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Comment by smhinsey | Hacker News Reader

This is why the liberal arts are important, because you need someone in the room with enough knowledge of the world's history to be able to look at this and suggest that maybe given the terrible history of pseudo-scientifically sorting people into political categories, you should not pursue this tactic simply in order to make a buck off of it.

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Agreed. Engineers have an ethical duty to the public. When working on software systems that touch on so many facets of people's lives, a thorough education in history, philosophy, and culture is necessary to make ethical engineering decisions. Or, failing that, the willingness to defer to those who do have that breadth of knowledge and expertise.

I'm reminded of this article:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/progr...

"The term is probably a shortening of “software engineer,” but its use betrays a secret: “Engineer” is an aspirational title in software development. Traditional engineers are regulated, certified, and subject to apprenticeship and continuing education. Engineering claims an explicit responsibility to public safety and reliability, even if it doesn’t always deliver.

The title “engineer” is cheapened by the tech industry."

"Engineers bear a burden to the public, and their specific expertise as designers and builders of bridges or buildings—or software—emanates from that responsibility. Only after answering this calling does an engineer build anything, whether bridges or buildings or software."

"Thank you for consulting us so extensively. After long deliberation, we've decided to move ahead with the implementation to meet Q4 targets."

You don't need liberal arts majors in the boardroom, you need a military general in charge at the FTC and FCC.

Can we dispense with the idea that someone employed by facebook regardless of their number of history degrees has any damn influence on the structural issue here, which is that Facebook is a private company whose purpose is to mindlessly make as much money for their owners as they can?

The solution here isn't grabbing Mark and sitting him down in counselling, it's to have the sovereign, which is the US government exercise its authority which it has forgotten how to use apparently and reign these companies in.

A lot of people wouldn’t know about the policy avenues that can be used to regulate these companies (of which FTC is not the only one), or how even advisory groups to the president could help.

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