A “Silicon Valley” actor is terrified by what’s happening in Silicon Valley • Hacker News Board

Re: A “Silicon Valley” actor is terrified by what’s happening in Silicon Valley

#31

Post by pdkl95 » Fri, Nov 03, 2017, 2:02 AM UTC

cyberferret wrote: post #14

untog wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations, yes. But employees of those corporations, less so. As a developer making , you could have qualms about it.

As an owner of a software development business, I've ejected my fair share of clients who have asked me to do ethically questionable things. But I wonder if a line employee who has to make rent every week and put food on the table can make the call. I don't know - I've always made the call myself, and informed my employees so I've never had an employee come to me with concerns about working with a particular client o…

> I've ejected my fair share of clients

Thank you!

> a line employee who has to make rent every week

Some sort of software development guild or professional association could help. Like a PE's duty to disobey their boss when a project isn't safe, explicitly defined external obligations can give the employee some power (and organizational support).

Re: A “Silicon Valley” actor is terrified by what’s happening in Silicon Valley

#32

Post by scoot » Fri, Nov 03, 2017, 2:05 AM UTC

dhoulb wrote: post #25

I got into a conversation once that I think frames this well. We had WILDLY different views on whether going to Mars was a good idea (like, violently polar opposite views). The strength of our disagreement surprised me. I was arguing that we should “race to Mars”, mainly because the value of having a second planet dramatically increases the odds of survival for our the human race, as a whole. Thus Mars is one of the…

> My friend was countering that all the rich people escaping to Mars made them not care about Earth and their fellow citizens, and was just about the most abhorant act he could think of.

I'd argue that, far from being an escape, it's a great sacrifice to migrate from fertile earth to a sterile planet as an insurance policy against the possibility of the extinction of the human species (that is unlikely).

Re: A “Silicon Valley” actor is terrified by what’s happening in Silicon Valley

#33

Post by skybrian » Fri, Nov 03, 2017, 2:07 AM UTC

sanbor wrote: post #4

leggomylibro wrote: post #2

I think that a better look at this subject is a recent piece in The Atlantic titled, "Are Facebook, Twitter, and Google American Companies?" https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/11/are-f... tl;dr, this back-and-forth is unsettling to a Federalist: >In response to a tough line of questions from Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Twitter’s acting general counsel, Sean Edgett, gave two conflicting answers wi…

This is the second time that I read that WikiLeaks is classified as "hostile intelligence agency". Isn't the purpose of intelligence to gather information to gain advantage over adversaries? It sounds to me like a redundant term like "hostile military". And BTW WikiLeaks leaks are public so all other intelligence agencies and citizens can learn while state agencies try to keep things obscure as much as possible. Who'…

It doesn't seem that hard to understand? In the context of a U.S. Congressional hearing, "hostile" probably means "hostile to the U.S."

Re: A “Silicon Valley” actor is terrified by what’s happening in Silicon Valley

#34

Post by brokenbyclouds » Fri, Nov 03, 2017, 2:10 AM UTC

dhoulb wrote: post #25

I got into a conversation once that I think frames this well. We had WILDLY different views on whether going to Mars was a good idea (like, violently polar opposite views). The strength of our disagreement surprised me. I was arguing that we should “race to Mars”, mainly because the value of having a second planet dramatically increases the odds of survival for our the human race, as a whole. Thus Mars is one of the…

Its hard to believe people actually think this shit.

Re: A “Silicon Valley” actor is terrified by what’s happening in Silicon Valley

#35

Post by rtpg » Fri, Nov 03, 2017, 2:21 AM UTC

sanbor wrote: post #4

leggomylibro wrote: post #2

I think that a better look at this subject is a recent piece in The Atlantic titled, "Are Facebook, Twitter, and Google American Companies?" https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/11/are-f... tl;dr, this back-and-forth is unsettling to a Federalist: >In response to a tough line of questions from Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Twitter’s acting general counsel, Sean Edgett, gave two conflicting answers wi…

This is the second time that I read that WikiLeaks is classified as "hostile intelligence agency". Isn't the purpose of intelligence to gather information to gain advantage over adversaries? It sounds to me like a redundant term like "hostile military". And BTW WikiLeaks leaks are public so all other intelligence agencies and citizens can learn while state agencies try to keep things obscure as much as possible. Who'…

If an American spy plane showed up over the Soviet Union, the plane would get shot at. If an American spy plane showed up over France, they wouldn't get shot at.

Of course there's an understanding that intelligence agencies are all ultimately looking at everything, but there's a degree of cooperation. Even in the current state of affairs Russian and American intel agencies work together on anti-terrorism stuff.

However, if the other group is clearly actively against you, then it's harder to work with them. It's safe to say at this point, given the evidence out ther, that WikiLeaks does work with an objective of embarassing American interests.

Re: A “Silicon Valley” actor is terrified by what’s happening in Silicon Valley

#36

Post by rtpg » Fri, Nov 03, 2017, 2:26 AM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #29

pdkl95 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, many engineers like to pretend their work is apolitical, but there is "No Neutral Ground in a Burning World"[1]. Everything is political, eventually; technology patently has political consequences that are large in scope, highly complex, and difficult to understand fully. When you are implementing a new technology, please take some time to actively consider all of the potential consequences you can thi…

The most overtly political act most software engineers are likely to make is to choose GPL over BSD or vice-versa. Walk away from a cool idea for ethical reasons? Risk their salary or their safety? I'm sure such engineers must exist, but they're not among any I've ever known. Unfortunately, I am rather pessimistic. We're in this Orwellian/Huxlean dystopia for a reason.

Hopefully you can spread discussion about ethics enough to where engineers can make these decisions even before joining the companies.

I imagine many of us would _not_ want to work at a multi-level marketing outfit, considering how they mostly all work through exploitation. By having these discussions we can make sure that companies with dubious ethics will have an even harder time recruiting.

There was a story a couple years back about a guy who wanted to form a "white supremacist village" in the countryside, and couldn't get anybody to join him. You talk enough about something, and it does have effects eventually (even if only temporary).

Re: A “Silicon Valley” actor is terrified by what’s happening in Silicon Valley

#37

Post by grad_ml » Fri, Nov 03, 2017, 2:27 AM UTC

leggomylibro wrote: post #2

I think that a better look at this subject is a recent piece in The Atlantic titled, "Are Facebook, Twitter, and Google American Companies?" https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/11/are-f... tl;dr, this back-and-forth is unsettling to a Federalist: >In response to a tough line of questions from Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Twitter’s acting general counsel, Sean Edgett, gave two conflicting answers wi…

I think this was all trash talk, nothing but an attempt to intimidate. If companies are following letters of the law then it doesn't matter who thinks/interprets what. and they better know they would be challenged in court of law.

Re: A “Silicon Valley” actor is terrified by what’s happening in Silicon Valley

#38

Post by aphextron » Fri, Nov 03, 2017, 2:27 AM UTC

nemild wrote: post #18

In the vein of Kumail's critique, if it's useful to anyone, I wrote some thoughts about software engineering and ethics from my own experiences: A serial tech entrepreneur in Silicon Valley once asked me to design a “social stockade” for his financial services customers. It would lock people out of their social media accounts and tweet out/FB share to their friends when they hadn’t paid a loan. He pitched it to prosp…

>Every software engineer I’ve worked with has had a strong sense of personal values and ethics, but the organizations we work for can take actions that are at odds with these. I’d like to highlight a few of the key challenges you’ll face and provide feedback for living your personal values. Most importantly, it’s critical that you think about the impact of your work and consciously set your personal values in advance of inevitable future challenges.

I'd agree with this assessment of developers. However I've come into these exact moral dilemmas myself in the line of working for various companies doing web programming. How did I resolve them? By making the decision that affected my own bottom line favorably. When looked at in isolation, it's impossible for a single developer to say no to the incentives of doing "evil" work. It won't be until the field of software engineering really matures and develops a set of standards bodies like other professions that engineers will have some sort of protection. Physicians can refuse to perform a procedure they're told to in the name of protecting their medical license. A software engineer should likewise be held to the same standard.

Re: A “Silicon Valley” actor is terrified by what’s happening in Silicon Valley

#39

Post by angersock » Fri, Nov 03, 2017, 2:31 AM UTC

dhoulb wrote: post #25

I got into a conversation once that I think frames this well. We had WILDLY different views on whether going to Mars was a good idea (like, violently polar opposite views). The strength of our disagreement surprised me. I was arguing that we should “race to Mars”, mainly because the value of having a second planet dramatically increases the odds of survival for our the human race, as a whole. Thus Mars is one of the…

> I’d be happy to sacrifice 95% of the humans alive today as long as some live somewhere

But...that 95% already live here?

What do you think you'd be making that sacrifice for?

Re: A “Silicon Valley” actor is terrified by what’s happening in Silicon Valley

#40

Post by notl4wy3r » Fri, Nov 03, 2017, 2:33 AM UTC

leggomylibro wrote: post #2

I think that a better look at this subject is a recent piece in The Atlantic titled, "Are Facebook, Twitter, and Google American Companies?" https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/11/are-f... tl;dr, this back-and-forth is unsettling to a Federalist: >In response to a tough line of questions from Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Twitter’s acting general counsel, Sean Edgett, gave two conflicting answers wi…

I hate wikileaks, but I honestly don't see the contradiction in Twitter's behavior on this point.

Perhaps they were naive on whether RT was actually an aperture of Russian intelligence services. OK. Their KYC game could use some upping. OTOH, would anyone be surprised if the CIA were paying some little hedge fund somewhere to let them piggyback on access to Twitter's feed?

As far as Wikileaks' uninhibited operation goes, as far as I can tell, the CIA has not had its account banned from Twitter, just its firehose access. Does Wikileaks have access to that? What would they do with it if they did?

I mean it just seems like the line of questioning is, "Hey is it fair that you let them do X and won't let us do Y?" Maybe I can't see it because my silicon valley ass has no ethics.