Anything related to planned obsolescence.
What type of software will you refuse to develop for ethical reasons?
21–30 of 62 posts
Re: What type of software will you refuse to develop for ethical reasons?
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
In theory if cows produce more meat, less cows will be killed. (we can talk how immoral is kill a cow for feed ourself, but this is off-topic and everyone has different opinions)
Devils advocate play here - when NYC via Robert Moses built more highways and tunnels to ease congestion, more cars got on the road and soon the problem was recreated
Parkinson's Law: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. - Cyril Northcote Parkinson, British civil servant, first published in 'The Economist' (1955)
Parkinson's Law - Data Corollary: Data expands to fill the space available for storage.
Generalized form of Parkinson's Law: The demand upon a resource tends to expand to match the supply of the resource. The reverse is not true.
Zawinski's Law: Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.
... from my fortune clone @ https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup
Re: What type of software will you refuse to develop for ethical reasons?
#23Adtech.
I've turned down so many, and quit the only job in the space I ever had after 3 months. Bad products and bad people.
I'm pretty surprised to hear this on here. I work in advertising analytics, and its amazing. I always thought that going over a bit, into ad tech, would mean more access to cooler, more interesting real-time technology
Re: What type of software will you refuse to develop for ethical reasons?
#24Although this is difficult to avoid because of its pervasiveness, I'm trying to avoid working in projects whose value proposition imply consistently distracting people from doing focused work. Also, I'd not like to work in companies that use information that I consider BS in their publicity. I can cite RedBull in this case, with their publicity about turning you into the greatest multitasker of the office, when it's…
I think a good BS threshold is a good thing to have. If they are bullshitting you in trivial obvious ways just imagine all the less obvious dishonesty they are perpetrating and you haven't noticed yet.
Re: What type of software will you refuse to develop for ethical reasons?
#25apart from the obvious malware, i will not work on drm, surveillance, spam, and anything that depends on addicting people to in-app purchases. i would like not to work at all for companies employing dark patterns, even if i don't work on those parts of the code myself, but realistically i tend to settle for not doing anything sketchy myself, and working for companies that i see as delivering positive value overall.
Re: What type of software will you refuse to develop for ethical reasons?
#26I won't do any more political propaganda work; Bill Hicks/George Carlin (and my own nagging conscience) got to me on that front. And I won't do webdev for the big tv networks because all I did was build advert and spy apparatus.
I'm currently on an active mission to see if it's still possible for me to 1) work in webdev, 2) not hurt people, and 3) make a living.
Seems to be easy to get two out of the three, but not all three. Seems my network of contacts is wholly in politics and broadcasting. :(
Re: What type of software will you refuse to develop for ethical reasons?
#27Not just dishonest products, but I want to avoid companies that treat their employees like crap. None of the trend of making everyone a contractor or making people train their replacements.
My current company is generally pretty good but the app I'm building will reduce call center volume and therefore call center employees. I think they are treating the call center employees pretty well but a few of the higher ups are just a bit too eager to "staff down". I'm generally in favor of creative destruction but something about the eagerness of all the VPs I talk to is just rubbing me the wrong way.
Re: What type of software will you refuse to develop for ethical reasons?
#28I won't do any more political propaganda work; Bill Hicks/George Carlin (and my own nagging conscience) got to me on that front. And I won't do webdev for the big tv networks because all I did was build advert and spy apparatus. I'm currently on an active mission to see if it's still possible for me to 1) work in webdev, 2) not hurt people, and 3) make a living. Seems to be easy to get two out of the three, but not a…
I don't know what specifically in webdev you're looking for but my company is hiring frontend engineers (we're in Campbell, CA but OK with part-time remote). We work in enterprise cloud security and don't hurt people AFAIK :-). My email is my username @gmail.com. Please do reach out if it sounds like something you're interested in.
Re: What type of software will you refuse to develop for ethical reasons?
#29I have been approached to develop mass surveillance software and turned it down. I have been approached multiple times to work for casinos (online and offline) and have always turned them down. I will not work for technology primarily contributing to military systems.
I totally get that. I personally would do casinos; but could totally understand why one wouldn't
Re: What type of software will you refuse to develop for ethical reasons?
#30I refuse to work with companies who store sensitive data (financial, medical, etc.) and fail to take it deadly seriously. If the company won't hire a third-party security firm to audit and provide guidance, I won't work for that company.
Who will audit the auditor?
They could be useless. They could BE the criminals.
So you need an auditor for your auditor, and for that too you'll need an auditor. It's auditors all the way down.