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The article is arguing from the useful prior that what the NSA is doing is wrong. Then people are jumping in and saying, "hang on a second, what if people disag

The article is arguing from the useful prior that what the NSA is doing is wrong. Then people are jumping in and saying, "hang on a second, what if people disagree about what's right and wrong?" (e.g. "According to some people I'm evil"). So it sounds like you should be arguing with them instead of me? But to expand the discussion a bit, ethics is a multilayered thing. As Crito points out above, there's a difference between "x is wrong" and "x is wrong but not my problem because I just build stuff". A major thrust of the article is that engineers should take ethically responsibility for the consequences of our actions, which the author sees many engineers as failing to do. Thinking through the ethical implications--assuming those ethics are founded on some general priors--results in a world more closely honed to those priors. Think of "take ethical responsibility" as a meta-ethic. In that context, "be true to yourself" isn't as nonsensical as your dismissal makes it out to be. It's true that arguing about moral axioms isn't helpful (and wasn't that sort of my point?), but that's not actually what's happening here.

kabdib 13y ago
I happened to think that nuclear power is a good thing (or at least, that it can be). Many people agree with me. I'm at odds with people who think that nuclear power is evil. Is it unethical for me to write firmware for a nuclear power plant? Frankly, these lists of things that engineers need to follow in order to behave ethically pop up every now and then, and it's clear to me that the authors of these lists have their own agendas. As I've said, I refuse to be used. I'll pick my own standards. The lists appear to be so broad that they're useless (e.g., "Don't be evil") or so narrow that they are instruments of control ("Don't work on X or Y or Z"). So I think we're in agreement. Finally, it's likely that the number of engineers who actually do evil is quite small, and of a character that, upon reading a code of ethics, they are rather unlikely to shake their heads, wake up and change their ways. (I'm thinking in particular about malware writers, but there are many other examples).

kabdib 13y ago

I happened to think that nuclear power is a good thing (or at least, that it can be). Many people agree with me. I'm at odds with people who think that nuclear power is evil. Is it unethical for me to write firmware for a nuclear power plant? Frankly, these lists of things that engineers need to follow in order to behave ethically pop up every now and then, and it's clear to me that the authors of these lists have their own agendas. As I've said, I refuse to be used. I'll pick my own standards. The lists appear to be so broad that they're useless (e.g., "Don't be evil") or so narrow that they are instruments of control ("Don't work on X or Y or Z"). So I think we're in agreement. Finally, it's likely that the number of engineers who actually do evil is quite small, and of a character that, upon reading a code of ethics, they are rather unlikely to shake their heads, wake up and change their ways. (I'm thinking in particular about malware writers, but there are many other examples).