Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For? • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by neolefty » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 3:24 PM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #115

bilbo0s wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I don't know about you. But if I can get riches at Google, I can get riches at Facebook, Apple or Microsoft too. The reason I would have chosen Google, and the reason I entrusted Google with all my personal information in the first place, was knowing they had that slogan. I just couldn't imagine they'd ever erase it... Now who is left? I guess I'm waiting for the Internet Archive to turn evil...

I still like Google. I never worked there, but "cataloging the world's information and making it available for free" is still great. It's complicated yes, but Google — more than any other tech company — has empowered me to do the things I care about. Mainly by making information easy to find.

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

#122

Post by mc32 » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 3:26 PM UTC

prolikewh0a wrote: post #120

mc32 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not for tech workers becoming drones. I'm for them being informed. I’m not for them to be moulded by mass media who see them as a tool to carry out their vision or idea if what’s right or wrong. You see, if informed tech workers were to make contrarian decisions, let’s say with regard to domestic issues in the US and while informed they made a Libertarian decision, this decision would be derided never the less be…

I don't see any "mass media" effecting tech workers. A lot of us are pretty smart & can critically think. I see employee's not aligning morally with drone & censorship projects which is absolutely 100% not a bad thing. I am fortunate to work for a company that I know of does nothing immoral or unethical, but refuse to work for Amazon, Google, or Facebook regardless of their recruiting efforts because I know I don't a…

Fair enough. At this point I would not work for either as well. But that’s how to make decisions, not by politicizing the work environment.

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

#123

Post by drb91 » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 3:26 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #4

I think this makes a good deal of sense. The tech job market is extremely buoyant in the present age, meaning very few programmers are in a position where they have to settle for a job they dislike just to make ends meet. I mean, every tech company talks about wanting engaged, passionate, proud employees - so why settle for doing work you can't take pride in when you could switch to work you could be proud of, and pr…

This actually points most at developers being considerably underpaid.

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

#124

Post by drb91 » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 3:29 PM UTC

jimktrains2 wrote: post #92

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…

> How would you like people to square this with providing for their families?

With a capable human brain, like we all have! Just because a decision is hard doesn’t absolve you of the responsibility to make the right one—all people making decisions have been faced with this, including many people commonly considered evil.

Computers are levers, and developers are the fulcrum. We have quite a bit of negotiation power.

Finally, I think it’s naive to think that these systemic problems can be addressed with concerted individual effort, not by addressing the underlying problems. Maybe I have some sympathy for the coal miners after all.

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

#125

Post by gaius » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 3:31 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #117

mbesto wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I can't speak for the OP, but there is absolutely a sense of getting rich working early at a tech company. The market for startup options is a direct indication of this. Google and Facebook both made, what..1000 millionaires each when they IPO'd? Point is, yes if you get in early to a…

The FB and Google scenarios were vanishing outliers. A whole lot of if statements had to evaluate to true to produce those outcomes, and at the end of the day, a FB IPO millionaire is pretty well off but his kids will still have to work for a living. The remaining 99% of early tech employees for other companies will end up with equity worth a house down payment if they are lucky, worth a few months of rent in the usu…

a significant tech bear market from your comment, but if you have, you should know better. Things dry up completely, for nearly everyone

Can confirm. 2001 was utter carnage. Developers hit a lot worse than ops but no one got out unscathed.

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

#126

Post by wolfgke » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 3:33 PM UTC

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #98

lolive wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

A very important factor whether the work is soul-crushing or not is whether the work is intellectually stimulating or not.

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

#127

Post by prolikewh0a » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 3:34 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #122

prolikewh0a wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any "mass media" effecting tech workers. A lot of us are pretty smart & can critically think. I see employee's not aligning morally with drone & censorship projects which is absolutely 100% not a bad thing. I am fortunate to work for a company that I know of does nothing immoral or unethical, but refuse to work for Amazon, Google, or Facebook regardless of their recruiting efforts because I know I don't a…

Fair enough. At this point I would not work for either as well. But that’s how to make decisions, not by politicizing the work environment.

>not by politicizing the work environment.

What type of politics should be allowed at work? What about talks about workers rights, wages? What about conversation on ethics & morals behind projects they themselves are contributing to?

Do Libertarians believe authoritarian private governments akin to communist dictatorships (employers) can strip your rights when you clock in?

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

#128

Post by skybrian » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 3:36 PM UTC

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…

At the time I joined Google, I wouldn't have chosen to work on Wall Street or for Microsoft, but Google seemed very safe from an ethical point of view. Ads were just text links and none of the things people complain about had happened yet. (I also thought I was joining too late to make much from stock options and was... wrong about that, though it took a while.)

Google left China after I joined. What other company would have done that? It still seemed way better than average.

This idea that of course we all knew what would happen over the next decade is revisionist history via mood affiliation that has no factual basis.

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

#129

Post by jhabdas » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 3:40 PM UTC

mistrial9 wrote: post #88

bilbo0s wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

good try but.. the Google'rs originally wanted to "index the worlds information" .. very, very smart engineers are motivated by that alone. They were competitive and highly-achieving coders from Berkeley-Stanford-MIT-CalTech-thatOtherOneIForget in an elite team environment.. There were ten other well-funded companies trying to be search engines with lots of publicity.. Google outperformed them.. In hindsight, after t…

We all want different things. Those who went to work not to be evil were duped from the start or lying to themselves as we all know money is the root...

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

#130

Post by jimktrains2 » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 3:40 PM UTC

drb91 wrote: post #124

jimktrains2 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> How would you like people to square this with providing for their families? With a capable human brain, like we all have! Just because a decision is hard doesn’t absolve you of the responsibility to make the right one—all people making decisions have been faced with this, including many people commonly considered evil. Computers are levers, and developers are the fulcrum. We have quite a bit of negotiation power. F…

You're still begging the question. How does one choose between doing something supports a questionably moral company (and what isn't a company without any moral baggage?) and keeping your family fed and warm?

> Just because a decision is hard doesn’t absolve you of the responsibility to make the right [choice]

I think this is telling: you believe there is a correct choice in all situations, from all points of view.

I have no problems installing Google Analytics or AdWords on a site if my employer asks me to, but I personally run with ad blockers. The "right" decision in my case is to keep my family fed and warm because I don't think I can find a position at a company that doesn't do advertising or analytics and my own attempts to start my own companies have failed. I'm not willing to take the risk of long-term unemployment or to take a significantly lower paying job at a company that does the exact same thing (e.g. advertising).

So please tell me why my decision is unequivocally wrong, especially in light of the ability of anyone to run an adblocker and that we adhere to all relevant regulations, e.g. GDPR. Additionally, please tell me where I (and everyone who doesn't like advertising) can find a living wage from a company that does not advertise or perform analytics (or do any other morally questionable activity).