A Facebook request: Write a code of tech ethics

I want to put aside the question of whether this claim is true for a second, and just point out that it is - obviously, as proven by the response here - controversial among engineers. On that basis alone, it's never going to be part of an effective professional code of conduct. A code which starts with that condition will not be widely adopted. A popular code which tries to add it will fail, or be mired in controversy and lose members. A licensing regime which attempts to keep people who disagree out of the industry will be broken by (government-abetted) defectors or competing licensing.

The number of doctors or prospective doctors who deny the medical code of ethics is very nearly zero. Almost all debate around it centers on subtle questions like defining 'harm' in self-determination cases (e.g. assisted suicide). The number of lawyers who would reject a given the legal code of ethics is perhaps larger, but the code is accordingly narrower. Lawyers are for instance free (and in fact obligated) to support "not guilty" pleas by clients they know are guilty. The boldest parts of the code (e.g. that lawyers cannot actively lie on behalf of clients, or mingle personal business with professional work) are also the the parts which are regularly broken.

Striving to avert something you consider immoral is a sensible decision, even if other people dispute that ethic. But doing so with a professional code of ethics is not only a doomed task, it's one which dooms the rest of the code in the process.

Not needed, we hackers - more or less - already have one for about 35 years:

1) Access to computers - and anything which might teach you something about the way the world really works - should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands-On Imperative!

2) All information should be free.

3) Mistrust authority - promote decentralization.

4) Hackers should be judged by their acting, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.

5) You can create art and beauty on a computer.

6) Computers can change your life for the better.

7) Don't litter other people's data.

8) Make public data available, protect private data.

Originally penned down by Steven Levy in "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution" and slightly modified by the CCC after that.

Source: https://www.ccc.de/en/hackerethics

> I can tell at a glance if you are black. I cannot tell at a glance if you are rural white.

Sure, but that only works up until you open your mouth. I can tell poor-rural from wealthy-urban quickly.

Out and out racism is still at some level a problem, but the parent comment specifically states there exist socioeconomic problems that exist only for blacks attempting university that do not exist for other groups. I would love to know what problems exist specifically for blacks attempting university that are specific to that one group.

Having spent my youth in a place with a surprising amount of socioeconomic diversity I can tell you the wealth blacks had wholly different problems and outcomes than the poor ones did just like with the whites, and Hispanics. I couldn't tell you about other groups, we didn't seem to have any of them in the "poor" category.

And while whites haven't exactly had historical problems in the workforce solely based on skin color, this isn't a rule. My father is a blue-collar worker in the construction industry, and during the Recession he lost his "good" job and ended up working on a crew entirely comprised of poor blacks. I spent my summers and breaks working with him, performing unskilled manual labor. While not the rule, there was absolute "us" vs. "them" bullshit racism coming from the majority group.

This isn't a class of problem that is relegated to one particular group, and to pretend it does is simultaneously racist and patronizing.

What socioeconomic challenge, in this day and age, applies to American blacks but not American asians, whites, or any other group who are applying to university?

This is coming. It won't be long before PwC is auditing more code than they are financial statements.