mseebach 13y ago

> Its written into our Code of Ethics in Canada that all Engineers are to put the public good above that of our own personal gain or that of our employer. That's great. Which part of "protecting the motherland against terrorists" would not satisfy that code? I'd bet that the vast majority of the (necessarily quite competent) engineers that built the NSA infrastructure believed (and possibly still do) that that is what they're doing. It would surprise me severely if a majority of them was making a trade-off between "family eats" and "the right thing to do". We're not talking about people that plausibly do not have alternative employment available. These are highly competent engineers and they could go work for any number of companies with decidedly less evil businesses if they felt their ethics were being compromised.

gaius 13y ago
Sorry accidental down vote on phone.

michaelochurch 13y ago

However, the role we claim to take on, true "selflessness" is near impossible to reach in practice. Before we are engineers we are people and have basic needs. Without whipping out my Googlefu I would wager there are certainly more cases of people blowing the whistle and seeing their way of life crumble around them than there are who get protected by law. There is massive resistance to change from those who call the shots and if you're to go against the grain you're looking to sacrifice your career, life, health, etc.. The engineer says "you need to say something or people will die" but the person says "your family needs to eat". I blew whistles twice in about a 6-month period. First was at a good company (won't name it, you know what it is) when I had a really bad manager. (I worked with a recruiter once who knew the name and said, "I get his people all the time, he's the worst manager at <company>.") Four months later I worked at a startup where top management tried to get me to commit felony perjury. Refusing to it so cost me my job, and the CEO launched a months-long personal campaign to ruin my reputation. If he weren't basically considered a joke by everyone who actually knows him, and if I weren't above-average in terms of being articulate, I'd have been fucked. If I were of more moderate talents (meaning IQ 130-140, so I'm talking about a level that's still quite strong) or older (meaning 45) or had kids, I would have been in a lot more danger. The percentage of people who can blow whistles and survive it is small-- maybe 1 or 2 percent. There are a lot of shady databases that some companies are now doing to make it easier to share information in appropriate ways. It started with banks and tech companies to share compensation information (because in finance, your bonus is your performance review, so people inflated their numbers) but it's also been used for blacklisting attempts. What really surprised me out of the whistleblowing experience was not the official response. That generally came out to what I expected. But you learn quickly that most people are morally weak and will turn on you, either because they don't like your "tone" or because "you should have used proper channels". What those people don't see is that whistleblowing almost always happens when "proper channels" fail. (See: the infamous, but misunderstood "hot coffee lawsuit", wherein the plaintiff originally just asked not for a million-dollar award-- which she never received, by the way-- but to have her medical bills paid-- a reasonable request given all the circumstances.) Most people are morally vacant "slutty cheerleaders" (please see this high-school metaphor as gender neutral; sluts and cheerleaders can both be male) who ultimately side with power unless power really fucks up. What's the best thing society can do for whistleblowers? Personally, I think blacklisting should be a jail offense with the same penalty as attempted murder, because that's what it is.