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The tech sec­tor might be evil

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Re: The tech sec­tor might be evil

#211

Post by JBlue42 »

tachyonbeam wrote: post #161
outoftacos wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other angle which I haven't seen much written about yet (hint hint aspiring journalists) is I personally know a good number of the mid and high level employees at these companies, and they are becoming increasingly disillusioned by the day. They just don't want to be a part of this bullshit system anymore. Especially at Google and Facebook, they seem to be more authoritarian than some toppled dictatorships of the…

> Fortunately it's a great time for radical career shifts, especially if you always wanted to be an artist. Can you elaborate? Genuinely curious.

Maybe they meant those mid/high-level employees have enough cash/stock that they can peace out of the work force or work less and pursue something artistic.

Re: The tech sec­tor might be evil

#212

Post by antisthenes »

kybernetikos wrote: post #196
tanilama wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends. If they are just writing regular code for some subsystems' subsytem, why is that evil? TBH, calling out a person to quit just because one don't agree his/her employer's deeds before having a full understanding whether that person is directly involved or not, tells quite a lot about one's hubris.

I once asked a guy who worked on control systems for missiles what he thought about the ethics of it. He looked confused and said 'I've never really thought about it until now'. We left it at that, but I consider it a win.

There's no reason to assume by default that any worker has thought about the ethical side of his job and is in it for anything more than a good paycheck and self-interest.

Techies included (and HN is good proof of that)

Re: The tech sec­tor might be evil

#213

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

antisthenes wrote: post #212
kybernetikos wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once asked a guy who worked on control systems for missiles what he thought about the ethics of it. He looked confused and said 'I've never really thought about it until now'. We left it at that, but I consider it a win.

There's no reason to assume by default that any worker has thought about the ethical side of his job and is in it for anything more than a good paycheck and self-interest. Techies included (and HN is good proof of that)

1. s/self-interest/short-sighted self-interest/

2. still, never thinking about it guarantees that you won't notice anything is wrong, so getting someone to think about it at all is a good thing in any case, for it opens the chance that they do

Re: The tech sec­tor might be evil

#214

Post by mrtksn »

yesiamyourdad wrote: post #158
mrtksn wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a company is not making money but there are lots of people trying to keep it around it probably means that the company is making money for these people but it's not reflected to the books directly or the payment is due for later time. It's bit of like building roads that on the books may look like unprofitable venture but the utility they provide makes possible for other businesses to flourish so the roads are kep…

Do I really want to see Twitter gone? Yes. I despise the trend of writing news articles where tweets are treated as sources, and most of the article is a series of tweets. One of the headlines I avoid ends with the phrase "and the Internet/Twitter goes ". Twitter has only one logical paying customer that I can see: the media. The media immediately grabbed on to Twitter, pushing their handles on broadcasts. Back in 20…

Why do you blame Twitter for the low quality articles that are about Twitter? Maybe you should direct your anger to those who write the news, not Twitter itself.

Re: The tech sec­tor might be evil

#215

Post by hsod »

cyberpunk0 wrote: post #130
mrtksn wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter is the medium about what's happening RIGHT NOW. In before you would open the TV or the radio to get information about what's happening right now but these days many people would look at Titter to get information about "RIGHT NOW". It could be mundane things about the lives of other people or it could be an event that's affecting large number of people. If something is happening, there would be reports of obse…

Arguably it's a medium for unimportant things happening right now. anecdotal but I see maybe 1% useful tweets and 99% garbage.

This is like saying "the library sucks, most of their books are totally irrelevant to me"-- on Twitter, you curate your own feed.

Re: The tech sec­tor might be evil

#216

Post by sangnoir »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #6
throwaway613834 wrote: post #4

What sucks is I can't just tell my friends "you're working for an evil company -- just look at {insert 5 evil things they did in the past couple years}". It sucks even more that these are some of the kindest and most caring people I know, with better moral character than myself -- I almost feel they somehow got brainwashed into their jobs. But who would enjoy hearing that? At best they would ignore it; at worst you'd…

If you're a friend, you won't try to control them. Debate in search for truth; admit you might be the one who's wrong. Especially to yourself. But never control. That's a philosophy that bit me hard when I didn't follow it, so just trying to pass it along. I think techies are far too used to wielding power. Assume for a moment that the world is evil. What now? Historically, the answer was "Accept it." The idea that w…

> Concretely, starting a startup is one of the few ways you can influence the world

...until you get funding. He who pays the piper calls the tune.

Re: The tech sec­tor might be evil

#217

Post by imhelpingu »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #6
throwaway613834 wrote: post #4

What sucks is I can't just tell my friends "you're working for an evil company -- just look at {insert 5 evil things they did in the past couple years}". It sucks even more that these are some of the kindest and most caring people I know, with better moral character than myself -- I almost feel they somehow got brainwashed into their jobs. But who would enjoy hearing that? At best they would ignore it; at worst you'd…

If you're a friend, you won't try to control them. Debate in search for truth; admit you might be the one who's wrong. Especially to yourself. But never control. That's a philosophy that bit me hard when I didn't follow it, so just trying to pass it along. I think techies are far too used to wielding power. Assume for a moment that the world is evil. What now? Historically, the answer was "Accept it." The idea that w…

What's the point of having an opinion if it's not a morally normative one? /s

Re: The tech sec­tor might be evil

#218

Post by [deleted] »

mrtksn wrote: post #214
yesiamyourdad wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do I really want to see Twitter gone? Yes. I despise the trend of writing news articles where tweets are treated as sources, and most of the article is a series of tweets. One of the headlines I avoid ends with the phrase "and the Internet/Twitter goes ". Twitter has only one logical paying customer that I can see: the media. The media immediately grabbed on to Twitter, pushing their handles on broadcasts. Back in 20…

Why do you blame Twitter for the low quality articles that are about Twitter? Maybe you should direct your anger to those who write the news, not Twitter itself.

[deleted]

Re: The tech sec­tor might be evil

#219

Post by jhayward »

cyberpunk0 wrote: post #130
mrtksn wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter is the medium about what's happening RIGHT NOW. In before you would open the TV or the radio to get information about what's happening right now but these days many people would look at Titter to get information about "RIGHT NOW". It could be mundane things about the lives of other people or it could be an event that's affecting large number of people. If something is happening, there would be reports of obse…

Arguably it's a medium for unimportant things happening right now. anecdotal but I see maybe 1% useful tweets and 99% garbage.

You've never used it in a crisis situation then. I've used it to be better informed about several hurricanes near me, political developments, a possible nuclear facility problem affecting family, the Tohuku earthquake, the Macondo well blowout, and numerous other things.

Twitter has been a prime source of first-hand real-time information in many many crises. Just because you haven't used it that way doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Perhaps you should curate your feeds a bit better.

Re: The tech sec­tor might be evil

#220

Post by geomark »

taway_1212 wrote: post #110
geomark wrote: post #21

Not to mention the many (ex) friends working for "defense" contractors. Ex because I really can't be friends with them any longer. Evil quotes deployed because calling it defense is a farce considering what the systems they are developing are used for.

I never understood the disdain for working in the arms sector. After all, weapons are just tools, it's the politicians who decide what to do with them. You should despise the king, not the gunsmith.

At first that seems reasonable. But when you know that you are working specifically on weapons systems that are currently being used to do great evil then it no longer seems reasonable. When the rationale becomes so convoluted and twisted as it is now, like drone strikes on families in far away places are acceptable because we must fight terror at any cost, knowing that many of the terrorists were created as part of plans to control regions and overthrow governments by the same government now killing them, it has lost any and all moral basis. If you are a gunsmith developing those systems you share that same derth of morality.
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