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

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

#161

Post by balt_s »

closeparen wrote: post #137
wazoox wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way we measure a "decreasing poverty" is extremely laden politically (like most things that are supposedly "neutrally evaluated" are supposed to be, just because they're represented as spreadsheets of numbers). We consider that a villager living from subsistence farming and therefore having almost no use for money to be part of the very poor, less than 1$/day crowd. Take this same peasant and send it working for…

If subsistence farming is preferable to being a cog in a market economy, why aren’t people switching in the opposite direction?

Assume you live in a "first-world" nation, how do you propose to become a subsistence farmer?

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

#162

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#163

Post by ryandrake »

philwelch wrote: post #148
ryandrake wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 thei…

> 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. You're describing 2 of the 10 richest billionaires in the world. Most people in general are not going to get that rich, most rich people are not going to get that rich, and nobody is going to get that rich by joining a company that has 100 or more employees already. Gates, Ellison, Al…

We can agree that a successful conversation on this topic requires a shared definition of “rich”. I just don’t think the fleeting wealth that comes with able-bodied employment counts. Rich implies some level of financial independence. One is rich if they can stop working immediately and maintain their existing standard of living indefinitely. This definition includes many more than just the top 0.01% but does not include employees who spend all $500k they make in the year and those who are temporarily well off because they just won the IPO (or other) lottery. I’d call those people merely “currently highly paid workers.”

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

#164

Post by s73v3r_ »

prolikewh0a wrote: post #96
sokoloff wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The projections for the invasion of Japan during WWII were that there would be millions of casualties. The battles in the Pacific were some of the most fiercely fought of the war, and invading Japan would have been even more so.

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

#165

Post by neuromantik8086 »

majewsky wrote: post #134
neolefty wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> cataloging the world's information and making it available for free What does the mission of archive.org have to do with Google?

Or like, the mission of any academic library for that matter? Historically, Google owes its entire existence to an NSF grant that required heavy collaboration with Stanford Libraries, which is why academia to this day holds certain privileges at Google (free GSuite via memorandum of understanding, etc).

I'd even argue that working at a library contributes substantially more to indexing the world's information, since libraries usually have one of a kind items in their cataloguing backlog that provide huge insights. As an example, I once met someone at a vintage computing festival who was writing an ENIAC simulator using the original specifications housed at UPenn. Unfortunately, he was having quite a bit of difficulty obtaining example programs to run on his simulator, not because programs didn't exist, but most likely because they were backlogged at UPenn and weren't being added to the library's catalog (i.e., so-called "hidden collections").

There are many ways to work on similar efforts without being at a tech company, but for better or worse the pay isn't remotely as good.

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

#166

Post by jimmy1 »

Sahbak wrote: post #154
jimmy1 wrote: post #133

Unpopular opinion: this is why the "dudebros" and their like keep getting hired. They are more than happy to do their work, accept their salary, and move on, and not have to turn everything into "changing the world"

I don't see the connection between dudebros and working to get a salary and not much more.

Dudebros was purposefully in quotes -- basically in reference to these days if you aren't a bleeding heart leftist and being actively engaged in being an ally, or other social justice cause (or at least give the facade that you are on social media) you are guilty by association, or at least placed in a less advantageous position versus your similar compatriot who is following the cultural winds. Gone are the times where you can keep your political beliefs at home, which ironically is now a form of workplace discrimination. That's something I think we will find out that previous generations got right.

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

#167

Post by isodude »

enraged_camel wrote: post #146
isodude wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes your don't have the luxury to choose your work.

Yes, but this is a much more rare scenario for techies than other white collar professionals.

Well that depends doesn't it. If you got skill and motivation to choose between gigs, that's fine, you'll most likely just start your own if you don't find anything fitting. Those you hear alot about.

Succeeding is not easier in tech than anything else, given that success means doing exactly what you want and feeling good about it.

I do interview people and try to find techies that fit in our org, but it's tough even if there's available people.

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

#168

Post by dasil003 »

ryandrake wrote: post #99
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…

> 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 thei…

The very framing of this reply shows the incredible privilege of SV software engineers. Google has minted hundreds if not thousands of millionaires, that may not be "generational wealth", but it sure as hell is not-worried-about-the-next-downturn wealth. This is far more opportunity than the vast majority of humans have ever had, setting Gates or Ellison as your target wealth is a recipe for misery.

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

#169

Post by neuromantik8086 »

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #150
jimmy1 wrote: post #133

Unpopular opinion: this is why the "dudebros" and their like keep getting hired. They are more than happy to do their work, accept their salary, and move on, and not have to turn everything into "changing the world"

Even before the "dudebros", i'd argue most scientists and engineers didn't really care too much about the moral implications of their work. Guns, bombs etc... were all invented by brilliant minds, we'd like to think we as a society have collectively evolved cause we have small machines in our hands with all the world's knowledge but esp in the usa, looking outside you see that nothing has really changed that much in…

I mean, scientists for the Manhattan Project were remorseful after the fact at least. In general though, scientists are primarily driven by curiosity with little regard for the safety of themselves or others. If IRBs didn't exist, I assure you that some experiment of dubious ethics would be in progress right now without it even occurring to the primary investigator that it might be morally problematic (it's important to note that with some researchers, moral issues just don't click mentally and there's not a question of malice). Even with an IRB, you still get studies like the Facebook mood manipulation fiasco at Cornell [0].

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2014/jul/0...

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

#170

Post by eternalban »

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…

> We, as technologists, certainly knew and understood the dangers of companies like Facebook and Google from early on.

Certainly, Eric Brewer and friends [1] understood these issues and were concerned in 1997. Today, Dr. Brewer is a "vice president of infrastructure" at Google.

Is it money? I'm not sure. We're all human and have our weaknesses. Noting that Brewer was in near tears discussing Inktomi I would guess success and ambition are also driving factors.

[1]: https://www.cypherpunks.ca/~iang/pubs/privacy-compcon97.pdf

[2]: https://www.cypherpunks.ca/~iang/pubs/pet3.pdf

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