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We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

drewdevault.com

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Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#171

Post by lotsofpulp »

clevergadget wrote: post #23
lotsofpulp wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were to ask my circle of friends and family, even bigcorp programmer money isn’t sufficient to feel secure due to future economic volatility. Especially if your goal is to make sure your kids get to live in the richer neighborhoods and go to the richer schools, and so on and so forth. And it’s not just a perceived fear. The data shows that if you’re not in the portion of people increasing their rate of income/…

Can you put a ballpark net worth at which you would feel secure?

It's not a number. My goal is to secure income from various sources other than my labor, as well as developing political resources (which requires donations). Owning good real estate is also important, and that is very expensive.

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#172

Post by Loughla »

matchbok wrote: post #119
ddevault wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I have justified my argument that we do have the luxury of quitting in TFA, within the first two paragraphs.

Again, maybe you do. You are not everyone. Stop assuming things to make your argument stronger. You know exactly nothing about 99.9999% of the engineers at these companies and their lives and their needs. You also do not know what they care about and if their morality lines up with yours (which you have decided to be the global "right" morality, for some reason)

You seem to be purposefully obtuse in your thinking. The author's argument, as they have come here to even further clarify, although it's very clear in the article, is that MOST tech workers, specifically developers/coders/makers whatever, absolutely have the privilege of choice.

That's one of the side effects of a strong hiring field in technology. You can, in fact, in most cases, put your butt in a seat that aligns with your values. To act like that isn't the reality for most individuals involved in the tech industry, especially in SV, is disingenuous at best.

Source/reasoning for my views: I am not in a position that I can move jobs based on values. Luckily, 75% of my values align with my institution.

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#173

Post by Loughla »

MattGaiser wrote: post #116
pjc50 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would want a few hundred thousand in passive income before I would say I had FU money In other words, you feel that you cannot be secure unless you're in the, what, top 5% of the society? You can't have an entire society living on passive income until the AI revolution delivers. And until you feel secure, everything is justified at work? One of the real, hard, lessons of the coronavirus situation is that security…

> One of the real, hard, lessons of the coronavirus situation is that security is collective. You can hole up for a while, and avoid catching the virus yourself, but the economic effects will get everywhere. Hence the need for FU money because the collective decisions are/will be lousy. You do not want to be dependent on the collective for security.

Not where this conversation started, but surely where it's going:

Your sentence really sounds like just an 'I got mine, so forget everyone else' sort of statement.

Your FU money doesn't mean a damned thing if societal norms die due to a pandemic or disaster. If anything, they'll just make you a target for the actual collective when it gets bad.

You can't help yourself, by yourself, if the whole world is crumbling. You have to be dependent on the collective for security. That's the literal point of a society existing. We have societal norms and collective good for a reason.

We used to kill a lot of the rich people, every so often, in history. Why have we forgotten that?

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#174

Post by austincheney »

striking wrote: post #139
austincheney wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and that, to my knowledge, it's not considered legally binding. Violating the oath is grounds for immediate revocation of license which eliminates lawful practice forever whether or not professional. The actions that produced that violation may not be a lawful violation, but they typically are. What in software is of similar consequence?

From your previously linked article: > There is no direct punishment for breaking the Hippocratic Oath, although an arguable equivalent in modern times is medical malpractice and from "The Hippocratic Oath as Literary Text: A Dialogue Between Law and Medicine"[1] > Still today, the Oath continues to demand that physicians maintain ethics higher than those expected of society in general,[18] and it remains a code of p…

> I personally don't understand where you see a difference.

It doesn't matter what difference I see or what my opinions are. It only matters in how you practice your profession. In practical terms this difference is distinguished with one word: licensing.

If you wish to be taken seriously have credentials that certify credibility. This is a solved problem... just not in software. As an unlicensed unaccredited software developer you shouldn't take my opinions too seriously as I won't take yours.

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#175

Post by RookyNumbas »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #126
RookyNumbas wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies like Amazon were not always in the position you've described. It took decades to get there. And there would have been numerous opportunities along the way where a single engineer could have had a massive impact. A single engineer at Facebook will not make a difference today. 10 or 12 years ago they absolutely could have changed the course of the company. Almost all collective change is spearheaded by the id…

So you're saying Amazon is all my fault? :) [ employee #2 ] Edit : to be a little less terse, in 1996 I quit working for Amazon. There were multiple reasons, some not connected with the company, but a number that were based on my perception of what sort of corporate culture it was going to be have. And yet ... here we are. Is there anything I could have done in the 14 months I helped build the initial version of amaz…

I think that someone in your position could shift a dial a few degrees. And the resulting consequences, compounded over time, would be absolutely staggering. I'm guessing you did shift a few dials while working there, and probably in a good direction.

It seems like you are painting a picture where Amazon was destined from the beginning to be dealing with the issues it is now. Were there no other possible futures? Were there not individuals who had a massive impact?

I'm related to someone who runs very fairly large warehousing operations across north america. His decisions have certainly been influenced by employees. Hell, I think I've changed his mind on an issue or two over dinner conversations.

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#176

Post by sbuttgereit »

ddevault wrote: post #37
linuxftw wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That requires access to capital, which is vested in the banking class thanks to a centuries of organized crime people affectionately refer to as 'the government.'

I am a year and a half into owning a profitable business which has not taken any venture capital. It is entirely possible, and in my opinion, entirely necessary.

Sure, but are you investigating your customers and terminating those that might be sufficiently inconsistent with your morals? If so, do your customers understand that they're subject to such examination? Is that sort of thing a requirement for initiating the trade with you or, only if you coincidentally learn of transgressions after the fact, possibly after they start depending on your business?

While I don't know your position on the questions above, and they might sound accusatory, I think it's probably fair for possible customers to understand how, after you've taken a stand that employer/employee relationships should come under a broader moral scrutiny, if you consider that the vendor/customer relationship falls under the same rubric. If so, how do you do your vetting or how might possible customers self-qualify under such conditions?

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#177

Post by lidHanteyk »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #169
lidHanteyk wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is an ocean, but a sea of drops? It starts with employees speaking up individually. Raise your voice and be heard. Upper management won't learn moral lessons on their own; they need to hear employees nagging them to be better people.

I always hear people saying this but the person saying is 99% unlikely to have done so themselves.

At my last job, I called out the CEO for having a PAC and pushing politics in the office. At my position before that, I called out the head of HR for illegally trying to instruct employees to not discuss salaries.

What have you done?

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#178

Post by smitty1e »

linuxftw wrote: post #133
smitty1e wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking your bait: sure. The government is bad. Not too sure where that leaves us, though.

Reduce and eliminate the government as much as possible. Does the US Federal government need to exist in any form? Somehow the UK is able to exist as an independent state.

Let's be generous and say the UK = CA.

Or are you suggesting a more parliamentary governance, where the Speaker of the House is the head of state?

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#179

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

RookyNumbas wrote: post #175
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying Amazon is all my fault? :) [ employee #2 ] Edit : to be a little less terse, in 1996 I quit working for Amazon. There were multiple reasons, some not connected with the company, but a number that were based on my perception of what sort of corporate culture it was going to be have. And yet ... here we are. Is there anything I could have done in the 14 months I helped build the initial version of amaz…

I think that someone in your position could shift a dial a few degrees. And the resulting consequences, compounded over time, would be absolutely staggering. I'm guessing you did shift a few dials while working there, and probably in a good direction. It seems like you are painting a picture where Amazon was destined from the beginning to be dealing with the issues it is now. Were there no other possible futures? Wer…

The point is that Bezos had a clear idea in his mind what kind of company he wanted to build, and there have always been enablers of that sort of vision, especially when the motivation of getting stinking rich is on the table.

I am sure that along the way there have been people inside the company who have shifted its direction towards "better" when viewed from the perspective of society as a whole and the majority of its employees, but those shifts are tiny compared to the momentum of Bezos' conception maintained by suites of VPs etc.

And remember, Bezos et al. almost certainly believe that they are doing the right thing. He might be richest man in the world, but he thinks he got that way by doing something good. He's not so stupid as to imagine the company has no downsides, but I am absolutely certain that he is absolutely certain that Amazon is a net positive for the world.

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#180

Post by linuxftw »

smitty1e wrote: post #178
linuxftw wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reduce and eliminate the government as much as possible. Does the US Federal government need to exist in any form? Somehow the UK is able to exist as an independent state.

Let's be generous and say the UK = CA. Or are you suggesting a more parliamentary governance, where the Speaker of the House is the head of state?

I'm suggesting that, if the primary problem is government, we should reduce it. Are the things negatively impacting domestic labor national or state level policies? Do we even need a federal government to exist? The UK (and many other smaller countries) are able to exist as independent states, so why not the US states?
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