Comment by g051051 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by g051051 | Hacker News Reader

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I used to work for a place with serious ethics issues. We'd sell customized software packages along with a hardware solution, used by cities and counties. Once I was told that, per the contract, we were supposed to hand over the hardware and software for a system the next day. The software hadn't been customized or prepared in any way. Because of a loophole in the contract, it specified only delivery, not installation. So I was ordered to rent a van, load up the hardware, drive it and the software down to the county in question, and hand it all over. They handed me a data tape with the name of the county printed on it, we loaded the van, and sent I headed down.

You can imagine how well it went. I got there, and the two heads of the project down there were waiting, and expecting not only to take delivery, but to see it all installed and working. I had to explain that wasn't my task, and they got more and more upset with me. I had to tell them to call my boss to get answers, because I was just a drone. After yelling at my boss, I was instructed to do minimal setup to verify the hardware worked. I did so, but then they insisted that I prove that the tape had the software. When I did, it unfortunately showed the wrong county name, because whoever had made the tape just took another installation tape and put the "wrong" name on it. I had to tap dance a bit there, but I finally got to leave. So, unhappy me (which meant nothing to my boss) and unhappy customers (which I got blamed for).

Another time, they told me to put a label on a blank tape and ship it to a customer, to pretend to meet a delivery milestone. I refused. I think my boss did it himself.

At the end of the day is the managerial class. They are the ones making the stuff go down, and then the code monkey gets blamed for their lack of ethics. Really? You tell us to jump, and we ask how high, and that's generally expected. And you expect us to bear the burden of ethics too. I don't think so. You want to hold anyone responsible, hold the people who gave the orders, who signed the contracts. Not the code monkey whose entire life is predicated upon carrying out orders as they are given.

The middle managers are given directions by the CEO. The CEO needs to meet profit targets, or she'll be fired by the board. The board is beholden to the shareholders. There's always someone to pass blame to.

When you go to work, you don't give up your moral agency.

The consequences for each higher level on that ladder are significantly less. Those with the least to lose, shareholders, have most of the power. Therefore those should be held to the greatest account. Those with the most power. The reason the system is structured this way is exactly that, those with most power make the rules. And pass the responsibility down the chain to the lowest peons. The recent disasters, well 6 years old disaster, like the Deep Horizon Well fire come to mind.

> Those with the least to lose, shareholders, have most of the power.

The shareholders have the most to lose, not the least.

Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan's $100 million stake in your company (for example) is worth a lot more than all of those jobs put together. That's why they have all the power.

Not sure how I should respond to this. On one hand yes that's true. But on the other hand to what extent do the Board of Directors of any of the companies that it invests in respond to the stock holder? The stock holders in that sense are divorced from the running of the company and can't be held to account, because they can't influence the company at all. Their stock managers might be to some extent be liable. Again it's about the amount of power that you have in what the company does that determines your culpability in my opinion.

Blame needs to be spread around certainly, but "I was just following orders" is hardly an excuse.

I was following orders, or I would lose my employment and have to go hungry, not pay my mortgage, not feed my kids. End up in a divorce. Ruin my entire life. You are right, it's hardly an excuse. Managers often get fired for not managing the people under them properly. They are responsible for the underlings, that's why they make more money and are held to a higher standard. I did not know what was going on underneath me in my organization is not an excuse for a manager.

> I would lose my employment

Perhaps. If they did fire you for refusing to follow unethical (or illegal) orders, there might be judicial remedies. As we can see with this article and the HN threads for this story, reporting the problem to the public may open up other options and may deter future unethical behavior

> not pay my mortgage, not feed my kids

That's why unions and other parts of a social safety net are for. Do you want management to continue utilizing this power they have over you? Or are you willing to join with your peers and push back? If enough people across the software industry show their power by joining in a direct action (e.g. a strike) to tell management that unethical orders are not acceptable, future managers will have to reconsider if the gains from an unethical plan outweigh the risk of triggering another strike.

Also, while your mortgage[1] may be a problem, feeding your kids after suddenly losing your job is what government welfare problems are for. Yes, it can be humiliating to use - I know from personal experience - but it should only be a temporary situation until you can find another job.

> End up in a divorce.

Really? For standing up against unethical behavior? Is a few months of penny-pinching sufficient reason for a divorce?

> Ruin my entire life.

The only way your life would be ruined is if you let it be ruined. Yes, losing your job sucks but it could be a lot worse.

By following the unethical orders, you are conditioning management to believe they can get away with more unethical orders in the future. The longer this is allowed to continue, the harder it will be to correct. We already see this effect in how widespread and normalized unethical behavior has become across the industry.

So yes, you might be forced into a bad situation if you fight back against unethical orders. It may require a significant sacrifice. Do you want to pay that cost now, or do you want to wait for the difficulty and cost to go up as management gains even more power?

[1] If you don't have the savings to cover a couple months while you look for another job, then you probably shouldn't have bought that house.

Sounds good in principle but if I lose my job tomorrow are you going to guarantee this stuff for me and my family?

The point is - are you going to guarantee a better world for your family.

You can get paid and live comfortably till your family is magically at the back of the que because you've been "mis-tagged" in a system.

Like it or not, right now the people awake in any way to the danger are people who write code day in and day out. That means you, who knows how an if statement, or a filter of a join can screw results.

So I'm supposed to say this to my wife when I lose my job? The world will move on and I will struggle to pay the mortgage and pay for the kids school supplies all because of some rant on HN News. Jesus christ...

Pardon the thought experiment, but how far does that apply in your opinion? Suppose it's your job to execute the children of political prisoners (I know this is an extreme example) - would you still say that despite it being your hands doing the deed, culpability would lie elsewhere, as the order to do so did not originate with you? Or is there a line?

Also... who is a manager, exactly? Is it the guy who does the strangling's boss? His boss? His boss? Where does the buck stop?

There's a line, definitely this side of executing children, but probably the other side of quitting your job at Subway because the six inch sub is only 5 inches long.

Management has the ability in case of war to even diffuse that responsibility. So who fries for the execution is the person who gave the orders. In a hierarchical system, the person who gave the order and all his higher ups are responsible. That's how it works in the military. There is a chain of command, and those who are doing the commanding are the ones responsible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_by_firing_squad#Blan...

Except what I remember is something about finding a scapegoat at the bottom, and all the higher ups seem to have never been involved, and you blame the goat, and everyone else goes home happy but the goat. The military thrives on goatism.

Actually, you just bounce it between goats and brass until everybody who had skin in the game is dead or dead bored.

The problem with always deferring culpability upwards is that it usually leads to no culpability.

> I was following orders, or I would lose my employment and have to go hungry, not pay my mortgage, not feed my kids. End up in a divorce. Ruin my entire life. You are right, it's hardly an excuse.

Indeed. What you allege is called cowardice, and it is most definitely not an excuse.

Then again, bullies do not prey on those who stand up to them. Those who attempt to rationalise their pusillanimity attract them like flies though.

Please do yourself and everyone else a favour, stop blaming other people for your own weaknesses, and start to act in a way that can be an example and an inspiration to your kids. If nothing else, you owe it to them.

Well I have been fired for standing up. So honestly you don't know what you are talking about. I have no cowardice. I took a few people down with me, managers above me. But at the end of the day the problem is systemic, taking down a few higer ups still did not change the situation. Because the rules were wrong and the people responsible for them kept their job.

Change the incentive structure. Punishment doesn't happen to those who are deserving, it happens to those who can't prevent it.

You can not do that. The the end of the day the employee is beholden to money and a job. If they blow the whistle and get big daddy government involved, other companies will not hire that person. As simple as that. You can't make anyone hire anyone. You can't give them a replacement job. All you could do for such a person who has become unemployable is guarantee them an income for essentially the rest of their lives. Are governments willing to do that?

You are assuming a fairly specific implementation of a solution I gave essentially no details about. Odd.

> At the end of the day is the managerial class.

No Sir, it isn't. I was a manager for years, then a contractor, and nowadays run my own show. Never once did I acquiesce to a request that I had the slightest concern about. Not to falsify data, not to take operational shortcuts, not to infringe the privacy of employees (my own or my client's) or third parties.

When such things are brought up, I do three things: 1. Say no. 2. Tell the other party that it is not a good idea: at worst will get them into a lot of trouble, at best they will lose any trust and respect they may have or hope to have one day. 3. Ask them what the real problem is, and try to help them find a real solution. It's surprising how often people go for the worst idea first without even considering other options.

In all fairness, I do come from a regulated profession background (two of them, actually), where if I screw up I respond with my licence, but I also learned the ropes at a company that were very strict with this sort of thing.

Code monkeys, or programmers, don't have that luxury... The model used by modern management for managing programmers is managing factory workers. They are told what to do, often by people who are completely clueless about what they are actually doing, and they are expected to perform at risk of firing. That's how it is. So I am glad you have had the opportunity to take the high ground. But many code monkeys don't have that privilege.

> But many code monkeys don't have that privilege.

Well you can get a code monkey job somewhere else. That is one option.

You are making excuses, Sir.

I don't think so. As I said enjoy your privilege. Many people if not most don't have that.

That's precisely the opposite of the point being made.

The code monkeys are the ones who actually have the code to blow up the world and are the last line of defense when it comes to this.

Ethics precisely means you say no to the managerial class because you are a professional

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