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Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

nytimes.com

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Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#91

Post by voidhorse »

bilbo0s wrote: post #83
netcan wrote: post #36

At least to some extent, this is a "Hegelian pendulum." In the beginning there where black suited corporate drones. They coded black and white "calculation solutions" for the enterprising enterprise. Then came colour. Gates wanted cheap computers on every desk. Jobs wanted colour computers for every artist. Mission. Meaning. This worked better, especially if you needed employees to invent things. Can't invent the iPh…

> Google (and "SV") have spent 2 decades telling everyone about their open and selfless ideologies. People bought it. They went to work for Google instead of a bank... Let's inject a little honesty into this discussion. People didn't flock to google et al in droves because of google's selfless ideology. That was coincidental. People flocked to google because they wanted to get rich. Especially in the early days when…

This is the right way to think about it. Tech/Knowledge workers are pretty smart. There's no real "tricking" going on, which is part of what makes the problem so difficult to rout and insidious. If we were 'tricked' major economic and societal upheaval would be around the corner. But we're not tricked. We're willing participants.

There is a prevailing cynicism among the working man in that he recognizes (though often doesn't articulate) the compulsion to participate in the market that comes with capitalist systems. We already knew these companies were not shining paragons of ethical values—almost every participant in capitalism has known this since Industrialization. To focus on the consciousness of particular individuals or the false ethos of particular companies is to miss the real problem, which is systemic and lies at the roots in the capitalist mode of life and organization of resources. So long as you have capitalism you will have companies that make profit and market-survival an all-encompassing goal (whether or not they admit it) and complacent workers who are forced to support the Darwinian market game to have access to the means of subsistence. Capitalist logic is defined by its unbridled replacement of all other values (ethical, spiritual, etc.) with the value of exchange.

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#92

Post by jimktrains2 »

dotdi wrote: post #28

Every person, tech or not, should evaluate what their work is contributing to and they should evaluate if they can ethically and morally accept what the company is doing or standing for. In the end, I have to be able to look myself in the mirror and be accountable for my actions, even if that would mean to forego money, prestige, etc.

> Every person, tech or not, should evaluate what their work is contributing to and they should evaluate if they can ethically and morally accept what the company is doing or standing for.

> In the end, I have to be able to look myself in the mirror and be accountable for my actions, even if that would mean to forego money, prestige, etc.

How would you like people to square this with providing for their families? No offense to coal miners or well operators, but I don't think they're willing to destitute their families over climate change -- what's a better world for their grandchildren if their children die starving in the miners arms?

More to the point, I think the problem is "we as a society", not the individual. We're not willing to give slight inconveniences for massive increases in energy efficency. Look at how we design our cities and communities. People drive 2+ton vehicles upwards of 2 hours each day to go to work instead of living closer to the office and biking or taking public transport. (Many first and second ring suburbs of many/most/all cities have decent (or better) school systems than in the exurbs.)

Do we really need to consume all of the plastic junk or waste nearly as much food as we do? Do we need to be so wasteful of energy in our homes? Do we need to keep stores and offices frozen in the dead of summer? There is a lot of really low hanging fruit (that people as a whole are unwilling to do because it's the slightest of inconvenience or expects them to acknowledge the world they live in), before we ask people to give up their jobs.

Do you think coal miners, well operators, or big box retail associates wouldn't want a safer or more fulfilling job? We need to look at our excess consumption before pointing fingers at people for taking a job we find dirty (in the moral sense.)

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#95

Post by amelius »

yosefzeev wrote: post #78

I find it surprising that educated people are "just now" doing this. What did people think corporations were doing to the world? Open up your eyes and look around and get your head out of the code and the bullshit slogans your companies have sold you. It's obvious something has gone wrong and is going on.

> I find it surprising that educated people are "just now" doing this.

Why? Even doctors have been doing nasty things for money (e.g. bribing by big pharma). And they have an official ethical code!

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#96

Post by prolikewh0a »

sokoloff wrote: post #59
yitchelle wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, it should not negatively impact lives. For example, I can't see myself saying "I will take this job for the money, and the gun I help engineered is used to kill humans during combat".

I don't work in the field and don't know exactly how I'd personally feel about it, but I can see a very strong argument that even one of the most heinous weapons every deployed on Earth likely saved a net million-plus lives. If that is the case, is it moral to refuse to work on the Manhattan Project if asked? (I also agree that working on the next generation of the atomic bomb or the next revision of the M16/AK47 doe…

>One of the most heinous weapons every deployed on Earth likely saved a net million-plus lives.

It's really an argument that can't be made because the other event never happened. The weapon killed people, that's it. I don't know if there's a moral side at all?

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#97

Post by jimktrains2 »

fsloth wrote: post #33

For the over the decade I've been a software engineer I've always strived to work in products with a value proposition for the end user that I can understand. I can't understand how anyone could work without this understanding and not get their soul crushed. Maybe I'm just sensitive or underpaid.

> For the over the decade I've been a software engineer I've always strived to work in products with a value proposition for the end user that I can understand.

> I can't understand how anyone could work without this understanding and not get their soul crushed. Maybe I'm just sensitive or underpaid.

Well, if someone's paying you, there is always a value proposition for the end user :)

More to what I think your point is, though, most people do not view themselves through the lens of their work. I don't see myself as a guy who writes ecommerce software; I see myself as a spouse, father, child, uncle, and someone always trying new things and expand my horizons. Ecommerce just pays the bills and enables that all to happen.

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#98

Post by PopeDotNinja »

lolive wrote: post #80
yosefzeev wrote: post #78

I find it surprising that educated people are "just now" doing this. What did people think corporations were doing to the world? Open up your eyes and look around and get your head out of the code and the bullshit slogans your companies have sold you. It's obvious something has gone wrong and is going on.

Engineering abilities does not imply political awareness. Making things work is surprisingly hard and (imho) a soul crushing process. You need a specific kind of people's profile for that. From my experience, the presence of a political vision alongside the engineering skills is much lower than expected. When both are present, the political vision does not come from a kind of enlightenment in the engineer's inner sou…

> Making things work is surprisingly hard and (imho) a soul crushing proces.

I'm not able to turn off caring about what I work on, although I have picked up some tricks over time that help me turn that caring on. However, there's if I'm working on something that is ultimately lame, eventually I'll run out of stuff to care about. That's when the soul crushing starts to happen.

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#99

Post by ryandrake »

bilbo0s wrote: post #83
netcan wrote: post #36

At least to some extent, this is a "Hegelian pendulum." In the beginning there where black suited corporate drones. They coded black and white "calculation solutions" for the enterprising enterprise. Then came colour. Gates wanted cheap computers on every desk. Jobs wanted colour computers for every artist. Mission. Meaning. This worked better, especially if you needed employees to invent things. Can't invent the iPh…

> Google (and "SV") have spent 2 decades telling everyone about their open and selfless ideologies. People bought it. They went to work for Google instead of a bank... Let's inject a little honesty into this discussion. People didn't flock to google et al in droves because of google's selfless ideology. That was coincidental. People flocked to google because they wanted to get rich. Especially in the early days when…

> For the techies going to work for google, it was never about not being evil. It was about getting rich.

Most "techies going to work for google" or any other tech firm, are not going to get rich, in the Bill Gates or Larry Ellison sense. Sure, techies (currently) have a good shot at an above average lifestyle, but that's it. Working as third engineer from the left is not going to provide generational wealth for their descendants, or significantly impact their retirement dates. like everyone else, they are still dependent on their ability to work in order to survive. And it's all highly dependent on the whims of the tech job market. Everything about how good techies have it could be negated during the next tech downturn.

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#100

Post by mantas »

djrobstep wrote: post #62
taneq wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolute poverty is the important measure. If I'm hungry, I'm hungry, no matter what my neighbours have. But if I have a 50" flat screen TV, and my neighbours have a 100" flat screen TV, that inequality does not make me poor. I can still watch TV.

Wrong. If you do not have have what the average person in your society has, you'll struggle to participate in your society (in an absolute sense) and you'll be treated as an inferior, which does all kinds of harm (in an absolute sense). If I live aboard a ship, I am not in poverty because I do not own a car, because in my society, you do not need a car. But if I live in a city with no public transport where you need…

Many people do think about starving kids when they hear "poverty" though. There would be much less outcry in media if everybody realized it's about kids having smaller TVs rather than truly starving.

There's a running joke in my country that US poverty is our middle class - only two cars and a small house.

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