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Hi everyone I'm the author of this post. The point I'm trying to make is that there is a difference between your mission and the mission's unintended outcome.

Hi everyone I'm the author of this post. The point I'm trying to make is that there is a difference between your mission and the mission's unintended outcome. As an engineer, I don't believe my mission is to put people out of jobs. In response to some of your points: Yes, self-driving cars will put people out of jobs. But is that the mission of Google? No, their mission is to make people's lives easier / better. Yes, electric cars will put gas-pump attendants out of jobs. Is that the mission of Tesla? No, their mission is to make people's lives better through sustainable transport and removing our dependence on fossil fuels. I think it's important to focus on the value-add portion of what we do, and especially not treat the negative fallout (people losing their jobs) as some kind of marketing angle.

7Figures2Commas 12y ago
So then your post was a bunch of hand-waving about an ad from a competitor clearly designed solely to grab an individual's attention and improve CTR?
- fookyong 12y ago
  You're certainly free to interpret it as such. What we find distasteful is inherently subjective after all. Designing ads is a tricky one (and really, I have never had much of a result from this type of paid advertising so I don't do any) and I recognize the need to maximise CTR where ad budget is concerned. But in the same way that Godaddy uses buxom female models to promote their products (which works well for them) and some people find that distasteful, I find this distasteful. It's a personal opinion.
  - catinahat 12y ago
    > But in the same way that Godaddy uses buxom female models to promote their products (which works well for them) and some people find that distasteful, I find this distasteful. Bingo. I find it odd how many people here either seem to be missing your point entirely, or are just trying to be contrarian and '1-up' you by being saying it's effective' (virtually implying that it's therefore 'ethical'), when that wasn't even what you were arguing against to begin with. If this were a post calling out godaddy about their usage of women (as per your analogy), then most comments here would probably be agreeing with you, but since it's something more 'controversial' and closer to what we as developers do for a living, then suddenly your actual point isn't as important anymore... I don't want to attribute it to a lack of 'self-awareness', but it is a bizarre phenomenon. Whenever it's convenient, HN will always reliably argue against the use of 'morality' in arguments, because it's just so 'subjective', that it's not even worth bringing it up at all (which is just lazy critical thinking IMO, but oh well).
nness 12y ago
I don't think there's a difference. Whether it is your goal or not, the outcome is the same. "Reducing overhead", "improving processes", "automated-anything" are just other ways to saying redundancy (or ideally, retrenchment). Despite all that, if social media is a big part of your business, no amount of software is going to replace the expert who knows how to maintain a brand-voice, can do content-writing, customer correspondence, document and track trends, etc. Saying "fire your social media manager" is probably just bad advice if anything.

7Figures2Commas 12y ago

So then your post was a bunch of hand-waving about an ad from a competitor clearly designed solely to grab an individual's attention and improve CTR?

fookyong 12y ago
You're certainly free to interpret it as such. What we find distasteful is inherently subjective after all. Designing ads is a tricky one (and really, I have never had much of a result from this type of paid advertising so I don't do any) and I recognize the need to maximise CTR where ad budget is concerned. But in the same way that Godaddy uses buxom female models to promote their products (which works well for them) and some people find that distasteful, I find this distasteful. It's a personal opinion.
- catinahat 12y ago
  > But in the same way that Godaddy uses buxom female models to promote their products (which works well for them) and some people find that distasteful, I find this distasteful. Bingo. I find it odd how many people here either seem to be missing your point entirely, or are just trying to be contrarian and '1-up' you by being saying it's effective' (virtually implying that it's therefore 'ethical'), when that wasn't even what you were arguing against to begin with. If this were a post calling out godaddy about their usage of women (as per your analogy), then most comments here would probably be agreeing with you, but since it's something more 'controversial' and closer to what we as developers do for a living, then suddenly your actual point isn't as important anymore... I don't want to attribute it to a lack of 'self-awareness', but it is a bizarre phenomenon. Whenever it's convenient, HN will always reliably argue against the use of 'morality' in arguments, because it's just so 'subjective', that it's not even worth bringing it up at all (which is just lazy critical thinking IMO, but oh well).

nness 12y ago

I don't think there's a difference. Whether it is your goal or not, the outcome is the same. "Reducing overhead", "improving processes", "automated-anything" are just other ways to saying redundancy (or ideally, retrenchment). Despite all that, if social media is a big part of your business, no amount of software is going to replace the expert who knows how to maintain a brand-voice, can do content-writing, customer correspondence, document and track trends, etc. Saying "fire your social media manager" is probably just bad advice if anything.