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Personally, I think the idea that Google/Facebook are hurting people by paying talented engineers a lot to work on ads is just not true. I think that if you act

by ditonal 12y ago

Personally, I think the idea that Google/Facebook are hurting people by paying talented engineers a lot to work on ads is just not true. I think that if you act ethically (which is admittedly a question mark sometimes for any big corporation) respecting the market can often do the most social good. People who were doing silly work making video games pushed the boundaries of parallel processing, created the GPU industry, and now that is relied on for serious scientific research. People making social networks so college freshman could date made tools to help those fighting authoritarian governments connect and created infrastructure technology to work on big data problems the governments might face on social issues. Who did more to help the Asian Tigers raise from poverty to economic superpowers? Peace Corps people distorting local economies with their help, or people investing in local infrastructure because it was good value for them to make money?? What's better for the world, besides your conscious, working for a soup kitchen for work that can be done for $10/hr, or freelancing for $50/hr and donating that to the soup kitchen to give someone with less skills a job and the soup kitchen $40 remaining to buy supplies they need? Finally, a lot of really smart people end up going in to law or finance because that's where the money is. Even if making consumer ad-tech doesn't sound quiet as noble as researching novel energy, if it encourages people to start entering fields where they are building things rather than creating more regulation for things, it's probably a net-positive. I really doubt that this idea that engineers should be this monastic underclass is so great for society. I constantly hear programmer say their salary is "inflated", to which I respond "if you feel overpaid, give your money to a good charity, don't roll over for the uber rich tech-exec/VC in charge." If you want to make a positive impact on the world, respecting market efficiency is underrated.

ethanbond 12y ago
I'm pretty skeptical of the invisible hand myself, but overall this seems to be a pretty good response (at least for the second caveat). I don't think they're doing as much good as they could be, but I agree that maybe it is good enough, even if only by collateral benefit.
joepie91_ 12y ago
> Personally, I think the idea that Google/Facebook are hurting people by paying talented engineers a lot to work on ads is just not true. I think that if you act ethically (which is admittedly a question mark sometimes for any big corporation) respecting the market can often do the most social good. The problem is that advertising is inherently unethical, so that reasoning doesn't hold up. > What's better for the world, besides your conscious, working for a soup kitchen for work that can be done for $10/hr, or freelancing for $50/hr and donating that to the soup kitchen to give someone with less skills a job and the soup kitchen $40 remaining to buy supplies they need? That only holds up if those other $40 were to spontaneously appear from thin air - but it doesn't, and that difference is coming from somewhere. It means that somewhere, some group of people had to collectively pay $40 more for something, to pay for your salary. > Even if making consumer ad-tech doesn't sound quiet as noble as researching novel energy, if it encourages people to start entering fields where they are building things rather than creating more regulation for things, it's probably a net-positive. No, it's really not. "Going out and creating something" is not automatically something desirable, if the "something" being created is unethical.
- sarciszewski 12y ago
  I could go out and create malware, for example, but I don't think most people would appreciate that. :(
  - cookiecide 12y ago
    Well, it's debatable, but I'd argue that exposing serious issues in the presumed robustness of systems turns out to be useful in the long run. In the worst case, it provides another data point for identifying systems that aren't working how they should. Not that I'm advocating the creation of malware, of course. Don't do that. :)
    - sarciszewski 12y ago
      There's a difference between malware and a 0day. Malware just causes harm to the endpoint. A 0day proves that the potential for a security breakdown is real.
nickbauman 12y ago
One of the first investors of Facebook was In-Q-Tel, the VC arm of the CIA. Let that sink in for a moment. For me the hardest thing about this is getting over the shock that the CIA has a VC investment division.
- ethanbond 12y ago
  Why would that shock you? Of course the government is going to invest in technology it could find useful. In the really hardcore stuff it's simply called a "research grant," and it powers every single American research university.
  - nickbauman 12y ago
    Conflict of interest. At least a research grant has outcomes that are supposed to be public and benefit the public. A VC arm that's part of the government seems like a monstrous hybrid of private and public. What is the profit for? For the same reason that it gives one pause regarding what the CIA is doing investing in social media. If it's totally OK, why not have the government invest in private prison companies?
  - mauricemir 12y ago
    And don't for get that for decades most of the Rnd into AI and ML was funded by the government - back in the 80's I had a co worker who moved away from AI for that reason. Let alone how SV was in large part funded and formed by Military Contracts
- ditonal 12y ago
  I don't disagree that there is huge room for unethical behavior in these corporations, and we as citizens and employees need to be vigilant about them. I just don't think engineers working on ad-tech because it pays well is necessarily terrible.
- curun1r 12y ago
  Kinda takes some of the humor away from: http://mashable.com/2011/05/22/facebook-onion-cia/ http://mashable.com/2011/05/22/facebook-onion-cia/ It's sad that so many of The Onion's attempts at over-the-top parody have turned out to be prescient.
geophile 12y ago
> People making social networks so college freshman could date made tools to help those fighting authoritarian governments connect ... This is only half the story. Thanks to Snowden, we now know that these same databases are being used by NSA and GCHQ, enabling authoritarian governments to suppress and attack these same people.

by ditonal 12y ago

ethanbond 12y ago

I'm pretty skeptical of the invisible hand myself, but overall this seems to be a pretty good response (at least for the second caveat). I don't think they're doing as much good as they could be, but I agree that maybe it is good enough, even if only by collateral benefit.

joepie91_ 12y ago

> Personally, I think the idea that Google/Facebook are hurting people by paying talented engineers a lot to work on ads is just not true. I think that if you act ethically (which is admittedly a question mark sometimes for any big corporation) respecting the market can often do the most social good. The problem is that advertising is inherently unethical, so that reasoning doesn't hold up. > What's better for the world, besides your conscious, working for a soup kitchen for work that can be done for $10/hr, or freelancing for $50/hr and donating that to the soup kitchen to give someone with less skills a job and the soup kitchen $40 remaining to buy supplies they need? That only holds up if those other $40 were to spontaneously appear from thin air - but it doesn't, and that difference is coming from somewhere. It means that somewhere, some group of people had to collectively pay $40 more for something, to pay for your salary. > Even if making consumer ad-tech doesn't sound quiet as noble as researching novel energy, if it encourages people to start entering fields where they are building things rather than creating more regulation for things, it's probably a net-positive. No, it's really not. "Going out and creating something" is not automatically something desirable, if the "something" being created is unethical.

sarciszewski 12y ago
I could go out and create malware, for example, but I don't think most people would appreciate that. :(
- cookiecide 12y ago
  Well, it's debatable, but I'd argue that exposing serious issues in the presumed robustness of systems turns out to be useful in the long run. In the worst case, it provides another data point for identifying systems that aren't working how they should. Not that I'm advocating the creation of malware, of course. Don't do that. :)
  - sarciszewski 12y ago
    There's a difference between malware and a 0day. Malware just causes harm to the endpoint. A 0day proves that the potential for a security breakdown is real.

nickbauman 12y ago

One of the first investors of Facebook was In-Q-Tel, the VC arm of the CIA. Let that sink in for a moment. For me the hardest thing about this is getting over the shock that the CIA has a VC investment division.

ethanbond 12y ago
Why would that shock you? Of course the government is going to invest in technology it could find useful. In the really hardcore stuff it's simply called a "research grant," and it powers every single American research university.
- nickbauman 12y ago
  Conflict of interest. At least a research grant has outcomes that are supposed to be public and benefit the public. A VC arm that's part of the government seems like a monstrous hybrid of private and public. What is the profit for? For the same reason that it gives one pause regarding what the CIA is doing investing in social media. If it's totally OK, why not have the government invest in private prison companies?
- mauricemir 12y ago
  And don't for get that for decades most of the Rnd into AI and ML was funded by the government - back in the 80's I had a co worker who moved away from AI for that reason. Let alone how SV was in large part funded and formed by Military Contracts
ditonal 12y ago
I don't disagree that there is huge room for unethical behavior in these corporations, and we as citizens and employees need to be vigilant about them. I just don't think engineers working on ad-tech because it pays well is necessarily terrible.
curun1r 12y ago
Kinda takes some of the humor away from: http://mashable.com/2011/05/22/facebook-onion-cia/ http://mashable.com/2011/05/22/facebook-onion-cia/ It's sad that so many of The Onion's attempts at over-the-top parody have turned out to be prescient.

geophile 12y ago

> People making social networks so college freshman could date made tools to help those fighting authoritarian governments connect ... This is only half the story. Thanks to Snowden, we now know that these same databases are being used by NSA and GCHQ, enabling authoritarian governments to suppress and attack these same people.