Systemic abuse in the software industry is ruining lives… and taking them. | Hacker News Reader

Systemic abuse in the software industry is ruining lives… and taking them.

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34 pointsmusha68k36 comments

This article more seemed to suggest that extremely intelligent people are more likely to get into trouble than any apparent root cause to me. In Schwartz and Turing's case, while the law was misguided, it compounded their stressors and took their lives. In the one fellows case he apparently broke into someone's house wasted and was arrested. And there was the guy announcing his suicide on twitter (that might be the same guy, can't remember), a serious call for help.

I'm not so sure this article made me think it's endemic to the software industry. Large numbers of people commit suicide in the United States and abroad every year. Maybe it's the cultural stressors of bills, and grades, and social exclusion, and yada yada yada onward and onward for as long as you'd like that contributes to the high rates of suicide in high stress environments.

And then this weird tangential aside about Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump and how they'd be equally disastrous convinced me this was an emotional plea for something (the vague sentiment that we should treat eachother like humans regardless of seniority when humans don't particularly have a great track record on that front and while... positive is just as kooky if not much more so than anything Bernie Sanders has said) not particularly well grounded in reality and with no proposed solutions besides a call for empathy.

If you want people to stop commiting suicide you need to take away their major stressors which compound their depressive states. Correct the law so that gays are free to be themselves. Pay people living wages so their bank accounts have at least a small buffer. Make sure health care and education are affordable and accessible.

So in a way his potential future vote for Bernie based on Bernie's empathy was the wrong path to the right choice. It's not just in this individual instance that Bernie feels empathetic towards man, but in almost all instances of Bernie's recorded public profile. Whether it comes to the oppression of African Americans and gays, or to the inability to pay bills or access health care of education of the lower and middle class Americans he represents, Bernie has consistently been on the empathetic side of the equation.

But it's his policy proposals which make Bernie the right man for the job, not his empathy which shaped them.

To paraphrase Nietzsche, to live is to experience stressors. The changes you're talking about might (might!) lower the number of stressors in people's lives and thus have an overall positive impact on mental health, but a better path toward that goal, in my opinion, is to encourage people to seek the help necessary to deal with stressors.

Edit: you did mention making mental healthcare accessible, but it wasn't the brunt of your message.

When I started software (90s), the tech industry didn't pay that well but did have a strong geek culture. I felt my managers didn't understand the work I did but they left me alone to do it. Timelines were in months and you largely self-managed yourself. Tools weren't great but didn't change very much. Integration testing was done by a separate QA function and programmers would slack off a little bit when it came to proper unit testing and documentation.

I miss that world (with perhaps one exception - that has to do with women in the field). Today, we have:

1) Insane deadline pressures 2) Managers asking for constant status updates 3) A general culture where people are on call outside of work hours or supposed to be reachable 4) While programmer salaries are high, they have essentially kept up with inflation. Under fields are generally worse off I admit. 5) No QA depts for the most part 6) Expectation that developers need to be more "professional" rather than produce great software. 7) Reduced employment mobility because developer interviews seem to have an insane standard. As a reference, for most jobs I got until 2005, I had a 30 minute to 1 hour interview with no coding questions. 8) 2-3 week shipping cycles (I posit scrum deadlines are like shipping deadline of old) 9) constant change in the tools of the trade. IT JUST NEVER ENDS.

So what happened? I think the end of the dot com era produced a few elite companies like Google. There was a cargo cult mentality that has turned most of software development into the same.

When people ask, I don't recommend a career in software any more. It definitely leads to unhealthy habits in average/above average people and, unless you have strong social ties, probably induces depression in many people. If you are an elite, Harvard-level, Google-level person, sure .. welcome to the gauntlet and have fun. For sane, average/above average people, I don't know what to say. There are few other paths that lead to financial stability these days. The software industry gives decent financial stability but extols a heavy cost in many.

Let's take an edge case: you are a slave in America, 18th century. Here, some antidepressants and some free psychotherapy time for you. Happier now?

Quite an edge case to be both a slave in 18th century America and in the software development industry, which is what we're talking about here.

I was responding to this:

> a better path toward that goal, in my opinion, is to encourage people to seek the help necessary to deal with stressors

There is almost always a flip side to your personal stress: some dissonance, disharmony in the outside world. Some of those who feel stressed go out and fight for harmony in the world, and they lose. That's what we are talking about here.

This is meaningless. Stress is a natural state. Human lives have forever been stressful, because stress exists for a purpose. To set out to eliminate all "dissonances" and "disharmonies" is a fool's errand.

The wisest people from vastly different cultures -- from Nietzsche who I quote above to the Buddha -- have recognized that suffering is inevitable. Sure, some stressors can be dealt with. But others can't.

If someone is having trouble coping, and he's a software developer in a developed country who has free time to write blogs, the best advice to that person is to seek help learning how to cope.

By "developed" countries you mean those deeply indebted societies driven by the fear of losing a job? Where software managers and founders push to the limits because they have the leverage? Of course you can talk to a therapist or read some Nietsche (or some Buddhism) and your problems will go away.

I said you learn to cope with problems, not that they go away. I also never said there aren't ways to eliminate stressors. The point is that "go out and do something instead of whining about it in a blog" is a shitty thing to say to someone you don't know who is crying for help, and not helpful. "Consider seeing a therapist," who might not only teach you to cope but also help you change things that can be changed, is much more wise.

Reading the precursor essay, "Living in the Age of Software Fuckery" begs a pretty big question: if the author has such a clear picture of the structural flaws inherent in software development organizations, why isn't he out there starting his own firm and hiring all of these mistreated, misunderstood developers and making a killing off of all of their limitless creativity?

Probably because he has other things going on, why is this a "big question"? He's not obligated to do anything.

Elsewhere you said, A good start is to call out misogyny when you see it. Why does that go for dealing with misogeny but not the issues the author is concerned with?

"Living in the Age of Software Fuckery" isn't about capturing value of others. He isn't peddling a work place or fix, and it makes it a honest post. It is a verbalization of what some developers including me feel are wrong. Bryan isn't right in every word but it gives some solace to me that I'm not alone.

>Why isn't he out there starting his own firm

Probably because access to capital, connections, luck and the ability to sell are more critical than good ideas.

You don't think that Uber could have been you if you'd 'just written a ride sharing app' in 2008 do you? :)

It has become almost given that if you are not a (co)founder of a startup yet then something is wrong with you.

Yes being a startup founder is stressful. Before joining YC I ran through my 401k, my cofounder almost lost his house and we had two little kids each at the time. To join YC we left our wives and kids in Portland and moved into an office next to drug dealers (YC only gave 5k per founder at that time), etc, etc.

Not everyone can handle stress like that...I'm not sure I could ever do that again. You have to know what you can handle and what you can't.

I'm sure there are abuses of engineers in the valley, but it's not indentured servitude. This article makes it sound like these people were slaves with no options...that's categorically untrue except maybe in Aaron schwart's and Turing's cases.

Also, how many software engineers in the valley or other places are happy with their jobs? I bet it's a higher percentage than say work at McDonald's....

There's a survivorship bias in what you describe. How many others in your position, who perhaps thought they knew what they could handle, did end up losing their houses, and/or racked up years and years of debt on a gamble that didn't end up paying off? It's something we don't really talk about in this industry, but I suspect it happens more often than the success stories.

If I had known what I was going to go through I'm not sure I would of done it, but it's also my personality to never give up. I always keep looking for a way through, around or out of problems. So, I always feel like I'll be OK. I might not get the optimal solution, but i can deal with most situations. Now....what happened to Aaron and Turing...to me that's different.

Our startup wasn't really successful. We didn't return money to our investors. We were 'bought' by another company, but that was just a talent acquisition. Since then we have been successful at the new company...again...because of nothing more than we will stick to what we believe is right longer than others. I'm able to withstand a lot of resistance and I only take a few people's opinions seriously. So other people not liking me or not wanting to be apart of what we are trying to do has little effect on me. Not everyone is like that. If you aren't this startup/running companies is not something you should indulge in...the stresses will break you down.

It's really important to have a people you work with that you can rely on and commiserate with. Without that it could get to anyone, save a true psychopath.

Paul has given reasons for why he didn't want to invest in single cofounders, but I'm not sure he ever articulated it that way. For me having a partner made this experience bearable. It wasn't what I would call fun though.

While I applaud any effort to create a better work and living environment, I am not sure that the article is that accurate in one of its premises that the software industry has a high or even higher suicide rate then any other industry, for example:

http://mentalhealthdaily.com/2015/01/06/top-11-professions-w...

Absolutely, we should be doing all we can to address depression and unhealthy stress and to attempt to eliminate all contributory factors. So in general terms I support this article but it is perhaps a bit sensationalist.

Just like I don't believe violent video games create homocidal sociopaths. I don't think software industry creates depressives.

We are born that way. I would be depressive no matter what I worked in. Probably even if I was trust fund baby and didn't have a care in the world. Which, of course, never is true. My depression makes my life stressful, makes it lonely, makes it "hard" to live. Depression is the source, the root cause, the disease. Not a symptom. [to be clear the word depression is broadly used. You can be depressed (and I imagine everyone has been at one point or another and this is caused by external factors, say death of love ones) without suffering depression. Big D Depression is like a phobia, in that it is irrational. One is depressed for NO reason. None. Not a hidden one, or misunderstood, etc. (I mean no external reason, it's physically probably brain chemistry). And there may be other kinds of Big D depression. But this is the one I'm an expert on. And the problem is with me, not you/inustry/society. Although, you can help with symptoms such as not firing me after spending a week in bed not answering phone.

Also, using Turing as evidence of author's point about Software Industry is disingenuous.

It's a solvable problem with a very subjective solution.

For me. After working at stock exchanges and whatnot; I decided that every day I'd walk through that door at 9am with three fucks in my register and walk out at 5 with three of them still there.

Burnouts aren't worth it. Salary difference of x% is dealth by switching jobs if needed.

We are in demand. Get at least normal rest every day out of it. Or you'll hate what you love and live to do.

I emphatize with depression on a deep level. The population of software developers is so large that just picking a few known cases of depression makes for an argument of unknown statistical strength.

One thing is known - software development is hard, potentially stressfull with recurring pathologies that really don't have any known remedies except 'dedicated craftmanship'.

On the other hand, a few of the examples pinpointed to a cruel and unkind society as the root cause of depressive issues - system issued chemical horrors in the case of Alan Turing and zealous politically ambitious ptosecutor in the case of Schwartz.

The issue is then not that the software shop cannot function always as the surrogate family but that systems should not treat individuals cruelly.

Which is an admirable dream - but goes really weirdly with antagonizing with liberal politics. Anarchism would not lead to a kinder society with the human species as it is.

If you are feeling this sad, look up a ketamine clinic near you and get some infusions going.

I haven't myself, but I have heard amazing turnaround stories.

If you are this depressed, your brain has atrophied, your dendrites look like deciduous trees in winter.

After you get infused, and ketamine activates the mTOR pathway and you feel a sense of joy again, you will be really grateful you didn't kill yourself.

I find the notion that humans can be more or less inhumane troubling. Its really just arbitrary segregation whose only use I can imagine is to dehumanize persons. Same goes for calling people sociopaths etc. Everybody does what they think is best, for them and for the world. Somebody in politics is way stupider than you and thus ruins the world... that's an opinion, and an understandable one too. But is it productive?

That being said I absolutely agree with the sentiment of the article. Humans haven't yet figured out how to live together in cooperation instead of violence, and changing this is the most important goal we have. We must actively protest injustice, and create spaces were we can live in self determination. Join your local anarchist movement, make up your own mind, learn and work together with others so we can someday create a social fabric that is open and peaceful.

> find the notion that humans can be more or less inhumane troubling

You aren't going to "fix" human nature. At least not without eugenics and execution of those who don't think "right". Saying we should be humane and cooperate with each other doesn't cut it. It's as much a pipe dream as anarchism. Although I agree with that philosophy it's never gonna work with humans. High number of sociopaths, prison experiments, the us vs attitude that permeates must all human social constructs, preponderance of human history is the proof. Humans are just too shitty to have nice things.

What do you mean by fix? I am talking about improving the situation. History has proven this is very well possible. Women can vote now. Slaves in America became rare. There is a notion of human and international rights, which is quite new. Witches aren't burnt, gay sex doesn't get you killed. Do you think that the status-quo is as good as we can do? I don't thin so.

While these were all tragic, they are hardly representative.

Do you know how when you ride a bicycle and look off to one side, you tend to steer towards that side, involuntarily?

Stop being obsessed with oppression, depression and suicide. Not to downplay them, but you have free will (oh, debatable, sure, but it's better for happiness to just believe you do) and can act, and can steer your consciousness towards more positive points on the horizon.

> Stop being obsessed with [...] depression.

So you're one of the persons who would suggest to clinically depressed people to "just smile again" as if that would magically solve all their problems and mental disorders?

The point is that even if such people are a minority, we should treat them with the appropriate discretion and be sensitive to their psychological needs.

>So you're one of the persons who would suggest to clinically depressed people to "just smile again" as if that would magically solve all their problems and mental disorders?

It sounds more like "things aren't panning out the way they were supposed to" in his head and now he's mad about it and he's trying to find ways to make it a systemic issue rather than one of his own goals/achievements/motivation.

>The point is that even if such people are a minority, we should treat them with the appropriate discretion and be sensitive to their psychological needs.

Which should not involve radically changing the "commercial software shop" because some individuals do not do well in that environment (or worse, blaming it systemic abuse) as the article says. The only role that businesses should be doing here is keeping the issues confidential and allowing them to get the help that they need.

> who would suggest to clinically depressed people to "just smile again" as if that would magically solve all their problems and mental disorders?

No. I'm not saying that at all, and tried to point that out. But something like 75% of this article is focusing squarely on unhappiness. That's all I'm saying. If all you do is write about unhappiness and end up suiciding, is it really that surprising? Your body is what you consume physically; your mind is what you consume media-wise. If all you do is read Sylvia Plath poetry all day, and then write poetry inspired by Sylvia Plath, then you may in fact end up just like she did.

What tipped me off is that he even said he wanted to suicide dozens of times. Which on the one hand, is kind of "TMI" for an article like this, and on the other hand... so why are you reading about other suicides?

That is what I'm saying.

That, and most of the people cited already had diagnosable mental difficulties, which means he is openly confusing the apparent proximal cause between "oppressed IT person" and "is emotionally-challenged already"

One night not too long ago, I couldn't sleep, and for whatever reason I decided to watch 9/11 videos on YouTube. Guess what happened? I fell asleep and had nightmares, and for the next day(s) I was depressed as hell. I surely didn't function as well as I could and, dare I say it, I am sure I brought less goodness into the world as a result. All because I focused on watching 9/11 videos and listening to final phone calls and watching people fall to their deaths from great heights, one night.

It's worldview distortion, basically. Yes, bad things happen and sometimes, bosses are jerks. Yes, some people have emotional difficulties (some of which should be treated clinically). Yes, IT careers seem to draw in a bumper-crop of sensitive folks (it's the curse of high intelligence, really). From this, you cannot draw the conclusion that there is a systematic problem going on.

Disclaimer: I'm diagnosed ADD, AND sleep apnea, and (sometimes) take meds for it (on bad days when I really need to function), so I'm not the kind of person who wouldn't understand that some things just need treatment.

You don't just "stop" having intrusive thoughts, that's why they're called intrusive.

I agree with your first sentence. Alan Turing's death especially can't be attributed to abuse in the software industry.

The rest of your comment is not only condescending, it is baseless. Your premise that the author should think happy thoughts and he will be okay if not as helpful as you may think. The author may or may not suffer from a depression/mood disorder, or even many other more serious conditions. You don't know him. Instead consider telling people that they should talk to a therapist about their problems. You know, an expert.

I can no longer edit what I wrote, so I followed up in the thread trying to clarify my position.

Oh, I totally agree with you. Evidence is on your side as well. My Christian buddies trying to get people to live more righteously have a nice saying for it: Garbage In, Garbage Out. I gave them a pun Goodness In, Goodness Out for end result. Idea being you have to feed your brain the kinds of things it can build on to achieve the result you want.

Anyway, the effect has its basis in intuition: our unconscious or semi-consciuos mind. Intuition runs most of our thoughts, feelings, and reactions based on prior experiences and decisions. A researcher once connected this to depression when he noticed that animals put into helpless situations learned to act helpless even when the situation changed. He experimented with a sort of mental reprogramming for humans based on speculation that it was in our head in some percentage of cases. That led to cognitive therapy which cured quite a few people of depression. Its methods were quite simple: record your reactions to negative situations; identify whether you overstate the severity or pervasiveness of it; create a neutral or positive way to reframe that which isn't bullshit; take time to actually say and believe that; keep that up. Over significant period of time, habit takes over where you start coming up with less negative stuff or countering it in your head without thinking.

Random other examples. The optimism studies support that people similarly highlighting the good and margalizing the bad live longer, feel better, succeed more, and so on. They do something similar to cognitive therapy although positivity comes before accuracy. Proponents of meditation find that clearing all those thoughts out of their head for small amounts of time helps their mental state across the board. Also note that it's initially a painful process that takes work to do. Monks used to fight evil and negative thoughts by meditating on love and beautiful aspects of life. Stress management shows us even primitive tricks like smacking a wall saying "Stop!" can interrupt that thinking with a different focus area as a follow-up.

The anecdotes, behavioral science, and neuroscience all corroborate each other supporting the GIGO concept. Mental illness has a variety of effects on this but I've seen it help many with it. Techniques, effect, and length of effect varies considerably but it's rarely a "nothing will help" situation. The author could be applying such things but is hyperfocused on suicide, despair, negative thoughts, all the ways he will fail... Garbage In, Garbage Out.

What he didn't write is about all that didn't commit suicide, were kind of OK, were happy once they left the building, or rare few that didn't let others affect internal happiness. He didn't point out that some people have convinced management to tackle technical debt or do preventative work by putting it in terms they understand. We see a number in HN posts each month. He didn't show examples of software shops doing it better along with their methods in his recommendations to change structural problems he wrote on in prior essay. Didn't do that because he probably never looked for such positive counterpoints in the first place. Even the suicides are a questionable list with Aaron and Murdock being great examples of people tied to thinking & behaviors that will only screw them up. So many others fought for utilitarianism and ideals with a cut-off point that left them otherwise happy with their lives and away from B&E's.

So, if anything, this article proves nothing about the effect of software industry on developers or suicide. Instead, it tells us a lot about how one person thinks. It also confirms that focusing only on negative aspects of life will lead to depression and possibly suicide. It implies people should do the opposite. Additionally, they might consider putting a lot of effort into finding and moving into a better work environment.

Yep.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness

Learned about it in Psych.

I'm so happy I was a Psych major. (and I'm a programmer now!) It was so general and yet so awesome that it was like getting +1 in every RPG stat for life.

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