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

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

#91

Post by finnthehuman »

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.

Do they though? I've noticed a trend where the strength of some developers' beliefs are proportional to how unethical the products they're paid to build are.

This makes me suspect that for many people, the ethical stance they take is a coping mechanism for excusing their own actions with the Yuppie Nuremberg Defense.

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

#92

Post by MichaelGG »

pdkl95 wrote: post #49
pmoriarty wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> they're not among any I've ever known You just met one. In the mid 90s, when I was writing firmware and drivers for HIPPI[1] networking equipment, the Malaysian government bought a bunch of out hardware (indirectly), as part of a big system that was supposed to receive a bunch of TV channels from satellite, buffer it for a couple minutes on disk, and then re-broadcast the streams on local TV channels. The buffer, o…

That sounds very interesting! If you were working with their government, why did you need to smuggle them in?

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

#93

Post by dmix »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #81

This just in: actor discovers corporations don't have a soul. Why don't you come over here to Europe, we have strong data protection laws. Oh btw you'll have to cut your your salary by 50%, because no Silicon Valley, and because strong data protection laws. Hows thats sound to you?

Most data protection laws just force ineffective bureaucratic processes on companies in the name of "doing something", usually in the form of outdated checklists. Meanwhile intelligence agencies, hackers, and ad companies are still consuming vast quantities of data uninhibited.

It really does largely just slow companies down and forces gov agencies, doctors, banks, and other critical industries to use old insecure software and inefficient corporate processes. RFP'ing a new system is suddenly 2x the cost.

I'm all for strong privacy and property rights at the consumer level, plenty of law in this area in most countries is very outdated and from another era. But the tendencies of european and modern US/UK/Canada/etc countries are to go well beyond the courts and intervene directly in company operations.

I've never heard anyone praise the fact they followed gov-mandated checklists as for why they prevented a hack.

It's always keeping up to date with the latest industry best practices and caring because there are real costs. Strengthened courts and a caring media will create real costs and incentivized best practices.

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

#94

Post by peoplewindow »

dcow wrote: post #86
peoplewindow wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like he didn't bother to specify exactly what he found so objectionable. Given that, it's impossible to evaluate his claim that executives were "confused" because "nobody ever asked them the questions". Maybe nobody ever asked them because the questions he was asking were stupid or ridiculous? After all, it may sound dismissive, but I'm reminded of a quote by Patrick Stuart. "That's the biggest danger, you see:…

FWIW Kumail has undergraduate degrees in computer science and philosophy. We went to the same college. The comp-sci department and college in general has a strong sense of ethical responsibility. In fact the computer science department makes it a point to have students make an ethical pledge as part of the major, optional of course. Please don't get the idea that because Kumail has chosen a career in acting that he h…

Yes, but so what? It's very easy for people who don't actually make things - like actors and academics - people who never face tradeoffs in their life, to get up on their high horses about people who do. If Kumail wants to comment on the ethics of the computing industry he should man up and write an essay in which he lays out his case, and shows why his preferred tradeoffs are better than those chosen by industry. Like anyone else would have to do, if they wanted influence.

Instead we get this clickbaity junk based on a series of tweets, which nobody would have seen or cared about if he wasn't a famous actor.

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

#95

Post by eli_gottlieb »

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 think my view is more that of Silicon Valley/entrepreneur/programmer types. These people (me, etc) want the best long term outcome and will take big actions towards that, even knowing it’ll cause some short term pain.

>I don’t think ‘regular’ people think like that. They generally care more about the people around them, their own pain, their tribes, their cities, etc. (But not at all about trillions of as yet unborn humans.)

And I think that both of you have a very peculiar taste for bullets, since you like biting them so much when there was otherwise no actual need. We can invent cool technologies, colonize space, and have an egalitarian society. In fact, in my view, those things go together: you can't really get a stable multiplanetary civilization going when people are constantly trying to tear out each-other's throats over socioeconomic inequality.

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

#96

Post by pdkl95 »

MichaelGG wrote: post #92
pdkl95 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're not among any I've ever known You just met one. In the mid 90s, when I was writing firmware and drivers for HIPPI[1] networking equipment, the Malaysian government bought a bunch of out hardware (indirectly), as part of a big system that was supposed to receive a bunch of TV channels from satellite, buffer it for a couple minutes on disk, and then re-broadcast the streams on local TV channels. The buffer, o…

That sounds very interesting! If you were working with their government, why did you need to smuggle them in?

We - as manufacturers of HIPPI NICs and crossbar switches - we were technically just supplying OEM parts to a Canadian company. They were the people trying to sell a giant turn-key censorship solution to the Malaysian government. I believe we were simply trying to "help our biggest customer" with an IBM-style field service tech.

Also, this was a rush fix. Flying me on the next flight was supposedly faster than the usual shipping/courier services? At least that's what the boss believed? I never got the full explanation, but I suspect that the Canadian company was ~30-50 hours away from losing the entire deal, which was supposed to be our main (only?) source of revenue until we could ship an important new product[4] a few months later. With the benefit of hindsight, instead of a rational, sound plan, the whole situation smells more like a panic about losing VC funding.

[4] We had re-purposed 8 & 16 port crossbar switches where each port could be (mix-n-match): HIPPI, FC, ATM, 2xFDDI, 2xSCSI3 (!), 1000BASE-T, or 8x(100BASE-TX/FX) with arbitrary layer-3 routing and arbitrary tunneling. Two switches with SCSI and ATM ports did something similar to FCoE/iSCSI... in 1996. RAID 1 over 10km of fiber was awesome. Except it never shipped, because everyone was focused on our broken NIC. --sigh--

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

#97

Post by ejnulls »

ejnulls wrote: post #89
theparanoid wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every job I've had wanted to work me to the bone. I'd violate my personal ethics for stress-free work that'd pay my mortgage.

That's fine, but ultimately how can you look down on people like Trump, Ajit Pai, or the CEO of Comcast? They're sacrificing ethical decisions for money, same as you. Only difference is they're getting "fuck you" money and you're barely getting enough to buy a house. Kinda lame to sell out for so little IMO. As long you don't complain about these types of people, then whatever, but if you do you need to take a harder…

Ah, I get it. The "my leaders should have more integrity than me" mentality. Well guess what? One day you may be a leader...and you'll still have your crap, anti-social mentality.

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

#98

Post by abandonliberty »

dcow wrote: post #83
abandonliberty wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>TL;DR: they do this because they can, and they can because you let them. You may be passionate and well informed enough to have the strength of conviction to take appropriate action, but most people are not. Nothing will change unless you can affect the behavior of others. You will be fought every step of the way: for the company, this is a fight for survival. >they can because you let them. What does this statement…

I'm not trying to deflect personal responsibility and I fortunately have not been in a position where I've had to make an ethical decision that would contradict the wishes of my employer (nor do I work for an employer in the realm of data hungry social media/advertisement) but I have come close WRT intellectual property and software patents. My comment which admitttedly digresses slightly at the end is more about the…

Yes, we're on the same page. It's great that you're supporting organizations and people with this.

>deciding to pivot my personal career into public advocacy or civil service

There have been worse ideas. It's worth fighting. :)

Organizations will engage in behavior if the expected risk-adjusted payoff is sufficiently large, from eroding privacy to cheating emissions tests. Unless we can change that equation we should expect to lose in the long run. This behavior is emergent, based on laws of power and organizational structure.

Organizations stand to win far more than lose, and a victory for us does not provide the same millions of dollars. They get stronger as we get weaker, and they use that strength to win people over to their position.

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

#99

Post by dcow »

peoplewindow wrote: post #94
dcow wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW Kumail has undergraduate degrees in computer science and philosophy. We went to the same college. The comp-sci department and college in general has a strong sense of ethical responsibility. In fact the computer science department makes it a point to have students make an ethical pledge as part of the major, optional of course. Please don't get the idea that because Kumail has chosen a career in acting that he h…

Yes, but so what? It's very easy for people who don't actually make things - like actors and academics - people who never face tradeoffs in their life, to get up on their high horses about people who do. If Kumail wants to comment on the ethics of the computing industry he should man up and write an essay in which he lays out his case, and shows why his preferred tradeoffs are better than those chosen by industry. Li…

I don't think it's Kumail's fault how this got published. I got the impression this was a report on comments he made not any intention of an exhaustive essay on the state of computing. I mean I am professionally in the industry so let me say: I agree that computing across the board lacks an ethical framework and when I talk about this I usually am met with similar responses: apathy or ignorance.

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

#100

Post by thomastjeffery »

tlb wrote: post #51
thomastjeffery wrote: post #3

The heart of the problem is that popular communication networks are centralized and unencrypted.

How would you make a decentralized, encrypted twitter? How would it be better for society?

It would not be Twitter. Twitter is inherently public. The issue is that people flock to public platforms to share personal data. What we need is the equivalent of Email and GPG, but actually user-friendly.
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