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Comment by stackghost | Hacker News Reader

Too often on this site you see the opinion "keep politics out of it" expressed.

But there are going to be software engineers working at these surveillance and tracking firms, probably some on this site.

Just like there are people here getting paid to work on Facebook or Instagram despite knowing deep down (even if they're in denial) that those products are profoundly harmful to society at large and young people in particular.

Technology is only becoming more intertwined with daily life, not less. When does the software industry develop scruples?

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There was an article a few weeks ago on the HN front page (regarding artists) that today the concept of someone being a sellout doesn't exist anymore.

I think the issue is less the politics but "their politics" it's absolutely sickening what is going on in that country. On par with the most horrible countries of the world. Nobody wants to hear and read about North Korea all the day.

If you'd poll people on whether or not they like what social media is doing to society many would say no.

There was a huge poll last year in the US and most people sided with Trump and his electoral program of enforcing immigration law.

The two are not comparable.

I hate this stance.

Demand scruples from the common man while the billionaire overlords who are actually the major beneficiaries are off the hook.

SWEs are everything but common people, they're a good paying profession still.

Only semi-professional. There's no legal barrier to entry or licensing, no guild structure— no bar association, no medical board, no engineer licensing board, etc. It's privileged, high-wage work, but it's not a profession in the strict sense.

Professions have some kind of organization that tries to impose standards of discipline and ethics.

Fun. I get to be painted as upper class, without any of the benefits.

Billionaires are already above the law because common people are too scared/comfortable to eat the rich.

The billionaire overlords have already proven they have no ethics - they got to be billionaire overlords, didn't they?

Maybe there's still enough ethics left in the general SWE population to make a difference.

It will make no difference. You may refuse jobs and starve if you want. There are enough people to take the job anyway.

This is a standard cop-out that bears challenging every time it's used.

By refusing the job, you narrow the number of people who can do the job, making it more expensive, both because there are fewer candidates to do the job and because it makes the hunt for employees take longer. It also gives cover for others who aren't confident to stand against the job by themselves when they see others refuse it.

There's a non-zero chance that refusing such a job means it becomes too expensive to be feasible, especially if it requires expertise held by a limited set of individuals.

> By refusing the job, you narrow the number of people who can do the job

By refusing a job, I only narrow my employment opportunities.

The bank won't take my goodwill as payment before they take the house for not paying the mortgage. This is essentially where the discussion ends.

The world is cursed. I have to engage with systems that were not of my creation, and that will devour me if I am complacent. But we keep moving forward anyway.

I would like these companies to not exist. For the billionaires that direct them to create immeasurable damage to society to pay for their misdeeds. I even vote for whichever party that promises to limit the reach of those companies.

What I won't do is damage the lives of those that depend on me in an empty gesture of moral grandstanding.

Anyone talking a job at Meta knows the entire point of their job is to make young men angry, and young women depressed. And they do it anyway, because they expressly agree with those outcomes as long as it pays them an exorbitant salary. Blaming it all on Zuckerberg is bullshit designed to make “you” feel better about what a complicit, worthless asshole “you” are when there are countless jobs doing things that aren’t expressly and intentionally evil.

There are no good people working at these companies.

Being clear, the you in my comment is the generic you - not directed at you the individual I’m replying to.

I agree with all you said, but the material conditions are still the same.

The engine that grinds people is not of my own making, and I may wish it didn't exist. But the engine exists, and will grind me too.

The engine is designed to force people into submission. The power imbalance is too strong against the common man.

We should demand scruples from everyone.

Billionaires are a tiny minority. If only them had no scruples, they would have no chance at being overlords.

IMHO there are two kinds of politics:

  1. Partisan/tribal personality driven with a core of "us vs. them"
  2. Government policy and the application of same.

The first has no business here, but I'd argue the second does in the context of "hacking civilization". Of course a lot of politics gets smeared about so you can't have one without the other (which is not an accident), but we should strive to find ways to talk about policies and their their merits and concerns.

Part of the problem is that software engineers aren't real engineers. Engineering disciplines formally recognize their responsibilities to the public, and are expected to refuse to build dangerous or harmful systems.

The mechanical engineers who design cars and the civil engineers who design the roads and bridges they traverse are held to these standards, and hold themselves to these standards. The software engineers who write code that actually controls vehicles in practice have no such culture. Relevant professional organizations like the ACM should be leading the charge, but they aren't because their membership doesn't care.

One solution is to license software engineers. What do people working in the industry think about that?

Wat? Who is building cruise missiles? Who is building bombs? Not engineers?

Within the aerospace engineering profession those jobs are highly controversial and the subject of perennial debate.

I suppose my point was that it’s detached from reality to say that real engineers refuse to build “dangerous” systems.

All of the most dangerous systems are built by engineers and outside the most progressive circles it’s quite obvious that these systems must exist amidst the anarchy of geopolitics.

False comparison... There are also mechanical engineers that design trashy gewgaws. And electronic engineers designing giftcard chips.

And creating regulations for the word "engineer" is just a bad idea. Instead the common solution is independent certification bodies (perhaps with some government clout for practices that endanger people).

And regardless, you can only regulate individuals within your jurisdiction. Global commerce and services makes the idea of controlling the word engineer fruitless.

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