Submission: The tech sector might be evil URL: Tech-is-evil Actual headline: You Might Be Evil I know we all like to moan about editorializing titles, but this one's a winner :)
The submission originally said You Might Be Evil.
The tech sector might be evil
111–120 of 233 posts
Re: The tech sector might be evil
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed I do, but also many other unnecessary innovations came out of SV, as well as some interesting Research, which end up used for solving problems which don't exist.
What's wrong with unnecessary innovations? There were lots of inventions/discoveries that didn't solve any existing problem during their time of discovery.
Their marketing is annoying me.
Re: The tech sector might be evil
#113Good summary of the current political climate around the tech sector. To be honest, this has been a long time coming -- I've been reading pieces with disdain for "Silicon Valley technocrats" for a while now. It is picking up pace now, though... and the EU has already fired quite a few shots. "I left out Twitter because it’s not actually a company, it’s a dysfunctional non-profit that accidentally provi…
If a company is not making money but there are lots of people trying to keep it around it probably means that the company is making money for these people but it's not reflected to the books directly or the payment is due for later time. It's bit of like building roads that on the books may look like unprofitable venture but the utility they provide makes possible for other businesses to flourish so the roads are kep…
I’ve seen quite a lot of suggestions on here that X shouldn’t be allowed to fail by the state, but I don’t really get it. Taking Twitter, it’s not like they are a railway or fuel company that if it shut down would cause massive disruption for many people and industries. And let’s not even begin to get into complications about the state (US government) owning them. How would that affect the privacy of users in other countries?
Re: The tech sector might be evil
#114More evil than any of the following?
* Banking
* Mining
* Clothing
* Pharmaceuticals
* Media
* Agriculture
etc.
Every industry has its good points and bad points, good people and bad people. Moreover, what one person thinks is evil another might think is completely harmless or even a good thing.
I suspect our discomfort is more with big businesses making massive amounts of money. That has more to do with modern capitalism in general, than the tech sector per se.
Re: The tech sector might be evil
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which justifies doing evil or letting people do evil how exactly?
Depends. If they are just writing regular code for some subsystems' subsytem, why is that evil? TBH, calling out a person to quit just because one don't agree his/her employer's deeds before having a full understanding whether that person is directly involved or not, tells quite a lot about one's hubris.
> If they are just writing regular code for some subsystems' subsytem, why is that evil?
Why should it be relevant whether you are "writing regular code for some subsystems' subsytem"? Shouldn't the relevant question be whether your contribution is "net evil" or "net good"?
How would you suggest we defend against an institution dividing the work to build some hypothetical ultimate evil into thousands of "regular small pieces"? Would it help any of the victims of the ultimate evil that is was built by many individuals, each one of them building a "regular small piece", instead of by one mastermind alone?
Re: The tech sector might be evil
#116Good summary of the current political climate around the tech sector. To be honest, this has been a long time coming -- I've been reading pieces with disdain for "Silicon Valley technocrats" for a while now. It is picking up pace now, though... and the EU has already fired quite a few shots. "I left out Twitter because it’s not actually a company, it’s a dysfunctional non-profit that accidentally provi…
If a company is not making money but there are lots of people trying to keep it around it probably means that the company is making money for these people but it's not reflected to the books directly or the payment is due for later time. It's bit of like building roads that on the books may look like unprofitable venture but the utility they provide makes possible for other businesses to flourish so the roads are kep…
If it is not profitable and runs on loss, then it is making profitable businesses in the same market impossible. We dont want it gone, but we are completely ok with it being gone due to bad business.
I am also ok with some help towards suddenly unemployed employees, owners who lost everything etc. However, business itself existing prevents a company with actual business model to appear.
I dont thing twitter is the kind of service that government should keep alive. It is not like roads.
Re: The tech sector might be evil
#117The real difficulty though, is if you start moralising too much, you may find that there aren't many jobs (let alone any that pay well), that are completely virtuous.
Re: The tech sector might be evil
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It sucks even more that these are some of the kindest and most caring people I know, with better moral character than myself Evidently not? I'd really be curious how you come to that conclusion, when they apparently don't have the first clue as to how to recognize evil, nor do they seem to care? Are you sure that that's not just the image they promote of themselves, rather than an actual assessment of their behavio…
This is dangerous. You are slipping in an assumption that the moral character of people is well reflected by the social institutions they belong to. Nothing I have seen about the world, or read about history gives the slightest hint favouring that assumption. Worse, you are implying that people should be judged by what social context they exist in. It seems far more likely that good people and bad people can end up i…
> You are slipping in an assumption that the moral character of people is well reflected by the social institutions they belong to. Nothing I have seen about the world, or read about history gives the slightest hint favouring that assumption.
Do you think that still holds when you only consider those cases that people actually realistically had control over, and also exclude those who intentionally worked to subvert the institution they were nominally a part of? After all, being the member of a totalitarian state that doesn't allow you to leave the country is a bit of a different thing than signing an employment contract in the US, and I highly suspect that the people we are talking about here also are not in the class of people intentionally subverting the companies they work in, because chances are friends who care about this would know.
> Worse, you are implying that people should be judged by what social context they exist in. It seems far more likely that good people and bad people can end up in all sorts of situtions.
Well, not as black and white as you make it out to be, that's just a simplification for the sake of being able to discuss things at all. But I absolutely think that social context is significantly correlated with how people should be judged, yes.
Also, what exactly do you mean by "moral character"? I don't think it's a particularly well-defined term.
Re: The tech sector might be evil
#119>The other thing that’s new is that they’re thought leaders who are progressives and liberals; just like most of us in the tech profession
I think most people in tech are probably more moderate-to-liberal and it's that progressives are the loudest voices politically right now, so it seems like tech is more left leaning than it is. Also, tech exists in places other than the coasts.
Re: The tech sector might be evil
#120I agree. The Tech sector has become too powerful, and too singular in political leaning.
Like a free press, today's communication channels need to be free and open.
The monopolies must be broken.